THE GREAT COUNTRY SONGBOOK
Some of the best collaborations are borne from ideas scrawled on a pub coaster, and that can certainly be said of the passion project from legendary multi award-winning Australian country music cohorts Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey.

Troy and Adam as individual Australian country music artists are both immensely popular with the Australian Country music audiences. They are renowned for their showmanship and excellent live performances, and have both earned the respect of their peers and the greater entertainment audiences for their superb vocals, quality musicianship, song writing skills and ultimately their recorded releases. They’re recognised for giving generously of their time to their fans and audiences. Not surprisingly, throughout their respective careers Troy and Adam have been the award recipients of multiple Golden Guitars (between them they have won 33, 11 of those for Male Artist of the Year), APRA Country Song Of The Year, and Australian Recording Industry Association Country Album Of the Year awards, as well as a vast number of profile entertainment and public appreciation accolades.

With a genuinely firm friendship and a sincere mutual respect and admiration, it’s easy to see why these two have come together creatively to produce what will no doubt go down as the country collaboration of the year.

The result is a lovingly hand-picked bunch of songs, top-heavy with their biggest personal influences: Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Hank Williams, Glen Campbell, and Aussie country icon Slim Dusty. Simply, all the songs they both could not live without included on their first ever, highly anticipated combined album.

“Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t be able to do this with anyone else in our industry. That’s just plain and simple. I think it’s because Adam has the same love of old fashioned country songs as I do; a lot of them are the classic, American-style stuff: we’re big on Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson,” says Troy. “That’s the fair dinkum truth.”

Adds Adam: “And the best thing about working with him is that he’s so damn good. I’ve got to be on my game. I’ve been in training getting ready to do this album, you need to be on the ball just to keep up with him.”

Troy is equally enamoured with his recording buddy: “It’s going to be great fun to actually take this on the road again, knowing we’ve got something we captured in the studio now, something that was once just an idea we scribbled down on a beer coaster.”

In fact, the guys reveal that the most common question they get asked after performing their hugely well-received classic country shows is: “Are you guys going to put an album out with all these songs on it?”

And here it is: “The Great Country Songbook”.

Despite revealing that creating an album “hadn’t even crossed our minds” – they were too busy deriving so much fun from delivering their live shows – Troy admits: “I’m really glad to document this. I reckon our grandkids might listen to this stuff one day, and say “I’m really glad that ‘Poppy’ recorded it. I reckon it’s worth documenting your passion for music.”
The album track listing is crammed with country favourites, and each track lovingly made the cut after much straight-from-the-heart consideration.
“You know, I reckon the hardest thing about this album was to pick the final list of songs, because there are so many. It’s endless,” says Adam.
Adds Troy: “Yes, I used to have hair once! I’d get this email late at night on the road from Adam, who’d added a new song, and I’m thinking, but what do we cut out? It was getting hard!”
Agrees Adam: “Otherwise it was going to be a 12CD box set with 208 songs on it!”
For Adam, the very first song that went on his list was Tom T Hall’s “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine”.
He explains: “When I was a kid I used to sit and strum along to that song with my guitar by dad’s stereo. That moment I learnt that song, I thought: That’s what I want to do when I grow up. I’m still growing up…”
“For me, “Mama Tried” was something I had to record,” says Troy. “If you’re going to get a good country songbook and open it up, I think this song from Merle Haggard would be in there for sure. Growing up as a single-parent kid with just my mum to lean on, it made me realise that a song like that was going to stick with me forever. Cutting the track, I re-lived those memories again.”
Adam gives Troy credit for “one of the best ideas” with “The Great Country Songbook”: to use the same band touring with them on the road, and record with them in the studio.
And then: having Jeff McCormack engineer the whole project was a masterstroke. Both Adam and Troy consider Jeff “a fantastic guy to work with, very talented.”
“We had our players, we’ve got the songs, got our studio ready, and away we went,” adds Troy. And here it is: “The Great Country Songbook.”
And so, the tour. As Adam put it: “Now that we’ve done all the studio stuff, the fun starts. We’re back on the road again. We are heading all over the place.”
Adds Troy: “Touring is good fun. ‘We’re kicking off with three shows in Tasmania which is great as we don’t get down there as often as we’d like to.
With this tour we are going to places we don’t get a chance to get to very often. I’m looking forward to seeing what people respond to with this show, because we’ll have some new material as well. There are some newer songs we added to this list over the last four years of touring that I think people will enjoy. So, it will be great.”
The classics get a good run at the shows. Agrees Adam: “We play all the songs they know, and it’s a beautiful thing when we play those great songs that we love too – you look out and the people are all singing along.”
Agrees Troy: “Fans almost know what they are going to get at the shows. Plus, they know they’re gonna get two people that are showing their love of traditional country music. People get to know us as well as this music again, and I think that’s the important part. We like to show people the sense of humour we can bring to the stage.”
An exceptional show will melt your troubles away, and the shows these guys deliver – where each show gives the audience Troy and Adam for two whole hours, and a set list choc-full of songs – promises to do just that.
“People can come to a show and forget all about their cares and dramas for a few hours, and have a good laugh and a sing-along; you get to escape and probably relive a few old memories and forget about all the doom and gloom that’s out there. That’s an important part of what we do,” adds Adam.
“Yes. We’re not in the music business – we’re in the ‘transportation’ business. I think that’s what our job is, as musicians, to bring this stuff back and to do it justice. We have to transport people,” says Troy. “I’m hoping that people come along and feel like they’re ready for a journey because we’re up for it to.”
With songs on the tour and from the album including “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, “Behind Closed Doors”, “Looking Back Texas”, “You’re My Best Friend”, “Hey Good Looking”, “For the Good Times”, “Oh Lonesome Me”, “Indian Pacific”, “Crystal Chandelier”, and “That’s The Way Love Goes”, as well as duets from Adam and Troy like “Good Hearted Woman”, “Lights on the Hill”, “Walk the Line”, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies”, “Coward of the County”, “Rhinestone Cowboy”, and “Seven Spanish Angels”, the show ends with a medley of true country classics: “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”/”On The Road Again”/”Before the Next Teardrop Falls”.

TICKETS FROM SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS:
MONDAY – THURSDAY 10am – 3pm
FRIDAY 10am- Noon

DIESEL
THE VELVET CURTAIN TOUR

With a career spanning 25 years (35 singles, 13 albums, 6 ARIA awards) and record sales edging 1 million, DIESEL the journeyman of music is on his way to some very special venues, in select regional areas with The Velvet Curtain Tour.

With blues music in his “DNA”, an influence largely from his Father’s record collection, DIESEL has blended all styles to come up with a truly unique sound, punctuated with his distinct guitar playing and vocals.

Rewind to 2005… ‘Singled Out’ is released – a solo live recording which is the catalyst for DIESEL embarking on a juggernaut solo tour, a tour that will establish him as a solo performer. 8 years on and DIESEL has evolved into a solo artist of great diversity.
Alongside the hits and rarities people have grown to expect from an artist of longevity, DIESEL blends his influences by also playing tracks from Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Neil Young (to name a few…) combined with the unique ‘theatre’ environment, it makes for an all encompassing musical experience.

The Velvet Curtain Tour – a special artist playing some of the most special venues in the country.