ON SUNDAY afternoon, one of the highlights of this year’s Hats Off to Tamworth Festival will take place at the South Tamworth Bowling Club.
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Capital Country Music Association is hosting a tribute to three local country music identities – Gentleman Geoff Brown, his son Gary Brown and Tamworth’s first recording artist Buddy Bishop.
Geoff Brown played a pivotal role in establishing Australia’s Country Music Capital.
Rodney Walker will be performing the songs of Buddy Bishop, while the tribute to Geoff Brown will include several artists including Rob Breese, Bobby Howson, Jared Scott and Ryan Morris.
There were several instrumentals written in tribute to Gary Brown, and Anthony Walmsley and Ross McGregor are two artists who will be paying tribute to him at Sunday’s concert.
The trio of musicians form a strong part of Tamworth’s country music foundations.
A lifelong resident, Geoff was the first artist to bring live country music to Tamworth in the 1960s.
He had performed at the Nemingha Hotel after a barman asked Geoff to entertain on a Saturday night.
It was a three month regular gig for Geoff and Ivan Grills who played piano accordion, all for a grand total of a quid a night.
Then in 1964, Joe Maguire asked Geoff if he’d organise a regular country music program at Maguire’s Pub, which is widely recognised as the first country music venue in Tamworth.
He teamed up with Gloria Hickman and drummer Arnold Mullins and later Michael Cooke.
Geoff recorded for RCA between 1967 and 1970, followed by a period of record releases on Hadley Records from 1971 to 1974.
The Geoff Brown Show Band took country music all over NSW, Queensland and Victoria throughout the 1970s, including a series of shows, in 1977, which played to audiences in the heart of the city of Sydney at the Haymarket and Martin Place for Radio 2TM.
Geoff was inducted into the Hands of Fame in 1979, and then in 1994 he was a founding trustee of the Australian Country Music Trust, which operated the Country Music Heritage Hall Museum and Archive.
Geoff passed away on August 21, 2000.
He was survived by his wife Beryl and their four children, Gary, Darryl, Cheryl and Greg.
Their eldest son Gary, who became a greatly respected musician and producer, died in 2012 and will be remembered on Sunday.
When the first Golden Guitar Awards were held in 1973, Gary was music director for a group of Tamworth teenagers – which included Lawrie Minson, Denise Morrison, Eric Newton, Bobby Howson, Vicki Harbison, Denning sisters, Davis Gilchrist and Bruce Field – performing the opening spot.
After starting out playing in his father’s band, Gary worked as a musician, then later established Hilltop Recording Studio when he returned to Tamworth in the 1980s.
While working as a musician in Sydney, a great highlight of Gary’s career was playing with Charley Pride.
Gary was working at the Texas Tavern, a Sydney club frequented by a lot of entertainers, and when Pride was touring Australia in the late 1970s he called into the club and gave an impromptu performance, with Gary backing him.
Gary died in 2012 following a short battle with cancer.
The third artist to be honoured on Sunday, Buddy Bishop, was born near Taree and moved to Tamworth in the 1940s.
He was the first Tamworth local to record, when he made his first commercial recordings in 1950.
His first recording, The Farmyard Yodel, stayed on top of Canberra’s 2CA radio charts for six weeks.
Working in radio, he had a talent quest on 2TM (which Geoff Brown was a winner of), and also toured with Slim Dusty and other artists.
He was inducted into the Hands of Fame in 1977.
Buddy died in 1995.
The two-hour concert is free and starts at 2pm on Sunday at the South Tamworth Bowling Club.