Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) president, Dobe Newton, arrived in Tamworth ahead of the festival to work with the CMAA Academy of Country Music this week.
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Dobe was part of the academy’s beginning 20 years ago, which was created to educate emerging artists about the country music industry.
He said it was very rewarding to see artists from the academy’s early years forge successful careers.
“This year’s Golden Guitar nominations bear that out, so the people we’re talking about are Amber Lawrence, who was one of our early students and now is a tutor at the academy, Lyn Bowtell, Sara Storer, Travis Collins, there’s a huge list of them and they all came to the academy, or the college as it was then called. It’s just amazing,” Dobe said.
“They followed the advice, they persisted, and here they are at the top of the tree.”
Asked to name one piece of advice he would give to young artists starting out in country music, Dobe had said it would be persistence.