Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. Townsville is Australia's largest urban centre north of the Sunshine Coast, with a population of 173,815 as of the 2016 Australian census. Considered the unofficial capital of North Queensland by locals, Townsville hosts a significant number of governmental and major business administrative offices for the northern half of the state, it is in the dry tropics region of Queensland, adjacent to the central section of the Great Barrier Reef. The city is a major industrial centre, home to one of the world's largest zinc refineries, a nickel refinery and many other similar activities; the Port of Townsville is being expanded to allow much larger cargo ships from Asia and the world's largest passenger ships to visit. It is an important port due to its proximity to Asia and major trading partners such as China. Popular attractions include "The Strand", a long tropical beach and garden strip; such indigenous groups as the Wulgurukaba, Girrugubba and Nawagi, among others inhabited the Townsville area.
The Wulgurukaba claim to be the traditional owner of the Townsville city area. James Cook visited the Townsville region on his first voyage to Australia in 1770, but did not land there. Cook named Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. In 1819, Captain Phillip Parker King and botanist Alan Cunningham were the first Europeans to record a local landing. In 1846, James Morrill was shipwrecked from the Peruvian, living in the Townsville area among the Bindal people for 17 years before being found by white men and returned to Brisbane; the Burdekin River's seasonal flooding made the establishment of a seaport north of the river essential to the nascent inland cattle industry. John Melton Black of Woodstock Station, an employee of Sydney entrepreneur and businessman Robert Towns, dispatched Andrew Ball, Mark Watt Reid and a detachment of 8 troopers of the Native Police under the command of John Marlow to search for a suitable site. Ball's party reached the Ross Creek in April 1864 and established a camp below the rocky spur of Melton Hill, near the present Customs House on The Strand.
Edward Kennedy, a member of the surveying party, recalls the Native Police chasing local tribesmen into the ocean and'pumping lead' at them. On the return journey to Port Denison, the group'dispersed' another aboriginal clan, rounding up fifteen women'who remained at the scene of combat' and abducted them back to the barracks. No mention is made of the fate of any children; the first party of settlers, led by W. A. Ross, arrived at Cleveland Bay from Woodstock Station on 5 November of that year. In 1866 Robert Towns visited for his first and only visit, he agreed to provide ongoing financial assistance to the new settlement and Townsville was named in his honour. Townsville was declared a municipality in February 1866, with John Melton Black elected as its first Mayor. Townsville developed as the major port and service centre for the Cape River, Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields. Regional pastoral and sugar industries expanded and flourished. Townsville's population was 4,000 people in 1882 and grew to 13,000 by 1891.
In 1901 Lord Hopetoun made a goodwill tour of northern Australia and accepted an invitation to open Townsville's town hall, occasioning the first vice-regal ceremonial unfurling of the Australian national flag. With Brisbane, in 1902 Townsville was proclaimed a City under the Local Authorities Act; the foundation stone of the Townsville Cenotaph was laid in Strand Park on 19 July 1923. It was unveiled on 25 April 1924 by Sir Matthew Nathan; the rural land surrounding the city was managed by the Thuringowa Road Board, which became the Shire of Thuringowa. The shire ceded land several times to support Townsville's expansion. In 1986 the Shire became incorporated as a city, governed by the Thuringowa City Council; the cities of Townsville and Thuringowa were amalgamated into the "new" Townsville City Council in March 2008, as part of the Queensland state government's reform program. In 1896, Japan established its first Australian consulate in Townsville to serve some 4,000 Japanese workers who migrated to work in the sugar cane, trochus, beche de mer, pearling industries.
With the introduction of the White Australia policy, the demand for Japanese workers decreased, causing the consulate to close in 1908. During the Second World War, the city was host to more than 50,000 American and Australian troops and air crew, it became a major staging point for battles in the South West Pacific. A large United States Armed Forces contingent supported the war effort from seven airfields and other bases around the city and in the region; the first bombing raid on Rabaul, in Papua New Guinea, on 23 February 1942 was carried out by six B-17s based near Townsville. Some of the units based in Townsville were: No. 3 Fighter Sector RAAF, Wulguru & North Ward 1 Wireless Unit, Pimlico & Stuart & Roseneath North Eastern Area Command HQ, Sturt Street Castle H
Queensland
Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland; the state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres. As of 15 May 2018, Queensland has a population of 5,000,000, concentrated along the coast and in the state's South East; the capital and largest city in the state is Australia's third-largest city. Referred to as the "Sunshine State", Queensland is home to 10 of Australia's 30 largest cities and is the nation's third-largest economy. Tourism in the state, fuelled by its warm tropical climate, is a major industry. Queensland was first inhabited by Torres Strait Islanders.
The first European to land in Queensland was Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606, who explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula near present-day Weipa. In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain; the colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788 by Governor Arthur Phillip at Sydney. Queensland was explored in subsequent decades until the establishment of a penal colony at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley. Penal transportation ceased in 1839 and free settlement was allowed from 1842; the state was named in honour of Queen Victoria, who on 6 June 1859 signed Letters Patent separating the colony from New South Wales. Queensland Day is celebrated annually statewide on 6 June. Queensland was one of the six colonies which became the founding states of Australia with federation on 1 January 1901; the history of Queensland spans thousands of years, encompassing both a lengthy indigenous presence, as well as the eventful times of post-European settlement.
The north-eastern Australian region was explored by Dutch and French navigators before being encountered by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. The state has witnessed frontier warfare between European settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, as well as the exploitation of cheap Kanaka labour sourced from the South Pacific through a form of forced recruitment known at the time as "blackbirding"; the Australian Labor Party has its origin as a formal organisation in Queensland and the town of Barcaldine is the symbolic birthplace of the party. June 2009 marked the 150th anniversary of its creation as a separate colony from New South Wales. A rare record of early settler life in north Queensland can be seen in a set of ten photographic glass plates taken in the 1860s by Richard Daintree, in the collection of the National Museum of Australia; the Aboriginal occupation of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait, became divided into over 90 different language groups.
During the last ice age Queensland's landscape became more arid and desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. This led to the world's first seed-grinding technology. Warming again made the land hospitable, which brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the state's tropical rainforests. In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa, on the western shore of Cape York; this was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia, it marked the first reported contact between European and Aboriginal Australian people. The region was explored by French and Spanish explorers prior to the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of the United Kingdom on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming Eastern Australia, including Queensland,'New South Wales'; the Aboriginal population declined after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century. In 1823, John Oxley, a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone and Moreton Bay.
At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River. He established a settlement at what is now Redcliffe; the settlement known as Edenglassie, was transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre. Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839 transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842 free settlement was permitted. In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port; the first free immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay was the Artemisia, in 1848. In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton. A war, sometimes called a "war of extermination", erupted between Aborigines and settlers in colonial Queensland; the Frontier War was notable for being the most bloody in Australia due to Queensland's larger pre-contact indigenous population when compared to the other Australian colonies. About 1,500 European settlers and their alli
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form, originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1870s by African Americans from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs and the folk music of white Americans of European heritage. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and rhymed simple narrative ballads; the blues form, ubiquitous in jazz and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, it was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, a longer concluding line over the last bars.
Early blues took the form of a loose narrative relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa; the origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is dated to after the ending of slavery and the development of juke joints, it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century; the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience white listeners.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music. The term Blues may have come from "blue devils", meaning sadness; the phrase blue devils may have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, "it came to mean a state of agitation or depression." By the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics the phrase is used to describe a depressed mood, it is in this sense of a sad state of mind that one of the earliest recorded references to "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862.
She was a free-born black from Pennsylvania, working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and noted a number of songs, such as Poor Rosy, that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs; the lyrics of early traditional blues verses often consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the so-called "AAB" pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, a longer concluding line over the last bars. Two of the first published blues songs, "Dallas Blues" and "Saint Louis Blues", were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure.
W. C. Handy wrote; the lines are sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody. Early blues took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced his or her "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, hard times"; this melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. The lyrics relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Rising High Water Blues" tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927: "Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine."Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could be humorous and raunchy: "Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, get your big legs off of m
Corey Harris
Corey Harris is an American blues and reggae musician residing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Along with Keb' Mo' and Alvin Youngblood Hart, he raised the flag of acoustic guitar blues in the mid-1990s, he was featured on the 2003 PBS television mini-series, The Blues, in an episode directed by Martin Scorsese. Harris was raised near Denver, Colorado, he graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine with a bachelor's degree in 1991, was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2007. Harris received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for language studies in Cameroon in his early twenties, before taking a teaching post in Napoleonville, Louisiana under the Teach For America program, his debut solo album Between Midnight and Day was produced by composer/producer Larry Hoffman, who discovered him in 1994 in Helena, AR. The record included covers of Sleepy John Estes, Fred McDowell, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, Booker White. In 2002, Harris collaborated with Ali Farka Toure on his album Mississippi to Mali, fusing blues and Toure's music from northern Mali.
In 2003, he contributed to the Northern Blues release Johnny's Blues: A Tribute To Johnny Cash. Harris has lived and traveled in West Africa, an influence that has permeated much of his work. Harris has toured extensively throughout Europe, West Africa and Australia, he is known for his solo acoustic work as well as his electric band known as the'5 x 5'. His current band is known as the Rasta Blues Experience, he helped Billy Bragg and Wilco to write the music for "Hoodoo Voodoo" on Mermaid Avenue, an album consisting of songs for which the lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie. He appeared as a musician and vocalist on the album and its sequel, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II. In September 2007, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced that Harris was among 24 people named MacArthur Fellows for 2007; the Fellowship, worth $500,000, is payable over five years. 1995: Between Midnight and Day 1997: Fish Ain't Bitin 1999: Greens from the Garden 2000: Vu-Du Menz 2001: Live at Starr Hill 2002: Downhome Sophisticate 2003: Mississippi to Mali 2005: Daily Bread 2007: Zion Crossroads 2009: blu.black 2011: Father Sun Mother Earth 2012: Believe 2012: Motherless Child 2013: Fulton Blues 2013: Rasta Blues Experience Live 2014: Fulton Blues 2015: Live! from Turtle Island 1998: Mermaid Avenue 2000: Mermaid Avenue Vol. II 2003: Johnny's Blues: A Tribute To Johnny Cash 2005: Come to the Mountain: Old Time Music for Modern Times Official website Corey Harris at Allmusic Speech by Corey Harris at Bates College
Troy Cassar-Daley
Troy Cassar-Daley is a country musician from New South Wales, Australia. Troy Cassar-Daley is regarded as one of Australian country music’s finest singer/songwriters, he is a hugely successful artist, much adored by country music fans across Australia. Troy is well known for his generosity and is well respected by his peers and the greater music industry. All of this is reflected on a mainstream level by the many industry awarded accolades for his work as a successful recording artist. Cassar-Daley has released 11 studio albums over 30 years. Throughout this time he has been awarded numerous accolades including 4 ARIA’s, 33 Golden Guitars, 9 Deadlys, 4 CMAA Entertainer of the Year awards plus 2 NIMA's. In 2017 Troy was the 50th inductee into the prestigious Australian Roll of Renown. Cassar-Daley was born in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills to a Maltese-Australian father and an Aboriginal mother. At a young age, he moved with his mother to Grafton in north-eastern New South Wales. At eleven, Troy went to the Tamworth Country Music Festival and returned the next year to busk on the streets.
At 16 he and his band, Little Eagle, were touring the North Coast of New South Wales and he made the top 10 in Tamworth's Star Maker quest. He won the 1986 "Search for a Star" competition and toured with Brian Young for seven months in which he began to develop his songwriting skills. After returning home he replaced James Blundell as leader of country music band The Blue Heeler Band; the first single "Dream Out Loud" was released on 24 October 1994 by Sony Music and reached number-one on the Australian country music charts. The album was released in January 1995 and Troy won the 1995 ARIA Award for Best Country Record. At the 1996 Country Music Awards, in Tamworth, Troy won Best Male Vocalist, he made a cameo appearance in the motion picture Race the Sun in which he performed a song in a bar scene. In June that year Troy was part of the Australian Country Music Showcase in Nashville; the Showcase included Gina Jeffreys and Tommy Emmanuel. As a result, Troy returned to the States to record his new album True Believer with Steve Dorff.
Troy Cassar-Daley partnered up with Kate Ritchie for the singing competition It Takes Two aired on Seven Network in 2006. In May 2007 Troy re-appeared on the same show, this time partnered with Krystal Forscutt, a former contestant on Network Ten's Big Brother program; the same year, Troy was featured in Wiggles music videos for the songs "Old Dan Tucker" and "Turkey in the Straw". Cassar-Daley performed the national anthem at the 2003 NRL grand final. Cassar-Daley with Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson played together at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 14 March 2009 for Sound Relief, a proposed multi-venue rock music concert in support of relief for the Victorian Bushfire Crisis; the event was held with another concert taking place at the Sydney Cricket Ground. All the proceeds from the Melbourne Concert went to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Relief Appeal. Troy is married to radio and television presenter Laurel Edwards with whom he has two children and Jem.. Cassar-Daley had been nominated for 10 awards.
Cassar-Daley had been nominated for 12 awards, winning 4 at the ARIA Music Awards The Country Music Awards of Australia is an annual awards night held in January during the Tamworth Country Music Festival, celebrating recording excellence in the Australian country music industry. Csasar-Daley has won 34 awards.
Government of Queensland
The Government of Queensland referred to as the Queensland Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended from time to time. Since the Federation of Australia in 1901, Queensland has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Constitution of Australia regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth. Under the Australian Constitution, Queensland ceded legislative and judicial supremacy to the Commonwealth, but retained powers in all matters not in conflict with the Commonwealth. Key state government offices are located at 1 William Street in the Brisbane central business district; the Government of Queensland operates under the Westminster system, a form of parliamentary government based on the model of the United Kingdom. The Governor of Queensland, as the representative of Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, holds nominal power, although in practice only performs ceremonial duties.
The Parliament of Queensland holds legislative power, while executive power lies with the Premier and Cabinet, judicial power is exercised by a system of courts and tribunals. The Parliament of Queensland is the state's legislature, it consists of Her Majesty The Queen, a single chamber. Queensland is the only Australian state with a unicameral parliament after a second chamber, the Legislative Council, was abolished in 1922; the Legislative Assembly has 93 members. Elections for the Legislative Assembly are held every four years; the Cabinet of Queensland is the government's chief policy-making organ, consists of the Premier and all ministers. The Queensland Government delivers services, determines policy and regulations, including legal interpretation, by a number of agencies grouped under areas of portfolio responsibility; each portfolio is led by a government minister, a member of the Parliament. As of April 2016 there were nineteen lead agencies, called government departments, that consist of: Department of the Premier and Cabinet Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services Department of Education and Training Department of Energy and Water Supply Department of Environment and Heritage Protection Queensland Health Department of Housing and Public Works Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning Department of Justice and Attorney-General Department of National Parks and Racing Department of Natural Resources and Mines Queensland Police Service and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation Department of State Development Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland Treasury Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth GamesA range of other agencies support the functions of these departments.
The judiciary of Queensland consists of the Magistrates Court, the District Court, the Supreme Court, as well as a number of smaller courts and tribunals. The Chief Justice of Queensland is the state's most senior judicial officer; the Magistrates Court is the lowest tier of the judicial hierarchy of Queensland. The court's criminal jurisdiction covers summary offences, indictable offences which may be heard summarily, but all criminal proceedings in Queensland begin in the Magistrates Court if they are not within this jurisdiction. For charges beyond its jurisdiction, the court conducts committal hearings in which the presiding magistrate decides, based on the strength of the evidence, whether to refer the matter to a higher court or dismiss it; the court's civil jurisdiction covers matters in which the amount in dispute is less than or equal to $150,000. Appeals against decisions by the Magistrates Court are heard by the District Court; the District Court is the middle tier of the judicial hierarchy of Queensland.
The court has jurisdiction to hear all appeals from decisions made in the Magistrates Court. Its criminal jurisdiction covers serious indictable offences; the court's civil jurisdiction covers matters in which the amount in dispute is more than $150,000 but less than or equal to $750,000. Appeals against decisions by the District Court are heard by the Court of Appeal, a division of the Supreme Court; the Supreme Court is the highest tier of the judicial hierarchy Queensland. The court has two divisions; the Trial Division's jurisdiction covers serious criminal offences, civil matters involving claims of more than $750,000. The Court of Appeal's jurisdiction allows it to hear cases on appeal from the Trial Division, the District Court, a number of other judicial tribunals in Queensland. Appeals against decisions by the Court of Appeal are heard by the High Court of Australia. There are several factors; the legislature has no upper house. For a large portion of its history, the state was under a gerrymander that favoured rural electorates.
This, combined with the decentralised nature of Queensland, meant that politics has been dominated by regional interests. Queensland, along with New South Wales operated a balloting system known as Optional Preferential Voting for state elections; this is different from the predominant Australian electoral system, the instant-runoff voting system, in practice is closer to a first past the post ballot, which some say is to the
Kasey Chambers
Kasey Chambers is an Australian country singer-songwriter and musician born in Mount Gambier. She is the daughter of fellow musicians and Bill Chambers, the younger sister of musician and producer, Nash Chambers. All four were members of a family country music group, Dead Ringer Band, from 1992 to 1998, with Chambers starting her solo career thereafter. Five of her twelve studio albums have reached No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, Barricades & Brickwalls, Wayward Angel, Carnival Rattlin' Bones and Dragonfly. In November 2018 she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and has won an additional fourteen ARIA Music Awards with nine for Best Country Album, her autobiography, A Little Bird Told Me..., co-authored with music journalist, Jeff Apter, was released in 2011. Kasey Chambers was born in 1976 in South Australia to Diane and Bill Chambers, her older brother, Nash Chambers was born in 1974. From July 1976 the Chambers family travelled around the Nullarbor Plain, where the parents hunted foxes and rabbits for pelts during seven or eight months a year, spanning nine years.
During the "hot months" they returned to Southend, South Australia, where her family owned a fish and chip shop for a time. From 1986 Bill and Diane returned to performing as a country music duo, while their children attended school in Southend. In the following year their parents added first Chambers and Nash to their act, which became the Dead Ringer Band – named for the children looking like their parents. Chambers was recorded on vocals for two albums released under Bill's name, Sea Eagle and Kindred Spirit. From 1992 Dead Ringer Band released four albums. For their first album, Red Desert Sky, she was named as Kasey Jo Chambers, provided vocals and wrote four of its tracks, it was co-produced by the group with Eddie Sikorski at Adelaide. Chambers met fellow country singer-songwriter, Beccy Cole, in mid-1989 in Adelaide – Cole joined Dead Ringer Band on a tour through New South Wales before going solo. Chambers recalled, "I never met anyone at this point in my life, of the same generation as me – a young girl who liked country music.
And funnily enough the first song that I wrote in my life was called'Beccy', about Beccy. It's the worst song you've heard in your whole life." She cited Emmylou Harris as one of her primary influences, recalling that Harris' music was played by her parents since she was a child. The group ended as Chambers' parents divorced in the late 1990s, with Diane moving to Norfolk Island and Bill to Sydney. Chambers recorded her debut solo album, The Captain, on Norfolk Island during July and August 1998 with her brother Nash producing and father Bill on guitar. United States country musicians and Julie Miller added guitars and vocals to four tracks; the Captain was released in May 1999 via EMI Music Australia and in June 2000 in the US by Asylum Records. It peaked at No. 11 on No. 1 on the related ARIA Country Albums chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1999 she won Best Country Album and in the following year she won Best Female Artist for its title track, issued in 2000; the Captain was certified double platinum for shipment of 140,000 copies by Australian Recording Industry Association in 2001.
It reached the top 50 of the Billboard Top Country Albums in 2001. She toured the US as a support act to Lucinda Williams and supported Emmylou Harris on the Australian leg of that artist's tour. "The Captain", was played in episode 8 of the third season of The Sopranos, in April 2001. Chambers' second studio album, Barricades & Brickwalls, was released in September 2001 via EMI Music, produced by Nash, it peaked at No. 1 in February of the following year. Its third single, "Not Pretty Enough" peaked at No. 1 on the related ARIA Singles Chart in the same month. The track was written by Chambers and according to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, " about being ignored by commercial radio." He cited her autobiography, A Little Bird Told Me, "'I wrote as a song about feeling invisible... it was obvious that out in the music industry there was only one path for most young women – over-sexualised and over made up. To succeed you needed to look like Britney or Shakira."She is the first Australian country music artist to have simultaneous No. 1 single and album.
Subsequent singles "Million Tears" and "If I Were You" made the top 40. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2002 she won three categories, Album of the Year, Best Female Artist and Best Country Album, for Barricades & Brickwalls, it was certified seven times platinum in 2003 for shipment of at least 490,000 copies. In February 2002 it was released in the US, which peaked at No. 104 on the Billboard 200, topping the related Heatseeker Chart and reaching the top 20 of their country music chart. It received "generally favorable reviews" according to aggregate site, with a rating of 74% from 12 critics. Australian music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, compared it to her first album, "The musical cast remains the same as The Captain with the addition of a'rock' component via drummer Peter Luscombe and rhythm guitarist Dave Steel, a guest appearance from'punkabilly' band the Living End; the album features appearances from Paul Kelly and American country's Lucinda Williams." Nimmervoll cited Chambers' observation.
That was Introducing Kasey Chambers. This one's The
