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Joy McKean, the first winner of the Golden Guitar who was also the wife and manager of Slim Dusty, has died at the age of 93.
Key points:
- Joy McKean is being remembered for her talent, empathy and integrity
- She told the ABC that Slim Dusty insisted on giving her due credit during the "chauvinistic" 1950s
- She is survived by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
EMI Music announced her death after a long illness with cancer.
She died peacefully, surrounded by her family.
McKean was a multi-award-winning songwriter and musician who wrote many of her husband Slim Dusty's most famous songs.
She won the first Golden Guitar awarded at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in 1973 for the song Lights on the Hill.
The song was inspired by McKean's experience towing a heavy caravan up the then-notorious Devil's Pinch, near Guyra, on the New South Wales Northern Tablelands.
The trip on the New England Highway on a rainy night was made more difficult because the vehicle's headlight dimmer switch was on the floor near the brake and she could only use one foot because she was wearing a leg caliper.
"I'd have my high beam on to see where the next turn was, a truck would come over and I'd cop it fair in the eyes," McKean said.
"I knew if I took my foot off [the accelerator] for too long the vehicle would either stall or start slipping back because of the weight of the van."
The song came to her in the rhythm of the windscreen wipers and by the time she reached Warwick in southern Queensland it was complete.
McKean said when she first starting writing music in the 1950s the industry was "chauvinistic".
"Nobody would have believed I was writing [the songs]," she said.
"I said to Slim, 'We'll fix that — put your name on them.
"He said, 'No, I can't do that.'
"I said, 'Put both names on them' — and so that's what we did.
"Of course then there was a fuss that 'Slim didn't give her a lot of credit.'
"Oh, he gave me a lot of credit — don't you worry."
'The Queen of Country Music'
Alongside Slim Dusty she produced more than 100 albums, sold more than eight million albums and earned 45 Golden Guitars.
"She will be remembered as a pioneer in Australian music," the company statement said.
Loading...The Country Music Association of Australia said the singer-songwriter was the "Queen of Australian Country Music".
"Extraordinary songwriter, performer, partner," the organisation said in a statement.
"Joy leaves and incredible musical legacy which will live on forever."
Tamworth Country Music Festival co-founder, author and broadcaster Max Ellis first met McKean in the 1960s and said she had a deep understanding of the human condition.
"Working with Joy has been such a pleasure," he said.
"She was a person with enormous integrity, she was very practical.
"She was a person who really relates to other people so well, and many of her famous songs are about other people, of course — songs like The Biggest Disappointment and Kelly's offsider.
"She was very empathetic of others."
Mr Ellis said McKean was a "remarkable individual who was loved and respected by everyone who had anything to do with her".
"She will be sadly missed by the country music fraternity," he said.
'Never forget the legacy'
Country music singer/songwriter Beccy Cole first met Joy McKean in the early 90s as a teenager.
Loading..."I felt like I was in the presence of royalty," she said.
"Well, it was — country music royalty, and Slim gave me my first ever award and Joy shook my hand."
A year later and McKean and Dusty invited Cole to go on the road with them.
"I have such fond memories of those times," Cole said.
"The thing I learnt is they are just about the people, they were always about making sure that everybody felt great and were thoroughly entertained."
Cole said the couple took a young Keith Urban on the road with them the year before the tour she joined.
"Their tradition of helping up-and-coming young artists has run through the country music industry — we help the younger ones because [they] helped us," she said.
Cole said McKean had a huge impact on her as an emerging artist.
"Her business head was fantastic, very intelligent and very creative," she said.
But as many attest, it was McKean's empathy that enabled her to write with such depth.
"The beautiful lyrics of a song like Grandfather Johnson and Biggest Disappointment — I believe Joy and Slim did more for reconciliation than any politician," Cole said.
"We will never forget the legacy that they have given us."
'Thank you Joy'
McKean and her children played a significant role in the creation of the Slim Dusty Centre on the NSW Mid North Coast.
"She pushed and made sure that this happened and she had a huge support from her family," Kemspey Shire Council Mayor Leo Hauville said.
"It's no small measure that Slim Dusty and Joy McKean were the major contributors to what we now have in our local community and the Australian-wide country music scene."
Golden Guitar and ARIA award-winner Fanny Lumsden took to social media to pay tribute to the icon.
Lumsden said she would "draw strength" from McKean as she continued to play her music in halls throughout regional Australia.
"Thank you Joy," she wrote.
McKean is survived by her children, Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.