IT’S A long way from Weipa to Tamworth, but it’s the journey Emma Dykes has taken to get to the CMAA Academy of Country Music.
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Along with the other students, Emma enjoyed a visit from guest speaker and Golden Guitar-
winning artist Kasey Chambers, who spoke to the students about the music industry.
Emma has lived in Weipa on-and-off since 2012 and worked as a critical care nurse in the emergency department of a hospital before joining the mine.
She’s now decided to pursue music, while on contract with the mine, and travels back and forth from her home in Kew, near Port Macquarie.
The experience has given her plenty of songwriting material.
“I graduated from university in 2009, so have worked as a nurse for six years and always wanted to do remote area nursing,” she said.
“I also loved country music, so loved the remote areas and the communities, and I like working with the Aboriginal people.”
Emma also worked in Tamworth for a placement and in Inverell.
“I used to come over for the festival during those years in Inverell,” she said.
“Most of the last 10 years I have been nursing and studying, but I decided, in the last couple of years, to get back into music.”
Emma said she wanted to soak up every experience the academy could offer.
“Academy is great because I haven’t had a lot of musical people around me, so it’s great to broaden my horizons,” she said.
“The experience, knowledge, contacts and everyone is so talented, so I think you take something from everyone. I entered the Hillbilly Hut Kickstarter Competition with Simon Johnson (the instrumental tutor) and he remembered me from the competition, so I went and recorded a song that I had written. I wrote it for a family (from Weipa) who I worked with and who lost their son just before his 18th birthday, and for our community of Kew, because of William Tyrrell, who went missing from Kendall. I don’t feel I’ve had as much musical experience, but I have a lot of life experience, so I have got a lot I want to write about now, because I’ve seen heaps of different stuff.”
She said a highlight was Catherine Britt being at the academy.
“She and I are going to work on the song Drew McAlister and I wrote called Pay It Forward,” Emma said.
“It’s about the community up there and the things I’ve seen that community do. Having a go on the slide guitar was also a highlight.”
Although she has no shows, Emma said she wanted to suss the festival out and hoped to play shows next year.
“Unless the chance to get up and do stuff presents itself,” she said.
