Childhood and early career David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on 13 June 1927 in Nulla Nulla Creek west of
Kempsey, New South Wales, the son of a cattle farmer. His childhood home, "
Homewood", survives and is now heritage-listed. He was known by his middle name, Gordon. He wrote his first song, "The Way the Cowboy Dies", in 1937 and adopted the stage name "Slim Dusty" in 1938 at age 11. His earliest musical influences included American
Jimmie Rodgers, New Zealander
Tex Morton, and Australia's
Buddy Williams. In 1945, Dusty wrote "
When the Rain Tumbles Down in July" and released his first record that year at age 18. In 1946, he signed his first recording contract with Columbia Graphophone for the Regal Zonophone label.
Influential wife, and children " erected as a tribute to songwriter
Stan Coster and Slim Dusty In 1951, Dusty married singer-songwriter
Joy McKean and, with her help, achieved great success around Australia. In 1954, the two launched a full-time business career, including the Slim Dusty Travelling Show. McKean was Dusty's wife and manager for over 50 years. McKean's sister Heather, half of the McKean Sisters music duo that preceded Joy's association with Dusty, was married to Australian country singer
Reg Lindsay, before separating and later divorcing in the 1980s, whereupon the McKean sisters re-started their music duo. Together Dusty and Joy McKean had two children,
Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick, who are also accomplished singer-songwriters.
Dusty hits written by Joy McKean McKean wrote several of Dusty's most popular songs, including "
Lights on the Hill", "Walk a Country Mile", "Indian Pacific", "Kelly's Offsider", "The Angel of Goulburn Hill" and "
The Biggest Disappointment".
Other songwriters' contributions Although himself an accomplished writer of songs, Dusty had a number of other songwriters, including Mack Cormack,
Gordon Parsons,
Stan Coster, and Kelly Dixon, who were typically short on formal education but big on personal experience of the
Australian bush. Drawing on his travels and such writers over a span of decades, Dusty chronicled the story of a rapidly changing postwar Australian nation.
First megahit Dusty's 1957 hit "
A Pub with No Beer" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, the first Australian single to go gold and the first and only 78 rpm record to be awarded a gold disc. (The "Pub with No Beer" is a real place, in Ingham, North Queensland].) In 1959 and 1960, Dutch and German cover versions of the song became number one hits (even evergreens) in Belgium, Austria and Germany, brought by the Flemish country singer-guitarist and amusement park founder
Bobbejaan Schoepen. In 1964 the annual Slim Dusty Australia-round tour, a journey that went on for ten months, was started. This regular event was the subject of a feature film,
The Slim Dusty Movie, in 1984.
Contributions of other songwriters Dusty recorded not only songs written by himself and other fellow Australian performers but also classic Australian poems by
Henry Lawson and
Banjo Paterson, with new tunes to call attention to the old "bush ballads". An example is "
The Man from Snowy River" by Paterson. The 1980 album and songs
The Man Who Steadies the Lead and
The Pearl of Them All were the works of Paterson's rival for the title of Australia's bush balladeer, Scottish-Australian poet
Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963). In 1970, Dusty was made a member of the
Order of the British Empire for services to music. In 1989 Slim recorded 'Murray Moon' by fellow Aussie
Reg Stoneham with vocals by his daughter Anne Kirkpatrick. ==Awards and honours==