![]() ![]() ![]() Also a fine singer, his vocals nod to the gentle ease of Western swing greats such as Tommy Duncan. Stuie became a monster player with chops that sublimely meld the virtuosity and instinct of jazz with the clear tone and restraint of American hillbilly roots music. He was a mechanic and didn’t have much money, but he bought me a guitar.” Then in the mid-70s, my brother went and bought me an electric. “The guitar was so prominent and dominant on those records that I just wanted to learn it,” Stuie says. He felt drawn to the guitar and his father and big brother’s old Johnny Cash records. Two of the pair’s original songs––“Gone for All Money” and “Pretty Katalina”––were also featured on the wildly popular Australian television drama A Place to Call Home. The Golden Guitars have recognized both their singing and playing: In 2013, the couple earned their first trophy together for Best Alternative Country Album of the Year, while in 2017, Stuie received Best Instrumental Album honors for his stunning Axe to Swing. They earned three Australian Golden Guitar Awards––that country’s equivalent to the CMAs. Touring over the last almost 20 years as Camille and Stuie, the duo became beloved in Australia. “We’ve always done that––and we won’t change.” Camille is reflecting on a two-decade long career with her husband Stuie at the family’s home since 2019 in Nashville, oceans away from their childhood worlds where they both fell in love with country music and ultimately, mastered it. “We’ve just stayed true to who we are and what we do,” mother Camille French says. “The French Family Band are simply great musicians and singers who know what a good song and a good sound means! They are as pure as music can be. That’s why when The French Family launch into the bittersweet ache of a classic or the startling tenderness of one of their self-penned original songs, the hairs on country music loving necks stand up, and we instinctively––sometimes tearfully––recognize this father, mother, and son as the real thing. That’s where it all began: mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all huddled together, picking and singing on a porch in the twilight. Country music just sounds better when a family sings it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |