What has John Williamson been up to lately? OR A True Blue Australian National Treasure

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Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians

Few voices have captured the essence of Australia quite like John Williamson. With his distinctive sound and storytelling prowess, he's spent 55 years painting musical portraits of our sunburnt country. Now, as he approaches his 80th birthday, the man behind "True Blue" and "Old Man Emu" is making one final journey across the nation.

"Everything I'm doing from now on is the last time I'm going to be there," Williamson confides with characteristic frankness. Though careful not to use the word "retirement" (joking that he "can't do a Farnham and keep coming back"), his current "My Travellin' Days Are Done" tour marks the end of an extraordinary touring chapter that began in 1969 when a young farmer won a talent quest with a quirky song about emus.

Our conversation weaves through the rich tapestry of his life – from growing up as one of five sons in Victoria's Mallee district where his father played banjo in the local band, to his seven years working the land before music became his full-time passion. "The farm was plan A. The music was plan B," he reveals with a chuckle. This agricultural background infuses authenticity into every song, creating an unbreakable bond with audiences who've purchased over five million of his albums.

Despite amassing 28 Golden Guitar trophies and three ARIA awards, Williamson remains refreshingly humble, finding more satisfaction in "the sale of CDs and streaming... because it means the general public are approving of my songs" than industry accolades. Even more meaningful? "People crying in the front row of the show."

Though his touring days may soon conclude, Williamson's creative spirit remains vibrant. His newest single "Born with a Ukulele in My Hand" was inspired by annual trips to Fiji, and he has collaborated with his daughter Ami on beautiful duets. He hints at continuing his annual "Shed Show" at his Queensland property and possibly recording new music, ensuring this national treasure's voice won't fall silent.

Don't miss your final opportunity to experience John Williamson live as he completes his farewell tour through February 2026, including appearances at the Deni Ute Muster and Tamworth Country Music Festival. After 55 remarkable years, these performances promise to be profoundly special celebrations of Australian music's true blue legend.

What has John Williamson been up to lately?  Let's find out!

Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!

Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au

Episode Transcript

Cheryl Lee (00:00):
That Radio Chick Cheryl Lee here.
Welcome to the Still Rockin' ItPodcast where we'll have music
news, reviews and interviewswith some of our favourite
Australian musicians and artists.
We are joined in the Zoom roomtoday by a literal national
treasure.
This gentleman has releasedover 50 albums, 10 videos, 5

(00:21):
DVDs, 2 lyric books, has soldmore than five million albums in
Australia, has 28 golden guitartrophies at the Country Music
Awards, three ARIA Music Awards.
He's very modest.
He performed at the openingceremony of the Sydney 2000
Summer Olympics.
He was inducted into the ARIAHall of Fame in 2010.

(00:43):
We're chatting to none otherthan Mr True Blue, John
Williamson.
To catch up on podcasts fromother favourite artists, simply
go to thatradiochick.
com.
au.
You're with Cheryl Lee thatRadio Chick, and I'd like to
welcome to the show today alegend in his own lunchtime,
John Robert Williamson.

(01:03):
Thanks for joining us today,John.

John Williamson (01:06):
Same here, cheryl Lee, first time for us.

Cheryl Lee (01:09):
That's right.
We've got some exciting thingsto talk about a new tour, Deni
Ute Muster, all sorts of things,but if we can step back before
we step forward, that would begreat.
I usually ask where you gotyour inspiration and if you're
from a musical family, if it'sin your DNA.
But it's pretty obvious thatyou got your inspiration from

(01:31):
the area that you grew up in andfrom mum and dad who were great
lovers of a Gilbert andSullivan production.

John Williamson (01:38):
Oh, you got it all there.
The music that I used to hearon LPs was often musicals and
probably from America, but theyhad beautiful voices, my mum and
dad.
They were known in the districtso dad played the banjo in the
local band, which was all justvoluntary farmers really.
So whenever our family gottogether extended family there

(01:59):
would always be someone playingthe piano or playing the banjo
or something.
But the inspiration for thelatest album is two things.
As you're saying that, I'mthinking, what is it?
Well, firstly, it is the areathat I have up in Queensland.
I have an old dairy, an olddairy block, which I have my big
shed and do shows every yearjust in June, and uh.

(02:20):
And the other inspiration is mydate of birth.
I think you know I'm startingto think about like one song
that says I can't do what I usedto do.

Cheryl Lee (02:30):
You grew up in Quambatook in the Mallee
District, which is a little overtwo hours from where my husband
.
He's from a farming family, alittle place called Goroke.

John Williamson (02:40):
We were recently through all that Mallee
country with the New SouthWales Variety Bash.
I do that when I can with mywife, Meg and with a Holden ute.
Awesome, so we've been throughall that.
I had no idea how extended thewheat country was down there.
Actually, the form I took wasin the best of the Mallee, of
course, yeah, and being on theedge of it, I thank somebody for
the fact.

(03:00):
I was brought up in a greatlittle town and I had the
privilege of being a farmer'sson as well, so I had the best
of both really.

Cheryl Lee (03:08):
Yeah, you're the oldest of five sons, that's
right.
What about the other ,J, ohn?
Are they musical as well?

John Williamson (03:17):
Yeah, we're all musical, but I'm the only one
that sort of took it on.
We lost one with cancer.
That's what my song SalisburyStreet's all about.
But I have one brother still onthe land because we moved from
the Mallee up to between Moreyand Gundawinnie in north New
South Wales.

Cheryl Lee (03:32):
What would you have done, John, if this music thing
hadn't worked out for you?
Did you ever have a plan B?
Was the plan B the farm or Well, that was plan A.

John Williamson (03:43):
The music was plan B.
I was a farmer for seven years.

Cheryl Lee (03:48):
Yeah.

John Williamson (03:49):
Up there.
We moved up there when I was 19, up to Copper Creek, to be
exact, and beautiful land upthere it was richer than the
Mallee, so we had great funmoving into the new area and I
got a lot of songs out of thatas well, of course.
That's when I discovered howdiverse the bush is in Australia
and I've been discovering itever since, of course, touring
around the country and howdiverse the people are that are

(04:12):
really influenced by where theycome from.

Cheryl Lee (04:14):
You know you are listening to Still Rockin' it,
the podcast with Cheryl Lee,let's have that beautiful song,
Salisbury Street, that Johnwrote for his younger brother,
beautiful song, and then we'llbe back to speak some more to
John Williamson.

(04:43):
I guess the thing that kicked itall off for you, would you
agree, was that in 1969, whenyou wrote Old man Emu and won
the New Faces Talent Quest, oh,that was it.

John Williamson (04:54):
That's what got me off the track really.
That took me 16 years reallybefore I had a hit album that
was Mallee Boy.
All that time I was learning tobe an entertainer, which I
think is the most importantthing, for longevity is to be
able to put on a good show andmake people laugh and cry and be
proud of being Australian,Exactly right.

Cheryl Lee (05:12):
Speaking of Mallee Boy wowee, it peaked in the top
10 on the Kent Music Reportalbums chart, but it remained in
the top 50 for a year and ahalf.
That is longevity.

John Williamson (05:23):
It was number one on the main charts when it
first came out.
It probably is the album withthe most popular songs of mine.
Yeah.

Cheryl Lee (05:30):
Yeah.

John Williamson (05:31):
I do a lot of them in the show.
Still, you know, including TrueBlue.

Cheryl Lee (05:35):
And the Triple Platinum as well.
Congratulations.
That True Blue song, you know.
It really has been ingrainedinto the Australian psyche,
hasn't it?
Australian Made campaign usedit for their ads?
Yeah, the national cricket team.

John Williamson (05:49):
I think the Australian Made made it a hit
really, because they put so manygood pictures of great Aussies
and sheepdogs and all that.
Yeah, I couldn't have paid forall that.

Cheryl Lee (06:00):
Free advertising.

John Williamson (06:02):
They made all these film clips for me.

Cheryl Lee (06:03):
Yeah, well, that's the way to do it.
Good thinking, advertising 101,.

John Williamson (06:08):
Well, they made all these film clips for me.
.
Well done, yeah, I was sort ofcommissioned by John Singleton
to write True Blue.
He had the Labor Party's or BobHawke's account for advertising
, so he married the two together.

Cheryl Lee (06:19):
Just wanted to congratulate you.
I've got four pages of likeAPRA awards, aria awards, cmaa
awards we haven't got longenough to go through my awards,
Tamworth.

John Williamson (06:35):
The most important is the sale of CDs and
the streaming.
For me, because it means thegeneral public are approving of
my songs.
The other sort of it's thepeers that vote rather than the
public, whereas the album isjust the public walking into the
shop and buying it.

Cheryl Lee (06:49):
Yeah.

John Williamson (06:50):
Streaming it or whatever.

Cheryl Lee (06:51):
Spending their hard earned on it.

John Williamson (06:53):
Yeah, as I said , that's the most gratifying
thing and people crying in thefront row on the show.

Cheryl Lee (06:59):
So I just wanted to congratulate you on your 1992
Member of the Order of AustraliaAward, well deserved.

John Williamson (07:05):
Oh, that's coming back.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
It's my 80th year this year.
I'll be 80 in November, so Inever thought I'd be still here.
But I'm still recording, stillwriting stuff.
But everything I'm doing fromnow on is the last time I'm
going to be there.
I really am slowing down.
But everything I'm doing fromnow on is the last time I'm
going to be there.

Cheryl Lee (07:27):
Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick,
cheryl Lee.
Let's listen, shall we, to thesong that started it all from
1969 and won the New Faces TV,talent Quest, old man Emu.
And then we're going to comeback and see if John Williamson
actually uses the R word.

John Williamson (07:55):
I want to pull out while I do a good job.
The Deni Ute muster have beenreally looking forward to that.
That's when I get an audienceof virtually all bushies and I
know, you know, I'll start witha mallee boy and they go off.
So I enjoy that.

Cheryl Lee (08:07):
Yeah, Hence the name of the tour 55 Years, my
Travellin' Days Are Done andwe'll talk about that in a
minute.
For the big 8-0, John, inNovember, is there a big party
planned?
Are you going to have acelebration?

John Williamson (08:19):
Yeah, well, my wife Meg is 70, so we've added
it together.
On having 150th birthday.

Cheryl Lee (08:26):
Oh, well done.
One last question before wemove on to the tour and the Deni
Ute muster, before we plug thatnow.
Yes, that's right, we've gotsome things we have to say.
We've been told by the boss.

John Williamson (08:37):
Oh really.

Cheryl Lee (08:38):
Okay, your daughters , Ami and Georgie, have they
followed you into the musicalrealm?

John Williamson (08:44):
Oh, Ami has.
You can look her up.
She does folk festivals andcruises.
She's got a beautiful voice.
In fact, if you want to play asong, play it.
There's a duet on the latestalbum with Ami.
You'll hear a beautiful voiceon that.
Waiting for the sun, I think

Cheryl Lee (08:58):
yeah, I'm just writing that down.
I will do that actually, thankyou, as we mentioned, brand-new
song Born with a ukulele in myhand.

John Williamson (09:07):
Oh, you got that.
That's not even on an album.
We go to Fiji every year afterour shed show.
It's a bit of a break,especially for Meg because she
does all the hard work toorganise the fans and all that
stuff.
Everybody on this island ofTokoriki plays ukuleles.
I warmed to them because that'swhat I started on when I was a
little kid, and so I wrote asong about.

(09:28):
You know, I was born with aukulele in my hand and they've
already performed it on theisland, but I'm going to send
them the recording to show themhow I think it should be
performed.

Cheryl Lee (09:38):
So that's the new single.
You've got a tour, startingnext month actually, and you're
going everywhere, man, all theway through to February of next
year.

John Williamson (09:47):
It's not that solid, though it's fairly spaced
out.
It's pretty pacey, isn't it?
It's not working that hard.

Cheryl Lee (09:54):
Get onto the Google-o-meter and track down
when John is going to be in yourtown with his Travellin' Days
Are Done Tour, as you say.
The Deni Ute Muster it's aninstitution.
Now, as you say, it's yourtarget audience, right?

John Williamson (10:10):
Yeah, this is the fourth one in the row.
They normally only ask everysecond one or third one, but I
guess, because I'm a bushy, itsort of fits the youth master
pretty well.

Cheryl Lee (10:18):
It sure does.
You know, there's 20,000attendees per year.
Lots of people come from.

John Williamson (10:23):
I think it makes me nervous.

Cheryl Lee (10:25):
Really popular, obviously, and very well
attended.
I think people, once they go, Ithink they keep going back,
just like you, John.

John Williamson (10:33):
Yeah, that's right, something like that.
Yeah, I'm not taking my utethis time, but I have a couple
of times.
I took an old what was it?
A 1951 old ute one year and Itook my bass ute there one year.
But I'm flying there this time,or flying and hiring.
This time I'll fly to Alburyand then hire a vehicle and get
there, looking forward to theDeni Ute Muster.

Cheryl Lee (10:53):
They still hold the Guinness Book of Records for the
greatest number of legallyparaded utes, so yours would
have been one of them.

John Williamson (11:00):
I didn't put it in the parade, I just had it
back stage.
They probably cheated andcounted my ute to get the record
.

Cheryl Lee (11:06):
Yeah, probably.
You know.
There's so much that goes on atthe Deni's Muster, apart from
the fabulous entertainmentincluding John there's camel
rides and silent discos andanimal farms and pig racing and
air shows whip cracking.
It's a real event, isn't it?

John Williamson (11:21):
It is.
It's a genuine country festival.

Cheryl Lee (11:25):
So do you think you'll do it again?

John Williamson (11:27):
I am saying it's travelling days.
If I just do one, you know Iget to.
You know it's hard to keep thefingers and the voice and
everything going if you're notworking reasonably solidly, you
know.
Oh yeah, you get quite nervous,worrying about something that's
a month away and nothing elsein between.
It's my last one.
I mean, that's what I'm saying.
I can't do a Farnham and keepcoming back.

Cheryl Lee (11:48):
No, you're not going to do a John Farnham and keep
coming back.
Honestly, people do need toeither get out to Deni and I
think you know it's nearly soldout, so you'd better get onto it
fast if you'd like to but alsocatch John at one of the dates
on his tours, because it couldvery well be the last time we
can catch you.

John Williamson (12:06):
I'm doing the Queensland coast for the last
time this year too.

Cheryl Lee (12:09):
Yeah, yeah A little bit in January and a little bit
in February.
Oh, Tamworth in January.

John Williamson (12:14):
Yeah, I'll do the last one in Tamworth at the
track, so catch that one.
That's a Friday, I think.

Cheryl Lee (12:20):
Oh, that would be awesome.
I might even see you down thefront there, John.

John Williamson (12:24):
Why do you ask?
See if I can make her cry it?

Cheryl Lee (12:26):
doesn't take much to make me cry, John.
I cry at a telecom ad.

John Williamson (12:30):
Oh, far beyond you.
You are listening to StillRockin' it the podcast with
Cheryl Lee.

Cheryl Lee (12:39):
Here's the song I think John's talking about when
he says the front row are cryingand you don't get any more
Aussie than this True Blue.
And then we're back to saygoodbye to John Williamson.
Just wanted to thank youpersonally for really being the

(13:00):
soundtrack of our lives and, youknow, representing the country
life which you know is thebackbone of Australia.
The farmers, guys in the bush.

John Williamson (13:10):
Oh, the women are the backbone.
I'll put that in the song.
I wrote a song called theBasher yeah, on the basher, and
I mentioned the women are thebackbone of the bush.
I had a great country mum, andshe kept us all together, kept
the old man together.

Cheryl Lee (13:24):
Behind every good man is a good woman right.

John Williamson (13:27):
That's it.

Cheryl Lee (13:29):
Thank you for all of the music over all of the years
and wish you all the best withthe upcoming tour and the single
.
Dare I say the R word, john,retirement is it.
Are you calling it Retirement?

John Williamson (13:43):
No, I'm not going to call it.
I've said my travelling daysare done.
That doesn't say my singingdays are done, that's true.
You know, I might keep the ShedShow going for a while on the
place up there in the mountains,the Gold Coast.
I might keep that going becauseI don't have to go anywhere.

Cheryl Lee (13:57):
Well, that's right, it will come to you.

John Williamson (13:58):
Do a dolly parton yeah.

Cheryl Lee (14:00):
So maybe semi-retirement might be more
accurate.

John Williamson (14:04):
Oh, I don't just travel.
The days are done.
That leaves it a bit open,really.
The tour before was the windingback.
See, that doesn't say I'm goingto stop either.
I think I'll always have alittle venue somewhere just to
keep, because it is a lot of funplaying music, and I'll
probably keep writing as well,as long as I can come up with a
good idea.

Cheryl Lee (14:22):
Yeah.

John Williamson (14:26):
When I'm in the mountains.
We also have an apartment inSydney, but when I'm in the
mountains, I'm only half an houraway from Lindsay Wellington's
studio and there's a lot of goodmusic around the Gold Coast, so
I'll probably record some moresongs, like I did with the
ukulele.
I recorded it on a Wednesdayand it was on radio on a Monday.

Cheryl Lee (14:41):
Well done.
Yeah, you're from the country.
No mucking around, straightinto it.
Good on you, and you heard itfirst here.
There's plenty more musicwhere that lot came from.
Thank you so much for spendingsome of your time with us this
morning.
We really appreciate having achat and we wish you all the
best for whatever the futureholds, john, and we hope to see

(15:02):
you down the front at a gigsometime very soon.

John Williamson (15:05):
Well, all the best to you too, Cheryl Lee.
Thank you so much Thanks forhaving me.

Cheryl Lee (15:09):
It's been a pleasure .
Have a great rest of your day.

John Williamson (15:11):
Thank you and you All.

Cheryl Lee (15:13):
Righty bye for now.
Still Rockin' It podcast withthat radio chick, cheryl Lee.
Now, at the request of John,we're going to play a song from
his album.
How Many Songs?
A beautiful duet Waiting forthe Sun with his daughter, Ami
Williamson.

(15:38):
You're with Cheryl Lee thatradio chick.
Thank you so much for joiningme on the Still Rocking it
podcast.
Hope to catch you again nexttime.
Get out when you can supportAussie music and I'll see you
down the front.