[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s949841.htm] PM - Friday, 19 September , 2003 18:11:12 Reporter: Ben Knight MARK COLVIN: The world of country music has lost another of its giants.
First came Johnny Cash, now in Australia, another pillar of the industry, and one whose life had some parallels to Cash's, Slim Dusty, has died of kidney cancer in Sydney today.
Like Johnny Cash, Slim Dusty was not just a star but the patriarch in a family of stars.
He was also beloved because his appeal was to the battlers and his talent was for storytelling in music.
Slim Dusty grew up on a farm in northern New South Wales, and rocketed to fame in the 60s, but while the world outside Australia might have forgotten him, his popularity in Australia only grew over the 104 albums that were to follow.
Ben Knight reports.
BEN KNIGHT: If you're passing a truck driver on the road today, give them a wave because as likely as not, they'll be mourning the death of a troubadour they called their own, Slim Dusty.
Slim Dusty, dead at the age of 76, after 105 albums, countless gigs, and a unique place in the history of Australian music.
There aren't many musicians for whom the Prime Minister would call a special press conference. But today, John Howard was among the first to pay his respects.
JOHN HOWARD: It was the distinctive Australian character that he brought to country music that marked him out, and for almost six decades he's been an institution in this country and won such affection and renown. His wife, Joy and his children, Anne and David, I extend my sympathy on behalf of the entire nation to them.
He was a one-off, a great bloke in the proper sense of that expression and a great Australian figure and icon.
BEN KNIGHT: Slim Dusty was born David Gordon Kirkpatrick in Kempsey, in northern New South Wales, in 1927.
He grew up on a farm and it was his childhood experiences that would lend his songs an authenticity throughout his life.
SLIM DUSTY: I lived a pretty quiet life. I did a lot of riding, I used to ride around the property, up into the mountains, and do a lot of shooting and fishing on my own, and that started me thinking, and of course all the properties had the old wind up gramophones, and when I was about eight to nine I suppose, I was introduced to Tex Morton, Wilf Carter from Canada, Jimmy Rogers, there was Gene Autry, and I suppose it started me thinking.
I used to love singing, I started to sing just naturally I suppose.
BEN KNIGHT: Slim Dusty began writing songs at the age of 10 and got his break on the local radio station playing on the children's program in the afternoons.
He then graduated to the Sunday morning request show, after while, he went to Sydney for an audition and then, in 1962, he had his hit.
(sound of Slim Dusty's "Pub With No Beer")
BEN KNIGHT: It's easy to forget just how big this song was.
It was originally recorded as a B-side for the album, but it made him the first Australian to receive a gold record, the first to have an international hit, and bizarrely for a three-chord country singer, the first singer in the world to have his voice beamed to Earth from space.
It happened in 1983 when the crew of the space shuttle Columbia played his version of Waltzing Matilda as they passed over Australia.
It was the most successful Australian song ever until Joe Dolce recorded "Shut Up Your Face".
But Slim was no one-hit wonder and his hiss songwriting has been recognised not just in Tamworth, where over the years he picked up 36 Golden Guitar Awards, but also by modern musicians like Paul Kelly, like Don Walker and like Midnight Oil, and others who recorded their own versions of his songs.
(sound of Midnight Oil's version of "Pub With No Beer")
BEN KNIGHT: Slim Dusty is easily the most successful Australian country musician ever.
Slim Dusty died after a long illness, with his family around him, his wife, Joy McKean, his son, David and his daughter, Anne, who also made a mark in Australian country music.
Tamworth will be very different this years without him, Slim Dusty, out in the longyard, after 60 years of music.
(sound of Slim Dusty, "Out There In The Longyard".