DAVIDSONS
PICKIN' UP HOME FANS
by
David Dawson
Transcription
- Herald Sun, Monday,
24 January 2005 - p.82
It
all started with a $200 banjo and twin fiddles.
Schoolteacher Fay bought the fiddles for sons Hamish and
Lachlan when they were aged eight and six. And she found
the banjo advertised in a newsletter of a tiny Gippsland
primary school when Hamish was 12.
The brothers soon became string wizards on banjo,
fiddle, mandolin and guitar in the hamlet of Yinnar.
It was a long and winding road that led to them
representing Australia 10 years later at the
International Bluegrass Association festival in Kentucky
late last year.
They made the Australian Country Music Awards finals in
2004 and 2005, but rarely work in Melbourne, finding
greener fields in Kentucky, Tennessee and the Aussie
bush.
"We rarely play here," Hamish, 21, says as he
prepares for their headlining role at the free Nu
Country TV concert on the Arts Centre Lawn on Sunday.
The concert will also feature Jake Nickolai and Kim
MacKenzie, Corrina Steel, Barnlaid and the T-Bones.
"Most of our work is interstate or in the country,
where we receive plenty of ABC and community airplay.
It's harder in Melbourne, where it's more word of
mouth."
The Davidson Brothers performed at the Gympie Muster and
Tamworth to crowds of up to 60,000.
They finance tertiary studies with session work
embracing rock, world, pop and country and national
tours with stars such as Lee Kernaghan, Troy Cassar-Daley
and Beccy Cole.
"Ironically, the biggest crowd we enjoyed in
Melbourne was at Carols by Candlelight, where there were
about 30,000 people," Hamish says.
They toured Kentucky and Tennessee after graduating from
Tamworth Country Music College and winning exposure for
their music on US radio.
Now the Davidson Brothers surf in the slipstream of
expatriate Australian superstar Keith Urban, who makes a
rare Melbourne return at the Palais on February 26.
With the encouragement of Urban and young expatriates
Catherine Britt, Jedd Hughes and the Greencards, they
plan a return assault on the US market.
But it wont be until after they record their second
album this year with producer Rod McCormack, husband of
country star Gina Jeffreys.
"We sold out of CDs on our first night in
Kentucky," Hamish says, "so next time we will
have a new album and a lot more copies of it. We were
playing to crowds of up to 10,000 on the same stages as
our bluegrass idols. Del McCoury dedicated a bluegrass
version of Slim Dusty's Lights on the Hill to
us one night."
Lack
of Metropolitan commercial radio airplay for country and
bluegrass music has tempted the Davidsons to head for
Tennessee and Kentucky.
But they are resisting offers to perform, record and
tour overseas until they're ready.
"We like working in the Australian scene but after
going overseas we realised we could be successful over
there, even just working on the bluegrass circuit,"
Hamish says.
"But it's a matter of timing. We need a new album
to sell at our concerts there. We also want to finish
our professional courses here."
Adds Lachlan, [20]: "The week before my engineering
course started at university I got a call from Lee
Kernaghan to tour with him. I knew I would regret not
taking Lee's offer so I deferred my engineering
course."
