Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey at the Sydney Opera House

One of the best shows I have ever been to - and I've been to many - was part of the very first tour undertaken by Adam Harvey and Troy Cassar-Daley, performing a whole bunch of songs they loved written by a whole bunch of people who weren't them. It was an opportunity for them as friends and colleagues to have a ball, and they really did - consequently the audience did too. The breadth of their musical knowledge was impressive, as was the fact that, stepping away from their own material, it became clear that they were very accomplished performers and interpreters of other people's work. We put a lot of store on singers who are also songwriters but it's also quite a trick to be a great interpreter of someone else's songs. To be able to do both - as Adam and Troy showed they could - is the measure of a truly great artist (at least, in my opinion).

Troy and Adam are bringing what is now The Great Country Song Book to the Sydney Opera House on 28 March 2014. I don't ordinarily plug single gigs but, seriously, these two are amongst the finest performers in the land, and this gig is as close to a guaranteed good time as you're going to get - apart from going to a McClymonts gig. But I'll save that for another post.

You can read my review of the Great Country Song Book album here. 

Book tickets for the show at http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/the_great_country_song_book.aspx.

Tamworth: the picks of the gigs

Make that my picks of the gigs ... These are the artists I'm most looking forward to seeing at this year's Tamworth Country Music Festival. [All dates given are January 2014.]


Jess Holland

21  - Tudor Hotel Front Bar,  5.30 p.m.

23  - Qurindi RSL, 6 p m.

24  - Tudor Hotel Back Bar, 12 p.m. 

Ashleigh Dallas
21 - West Tamworth Leagues Club, 5 p.m.

Tori Darke
21 - West Tamworth Leagues Club, 8 p.m.

The Hillbilly Killers

21 - Tamworth Services Club, 9.30 p.m.

Brad Butcher
22 - Tamworth Services Club, 9 a.m.
23 - Tudor Hotel, upstairs, 10 p.m.

Katie Brianna

22 - Tamworth Services Club, 9 a.m.

23 - Tudor Hotel, upstairs, 10 p.m.

The McClymonts
22 - TRECC, 2 p.m.

Kristy Cox
22 - The Pub, 8 p.m.

Shane Nicholson
23 - The Family Hotel, 7 p.m.

Catherine Britt
23 - The Pub, 8.30 p.m.

Lachlan Bryan and the Wildes
24 - The Family Hotel, 12 p.m.

Audrey Auld
24 - North Tamworth Bowling Club, 2 p.m.

Karl Broadie and Katie Brianna

24 - Tamworth Tennis Club, 4.30 p.m.

Album review: The Great Country Song Book by Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey

This album had its genesis in a tour undertaken by Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey about two or three years ago. I saw one of the shows on that tour and it was one of the best gigs I'd ever seen. Troy and Adam were having so much fun - it seemed as though, in covering other people's songs instead of playing their own, the pressure was off and they could be two musicians - and friends - together.

The idea for the tour was genius: two of Australian country music's biggest names playing the mainly American country music songs they loved. Some of the songs were obscure - in fact, many of them would only have been known to people who had the same extensive knowledge of the genre as Troy and Adam. But that didn't matter, because the two men revealed themselves to be great performers no matter whose songs they were singing and the music flowed easily all night.

That same spirit of collaboration and pure joy in music is evident on The Great Country Song Book, which now stands as a record of that genius tour idea. There is a great range of songs to satisfy anyone who loves any kind of country music - there is Slim Dusty's 'Lights on the Hill', Johnny Cash's 'I Walk the Line' and Glen Campbell's 'Rhinestone Cowboy' mixed in with some Lefty Frizell, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams songs, amongst others.

This is undoubtedly an album that many Australian country music fans will buy simply because of the two names attached to it, but it's also worth buying for what's on the album itself: the sound of two of our greatest singer-songwriters relishing the chance to sing classic songs written by others and the opportunity to let themselves just be singers and fans. There is a lot of joy on this album just as there was in the show that night - and, no doubt, it won't the last such collaboration from Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey. After all, when you're onto a good thing ...

The Great Country Song Book is out now through Liberation/Sony Music.

Troy and Adam are touring together - for dates visit:

www.troycassardaley.com.au
www.adamharvey.com.au

Harmony James - new CD now in 2012

The follow-up to Harmony James's debut album, Tailwind, will now be released in early 2012. Handfuls of Sky will make its first appearance on 20 January, during the Tamworth Country Music Festival. This follows Harmony's music publishing and record label deals, with Alberts and Warners respectively. Harmony is also joining Troy Cassar-Daley for a series of shows in March 2012 - visit Troy's site for details. So it's a big year ahead for one of country music's brightest stars - I can't wait to get my hands on the CD!

www.harmonyjames.com