ON THE Mid North Coast of NSW, a memorial park seat now stands in honour of country songwriter Jim Wesley.
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The memorial salutes his contribution to Australian country music and the many great songs he wrote. Among those were White Crosses in the Jungle; and Namitjira, recorded by Slim Dusty. At one time Jim was quoted to be one of Australia’s most prolific country songwriters and went on to have more than 100 songs recorded.
His songs were recorded by many country artists, including Buddy Williams, Anne Kirkpatrick, Rick and Thel Carey, Arthur and Jewel Blanch, Rex Dallas, Barry Thornton, Terry Gordon, Neville Bradley, Shorty Ranger and Pixie Jenkins.
American Margie Rayburn was another to record Jim’s songs.
Twenty-four kilometres north of Taree, the village of Coopernook was Jim’s home for many years and it is there, beside the Lansdowne River, that the memorial seat stands.
But it is in the New England region that Jim’s story began.
Born in Glen Innes, Jim’s parents owned a farm 12 miles from town. As a child in the 1930s, the Carter Family were his favourite recording artists, and in 1937 he won a school competition with his first poem. By 1945 he had published a book of poems called My Australian Paradise.
It was Dame Mary Gilmore who advised him in the mid-1950s to try writing song lyrics, and from then on Jim wrote lyrics in an endless stream for country artists.
After Jim, his wife Dorothy and five children Sue, Andria, Steve, Michael and Nigel moved to Coopernook, they owned and operated the general store opposite the Coopernook Hotel for many years. Jim and Dorothy moved to Laurieton in 1988, where he ran a second-hand business in the main street before retiring in 1995.
The Australian Encyclopaedia of Country Music would note that Jim was one of a handful of wordsmiths who were the backbone of country music in Australia.
Honours came in 2004 when Jim was inducted into Tamworth’s Hands of Fame and, following his death in December 2009 at the age of 83, Jim was posthumously awarded The Song Maker Award by the Tamworth Songwriters Association at the 2010 Tamworth County Music Festival.
The memorial at Coopernook was made possible through the Australian Bush Balladeers Association, the Tamworth Songwriters Association, family and friends.
