Slim Dusty (born June 13, 1927, Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia—died September 19, 2003, Sydney, Australia) was an Australian country music singer and songwriter who epitomized an idealized image of rural Australia—a working stockman with his trademark cowboy hat, acoustic guitar, and vast repertoire of Aussie “bush ballads”—and came to be regarded as a cultural icon.
He grew up on a dairy ranch, wrote his first song, “The Way the Cowboy Dies,” at age 10, and took the stage name Slim Dusty a year later. He began singing on the radio with then partner Shorty Ranger in 1940. Slim Dusty recorded his first record, the patriotic “Song for the Aussies” (with “My Final Song” on the B-side), in 1942 and signed his first recording contract in 1946. He continued to work part-time as a ranch stockman until 1954, when he formed a full-time traveling show with his wife and other family members.
Slim Dusty recorded more than 100 albums, mostly of his own songs, including Slim Dusty Sings (1960), Australian Bush Ballads and Other Old-Time Songs (1965), Beer Drinking Songs of Australia (1986), and G’Day, G’Day (1989). He was the first Australian recording artist to receive a gold record (for his quintessential hit “A Pub with No Beer” in 1957), the first Australian entertainer to be named an Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE;1970), and the first country music performer to appear at the Sydney Opera House (1978). In addition, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (1998). In 2000 he sang “Waltzing Matilda” for the world at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sydney. Slim Dusty also was the founding president (1992–2001) of the Country Music Association of Australia, the author of an autobiography, Walk a Country Mile (1979), and the subject of a 1984 film biography. He was honoured with a formal state funeral.