Thursday 21 January 2010
She’s Tamworth’s favourite country music daughter but Felicity Urquhart has a new star spot at the home base of the Golden Guitars today.
Felicity and fellow festival great Adam Brand are the newest celebrity stars to have a permanent home in the Galaxy of Stars at TRECC.
The Tamworth salute earlier this morning puts Felicity and Adam with some special festival superstars in the TRECC forecourt.
The galaxy began as a civic celebration by Tamworth Regional Council in 2000 to honour our Australian country music stars and now has 15 in the collection.
Festival co-founder Max Ellis hosted the ceremony and shining up under the feet of hundreds of fans there for the salute were the bronze medallion pavers of Slim Dusty, Lee Kernaghan, Arthur Blanch, John Williamson, Gina Jeffreys, Graeme Connors, Smoky Dawson, Joy McKean, Jimmy Little, Troy Cassar-Daley, James Blundell and Beccy Cole.
Max Ellis described Felicity as a homegrown busker who had gone on to do incredible things but still call Tamworth home. A former junior Tamworth Australia Day Award winner for her charity work, she fills in for John Nutting on ABC Radio’s Saturday Night Country and is a travel presenter on Channel Seven’s Sydney Weekender.
“It takes an extraordinary artist to emerge on each album with a fresh, original and dynamic sound yet at the same time stay completely true to herself. But integrity is a vital part of Felicity’s music,” Ellis said.
“It’s not surprising that she is so grounded, yet so comfortable stretching the boundaries. She’s an artist who’s at ease in her own skin. For her, recording her new Album, Landing Lights was a chance to do what she loves most — making music — in between a hectic schedule that includes being the face of The Heart of Country for Tourism NSW.
Felicity has supported John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in concert, and recently toured Australia with international music icon Kenny Rogers. She had been busy songwriting with some of Australia’s leading writers over the past year, including James Blundell, James Reyne, Ross Wilson and Nick Barker.
Ellis said Adam Brand first burst onto the Tamworth festival scene and had left his stamp on Australian country music.
“In that time he’s collected a dozen Golden Guitars — including two for Male Vocalist — and many other major awards,” said Ellis.
“He’s seen three of his albums go platinum, two go gold, and released two gold DVDs. He’s built one of the largest and most dedicated fan bases in the country, and established a reputation as a powerful, passionate and dynamic performer. Most recently, he picked up the Male Artist of the Year Golden Guitar and on the same night took out the CMC Oz Artist of the Year Award, voted by the fans, for the third consecutive year, making him the winner of every CMC award so far.”