Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Join Cheryl Lee That Radio Chick on Still Rockin' It for news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
What are they up to at the moment? Let's find out .......
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What has John Williamson been up to lately? OR A True Blue Australian National Treasure
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians
Few voices have captured the essence of Australia quite like John Williamson. With his distinctive sound and storytelling prowess, he's spent 55 years painting musical portraits of our sunburnt country. Now, as he approaches his 80th birthday, the man behind "True Blue" and "Old Man Emu" is making one final journey across the nation.
"Everything I'm doing from now on is the last time I'm going to be there," Williamson confides with characteristic frankness. Though careful not to use the word "retirement" (joking that he "can't do a Farnham and keep coming back"), his current "My Travellin' Days Are Done" tour marks the end of an extraordinary touring chapter that began in 1969 when a young farmer won a talent quest with a quirky song about emus.
Our conversation weaves through the rich tapestry of his life – from growing up as one of five sons in Victoria's Mallee district where his father played banjo in the local band, to his seven years working the land before music became his full-time passion. "The farm was plan A. The music was plan B," he reveals with a chuckle. This agricultural background infuses authenticity into every song, creating an unbreakable bond with audiences who've purchased over five million of his albums.
Despite amassing 28 Golden Guitar trophies and three ARIA awards, Williamson remains refreshingly humble, finding more satisfaction in "the sale of CDs and streaming... because it means the general public are approving of my songs" than industry accolades. Even more meaningful? "People crying in the front row of the show."
Though his touring days may soon conclude, Williamson's creative spirit remains vibrant. His newest single "Born with a Ukulele in My Hand" was inspired by annual trips to Fiji, and he has collaborated with his daughter Ami on beautiful duets. He hints at continuing his annual "Shed Show" at his Queensland property and possibly recording new music, ensuring this national treasure's voice won't fall silent.
Don't miss your final opportunity to experience John Williamson live as he completes his farewell tour through February 2026, including appearances at the Deni Ute Muster and Tamworth Country Music Festival. After 55 remarkable years, these performances promise to be profoundly special celebrations of Australian music's true blue legend.
What has John Williamson been up to lately? Let's find out!
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
That Radio Chick Cheryl Lee here. Welcome to the Still Rockin' It Podcast where we'll have music news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians and artists. We are joined in the Zoom room today by a literal national treasure. This gentleman has released over 50 albums, 10 videos, 5 DVDs, 2 lyric books, has sold more than five million albums in Australia, has 28 golden guitar trophies at the Country Music Awards, three ARIA Music Awards. He's very modest. He performed at the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2010. We're chatting to none other than Mr True Blue, John Williamson. To catch up on podcasts from other favourite artists, simply go to thatradiochick. com. au. You're with Cheryl Lee that Radio Chick, and I'd like to welcome to the show today a legend in his own lunchtime, John Robert Williamson. Thanks for joining us today, John.
John Williamson:Same here, cheryl Lee, first time for us.
Cheryl Lee:That's right. We've got some exciting things to talk about a new tour, Deni Ute Muster, all sorts of things, but if we can step back before we step forward, that would be great. I usually ask where you got your inspiration and if you're from a musical family, if it's in your DNA. But it's pretty obvious that you got your inspiration from the area that you grew up in and from mum and dad who were great lovers of a Gilbert and Sullivan production.
John Williamson:Oh, you got it all there. The music that I used to hear on LPs was often musicals and probably from America, but they had beautiful voices, my mum and dad. They were known in the district so dad played the banjo in the local band, which was all just voluntary farmers really. So whenever our family got together extended family there would always be someone playing the piano or playing the banjo or something. But the inspiration for the latest album is two things. As you're saying that, I'm thinking, what is it? Well, firstly, it is the area that I have up in Queensland. I have an old dairy, an old dairy block, which I have my big shed and do shows every year just in June, and uh. And the other inspiration is my date of birth. I think you know I'm starting to think about like one song that says I can't do what I used to do.
Cheryl Lee:You grew up in Quambatook in the Mallee District, which is a little over two hours from where my husband. He's from a farming family, a little place called Goroke.
John Williamson:We were recently through all that Mallee country with the New South Wales Variety Bash. I do that when I can with my wife, Meg and with a Holden ute. Awesome, so we've been through all that. I had no idea how extended the wheat country was down there. Actually, the form I took was in the best of the Mallee, of course, yeah, and being on the edge of it, I thank somebody for the fact. I was brought up in a great little town and I had the privilege of being a farmer's son as well, so I had the best of both really.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, you're the oldest of five sons, that's right. What about the other ,J, ohn? Are they musical as well?
John Williamson:Yeah, we're all musical, but I'm the only one that sort of took it on. We lost one with cancer. That's what my song Salisbury Street's all about. But I have one brother still on the land because we moved from the Mallee up to between Morey and Gundawinnie in north New South Wales.
Cheryl Lee:What would you have done, John, if this music thing hadn't worked out for you? Did you ever have a plan B? Was the plan B the farm or Well, that was plan A.
John Williamson:The music was plan B. I was a farmer for seven years.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
John Williamson:Up there. We moved up there when I was 19, up to Copper Creek, to be exact, and beautiful land up there it was richer than the Mallee, so we had great fun moving into the new area and I got a lot of songs out of that as well, of course. That's when I discovered how diverse the bush is in Australia and I've been discovering it ever since, of course, touring around the country and how diverse the people are that are really influenced by where they come from.
Cheryl Lee:You know you are listening to Still Rockin' it, the podcast with Cheryl Lee, let's have that beautiful song, Salisbury Street, that John wrote for his younger brother, beautiful song, and then we'll be back to speak some more to John Williamson.
Cheryl Lee:I guess the thing that kicked it all off for you, would you agree, was that in 1969, when you wrote Old man Emu and won the New Faces Talent Quest, oh, that was it.
John Williamson:That's what got me off the track really. That took me 16 years really before I had a hit album that was Mallee Boy. All that time I was learning to be an entertainer, which I think is the most important thing, for longevity is to be able to put on a good show and make people laugh and cry and be proud of being Australian, Exactly right.
Cheryl Lee:Speaking of Mallee Boy wowee, it peaked in the top 10 on the Kent Music Report albums chart, but it remained in the top 50 for a year and a half. That is longevity.
John Williamson:It was number one on the main charts when it first came out. It probably is the album with the most popular songs of mine. Yeah.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
John Williamson:I do a lot of them in the show. Still, you know, including True Blue.
Cheryl Lee:And the Triple Platinum as well. Congratulations. That True Blue song, you know. It really has been ingrained into the Australian psyche, hasn't it? Australian Made campaign used it for their ads? Yeah, the national cricket team.
John Williamson:I think the Australian Made made it a hit really, because they put so many good pictures of great Aussies and sheepdogs and all that. Yeah, I couldn't have paid for all that.
Cheryl Lee:Free advertising.
John Williamson:They made all these film clips for me.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, well, that's the way to do it. Good thinking, advertising 101,.
John Williamson:Well, they made all these film clips for me. . Well done, yeah, I was sort of commissioned by John Singleton to write True Blue. He had the Labor Party's or Bob Hawke's account for advertising, so he married the two together.
Cheryl Lee:Just wanted to congratulate you. I've got four pages of like APRA awards, aria awards, cmaa awards we haven't got long enough to go through my awards, Tamworth.
John Williamson:The most important is the sale of CDs and the streaming. For me, because it means the general public are approving of my songs. The other sort of it's the peers that vote rather than the public, whereas the album is just the public walking into the shop and buying it.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
John Williamson:Streaming it or whatever.
Cheryl Lee:Spending their hard earned on it.
John Williamson:Yeah, as I said, that's the most gratifying thing and people crying in the front row on the show.
Cheryl Lee:So I just wanted to congratulate you on your 1992 Member of the Order of Australia Award, well deserved.
John Williamson:Oh, that's coming back. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's my 80th year this year. I'll be 80 in November, so I never thought I'd be still here. But I'm still recording, still writing stuff. But everything I'm doing from now on is the last time I'm going to be there. I really am slowing down. But everything I'm doing from now on is the last time I'm going to be there.
Cheryl Lee:Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Let's listen, shall we, to the song that started it all from 1969 and won the New Faces TV, talent Quest, old man Emu. And then we're going to come back and see if John Williamson actually uses the R word.
John Williamson:I want to pull out while I do a good job. The Deni Ute muster have been really looking forward to that. That's when I get an audience of virtually all bushies and I know, you know, I'll start with a mallee boy and they go off. So I enjoy that.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, Hence the name of the tour 55 Years, my Travellin' Days Are Done and we'll talk about that in a minute. For the big 8-0, John, in November, is there a big party planned? Are you going to have a celebration?
John Williamson:Yeah, well, my wife Meg is 70, so we've added it together. On having 150th birthday.
Cheryl Lee:Oh, well done. One last question before we move on to the tour and the Deni Ute muster, before we plug that now. Yes, that's right, we've got some things we have to say. We've been told by the boss.
John Williamson:Oh really.
Cheryl Lee:Okay, your daughters, Ami and Georgie, have they followed you into the musical realm?
John Williamson:Oh, Ami has. You can look her up. She does folk festivals and cruises. She's got a beautiful voice. In fact, if you want to play a song, play it. There's a duet on the latest album with Ami. You'll hear a beautiful voice on that. Waiting for the sun, I think
Cheryl Lee:yeah, I'm just writing that down. I will do that actually, thank you, as we mentioned, brand-new song Born with a ukulele in my hand.
John Williamson:Oh, you got that. That's not even on an album. We go to Fiji every year after our shed show. It's a bit of a break, especially for Meg because she does all the hard work to organise the fans and all that stuff. Everybody on this island of Tokoriki plays ukuleles. I warmed to them because that's what I started on when I was a little kid, and so I wrote a song about. You know, I was born with a ukulele in my hand and they've already performed it on the island, but I'm going to send them the recording to show them how I think it should be performed.
Cheryl Lee:So that's the new single. You've got a tour, starting next month actually, and you're going everywhere, man, all the way through to February of next year.
John Williamson:It's not that solid, though it's fairly spaced out. It's pretty pacey, isn't it? It's not working that hard.
Cheryl Lee:Get onto the Google-o-meter and track down when John is going to be in your town with his Travellin' Days Are Done Tour, as you say. The Deni Ute Muster it's an institution. Now, as you say, it's your target audience, right?
John Williamson:Yeah, this is the fourth one in the row. They normally only ask every second one or third one, but I guess, because I'm a bushy, it sort of fits the youth master pretty well.
Cheryl Lee:It sure does. You know, there's 20,000 attendees per year. Lots of people come from.
John Williamson:I think it makes me nervous.
Cheryl Lee:Really popular, obviously, and very well attended. I think people, once they go, I think they keep going back, just like you, John.
John Williamson:Yeah, that's right, something like that. Yeah, I'm not taking my ute this time, but I have a couple of times. I took an old what was it? A 1951 old ute one year and I took my bass ute there one year. But I'm flying there this time, or flying and hiring. This time I'll fly to Albury and then hire a vehicle and get there, looking forward to the Deni Ute Muster.
Cheryl Lee:They still hold the Guinness Book of Records for the greatest number of legally paraded utes, so yours would have been one of them.
John Williamson:I didn't put it in the parade, I just had it back stage. They probably cheated and counted my ute to get the record.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, probably. You know. There's so much that goes on at the Deni's Muster, apart from the fabulous entertainment including John there's camel rides and silent discos and animal farms and pig racing and air shows whip cracking. It's a real event, isn't it?
John Williamson:It is. It's a genuine country festival.
Cheryl Lee:So do you think you'll do it again?
John Williamson:I am saying it's travelling days. If I just do one, you know I get to. You know it's hard to keep the fingers and the voice and everything going if you're not working reasonably solidly, you know. Oh yeah, you get quite nervous, worrying about something that's a month away and nothing else in between. It's my last one. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I can't do a Farnham and keep coming back.
Cheryl Lee:No, you're not going to do a John Farnham and keep coming back. Honestly, people do need to either get out to Deni and I think you know it's nearly sold out, so you'd better get onto it fast if you'd like to but also catch John at one of the dates on his tours, because it could very well be the last time we can catch you.
John Williamson:I'm doing the Queensland coast for the last time this year too.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, yeah A little bit in January and a little bit in February. Oh, Tamworth in January.
John Williamson:Yeah, I'll do the last one in Tamworth at the track, so catch that one. That's a Friday, I think.
Cheryl Lee:Oh, that would be awesome. I might even see you down the front there, John.
John Williamson:Why do you ask? See if I can make her cry it?
Cheryl Lee:doesn't take much to make me cry, John. I cry at a telecom ad.
John Williamson:Oh, far beyond you. You are listening to Still Rockin' it the podcast with Cheryl Lee.
Cheryl Lee:Here's the song I think John's talking about when he says the front row are crying and you don't get any more Aussie than this True Blue. And then we're back to say goodbye to John Williamson.
Cheryl Lee:Just wanted to thank you personally for really being the soundtrack of our lives and, you know, representing the country life which you know is the backbone of Australia. The farmers, guys in the bush.
John Williamson:Oh, the women are the backbone. I'll put that in the song. I wrote a song called the Basher yeah, on the basher, and I mentioned the women are the backbone of the bush. I had a great country mum, and she kept us all together, kept the old man together.
Cheryl Lee:Behind every good man is a good woman right.
John Williamson:That's it.
Cheryl Lee:Thank you for all of the music over all of the years and wish you all the best with the upcoming tour and the single. Dare I say the R word, john, retirement is it. Are you calling it Retirement?
John Williamson:No, I'm not going to call it. I've said my travelling days are done. That doesn't say my singing days are done, that's true. You know, I might keep the Shed Show going for a while on the place up there in the mountains, the Gold Coast. I might keep that going because I don't have to go anywhere.
Cheryl Lee:Well, that's right, it will come to you.
John Williamson:Do a dolly parton yeah.
Cheryl Lee:So maybe semi-retirement might be more accurate.
John Williamson:Oh, I don't just travel. The days are done. That leaves it a bit open, really. The tour before was the winding back. See, that doesn't say I'm going to stop either. I think I'll always have a little venue somewhere just to keep, because it is a lot of fun playing music, and I'll probably keep writing as well, as long as I can come up with a good idea.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
John Williamson:When I'm in the mountains. We also have an apartment in Sydney, but when I'm in the mountains, I'm only half an hour away from Lindsay Wellington's studio and there's a lot of good music around the Gold Coast, so I'll probably record some more songs, like I did with the ukulele. I recorded it on a Wednesday and it was on radio on a Monday.
Cheryl Lee:Well done. Yeah, you're from the country. No mucking around, straight into it. Good on you, and you heard it first here. There's plenty more music where that lot came from. Thank you so much for spending some of your time with us this morning. We really appreciate having a chat and we wish you all the best for whatever the future holds, john, and we hope to see you down the front at a gig sometime very soon.
John Williamson:Well, all the best to you too, Cheryl Lee. Thank you so much Thanks for having me.
Cheryl Lee:It's been a pleasure. Have a great rest of your day.
John Williamson:Thank you and you All.
Cheryl Lee:Righty bye for now. Still Rockin' It podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Now, at the request of John, we're going to play a song from his album. How Many Songs? A beautiful duet Waiting for the Sun with his daughter, Ami Williamson.
Cheryl Lee:You're with Cheryl Lee that radio chick. Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking it podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can support Aussie music and I'll see you down the front.