The American has been in Tamworth this week, where four albums were launched in memory of his wife, who passed away from cancer in August 2015, aged 51.

Just Love is an album of many country artists singing Audrey’s songs, while three albums of live recordings featuring Audrey were also launched at The Pub on Monday.

One of those live albums, Audrey Auld Live At San Quentin, involved songs written with prisoners.

“Since 2006 she was doing songwriting classes with the prisoners, and she got enough songs to do an album called Hey Warden,” Mez said.

Another of the live albums was a surprise for Mez, as it was the work of Audrey’s former singer partner Bill Chambers.

“It was live show that Bill and Audrey and Dave Steel did together, and they loved that show so much they recorded this,” he said.

Mez recalled how he and Audrey first met in 1983.

"She was 18, I was 20, I was in the American Navy and our ship pulled into Hobart and a friend of mine, John Brown, got off the ship first and he met Audrey, she was a cocktail waitress, and the three of us hung out for 10 days.

"Ten years later I was living out at San Francisco, and my buddy John Brown calls and says Audrey is coming into town, let's hang out. So we all hung out for a day, it was great."

Another decade later, Mez got an email from John.

"He had a wife and two kids at the time, and said to me 'Audrey's on tour, get a hold of her.

"She came out to California for a week to do music, and we fell in love."

They were later married and Audrey moved to the United States where they lived in California for four years before moving to Nashville in 2007.

Audrey had first came to Tamworth in 1998. The previous year Bill had produced recordings for the Tasmanian singer, and had her on a show called Luke and The Drifters at the Longyard Hotel.

Two years later the duo started playing hillbilly jam sessions at The Pub where the concert area is now called the Bill Chambers Room, and the restaurant is called Audrey’s.

While her career and marriage later took her to the US, she returned for one final time in 2014 to the Tamworth festival.

The following month she was diagnosed with cancer.

As well as the album launches on Monday, Mez presented Bill with a banjo that belonged to Audrey.

“The banjo was her step-father’s mother’s banjo, it was over 100 years old and her step-father had given it to her and was practicing all the time, she even asked me to remind her to practice.

“She got a little irritated at times, but I’d say ‘hey, you go practice the banjo’.

“She loved that banjo, but Bill always loved that banjo too. So after she passed, I knew she would want Bill to have it.”