For award-winning country songwriter and singer Kasey Chambers, music is all in the family. Chambers was born on June 4, 1976 in Mt. Gambier, New South Wales, Australia. Her father, Bill Chambers, was a steel guitar player as was her mother Diane. When she was three months old, Kasey and her three-year-old brother Nash moved with their parents to the Nullarbor Plain, in Central Australia. They would spend eight months of the year there where her father earned a living by catching rabbits and foxes that were the bane of poultry farms, then selling the hides. During the hot months, they would move to a fishing village in South Australia. While at Nullarbor, the Chambers home schooled their children and taught them American folk and country music by the likes of the Carter Family, Hank Williams and Jimmy Rogers, as well as Australian country music by artists like Slim Dusty and Tex Morton.

In 1986, the Chambers family moved to Southend on Australia's southern coast so they could pursue a music career. They started to play in local pubs as the Dead Ringer Band and when she turned 14, Kasey joined the band as lead singer. Their debut album “Red Desert Sky”, released in 1993 had Kasey's first recorded songwriting effort. In 1995, their second album “Home Fires” featured the single “Australian Son” which climbed to the top of the country charts. That same year, the Dead Ringer Band won a Golden Guitar for Band of the Year. The Next year, “Australian Son” won for them an ARIA Award and a Mo Award for Best Country Music Group.

After getting two ARIA Awards and seven Golden Guitars, the group disbanded in 1998 when Bill and Diane separated. Taking over the band under a contract with EMI Australia, Kasey recorded her solo album “The Captain” in 1998, with her brother Nash as the producer and Bill playing the guitar. To the original recording done in Australia, additional recording was done in Nashville where American musicians Judy and Buddy Miller provided vocal and instrumental support.

The release won the ARIA Award for Best Country Album and for Kasey the award for Best Female Artist. Going on a tour of the United States to promote “The Captain”, Kasey developed a strong network in the music industry there and broadened her appeal with a her well-applauded performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. She also performed at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas and at Fan Fair in Nashville.

In 2002, Kasey released her second album “Barricades & Brickwalls” which earned for her the distinction of being the first Australian to have a single and an album in the No. 1 position simultaneously. More albums, hits and awards followed in quick succession.

Still within the family, in 2008 Kasey and her husband Shane Nicholson got together on the Rattlin' Bones album which won an ARIA Award for Best Country Release and 5 Golden Guitars the year after. In 2009, the couple performed with Troy Cassar-Daley at the rock concert Sound Release to gather support for the Victoria Bushfire Crisis fund.

What makes country music different is not just the tunes or the lyrics. Country music has a unique sound all its own, much of it contributed by musical instruments not used in other music genres. The pedal steel guitar is the latest evolution of an instrument that traces its ancestry to Hawaii in the late 19th century. There, a technique of playing a guitar was developed wherein the left hand was not used to fret the strings as is usually the case. Instead, the guitarist would slide an object like a comb or the back of a knife blade along the strings just above the guitar's neck.

Joseph Kekuku is credited by the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame as the inventor of the Hawaiian steel guitar. He was born in 1874 in La'ie, Hawaii and experimented with the design and many of the components of the steel guitar used today. Kekuku died in 1932 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993.

In the 1920's and 30's, the Hawaiian style of playing gained popularity in the USA leading the Dopyera brothers to add a resonator cone to the guitar thereby creating the resophonic guitar commonly called a “dobro”. In the 1930's a flat slab of wood or metal replaced the hollow body of the guitar, and an electric pickup was added. This became known as the “lap steel guitar” and was the first electric guitar to become a commercial success. Then came the “console guitar” which added more necks to solve the limitations of chord shapes followed by the addition of pedals and knee levers to change the tuning of the strings and alter the pitch, bringing us to the “pedal steel guitar”.

Rectangular in shape, the pedal steel guitar is a horizontal instrument with the strings facing upwards, no resonant chamber or traditional guitar body, and one or more necks usually with ten strings each. It has foot pedals and knee levers and is usually plucked with a thumb pick and fingers or fingerpicks. Pedals are located below the body and are either fixed or adjustable, while the levers stretch from the bottom of the body. These are used to adjust the tension of the strings thereby changing the pitch while the guitar is being played. “Steel” in the instrument's name refers to the metal tone bar which functions as a movable fret. The design of the pedal steel guitar makes it a highly versatile musical instrument which explains why it has become a mainstay of country music.

The guitarist usually sits on a stool at the instrument, uses the right foot for the pedal that controls the volume, and the left foot for one or more of the foot pedals. By moving the knees left, right or upwards, the artist can push the levers underneath the body. The unique sounds of the pedal steel guitar can only be achieved after mastering its technical workings and perfecting the right physical techniques. That is why talented guitarists command a premium in country music where the pedal steel guitar is most commonly played.

Pictured in this article - Dave Moore, Pedal Steel Guitarist with Doug Bruce and the Tailgators

Icon of Australian Country Music

Say “Australian country music” and the name David Gordon Kirkpatrick is probably not the first one that comes to mind. Nonetheless, that would be the person, although he's known to most of the world as Slim Dusty. To call him a legend and an icon of Australian country music is an understatement. This well-loved country music songwriter, singer and producer was born on June 13, 1927 in Kempsey, New South Wales, the son of a farmer. His career in music really started when he was 11 years old, the same time he adopted the stage name “Slim Dusty”. This career would take him all the way to the time he died in 2003, still hard at work on his latest album. The time in between is still unequaled in Australia's music industry.

When he was 10 years old, he wrote his first song “The Way the Cowboy Dies”. At 18, he released his first classic “When the Rain Tumbles Down in July” and signed his first recording contract the Next year. With the advent of rock 'n roll, the popularity of country music waned and Dusty's music was confined mostly to the regional centers of the country. In 1951, he married Joy McKean who worked alongside him as songwriter and business manager. The Next year, their daughter Anne Kirkpatrick was born.

In 1954, Dusty went full-time into show business and launched the travelling Slim Dusty Show which, after a couple of years was converted into a large tent show on the show-ground circuit. The succeeding year was a milestone in Dusty's career when his hit song “A Pub With No Beer” became the biggest selling record by an Australian. The song was named after a real place in Taylors Arm, not far from where Dusty was born. In 1958, the song became Australia's first Gold record, a fitting celebration of the birth of his son, David. In 1959 and 1960, the Dutch and German versions of the song became top hits in Belgium, Austria and Germany. In the course of his career, Slim Dusty accumulated more Gold and Platinum albums than any other Australian artist.

Dusty won the Best Single award at the inaugural Country Music Awards of Australia in Tamwort
h. His wife, Joy, won the Song of the Year award. His record of 35 Golden Guitars over the years is still unmatched. Slim Dusty has the distinction of being the world's first music artist to record all his 100 albums with the same record label, EMI.

In 1970, Slim Dusty was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services to music. In 1998, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia to recognize his contribution to the entertainment industry. But the most sentimental honor, perhaps, came in 2000. At the Olympic Games in Sydney, he was asked to sing Australia's unofficial anthem “Waltzing Matilda”, with the entire stadium joining in.

Slim Dusty died at home in 2003. His state funeral was attended by thousands, including the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition. In a fitting tribute to the man who was the symbol of Australian country music, the Anglican Dean of Sydney led the gathered crowd in singing “A Pub With No Beer”.

The Queen of Country Music is coming to town with her 'Better Day' World Tour. The one and only Dolly Parton will be Touring Australia 8 - 26 November 2011.

Without doubt she is a great American Songwriter, Singer, Comedienne, Actress, Musician and a smart and savvy business woman and one of the most successful female country music artists in history. For 50 years she has been entertaining her fans and she draws huge crowds including a whole new generation of country music enthusiasts. She is deserving of every ounce of veneration received.

Australia will be thrilled when the Smoky Mountain Songbird steps onto the stage and demonstrates why she is indeed a legend. Her well known tunes include '9 To 5', 'Here You Come Again', 'Jolene”, and of course the incomparable 'I Will Always Love You' (made famous by Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard).

You are guaranteed to have an awesome experience with fabulous sets, costumes and some new music from Dolly's forthcoming album 'Better Day'. It will be a night to remember.

So visit the Events Calendar and find where she is playing near you. Book your ticket; you will not be disappointed when you see this great performer - doing so in Australia for the first in almost 30 years.