* * * Please scroll down to leave your Condolences and Tributes in the Special Guest Book. Also read Slim Dusty's family's Thank you letter below.
All messages and Condolences will be passed on to the Kirkpatrick family.
This great country music legend, whose hits included 'The Pub With No Beer' and 'Duncan', passed away (Fri 19th September 2003) at home in Sydney, after a long battle with cancer. He was 76 years 'young'. By his side, as she had been throughout their 51-year marriage, was his loving wife and soul mate Joy McKean, his singer-daughter Anne Kirkpatrick, and son David.
Dusty was born David Gordon Kirkpatrick near Kempsey, on the New South Wales mid-north coast and wrote his first song 'The Way the Cowboy Dies' aged just 10 years old.
What followed was 60 years of recording - 106 albums in all, notching up worldwide sales of more than six million. This is an achievement unmatched by any other Australian artist.
Slim Dusty's family Thanks Fans Worldwide
Slim Dusty's family has thanked his fans all over Australia and the World for their love and support following the death on Friday of the "King of Country" at age 76. The family said that Dusty had begun "Another Journey ... Travellin' still ... Always will."
"To all the people who ever came to a Slim Dusty concert, or listened to his music and sang along with his songs, he gave something special that became part of their lives," the family said. "Now they are giving us, his family, something back for us to remember forever. For this we wish to thank the people of Australia and the World for their love and support."
This year Dusty celebrated his 60th anniversary as a recording artist, during which time he released 106 albums, all with EMI, earning career sales of more than six million. "We have a saying at EMI," said Chris O'Hearne, spokesman for EMI, on Channel Nine. "This is the record company that Slim built." Friday marked the date that Dusty embarked on his first tour as a country music singer. It was also the day he embarked on another journey, after a lengthy and private battle with cancer, surrounded by his wife of 51 years Joy McKean, son David and singer-daughter Anne Kirkpatrick.
President of the Country Music Association of Australia, John Williamson, described Dusty as a pioneer and a true Australian legend, and said his death marked "the end of an era in Australian folklore." "Slim was the voice that kept the link with `Banjo' and Henry Lawson," Mr Williamson said. "And when we sing Waltzing Matilda we will think of Slim around the campfire, outside the caravan that brought country music over gravel and dirt roads to all bush Australians."
Born David Gordon Kirkpatrick on June 13, 1927, near Kempsey, on the NSW mid-north coast, Dusty wrote his first song - The Way the Cowboy Dies - at age 10, and changed his name to Slim Dusty at age 11.
Slim Dusty was the first Australian to receive a Gold Record, the first Australian to have an International hit, and the first singer to have his voice beamed to earth from space, when in 1983 his recording of Waltzing Matilda was played from the space shuttle Columbia as it passed over Australia. Slim Dusty's 107th album is due to be released early next year.
