'Dad was really supportive of my music'

Slim Dusty's daughter Anne is proud to be a country star in her own right

- Jenny Brown

50 YEARS

TAMWORTH MUSIC FESTIVAL

For Anne Kirkpatrick, childhood was one big adventure growing up on the road with her parents - pioneering Australian country music legends Slim Dusty and Joy McKean.

From the age of two, Anne travelled with them through red dirt, dusty outback towns and countless neon-lit showgrounds, more than 48,000km annually, over 10 months of the year. Even when she and younger brother David were sent off to boarding school, going “home for the holidays” meant rejoining the family caravan, wherever that might be.

A young Anne appeared on the poster for the first Slim Dusty Show tour in 1954.

CHILDHOOD ADVENTURE

“In May it was usually Queensland, WA in August, and I'd be on stage working in the show," smiles Anne, 69, who w on to become an award-winning musician in her own right. “I'm lucky because I gained a real love of the country from my parents, it's very much imprinted in my DNA.

“It was a huge adventure, and they were in it together for around 50 years. Mum wrote some of Slim's biggest hits - Lights On The Hill, Walk A Country Mile and Indian Pacific. They never stopped, right from the time Dad chucked in his job as a plasterer in Sydney to tour fulltime."