Country music is known for its big hats, big cars, big personalities, and recently, big comeback. But what could be the reason for people suddenly getting behind the genre that used to be a punchline? If I wanted to find out, I had to head to the heart of country music in Australia: Tamworth’s Country Music Festival.
Tamworth, like the genre of country music, is also known for a few big things – most famous of all being the giant Golden Guitar tourist attraction, which is exactly what you think.
It’s also known for its yearly week-and-a-half long country music festival that attracts thousands of fans.
If you’re into early 2000s Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, or Morgan Wallen, then the Tamworth Country Music Festival is a must.
Issue is, if you really want to get to the true country music central of Australia, it’s a bloody long way away. And sure, you could catch a flight there to Tamworth Airport, but where’s the fun in that?
In order to truly baptise myself in the spirit of country music, I couldn’t make my pilgrimage like a pagan would.
The three most common modes of transport in Tamworth are Land Cruisers, HiLuxes, and horses. And it’s not that fitting in is all that matters, but I went with a HiLux GR Sport to get there – for the cultural experience of course.
Tamworth was approximately five hours from Sydney, which gave me plenty of time to dive into the history of country music during a comfortable drive. While traveling I re-discovered various artists and songs that in my insecure youth I wrote off as silly or daggy.
As a child I heard these songs as weird collages of unusual buzz words like blue jeans, pickup trucks, and cold beer. Things I didn’t understand.
But as a (slightly) mature adult, I was able to listen to these singer songwriters spin yarns of love, loss, and truth, and feel the emotional impact much better.
Then finally, at some point during the John Williamson section of my country discovery, Tamworth was upon me.
In the middle of its country music festival, Tamworth is sprawling with cowboy-boot and Akubra wearing buskers, wielding acoustic guitars and singing Shania Twain’s hits wherever you look.
And as a typical city slicker myself, to say the change in scenery was welcome would be an understatement.
Everyone was willing to have a chat, whether they were a local or a traveling fan, about why they thought the genre has had a resurgence over the past years.
Autumn Rose, a young busker who performed a stunning cover of The Lumineers’ “Dead Sea”, shared why she thought the genre was on the rise.
“I think it has a lot to do with artists over in America. We’ve got a new branch of country music, like you’re Zach Bryan type folk-mix has really brought it back. And I think after covid as well everyone is keen to get back into music again,” shared Autumn.
Another performing artist, Jemma Beach, who took part in the esteemed Toyota Star Maker competition which sets out to find the next big country music legend each year, gave the credit to the younger generation and internet culture.
“I feel like there’s been a new wave through TikTok and social media who see that country music is changing,” she stated.
Meanwhile Tenille, a punter running a cute cowboy clothing store, gave more insight into what these changes are.
“Since it’s become a bit more poppy, all the younger artists have more and more people converting across from pop music to country
I guess people are actually giving it a chance and seeing that it’s not the old yodel-laying country music that it used to be, and seeing that it’s literally all relatable and tells a story.
Linelle also shared that being ‘country’ is “what you make of it.”
“You don’t have to grow up on property and have cattle and sheep and horses to be country. Everybody is different in what they take as country and that’s the best part about it. Everybody is different.”
So if the history of country music was daggy, and its resurgence is thanks to a youthful pop-folk-indie revival, then how do we find the future of country music?
As shared before, the Toyota Star Maker competition set out every year to find the new face of country music.
And before you think that it’s just some small competition, I’ll give you a little name of one of it’s past winners: Keith Urban.
That’s right, in 1990 Keith Urban won the Toyota Star Maker award, and proceeded to become one of the world’s most renowned country artists of all time.
And each year, thousands of other applicants compete for the chance to have the same shot at country stardom. And then the top 10 compete live on stage in front of thousands of local fans.
In 2023 the winner was Loren Ryan, a Gamilaraay country artist who shared with PEDESTRIAN.TV what winning the highly sought award meant to her and her community.
“I felt incredibly proud to know that there might be young First Nations, girls and boys, or young First Nations children, looking up and seeing that achievement and going, ‘You know what, she’s there we can be there. She comes from a background just like us,’” said Loren.
“Anything that I win is something that my whole community can feel ownership of, and take pride in, and feel like we won.”
Loren stood out among other competitors during her Toyota Star Maker year by performing covers of classics like “Flame Trees” in a Gamilaraay translation. So does the future of country lie in being more inclusive and open to change?
@pedestriantv How are Indigenous artists making waves in the genre of country music? Loren Ryan shares her experience. @tcmf_official
♬ original sound – PEDESTRIAN.TV
“Sometimes people can be scared of new sounds or scared of the evolution of something that they really love,” stated Loren.
“1950s country music had its time, 80s country music had its time. Noughties country music had its time. And 2023 country music needs to have its time as well. With inclusion, that kind of inclusion within the genre falls under that umbrella as well.”
But the “core of good country music” Loren says, all comes down to emotion and storytelling.
“The more emotive, the artist is, and I guess, the more you can relate to the music and the lyrics, then that’s what makes good country.”
Sometimes through stereotypes I feel it’s typical for folk to write off “country” as backward, or worse.
Yet from my time in Tamworth I learnt that just like a genre of music, it’s incredibly immature to write off a group of people based on what you’ve heard from stereotypes or punchlines.
The festival itself was incredibly community minded, with the Toyota Activation Zone raising over $48K for Lifeline from the sale of pins and hats. That many songs about heartbreak and pain being sung at a festival shows a group who are well-versed in talking about emotions, and know the importance of helping out a friend in need.
As Lifeline promoted across the festival: “Even cowboys get the blues.”
Any art that is worth its time is expressive of something deeply personal, that also relates to everyone — and if Elmo learnt anything this week it’s that everyone has endured pain.
Country artists give us something to relate to. According to artists like Loren, that’s what country is, and always has been.
So is it really a surprise that in times like these the music we are turning to is a country banger that plays the song my heart is crying out for?
The writer travelled to Tamworth Country Music Festival as a guest of Toyota Australia.
