How Controversy Will Save Country Music

The Tamworth Country Music Festival is truly one of Australia's great musical events, but if it is to continue to do well, country music needs to do well – right now there's a few suggestions it's not.

Everyone's a mate at Tamworth. Conversations are repeatedly struck-up and beers are regularly opened with people you've never met before. Everyone gets a nod as you pass in the street. Every artist has a crowd, every busker an applause. It's comfortable, welcoming and laid back. And that comfort may be what's wrong with country music at the moment.

The Tamworth Regional Council is working hard to attract new and younger audiences to the festival because it knows the country audience is aging. The highlight of the Toyota Park shows was not the 10,000 who showed up for Troy Cassar-Daley & Adam Harvey, nor the 5,000 who saw Lee Kernaghan round off the Toyota Star Maker competition, but the 8,000 who watched We The Ghosts, Bec & The Big River Trio, Mustered Courage and The McClymonts on Australia Day. It was a truly eclectic line-up of country's sub-genres and levels of experience.

But perhaps even more pressing than its ageing audience is the old-school industry behind it.

Ahead of the festival – which is run by the council – the Golden Guitar Awards, which is run by the cumbersome CMAA [Country Music Association of Australia], were plunged into controversy. It was sparked when John Williamson suggested the scene was becoming too 'American', that not enough Australian artists were paying enough respect to the songs and singers of our land.

But what is the Australian country sound? The scene is so diverse at the moment, that there it's incredibly hard to pin down. We take a lot of our dues from the Americans, and even the beloved bush ballads are an offshoot of Americana.

That conversation is now happening behind the scenes, and it's a healthy one. Industry people have made new connections, a few have grand ideas and young artists will walk from this Tamworth with a greater understanding of the chaenge in front of them.

This is how country awards open – with the Australian anthem

“We must always keep in touch with our roots, otherwise the tree will fall over,” John Williamson told theMusic.com.au. “The thing is to be yourself and realise that the things in your heart are unique. You don't have to copy anybody else, but just think about what you love and obviously if you're in country music in Australia you probably love the land, love the country and the people in it… anything that touches your heart will touch other people's art.”

That raises one of the biggest issues facing country music, the fact that they're struggling to break out of its existing scene. The problem is, that while the young artists would love to reach more of the music-loving population, are there enough young behind-the-scene industry people who are willing to innovate their way into new markets?

The struggle country faces was most obvious during the tense country radio music seminar, where commercial radio boss Joan Warner told industry representatives that there wasn't enough advertising backing for the big stations to play country radio.

“Perhaps artists labelled 'country' puts artists into a category with an image problem,” she said. “That's my opinion… From a commercial radio [stance] we've never had a successful format with a country station.”

The seminar looked to discover ways to get artists onto country music. The problem was the room was mainly filled with representatives from community radio. “Country isn't dead,” they said. “Community radio is the heartbeat of the country scene,” they argued. “Who is she to tell us that we need commercial radio?” they thought. It descended into two and a half hours of tension and misguided questions, neither of which addressed the questions that really should be asked.

Classic Tamworth weather

The fact is country is a genre that sponsorship does get behind – Toyota, Lion Nathan's XXXX Gold, Telstra all have strong presences on the ground – so why is Warner finding that there's none in metro markets? Why can't young artists pull crowds in the metro areas? If the existing alt.country, bluegrass, folk and other scenes in metro areas admit that they're a little bit country, wouldn't that make the market visible to those key marketing decision makers? How can the scene push new artists into mall metro rooms?

From Tamworth's experiences there are more great young musical talents than there are great young industry talents – but if there's lots of kids with country music flowing through their veins, why aren't they taking the time to learn about the industry?

There's also the issue of quality control. Too often throughout the festival did the country media praise every artist they came across to the heavens. Instead of asking questions that challenged and confronted, they praised and heralded – repeatedly. Even in music, competition is good – both for the artform and the business.

Jayne Denham has her own truck

“I think keeping your loyal fanbase happy is incredibly important, but we need to open it up,” singer Catherine Britt, who is now the poster girl for Universal's new label Lost Highway, told theMusic.

“Country music, I feel, will always just be looked at as really uncool in Australia and that needs to change. I think we tend to do everything ten years after America and if you look at the American scene country music is massive. It's by far the biggest genre, they are the biggest touring acts, they've got the most radio stations and what-not – so that to be hopefully shows what our future looks like.”

Williamson said that there was no reason why artists can't play the metro markets.

“I think it's a matter of the songs – if your songs relate to all Australians you'll get those sort of gigs. I guess it's not just singing about country people, not just truckies and drovers, there are songs to be written about Australia for our people generally… If you think of a song like Cootamundra Wattle, that gets to all kinds of people and that's where you get to be acknowledged in the city.”

New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell told theMusic, “I think country music reminds us the soul of this country, for those people who live in the cities in particular it reconnects us with the country, reminds us of what's important and hopefully it gives us the confidence to continue as a nation.”

Sara Storer on the awards red carpet

Williamson tried to avoid the controversy at Awards ceremony, which, despite CMAA criticisms, was one of the highlights of the festival. Marking the tenth anniversary of Slim Dusty's passing, his spirit was everywhere (in the winners and the performances) but so too was the diversity. Performances from the Adam Eckersley Band, Mustered Courage, Jasmine Rae, Ashleigh Dallas, Kaylee Bell, Kaylens Rain, Dean Perrett, The Wolfe Brothers and Sara Storer showed off what the scene most desperately needs to - its range of genres and styles.

Joy McKean flanked by David and Anne Kirkpatrick – Slim Dusty's family talks to media

“I think there's been a lot of miscommunication in the media about country music and what country music is,” Baylou's Barbara Baillie told theMusic. “I believe for country music to stay alive in Australia, because of our population, we do need to evolve. But what we do need to also take into consideration is respecting our roots and respecting where country music came from.”

The controversy had prompted Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey to withdraw their The Great Country Songbook album from contention, but that didn't stop them on the night. Both performing during a Slim Dusty tribute, Cassar-Daley was named Producer Of The Year – an award not tied to a specific release.

This vandalised bus stop with Troy Cassar-Daley's face on it seemed to sum up the pre-festival mood

“I was wrapped to see Troy recongised as the great producer that he is,” Lee Kernaghan, who picked up four awards on the night said. “The generosity of spirit that he showed, and Adam showed, in joining their mates in music here at the awards – after all the controversy they were still here performing, presenting and closing the show with a fantastic finale. I hold them in the highest esteem.”

Lee Kernaghan with Star Maker contestants Jared Porter and Tori Darke

Country music has become too comfortable and that's what a controversial discussion needs to fix. It needs to shock the genre out of its slumber.

That said, the Tamworth festival will hopefully remain as comfortable as it can from a punter's point of view. The sheer weight of free (and ticketed) gigs around the town makes it impossible to see anywhere near all of the things one plans to, but you end up discovering something every day. You can approach the event fully-planned, but the majority opt to find a spot and stick with it. The majority of people won't pay for a ticket all week, given how much is available for free.

And even though the festival is spread out over a much larger distance than a BIGSOUND or WAM Saturday Spectacular is, there's enough public transport options to handle that – even if most drive.

Not an operational issue to be noted, and only two reports by police were issued during the festival's run.

The council have the festival down pat, and the CMAA threw a great awards. If that kind of diligence can be applied to the other areas of the scene, then it'll be a good next decade indeed.

Punters pile into the Longyard

And would the Premier like to see country recognition in Sydney?

“Well yeah, except I think we're doing it pretty well here,” O'Farrell told theMusic. “This injects $22 million into the local economy, it brings something like 35,000 visitors here – it can't always be about Sydney. As much as Sydney's important to the state, Tamworth will always be not just the country music capitol of New South Wales, but Australia.”

Sydney's All Our Exes Live In Texas played ten shows over two days, and kidnapped some children

theMusic.com.au missed this. We're gutted.

All pictures taken on a Nokia Lumia 1020

Article altered to correct typos in Tori Darke and Barbara Baillie's names, as well as Cootamundra Wattle