Biography

GRAEME CONNORS | BIOGRAPHY 2011

 

Songs are special. In a matter of minutes they can sum up your life, make you feel completely at home, or spark a wonderful memory.

Graeme Connors is someone who writes those kind of songs. As one of Australia’s most loved songwriters, he creates cinematic-style stories with music that we can hold on to; songs that somehow make sense of our lives even when we can’t.

On the musical landscape, he represents an artistic integrity with an ear to our collective pulse.

Dubbed a country and coastal artist, Graeme’s songs move effortlessly across genres ranging from folk, pop and contemporary to country, all the while using his personal style to serve the songs. Particularly embraced and awarded by the country music community – fans and musicians alike – Graeme never set out to make country music specifically, but his honest stories captured the imagination of the ‘heartland’ music lovers as comfortably as the general audience.

Unlike a lot of pop songs, Graeme’s songs go somewhere and tell a story, always ending with a life lesson, conclusion or resolution.

“When I start writing a new song, I never really know where it’s going to end up,” says the songwriter. “I often have a couple of really strong images and it goes from there.”

If experience is not what happens to you – but what you do with what happens to you, Graeme has wisely used every bit of experience to create songs which are meaningful, light-hearted, poignant or political. Regardless of their tone or style, they are always imbued with the beauty, depth and frailty of the human condition. He has an uncanny ability to simultaneously explore his own experiences in a song while talking your story too.
Graeme’s well-crafted songs have led to a distinguished career spanning more than 35 years and 17 albums, plus walls and mantelpieces full of awards. The award list includes 14 Gold Guitars, an ARIA award, two APRA songwriting awards, two American Song Festival Awards, two MO Awards for live performance, 12 Tamworth Songwriters Association Awards and a prestigious Songmaker accolade for contribution to Australian songwriting.

Highly respected by the Australian country music industry, in 2006 Graeme was inducted into the Tamworth Walk Of Fame and has been made a Tamworth Australia Day Ambassador by the Australia Day Council, has received the Centenary Medal in recognition of distinguished contribution to the entertainment industry and is a Rotary Foundation Paul Harris Fellow. He is also featured in the exceptional and highly-rating ABC TV documentary series Heart of Country.

As a songwriter with a unique perspective and an immediately recognisable style, and with quality writing and recording as his hallmark, this dedicated and talented artist has already proved his longevity.

Graeme’s new album, titled ‘At The Speed Of Life’, is due for release in August 2011.

 

 

Just a little bit of history…..

 

 

Unashamedly influenced by singer-songwriters like Randy Newman, Kris Kristofferson and John Prine, it was through Kristofferson’s songs that a young Graeme Connors learnt to ‘mean what you say and say what you mean’.

By the time he was 14, Graeme knew he, his guitar, and songs, were going to be lifelong companions. The Queensland-born boy loved live performance and was already singing with his own band.

In a career spanning almost four decades, he has released 17 albums and has written an extensive and impressive catalogue of songs for other artists, including John Denver, Jon English and Slim Dusty, as well as his own work.

The subjects of Graeme’s songs reach far and wide. From celebrating Australian images, ideas and stories to the internal landscape of personal emotions – but wherever he chooses to travel creatively, the voice of experience shines through.

“Looking back over my catalogue, Australia is a really important part of my songs,” says Graeme. “Most of my really successful songs have also had a strong Australian connection. At some level I think it was partly by design because I was looking for music that wasn’t overtly Australian and jingoistic.

“Randy Newman and John Prine inspired me because they wrote about the subtleties of American culture and I also wanted to explore who we were, to go a little deeper than ‘Up There Cazaly’. I wanted to celebrate Australian character without making it a parody.”

No matter what he’s writing about, whether it’s wild weekends in the city, capturing the landscape’s earthly delights, or the characters who inhabit the house next door, there is always something uniquely Australian about it.

Graeme achieved a first and early milestone in 1974 when as a hot new discovery he opened for Kris Kristofferson. The legendary American singer/songwriter was so impressed with Graeme he produced his debut album And When Morning Comes.

Successes over the next decade included co-writing Hot Town, a hit single for Jon English and becoming a favoured songwriter of the late Slim Dusty, who recorded 12 of Graeme’s songs including the 1989 Song of the Year, We’ve Done Us Proud, winning Graeme the first of 14 Golden Guitars. Graeme enjoyed a long musical friendship with late King of Australian Country and his family and was invited to sing Amazing Grace at the state funeral when Slim passed away in 2003.

It was the release of the evocative single A Little Further North, from the album North that really attracted attention to the writer’s extraordinary way with words and melodies. Released in 1988, North was an immediate success, setting Graeme on the path of building a solid fan base that has continued to grow throughout the years, largely through an extensive touring schedule which takes him all over Australia.

The prolific writer and recording artist followed North with his semi-autobiographical South of These Days (1989) and Tropicali (1991). He was also one of the first Australians paving the way for other local artists to head to Nashville for fresh inspiration. His 1993 visit led to The Return. Homeland was intended as a low-key custom recording but captured the imagination of fans and the industry and in 1995 he took home Golden Guitars for Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.
More recordings followed: The Here and Now (1995), The Road Less Travelled (1996), One of the Family (1997), (Graeme’s family-meets-Christmas album) – the brooding, evocative A Delicate Balance (1999) and closing the first chapter of his songwriting career with a Best Of album, called The Best Til Now.

The Simple Truth, taken from 2002’s This Is Life album, was one of several songs that heralded a shift in Graeme’s musical direction. With long time friend, co-producer, (and all round musical mastermind) Mark McDuff, the pair went to Nashville to work with famed studio musician and co-producer Bruce Bouton. The outstanding and critically-acclaimed This Is Life was a potent reminder that a true artist is always willing to explore change and is capable and unafraid of reinvention in the pursuit of excellence. Graeme filmed his first DVD called Up Close in 2003 and was quickly followed by So Far...and a Little Further – finally giving dedicated fans a visual recording of this celebrated artist in concert and documentary. Nashville called again in 2004 with the recording of The Moment. At a time when mainstream hits were packed with anthemic, rock-oriented electric guitars, Graeme swam against the tide with an inspiringly exquisite acoustic recording, described by some as his most personal work to date.

It’s All Good... More Of The Best was released in 2006 and featured four new songs and a selection of re-mixed and re-mastered personal favourites from Graeme’s extensive back catalogue. In the iTunes age it was the perfect way to introduce new listeners and remind his loyal fans of the timelessness of his music.

2007 saw Graeme take a sideways step to work once again with his old friends, Producer and Engineer of ‘The Return’, Andrew Richardson and Keith Walker. ‘The Last Supperteers...what happens when Graeme Connors meets the Fiddler Feast’ is a mostly rollicking collaboration with the one of Australia’s wildest and wackiest instrumental bands. Instigated by Andrew after touring with the band through Europe, the project was recorded spontaneously over a week at The White House - Andrew’s state of the art private studio in the Southern Highlands of NSW.

After a three year hiatus from the recording studio, during which he dedicated his energies to the development of BURP a Connors family restaurant in his home town of Mackay, Queensland - Graeme, with Producer Matt Fell, went back into the studio to record ‘Still Walking’. Little did they know that ‘Still Walking’ would lead Graeme and Matt back to the winners podium for Male Artist Of The Year and Album Of The Year 2011. In an ‘Australia’s Top Model’ moment confusion reigned temporarily with an incorrect announcement on the night - the media of course had a field day - but ultimately the Golden Guitars found their way into the hands of the rightful recipients.

May 2011 saw Graeme back in the studio with Matt Fell for ‘At The Speed Of Life’. The official launch will take place on Main Stage Gympie Muster Saturday August 27.

 

 

Graeme Connors’ career at a glance …Albums released

 

 

And When Morning Comes (1976)
North (1988)
South of These Days (1989)
Tropicali (1991)
The Return (1993)
Homeland (1993)
The Here and Now (1995)
The Road Less Travelled (1996)
One of the Family (1997)
A Delicate Balance (1999)
The Best … ’til now (2000)
This is Life (2002)
The Moment (2004)
It’s All Good…More Of The Best (2006)
The Last Supperteers (2007)
Still Walking (2010)
At The Speed Of Life (2011)

DVD - Up Close (2004)
DVD - Graeme Connors… So Far and a Little Further (2004)

Gold Albums
North
The Road Less Travelled
The Best … ’til now

Platinum Album
North