After Slim Dusty played his last live show in 2002 at Launceston’s Country Club Casino, his backing band, the Travelling Country Band, went their separate ways.
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That final line-up included bass player Rod Coe, drummer Robbie Souter, Jeff Mercer on lead guitar, Mike Kerin on fiddle, and Pete Denahy on guitar and accordion.
In the years since, Denahy has won Golden Guitars as an artist in his own right. Last October, he was billed as one of the headline acts at the Slim Dusty Festival in Kempsey, where the Travelling Country Band was backing the artists.
In front of an audience, which included Slim’s wife Joy McKean and daughter Anne Kirkpatrick, the band was back together again.
“As soon as we started playing, and we hadn’t played together for so long, it just exploded into this really cool sort of energy, and we thought we’ve got to do something with this,” Denahy said.
It just exploded into this really cool sort of energy, and we thought we’ve got to do something with this.
- Pete Denahy
“So I got home and I was thinking about it, and I contacted the rest of the guys and I said how would you feel if we got a few bookings and took this on the road. Everyone seemed keen, and I rang Joy and spoke to her about it.
“She was very happy about, because Joy and Anne were there and they saw what happened, and they enjoyed it.”
The new show, billed as ‘Travellin’ Still, the songs of Slim Dusty with Pete Denahy and the Travelling Country Band’ has already booked in three dates on the north coast.
“We’ve played the songs so many times with Slim,” Denahy said, “it’s just like putting an old shoe.”
“My key’s a bit higher than Slim’s but outside of that it’s all the same, we didn’t change any of the arrangements (in Kempsey), and that’s what we aim to do with this show, and keep them true to how we did them with Slim.”
Down the track, he said they would look at performing songs of Slim’s they never performed live in those final years of his career.
“He had that many songs and he could only just pick a handful really,” Denahy said.
“I don’t think we did a song like Where Country Is. We did Walk A Country Mile, but some of his other big hits Anne or Joy might do.”
The band has already been emailing set lists to each other, but Denahy said it was tough to narrow down which songs to include.
“The show would go for five hours if we played them all,” he quipped.