Wake up, Dolly! Country music’s queen joins The Wiggles
Australia’s supergroup for toddlers, The Wiggles, are going bush - well, technically speaking, country - with a new album that includes collaborations with the iconic country music queen Dolly Parton, Australia’s late, great Slim Dusty and America’s coolest young country star, Orville Peck.
The album is part of a wider trend in which the pop mainstream is blending with country: Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and even Beyoncé, whose 2024 album Cowboy Carter is perhaps the most dramatic expression of that trend, with collaborations between Queen Bey and icons such as Parton, Linda Martell and Willie Nelson.
Wiggle Up, Giddy Up!Credit: The Wiggles
The campaign to launch Wiggle Up, Giddy Up! on March 7 begins today with the release of a single which pairs the iconic Australian children’s band with American country and pop singer-songwriter Dasha. But what is certain to put it on the global culture map is a rare collaboration with the iconic 78-year-old, eleven-time Grammy Award-winning, Tennessee-born country music legend.
Parton gave The Wiggles two new songs, “which is pretty amazing,” Lachlan “Purple Wiggle” Gillespie says. The Wiggles recorded their part of the tracks in Australia, while Parton recorded her part in Nashville.
“It’s a really beautiful message about friendship and her vocal when you hear it, it’s like, oh my God, she is such a good singer and such a good songwriter,” Gillespie says. “We did the harmonies, and it was so much fun.”
Another track features one of country music’s rising stars, 37-year-old Peck. “We had a Zoom with him quite early on, and we were all quite nervous so we, of course, wore our country outfits, which he really appreciated,” Gillespie says.
The album also features country music legend Slim Dusty, one of Australia’s most celebrated country artists and a man considered by many to be the “king” of country music here.
The track reworks material which Dusty recorded with The Wiggles before his death in 2003. “That this generation of children gets to hear that, it’s great, and his vocal is so, so beautiful,” says Gillespie. “That’s just a great song to put on the album.”
The album will also feature Lainey Wilson, Morgan Evans, Jackson Dean, Kaylee Bell, MacKenzie Porter, the Wolfe brothers, Travis Collins, Lucky Oceans and Troy Cassar-Daley.
There are now technically eight Wiggles – Anthony Field, Gillespie, Simon Pryce, Tsehay Hawkins, Evie Ferris, John Pearce, Caterina Mete and Lucia Field – two in each of the band’s signature colours: red, yellow, blue and purple.
And while they are not strictly educators, three of the original band members - Murray Cook, Anthony Field and Greg Page - met while studying to become pre-school teachers. With Jeff Fatt, they turned a pop band, The Cockroaches, into The Wiggles in 1991, and the rest was history.
That DNA remains in the band to this day, says Gillespie. “[Education] is a massive part, and it’s something we take so seriously,” he says. “I’ve always been aware of that. And there’s something so special about The Wiggles music, it connects on a level that others don’t.”
“The songs we’ve got on the album, some of them paint quite beautiful pictures, but they’re also really good songs to listen to,” Gillespie says. “It’s got a bit of everything and I think that the parents do love that when they come to a live show. They sing and dance just as much as the kids.”
The single Wiggle Up, Giddy Up! is released today. The album Wiggle Up, Giddy Up! will be released on March 7.