As Tamworth celebrates its 50th country music festival, the late Slim Dusty still holds the record for 38 Golden Guitars, an honour he shares with musician Lee Kernaghan.
But it was Slim's wife Joy McKean who won the very first Golden Guitar in 1973 for writing one of Slim's most iconic songs: Lights on the Hill.
The festival's annual Golden Guitar awards are the highest accolade in Australian country music, and Lights on the Hill was written from Joy's own experience towing a heavy caravan up the then notorious Devil's Pinch near Guyra on the NSW Northern Tablelands.
The trip on the New England Highway on a rainy night was made more difficult because the vehicle's headlight-dimmer switch was on the floor near the brake and Joy was restricted to the use of just one foot due to a leg caliper.
"I'd have my high beam on to see where the next turn was, a truck would come over [the hill] and I'd cop it fair in the eyes," she said.
"I knew if I took my foot off [the accelerator] for too long [to use the dimmer] the vehicle would either stall or start slipping back because of the weight of the van."
The song came to her in the rhythm of the windscreen wipers and by the time she reached Warwick in southern Queensland it was complete.
So many country music songs are stories about life and each year the best of those are celebrated in Tamworth.
Plagued by floods, drought, bushfires and most recently a pandemic, the Tamworth Country Music Festival has survived it all to reach 50 events.
Humble beginnings
The festival evolved almost by accident when radio station 2TM attempted to regain some of the audience it lost to a new rival in the early 1960s.
"Suddenly, with the introduction of television, the audience evaporated at night," said co-founder Max Ellis.
A country music show called Hoedown, hosted by John Minson, captured the most attention thanks to the station's unique frequency reach.
"2TM was part of a chain of clear channel stations down the east coast of Australia, which had been established by the government as a possible defence asset, so they would have clear communication down the coast," Mr Ellis said.
Mr Ellis said artists were quick to tap into this new marketing resource.
"People like Slim and Joy were very supportive of what we were doing because, for the first time, they felt they had the support of their own media, which was recognising their ability and their talent," he said.
In a 1998 ABC TV interview, the late Slim Dusty recalled those early days of Hoedown hosted by John Minson.
"He was that fatherly, very friendly type bloke and he'd interview truck drivers, and they'd call in and see him of a night, and he just built up a real big following," Slim said.
Eventually, the festival grew out of a few weekend events, and an Australian Centenary concert in 1970, but there was not universal support from locals in the early days.
"Most people in Tamworth left Tamworth; they went to the coast," said Warwick Bennet, Tamworth Mayor from 1979 to 1986.
In the 1998 interview, Slim Dusty recalled a similar sentiment.
By the mid-80s, the festival was in full swing, a cavalcade had been introduced, and all roads led to Tamworth in festival month: January.
"Suddenly everywhere you went in the city there was music, people had pockets full of money to come to the festival and people got more involved with it, people didn't go away, people made money," Mr Bennet said.
"Right from the word go, we decided we would look for tangible aspects of country music, that we could reinforce the music part with," Mr Ellis said.
The Roll of Renown was established in 1976, followed by the Hands of Fame Park a year later, and the Big Golden Guitar in 1988.
Today the Australasian Country Music Hall of Fame holds country-music treasures that bring tourists to the city year-round.
Coveted gold
As well as being known as Mr Hoedown for his early role in establishing the festival, the late John Minson was also the craftsman credited with finessing the now-coveted Golden Guitar statue.
"The first golden guitars we got were a very rough finish, pitted and not very gold-looking at all," Mr Ellis said.
"We have some research that showed back in the early 2000s something like 72 per cent of all adult Australians recognised the Golden Guitar awards in Tamworth."
Lee Kernaghan hopes 2022 will be the year that he breaks the record he shares with Slim Dusty for the most Golden Guitars. Hot on his heels is Troy Cassar-Daley with 37 of the awards.
Fanny Lumsden scooped the pool at the 2021 Golden Guitars, taking home five awards to cap off a huge year, which included an ARIA award.
She said the Golden Guitar awards were something special.
Keeping faith with the fans
Festival fan Kaz Johnson, who shares her birthday with the event, remembers her first country music festival as an 11-year-old in 1974.
"We always used to gather around the radio and listen to the awards while we were up there," Ms Johnson said.
"In those days not many fans went to the awards; it was mainly for the people who were nominated and people in the industry."
Ms Johnson has missed just four festivals in the past 50 years. She said the reaction to the event had changed in that time.
Ms Johnson said today's festival continued to be popular because it was so inclusive.
"That's the main attraction of Tamworth these days, anybody's welcome there no matter what kind of country music they play," she said.
That variety is what has brought Ray Beaman back to Tamworth for the past 14 years.
Mr Beaman said the artists appreciated their diehard fans and he had been gifted tickets to some concerts over the years.
He said part of the attraction was checking out new talent and the future of country music.
"The younger ones [artists] are going more to country rock," Mr Beaman said.
While the festival was cancelled in 2021 due to COVID-19, the Golden Guitar awards were still held, allowing Tamworth to keep its industry reputation as more than just a music festival.
And because of COVID, this year's festival has been rescheduled from January to April.
The 2022 festival will run from April 18 to 24 with the Golden Guitar awards on Wednesday 20.
