Buddy Williams (country musician)

Buddy Williams
Bust of Buddy Williams, Bicentennial Park, Tamworth, NSW.
Background information
Birth name	Harry Taylor
Also known as	The Yodelling Jackaroo
Born	5 September 1918 Newtown , New South Wales
Died	12 December 1986 (age 68) Queensland
Genres	Country music
Occupation(s)	Singer/songwriter, yodeller, travelling showman, rodeo rider, bushman, horseman
Instruments	Guitar - Gibson L-OO, Gibson L-200, Gibson Hummingbird, Gibson Country & Western, Martin D-28
Years active	1938-1986
Labels	Private Recordings (1935), Regal Zonophone, EMI (1939–1964) RCA (1964–1986)
Associated acts	Tommy Emmanuel

Buddy Williams (5 September 1918 – 12 December 1986) born as Harry Taylor and also known as Harold Williams was a pioneering Australian country musician, singer and songwriter, known as "The Yodelling Jackaroo". Williams was the first Australian to record country music in Australia,after Hugh Holm and three years after the New Zealander Tex Morton made his first recording in Australia. Buddy Williams recorded his own songs about life and times in the Australian bush. It was with Buddy Williams that the Bush Ballad was first born. Williams recording of "Give A Little Credit To Dad", complete with trademark yodel was added to the Sounds of Australia project by the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

Williams was born Harry Taylor in the suburb of Newtown, Sydney and was soon placed in Glebe Point Orphanage. After many failed escape bids as a child, he was soon fostered out as a young boy to a dairy farming family at Dorrigo on the north coast of New South Wales. It soon became apparent that rather than looking for a new child to bring up, they were more interested in an unpaid labourer. This was not uncommon in the depression and post depression era where rural child slavery was a fact of life. Times were hard and life on the farm was tough for the young Williams, but it also allowed freedom he never had in the orphanage. He was soon listening to the recordings on an old Gramophone of his favourite singers such as Jimmie Rodgers and soon fell in love with this new music that was to become known as country music. At 15 he ran away from his foster home working for other families in the district. He worked at many jobs and started busking around the north coast of NSW, dodging the Police who frowned upon such activities.

Buddy Williams made his first recordings in 1938, a private process disk. The two songs recorded at this historic session were " Where The Jacarandas Bloom", and "They Call Me The Clarence River Yodeller". The latter song was re worked and called "They Call Me The Ramblin' Yodeller" and recorded during his first EMI session on 7 September 1939. These two long lost recordings were later released on a Kingfisher Records collection in the early 1990s as part of an early Buddy Williams catalogue re release. This re release is no longer available.