Buddy Williams

b. Harry Taylor, 5 September 1918, Newtown suburb, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, d. 12 December 1986. A major pioneer of Australian country music, as a child Williams never knew his parents and was placed in an orphanage, where he soon became a nuisance to the authorities by his attempts to escape. Fostered out to a farming couple in Dorrigo, he found he was treated more as an unpaid worker than as an adopted son. He heard recordings of Jimmie Rodgers when visiting neighbours and was immediately captivated by the music. When 15 years old, he ran away and did a series of ...