Slim & Joy McKean Dusty

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2000.

By the time David Gordon Kirkpatrick and eleven he'd written his first song and was already calling himself Slim Dusty.  He was determined even then that he would grow up to be become a country music singer.

In 1952, with singer-songwriter wife, Joy McKean, and a brand new baby in tow (Anne), they launched their famous travelling Slim Dusty Show.  It was a show that would make them an unequalled duo in Australian country music history.  Slim received Australia's first Gold record for 'Pub with No Beer' in 1958 and an MBE for services to music in 1970 followed by an Order of Australia in 1998.  Slim's wife, Joy McKean, is a country music legend in her own right.  She is winner of four Golden Guitars and in 1991 was also awarded an Order of Australia for her great contribution to Australian country music expecially the compassion she shows for our industry in her music. They are honoured here for their contribution to lifting the profile of trucking through music. 

Joy McKean won an Australian Record Industry Association award for writing her famous trucking song 'Lights on the Hill'.  Slim Dusty later won Best Single for his recording of 'Lights on the Hill' at Tamworth's first Australasian Country Music Awards in 1973.  In 1987 his truck album 'Neon City' won Album of the Year at the Tamworth Country Music Awards and his 1997 Slim Dusty 'Makin' a Mile' album soon made gold.  There is not a truckie, or truckie's wife, in this country that can not relate to what they sing, but more importantly, their songs bring to the world the reality of the hardships, triumphs and mateship of trucking in Australia.