Kasey Chambers added to country music Roll of Renown
IT WAS a big night for Kasey after receiving Australia country music’s highest honour. She talks about getting her start, busking with her family, why an Eminem song is one her favourites of all time and how she wore the wrong undies to get the biggest award.
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SLIM Dusty lamented through vocal dawdle, that there was nothing so lonesome, so morbid or drear, than to stand in a
Forty-three years later, Kasey Chambers was asking, in song, Am I Not Pretty Enough?
There’s quite a difference.
But the hatless (generally), bootless, (maybe even horseless, uteless and dogless), lip pierced ‘hippie’ of bush brooding, has joined Slim on the Country Music Roll of Renown.
Him the 4th inductee, her the 51st and latest.
She might look a little inner west Sydney but she’s country — with her own alternative, sometimes girlish twang, that’s straight off the Nullarbor and her songs are filled with enough sad stories, to give her credence among the traditional sadness of ‘my daddy shot my dog for humping his leg’, ilk.
She has been squeezed into the potentially awkward country music “family” — as so many singers seem to describe it — which, makes the Liberal party’s claims to being a broad church make it seem as small as Vegas wedding chapel by comparison.
“Those sleepy rocks out front are going to get a wake up call,” she said on stage about the granite on which the roll of renown plaques are attached.
“Oh my god, I’m freaking out, I’m so nervous now. I’m sorry.
“I’ve never ever worn a backless dress before and I didn’t know you had to wear low undies, so I apologise, if you, when I walked up, I’m sorry if your saw my scruds.
“Oh man. I’m so honoured. This is amazing.
“The first time I came to Tamworth was in 92, because Slim Dusty recorded one of my dad’s songs called Things Aren’t the Same on the Land.
“And it was a real turning point in our career.
“ ... I think it might have been you, (award presenter, one of the founders of the Tamworth Country Music Festival and the chair of the independent panels that decides Renown inductees, Max Ellis), rang my dad and said, ‘Hey, are you coming to Tamworth this year?’. “And he’s like, ‘well, I hadn’t planned on it, why?’
“And he said, ‘you’ve been nominated for a Golden Guitar’.
“And my dad said, ‘what’s a Golden Guitar?’
“We had just come off the Nullarbor Plain, we had lived all of my early childhood on the Nullarbor Plain and I did not even know about the county music industry or any sort of industry at all.
“I didn’t know there were record labels, or publishers or anything like that. We just wanted to play music basically.
“And we wanted to play country music.
“And I’ve always been very proud of being a country music artist and I’ve never, ever shied away from that term.
“I absolutely love being a country music singer and I love taking country music to new audience as well.
“They (her parents) are the whole reason I play country music, but taught me from such a young age not to follow trends and just to do whatever feels right for me in my heart and my soul and my gut.
“And they always just taught me to follow that and not worry what anybody else thinks you should do.
“And I thank them very much for that. My dad basically taught me everything I know about music and my mum taught me everything else really.
“I feel really lucky.”
Chambers received the highest accolade in Australian country music at the Golden Guitar Awards as part of the 46th Tamworth Country Music Festival on Saturday night and despite the red carpet at that event — which seems a betrayal of the utes and the horses and the dogs, who surely would be excluded from such added on glamour of an otherwise dusty industry — the actual unveiling is as low key as country music can be.
The honour gets you: a brass plaque with you name on it; your image on it; and a spiel about you on it, on those ‘sleepy rocks’ -some biggish granite rocks out the front of the Tamworth Regional Entertainment and Conference Centre.
You are also acknowledged as a country music legend, alongside Slim, Tex Morton (the first inductee and considered the father of Australian country music even though he was a Kiwi) and Buddy Williams — from the period of great names in the industry that sadly seems lost now even though Chambers’s brother’s name is Nash and her kids are called Talon, Arlo and Poet.
But she is also acknowledged perhaps, like Slim and being a great of Australian music generally — although she is known for a little more upbeat, version of country music than the pioneers may have envisioned and sits in the alternative, also known as ‘alt-country’ category.
So on Sunday morning Chambers walks across from the carpark with mum Diane, son Arlo and daughter Poet to a small gathering would probably be bigger if it were a life membership induction at a local tennis club.
A flag hiding the plaque for the unveiling was stuck in place with industry super hero, gaffer tape.
The 41-year-old Central Coaster became the youngest member of this exclusivity.
Chambers has won many Golden Guitars for her alternative country music and had released 11 albums, including two with her former husband Shane Nicholson.
“I feel a little bit more like it’s sunk in now (and the unveiling ceremony) because last night I honestly felt so overwhelmed by the whole experience,” she said as she sat at a plastic table at a white fold up plastic table on the grass.
“I’ve been lucky enough to win quite a few Golden Guitars over the years and they’re very special.
“I remember one in particular being given to me by Slim Dusty and that one was very special. Extra, extra special.
“So I’ve had some special moments at the Golden Guitars over the years but I think last night takes the cake. It was such an overwhelming moment. I was really taken aback.”
Later she stands under a tree to talk about her life and music, sometimes bent in half laughing, possibly at something she had just said herself, or arm up, holding onto a branch of a tree; childlike, free but not childish.
When she speaks to you, she gives you eveything, an intensity that is inclusive not an obstruction, she just wants to talk and a journalist is really obsolved of their need to ask questions.
There is flow but not gush and it hard to imagine she would not be a great person to share a beer with. It could even be rollicking.
“And when I got up there and everybody’s stood up, just watching that room, I get teary just talking about it now, but I just felt so much love in that room from all the people and just a really proud moment.
“A really, really proud moment to know that ... I guess the people are behind you and they’re proud of you.
“And just to feel like you’re making some sort of a difference, you know …
“It’s sort of part of what we’re doing here in life is to leave some sort of legacy. And I believe in country music ... a lot obviously.”
As a child Chambers describes living out of a car, travelling around the Nullarbor Plain, with her dad hunting, including for their own food, with no radio or TV, instead, just tapes in the car and campfires and sing alongs with her dad playing guitar and a lot of American country music — Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard as well as Slim.
“My dad gave me the impress that everybody listened to that type of music,” she is quoted as saying.
Chambers started professionally in music at the age of ten as a member of the family band, The Dead Ringer Band, with her mum, dad Bill and brother Nash, who is now her manager. By her late teens, she was fronting the band and writing songs.
In 1995 they won their first Golden Guitar.
Their album Home Fires won the ARIA Award for Best Country Album.
Her first solo album, The Captain, released in 1999 was described at the awards as “a sensation, hailed as fresh inspiration for Australian country music’.
He brother Nash was the producer and her dad Bill played guitar.
In 2000 Chambers won the album and female Gold Guitars and overall ARIA best female award and best country album.
The Captain made the US Billboard Top 50 just before Barricades and Brickwalls — leading to her touring in America on her own and with artists such as Lucinda Williams — her second album was released in 2002, a record that provided the second biggest selling single by an Australian artist, and was second highest selling album by an Australian artist behind Kylie Minogue and Can’t Get You Out of My Head and the album Fever.
Chambers was the first Australian country artist to have a single and album at number one simultaneously.
She bolted into the mainstream quickly; being not your usual Australian country music star.
There is even (at least one) university paper written about her, Kasey Chambers: Vocal style and Cultural Identity, written by Leigh Carriage from Southern Cross University in 2003 and presented to the 20th International Country Music Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
IN CONCERT: KASEY CHAMBERS - AIN’T NO LITTLE GIRL
In a little dispassionate analysis of why perhaps her voice is considered passionate, the paper says there were two aspects to her voice that were often identified.
“The ‘catch’ in her voice has received regular mention,” Carriage wrote.
“Her voice has been referred to as ‘notched with an unmistakeable catch,’ (Glendon, 2001: np), that has been identified as a ‘million dollar attribute’ by prominent Nashville critic Chet Flippo …
“This vocal attribute functions rather like the (metaphorical) ‘lump in the throat’ of speech, when emotions affect breathing and muscular control so as to disrupt normal delivery.
“ ... this conveys a sense of an impassioned (rather than dispassionate) delivery.
“The second commonly remarked upon aspect is the ‘girlish’ nature of her voice.
“Writers have identified it as a ‘baby-soft voice’ that also ‘purrs’ (Clark, 2002: np) ...
“Chambers mixes up her girlie sound with cries, yodels and falsetto qualities, but still produces a very twangy speech sound overall..”
Carriage goes on to write the Chambers “catch” or “crack” manifests as “vocal break, a sort of hiccup that imitates a cry”.
And then goes into more detail about technique than you, and this writer need to know about her voice, including her changing larynx position over time.
But after dealing with her adopting an American intonation and pronunciation in covers of songs by US songwriters, saying, that as she was “widely acclaimed as a distinct Australian ‘voice’ in country music, this aspect merits comment”, Carriage follows later with a nod to her “Australianness” and the connection between her and Slim.
“In these casual spoken communications …. she speaks in her ‘natural’ Australian accent, i.e., the one she acquired through growing up with her family, interacting with wider society …. particularly in association with her warmth, humour, down-to-earthiness — she appears as unaffectedly and quintessentially (Anglo) “Australian’ as Slim Dusty.”
On her take on country music Chambers herself has this to say.
“Ahh look, it’s an interesting kind of debate that will probably go on forever and everything about modern versus traditional and all of that,” she said.
“And I personally think there’s a healthy balance that we can have.
“And I believe ... I believe in embracing change but respect tradition. And that’s why I’ve always tried to do that with country music and I think it‘s always come naturally for me to do that.
“And I like pushing the boundaries of country music and I do it all the time but I never forget where the heritage of my music comes from.
“And that’s been a big part of my life and it’s in me and I feel like it’s in all my songs and I try to respect that as much as I can because I think sometimes we get a little lost along the way with, you know, country sounds and things like that, but I don’t want to fear change either, you know.
“Because I think to keep country music alive we do have to embrace change and we do have to push the boundaries but we can do that while still respecting the tradition of country.
“And I want to be a part of that. That’s the path I want to go on.”
Her third album, again produced by Nash, Wayward Angel in 2004, went to number one in Australia — had singles Pony, Saturated and Hollywood — and it won the best country album ARIA in 2004 and she won her second, best female artist gong.
In 2006 she released Carnival — again produced by her brother — which debuted at number one and had top ten single, Nothing At All.
She married fellow musician and songwriter Shane Nicholson in 2005 and their first album as a duo, Rattlin’ Bones in 2008 was another number one debut, won best country album in the ARIA’s that year, and was nominated for two American Music Awards.
The next album, in 2009, Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and the Little Hillbillies featured her dad as well as six other Chambers family members including Talon and Arlo.
At the mellow Sunday unveiling Ellis said it was a very special morning because Chambers was a special lady.
“In fact I don’t think you can call her a lady,” he said.
Before Chambers interjected with: “I’m not a lady”.
“So, she’s a very special person,” he said.
“Let’s go with that, it’s safer,” she said.
“I think in Tamworth, we’ve known Kasey for ... well, it’s almost 30 years Kase, I know it’s scary ... I don’t think you had any kids when you started and look at you now,” he said.
“And now I’ve got hundreds,” she said.
“It was a wonderful speech you made last night ... it said something I guess we probably knew instinctively but it was nice to hear you say it, that you’d always been taught to be your own person.
“And that’s exactly what Kase did.
“She’s her own person to the fingertips. Good on ‘ya. That’s why we love you so much.
“There’s only one Kasey Chambers and she’s fantastic.”
“You could only handle one, trust me,” she said.
“That’s quite right, and I think anyone who was there last night and heard that performance would know how incredible she is.”
Ellis retold the story — that slightly conflicts with Chamber’s version on stage the night before — of how, in 1992, he called Chamber’s mother, and suggested they come to the Golden Guitar Awards because that song Chamber’s father had written for Slim had been nominated for an award.
“So we came to Tamworth in 92, we didn’t know that you had to book Tamworth a year in advance to get gigs,” she said.
“We just thought we’d rock up to Tamworth that week and we’d get a gig as The Dead Ringer Band.
“And, yeah, we ended obviously without any gigs ... All the pubs were pretty full by that time.
“It was back before you had to register for busking and that, so we just set up outside the Central Hotel and I put that moment down as a turning point my career, my whole family’s career, everything, busking on the street at Tamworth.
“Because out of that, someone happened to walk past who was from the Gympie Muster and said, ‘I want to book you guys to play at the Gympie Muster’, so we played at the Gympie Muster the following year.
“There was a guy at the Gympie Muster who happened to run EMI Records, the year later, and signed me to my first major record deal.
“So that was sort of the start of the stepping stones.
“And lot of that came from Slim, we wouldn’t have come to Tamworth if it wasn’t for Slim doing that song of my dad’s ... Things Are Not the Same on the Land.”
Chambers released a song with Slim in 2000 called Matilda No More, written by Eric Bogle, it was on his 100th album, called Looking Forward Looking Back, released only three years before he died.
Slim’s daughter, Anne Kirkpatrick, says on her website of Chambers and her dad.
“Both our families grew up with music and dad just loved Kasey.”
Chambers is well known for doing things her way, it was mentioned of her in the introduction on stage by Ellis after she was announced as the Renown inductee, and she rates an Eminem song as being one of her favourites. And she suggests, that more people like country music than they realise.
“I don’t think this is a genre thing that this how I feel about country music because that’s the music I’m in,” she said.
“It’s actually how I feel about anything creative and any style of music, I think if you’re being authentic to yourself, you can’t really go wrong. I really do.
“Because I think that’s what translates to people. I don’t think it’s so much about a genre. I don’t think people care as much about genres as they think they do.
“Because you know the main comment I have gotten my whole career is, ‘I don’t like country music but I like your music’.
“I honestly believe it’s because I’m doing something authentic. It’s not that it’s better than anyone else. It’s not about that.
“It’s not that it’s in the genre that you like or don’t like or whatever.
“I think people connect with other people when they can feel someone doing something really authentic to then.
“And I think if you stick to that ... I mean I’ve got a few artists that I like listen to all the time and I’m not really into their genre of music.
“Eminem, I listen to, we listen to, the kids love it too, they probably shouldn’t, bad parenting, we listen to the Eminem Show all the time and Cleaning out my Closet I put in my top ten favourite songs of all time.
“And I’m not into the genre of music but there’s something pretty honest and raw and authentic about that song and what he puts into it and how he delivers it and I can’t help but be moved by that, you know.
“And I think that is why I often get that comment (I don’t like country music but I like you) from people because I don’t know that people care that much about genre ... I think more people like country music than they know.
“And they just need to come to Tamworth and go to the right things.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m realistic about it too.
“There’s a whole lot of country music out there that I don’t really get in to at all.
“And I wouldn’t buy records, you know. Part of that is just an opinion thing and a taste thing, whatever, you know.
“Who am I to tell them what to do?
“I’m just doing what I do and I hope that influences people in the right way.”
Carriage says it is Chambers highly accomplished fusion and reinvigoration of classic country musical strands that has been one key element in her US profile; the other has been the particular promotion and “mythologisation; of her geographical and family roots”.
“The reference to a ‘mythology’ does not imply any falsification of the origins of that mythology,” Carriage wrote.
“Rather, it identifies the manner in which a set of ideas, impressions and associations
have come to occupy a prominent place in her promotion and perception in the US
that allows her Australianness to be accommodated within broader US/country myths.
“Leading to her roots Chambers is cautious to retain her sense of artistic integrity and
control with her recordings and has been prepared to forego an American release rather than compromise by bringing in a name producer and session musicians.
“ ... Kasey has produced a style that allows her music to reach crossover audiences in the global circuits of country music — a hybrid, travelling voice.”
