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News October 30, 2019

More country music stars to celebrate Joy McKean at TCMF 2020

More country music stars to celebrate Joy McKean at TCMF 2020

Kasey Chambers and Melinda Schneider are the latest to join the massive star-studded Concert For Joy at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January.

Acknowledged as an important female singer-songwriter pioneer, Joy McKean had scores of musicians lining up pay tribute to mark her 90th birthday.

Among those acknowledging their debt to her are Beccy Cole, Sara Storer, Gina Jeffreys, Amber Lawrence, Felicity Urquhart, Catherine Britt, Dianne Lindsay, Tania Kernaghan and Lynn Bowtell.

“Joy has been an inspiration to our industry and in a workplace mostly dominated by males, she stood her ground and earned the respect she so rightly deserves,” said Cassar-Daley. “She is, a national treasure.”

Image: Slim Dusty & Joy McKean / The Slim Dusty Centre

McKean was born in Singleton in the Hunter Region, NSW. Her steel guitar playing parents encouraged her to take up music, and she learned to play accordion, piano and steel guitar.

She developed a flair for melody and musical storytelling with vivid evocative imagery. Her marriage to Slim Dusty in 1951 led to the most successful coupling in Australian country music history, and she was awarded the Order of Australia.

McKean is also one of the founders of the Tamworth Country Music Festival and the Country Music Association of Australia, and is also a biographer (Slim Dusty: Another Day, Another Town).

She is chair of the Slim Dusty Foundation Ltd, the organisation established to build and operate the Slim Dusty Centre, which opened in Slim’s home town of Kempsey, NSW in October 2015.

Also on the bill are Paul Kelly, Troy Cassar-Daley, Don Walker, Graeme Connors, Adam Harvey, Bill Chamber, Dean Perrett, Jeff Brown, Glenn Jones, Peter Simpson, James Blundell, Travis Collins, Kevin Bennett, Luke O’Shea, Pete Denahy, Adam Eckersley, Colin Buchanan, Brad Butcher, Lachlan Davidson, Hamish Davidson and Lawrie Minson.

Concert For Joy is held on Wednesday, January 22 fro 1:30pm in the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Conference Centre.

Watch Slim Dusty & Joy McKean Perform ‘Walk A Country Mile’

The Tamworth Country Music Festival returns January 17—26, 2020. Tickets are on sale now.

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