SLIM DUSTY : THINGS I SEE AROUND ME [COLUMBIA - AUS 1976] LP

Slim Dusty feat. The Travelling Country Band "Things I See Around Me" LP

(Columbia) 1976 Made in Australia

cat. num. SCXA 8030

#country

A1Things I See Around Me2:35A2Blackened Quarts Are Boiling2:37A3Copped The Lot2:39A4Not Much To Show3:26A5Commercial D.T.'s3:17A6Harry Bowden...Derelict4:17B1Smiles3:44B2Three Rivers Hotel3:20B3End Of The Canning Stock Route4:02B4Good Old Days3:50B5The Last Of The Bushmen3:00B6The Bull Stag1:42

Slim Dusty was the most prolific and biggest-selling recording artist in Australia, with more than five million of his recordings sold on the domestic market of 20 million people and a status akin to the all-time greats in country music. In 2000, the 73-year-old Australian music legend released his 100th album.

He was born David Gordon Kirpatrick in Kempsey, NSW, Australia, and spent most of his younger days at a dairy farm. The first major influence on his career in music was his father, who liked to vocalize to the accompaniment of his fiddle playing when Kirpatrick was still a toddler. The event that changed his life forever took place when he was ten and heard an aborigine sing a song called "The Drunkard's Child." He was so fascinated, that same year he wrote his first song, "The Way the Cowboy Died." At age 11, he decided to rename himself Slim Dusty. In 1942, as a "seasoned performer" of 15, Slimtalked his way into the studios of the local radio station, and at his own expense recorded two songs: "Song for the Aussies" and "My Final Song." He became a regular performer and in 1945 wrote his first classic, "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July." In November 1946, the singer hit the big smoke and in a Sydney studio recorded the six tracks which would be released as his first three 78 rpm singles, starting with "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July." By now, he had a part-time career in show business as an intermittent radio performer playing in music halls and tent shows. In 1952, he married country performer and songwriter Joy McKean.

By April 1957, Slim Dusty already had a recording career of ten-plus years behind him when he was scheduled to record four more songs, but only three had been chosen. At the time, Slim was traveling with Gordon Parsons, who was singing a song he'd written based on a poem by Dan Shean. Needing that extra song, Slim asked Parsons if he could record his song, thinking it would make a good B-side for a song called "Saddle Boy." Parsons had no problem with that as to him, "A Pub With No Beer" was just a novelty song. Months later, while Slim was working in outback Queensland, he was told that the B-side of his latest single had made the pop charts in Brisbane, and as the months rolled on "A Pub With No Beer" became the first-ever Australian-made single to reach the national number one spot. The record went on to reach number three in England, and also sold well in the U.S. For a long time, it was the biggest selling single in Australian music history.