History of Tamworth May 12, 2008

After reading Jacki’s blog on her Tamworth experience I decided to research the history of the festival and the title given to Tamworth as Australia’s Country Music Capital. 

    Although Tamworth’s country music festival did not begin until 1973, the town of Tamworth created links to country music well before. During the 1950’s and 60’s Tamworth developed a country music radio show and had local venues that presented touring artists. Country music made its way into the area that was normally covered on the radio by other more popular styles of music such as rock and roll. However, by the mid 1960’s audience numbers dropped as television was introduced. As a result of this Tamworth radio station 2TM began to run a series of special interest programs during the evening. ‘Hoedown’ with John Minson, was one such show and it was first broadcasted in 1965. Hoedown proved to be successful and eventually dominated the evening timeslots. One of the reasons for this success was that there were few other stations that played country music at this time. Executives at 2TM were impressed by the popularity of the country music and its potential to influence a large rural population, and in 1969 employed for the very first time the now famous tag, Tamworth- the country music capital. Around this time the establishment of several recording studios empahasised the country music industry in Tamworth.

   The modern country music association, that later became known as CCMA Capital country music association started a talent show in 1965 and a Jamboree the following year. The Jamboree still continues to this day! These CCMA events were held on the Australia Day long weekend.

   Eventually in 1973 the Tamworth Country Music Festival became official and was a widely publicized event on the country music calendar, with 2TM announcing the winners of the first Australian Country Music awards.

   The festival continued to be held on the Australia Day weekend. There are a number of reasons for this;

 

• The talent quest and Jamboree could be expanded into a festival
• It was normally a quieter time for businesses in the area and for 2TM
• It was an ideal time for travelers
• The media was short on hard news at this time of year and therefore the festival was likely to generate national news coverage, which meant free publication!

The festival grew and incorporated many separate events, the idea being that the program was so busy people would have a reason to return the following year, to see the parts they missed out on.

   The peak growth of the festival was during the 1980’s when there was increased promotion to fill larger venues for the Australian Country music ‘Golden Guitar’ awards night.

   In 1993 Tamworth City council took up the role of organising the event and as a result the festival was given formal coordination. They took up the role as there was increasing pressure on infrastructure and promotional needs.

   Today, according to City Council’s staff, the festival is ‘sophisticated, comfortable with itself and provides a wonderful platform for people to celebrate being Aussie’.

 

  The notion of Tamworth as a ‘country music capital’ was created initially by 2TM and managed by BAL Marketing. Today a number of rival music festivals are held throughout Australia. Such as Gympie, in Queensland who hold a competing music festival.

    Tamworth’s status as ‘country music capital’ derives not just from the festival and the presence of a local country music industry, but from the metropolitan fascination with the town and with the images of rurality of Australian country it embodies.

 

Ellis, M. (n.d.), ‘Origins of the Tamworth Country Music Festival’, History of Country Music in Australia, Tamworth.