KEN Robertson has dedicated his life to music, despite having no musical talent.
The 87-year-old Swan Hill country writer has one accomplished record – for persistence.
“When I was 13 and living in Koondrook I started writing songs. They thought this child was an idiot because he didn’t drink or smoke,” Australia’s most prolific country music writer said in the backyard of his Swan Hill property, where he has established a studio.
“But, he was stupid enough to write songs, so he kept it a secret and from then I could just naturally write songs.
“I can’t read or write a note and I play guitar badly, but the whole thing just comes together like a mess. I have moved with the times, from cassette to CDs and associated recording technology.”
From his first song, Jingling Spurs, written by candlelight, Mr Robertson has gone onto write more than 3000 songs, produce 340 CDs currently on the market, wearing out six reel-to-reel tape decks in the process.
Many are about towns and historical events, while walls inside his studio are lined with albums about horses, trains, dogs, penguins, roses, tent boxing and circuses.
Now, after more than 70 years and countless industry awards, Mr Robertson’s production company, Pioneer Country Sounds, has been nominated for the Life Activities Clubs Victoria and Senior Achievement Award in the 2016 Victorian Regional Achievement and Community Awards.
“It’s an honour, but to me there are smarter men than me out there,” The Australian Country Music Hands of Fame inductee said.
“I don’t get carried away with awards, but I think, ‘okay, well it’s proven what I set out to do, to write songs and share stories of Australia’.
“Mentally I put a tune to them and write the words. It just seems to come to me, the writing and the music. I might write the last verse first. I set a scene for the start and then draw the listener in.”
Mr Robertson said he could be talking to someone and forming a song in his mind.
He works seven days a week, starting most days at 7am and working through to 4pm, aiming to write one song a day. And, despite suffering two strokes three years ago, being slightly blind and walking with a “bunged” knee, the brain-sharp writer’s next CD is due for release soon.
“We started off in the house, had a room up the front sound-proofed and were recording in the next room, and packing cassettes in the lounge,” the father of four said.
He said bagpipes in the bathroom “echo chamber” was the final act of patience from his wife, Josie, who ordered him out the back in the mercifully thick 20-centimetre walls.
During his teenage years, Mr Robertson left school to travel.
“Every town I went to I approached them about writing a story about the town, which they would sell,” he said.
The popularity of his songs spread, performed by other country music singers, including Dusty Rankin and Reg Poole.
In 1979, Mr Robertson was approached by a German recording studio to press and release and LP album called Ken Robertson’s Songs of Australia.
