Denise Morrison - Denise Morrison (Reissue) (2014)

She was born in Tamworth Base Hospital and raised in Kootingal the daughter of a chook farmer…..in the years to follow, it is pretty obvious that Deniese was never a chicken. In the music business, particularly in a business so dominated by men, Deniese had to stand up and be counted. It didn’t take her long. At the age of 10, John Minson (Mr Hoedown), invited her up on the stage at Kootingal Town Hall to sing at a Johnny Ashcroft concert. At the age of 13, she started performing with the Geoff Brown Showband. Gary and Rob Brown played in the band along with Frank Jones, who was also Phil and Tommy Emmanuel’s school teacher.

At the age of 16, she won the female vocal section of the Capital Country Music Association’s Jamboree, (which was the forerunner to the Golden Guitar Awards and the Tamworth Country Music Festival ), narrowly beating a talented young singer from Melbourne, Karan Johns. A young radio announcer, Alan Clement, came to Tamworth to work at 2TM and gathered a few of kids together to form Teenage Country Style. Lawrie Minson and Gary Brown were also members of this little troupe.

When Max Ellis and the 2TM team staged the first Australasian Country Music Awards at the Tamworth Town Hall in 1973, Teenage Country Style performed along with Smoky Dawson, Shirley Thoms and Buster Noble. And so it began, the start of bigger things. Deniese was there from the beginning of an Australian Country Music phenomenon in her home town. Or to be precise, she was there before it all started.

The next paragraph is typical of Deniese. These are her words: “Signed a contract with Fable Records and released my first single “NO CHARGE”, produced by Doug Trevor. Molly Meldrum wrote in TV Week that “No Charge” was the worst record he’d heard all year, but it made the charts of the day and I was pretty chuffed about that!”

She went to University and flew to Melbourne in the holidays to record her album, in some ways, originally titled 'Denise Morrison' because that was not the correct spelling of her name! Deniese also managed to play with Gary Brown, Phil Emmanuel and Nev Nichols at Kings Cross on the weekends.

“The Australian Newspaper offered me a cadetship at the same time as Wally Bishop gave me the chance to tour Australia on “The Greyhound Country Music Express” with Johnny Chester, The Hawking Brothers and Lee Conway.” She goes on to mention a pretty big gig at The Sydney Opera House in 1975 followed by a command concert performance for then Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser in Canberra. After recording some songs which were produced by John Williamson, she made an interesting move by becoming resident singer/compere six nights a week at Wrest Point Casino in Hobart.

The 80’s came around: “Television shows with Mike Walsh, Don Lane, Ernie Sigley, Bert Newton, Reg Lindsay’s Country Homestead, Travelin’ Out West with John Williamson, Conway Country with Lee, Country Closeup with Nick and That’s Australia.” “Nick Erby’s Jamboree tour saw Nick, John Williamson, Allan Caswell, Pixie and I off around Oz again. In 1990 she won the Golden Guitar for Female Vocalist of the Year with ''You’ve Gotta Learn to Dance''.