SLIM DUSTY

SLIM DUSTY = &nb= sp;

13 June 1927 – 19 September 2003

Like many people growing up on a farm in the 50’s and 60’s, and then later spending more than a few years working in bush radio Slim Dusty has b= een part of my life and I suppose to that extent what he did, the music he made, and the memories he evokes forged and shaped me and millions of other Australians.

Slim Dusty was the very essence of who and what we were and what we are today.

There’s a bit of him in all of us.

In a rapidly changing world of mindless ephemera and lowest common denominator entertainment mediocrity and creativity the simplicity of Slim Dusty was al= ways there.

He was a constant reassuring theme in our national life.

A national reality check

In a time when many question the Australian character and culture and would ha= ve us believe that no such thing exists, people like Slim Dusty was a national reference point. Someone we could point to and say: There it is!!! ThatR= 17;s your Australian character, that’s your Australian culture. The music,= the swagger and of course the hat.

Always the hat.

He was a golden thread in our rich national tapestry.

In his own words he was, for millions of Australians “The Lights on the Hill”.

I suppose like many of our icons we took his presence for granted and assumed= he would be forever with us.

His passing reminds us of our own mortality.

Like many I can personally relate to the essence of his music.=

His passing last Friday struck me like I suspect it did most people.

Slim Dusty can’t just die. That’s not supposed to happen!!! That’s not part of the scrip= t of our national story!!!

Slim Dusty, was the distilled essence of what it is to be an average Australian.=

He was the quintessential Australian and his music and his style reflected tho= se qualities.

Laconic, simple, uncomplicated.

So what was it about Slims Dusty, his music, his poetry, that touched a chord = with millions of Australians over generations???.

Two things I think.

The perennial understated simplicity of his music and his plain ordinariness. <= o:p>

These are endearing and enduring qualities and characteristics and Australians li= ke them above all else.

Slim Dusty made us feel good about ourselves. He made us proud to be Australian.=

If you set out to craft the template for the dinkum Australian, you would come up with Slim Dusty.

He was a story teller…and a bloody good one… He wrote and sung abo= ut this amazing place and its amazing people….

He kept it simple…His music wasn’t complicated. =

He was Henry Lawson, he was Dorothea Mackellar, he was the Banjo. <= /span>

He was ‘Middleton’s Rouseabout’,= he was ‘The Wide Brown Land’, he was ‘The Sunlit Plains Extended’, he was ‘The Everlasting Stars’.

Slim Dusty was in fact “the Soundtrack of Australia”.

Slim Dusty….He hasn’t really gone at all....He’s just moved on= to the next town.

Another show, in another place.

His music and his memory will live on here, in this place, and endure forever.<= o:p>

Jim Ball, 2GB.

20th September 2003