Slim Dusty’s Life and Career Celebrated With Google Doodle

Slim Dusty is getting the Google Doodle treatment.

The late country great today (Oct. 24) features on Google’s homepage, a cartoon image of the Aussie singer, songwriter and guitarist switching out the search engine’s logo around the globe until midnight.

Born David Kirkpatrick in Kempsey, NSW, and raised on his family farm in nearby Nulla Nulla Creek, Slim got started in music early.

He penned his first song, “The Way the Cowboy Dies”, at the age of 10, and the following year, decided on “Slim Dusty,” a stage name “much better suited to a singing cowboy,” reads a statement from Google.

His signature song, 1957’s “The Pub With No Beer,” written by his mate, Gordon Parsons, was a top 10 hit in the U.K., peaking at No. 3 in 1959, and is said to be the first gold-certified record in Australia.

The prolific artist recorded over 100 albums, sold over 7 million albums, and has won 38 Golden Guitar country music awards.

He was inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame in 1988, during the inaugural ceremony, and had a coin pressed in his honour by the Royal Australian Mint.

Awards poured in during his lifetime. He was appointed father of the year; senior Australian of the year; artist of the decade; the Australia Council’s achiever of the year, and made an Officer of the Order in Australia in 1998.

Dusty has also been the subject of a feature film, 1984’s The Slim Dusty Movie, the Slim Dusty Centre and Museum in Kempsey opened its doors to the public in 2015, and, in 2020, the Universal Pictures documentary Slim & I arrived, a feature-length retelling of Joy McKean’s decades-long partnership with Slim.

“It’s a long way from Nulla Creek to be walking out with your guitar and singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics,” comments Slim’s daughter Anne Kirkpatrick.

“The list of awards and accolades is astonishing enough, however, perhaps more importantly, I saw how Slim Dusty and his music became woven into the fabric of people’s lives. His music lives on.”

She continues, “He was happiest on the road touring with his band, collecting, writing and recording great songs and, in his downtime, going fishing.”

Dusty died Sept. 19, 2003 at the age of 76, following a two-year battle with cancer.

Dusty is the latest in a line of influential and inspirational artists recognised with a “Doodle,” a list that includes late EDM star Avicii (Tim Bergling), late Cuban star Celia Cruz, classical music singer and actress Begum Akhtar, and Beatles co-founder John Lennon.