John Williamson
John Williamson’s career now spans an incredible 54 years. With his audiences continuing to grow it’s hard to consider retiring, but 2024 will see John travelling less and performing at larger and more selective venues.
John’s musical journey started in 1970 when he left the farm and wandered into Melbourne’s GTV9 studios with a guitar under his arm and the chance to perform his first ever song ‘Old Man Emu’ on Channel Nine’s New Faces program. John walked away with a recording deal and a number one single followed. ‘Old Man Emu’ topped the charts for five weeks. John said it took the next 16 years of honing his skills in pubs and clubs before he ‘made it’ when his ‘Mallee Boy’ album was released. It went triple platinum, won Golden Guitars for Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year and an ARIA for Best Australian Country Record. The album included the enduring classics of ‘Mallee Boy’, ‘Galleries of Pink Galahs’, ‘Raining on the Rock’, ‘Cootamundra Wattle’ and ‘True Blue’ all songs that John can’t leave out of his concerts to this day.
John’s accolades are too many to mention, but include induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, Australian Roll of Renown, an Order of Australia, 4 ARIAS and 28 Golden Guitar Awards. He has sold over 5 million albums and an astonishing one billion music streams in 2022. He has performed thousands of shows across this vast country and been called upon by Prime Ministers to sing at some of Australia’s most significant events, including the first and the tenth Bali Memorial Services. He has inspired crowd support at numerous Bledisloe and Rugby World Cups. With a catalogue of over 500 self-penned songs, 52 albums, including 20 original studio albums, few have accomplished as much. In January 2022 John was honoured with a life-sized bronze statue in his image in the main street of Tamworth; a significant reminder of his contribution to our country’s music and the national psyche, long after the last note has been played.
From being heralded as a striking new talent in 1970, John Williamson has become an unofficial custodian of Australian stories. His songs encapsulate the beauty, wonder and, sometimes, heartbreak of life Down Under, deftly moving between larrikin humour and touching pathos. His most recent achievement was an ARIA for his song ‘Voice of the Sea’ written for the Australian Marine Conservation Society.
The song continues John’s commitment to tackling often controversial issues of conservation as with ‘Rip Rip Woodchip’, ‘Pigs on the River’, ‘ Goodbye Blinky Bill’ and ‘Koala Koala’. It will be released as a children’s picture book in January 2024 by Penguin Random House Australia. This is John’s fourth picture book for children.
Perhaps John’s greatest legacy is in making Australians proud of their country and of who they are. So, don’t miss out and catch him in 2024 before he finally ‘hangs his hat in QLD’ as the song says.