Bush boy makes it big

Toni Somes | 26th November 2009

HE was a boy from the bush with dreams of making it as a boxer, but fate and a musical gift paved a different path for Roger Knox.

Storyteller: Acclaimed country musician Roger Knox.

Warwick Daily News

HE was a boy from the bush with dreams of making it as a boxer, but fate and a musical gift paved a different path for Roger Knox.

His is a story of a kid from a remote Aboriginal mission, who went on to sing in Nashville and at London’s Covent Gardens and a myriad of international stages, theatres, hotels and campfires in between.

Today Mr Knox is a grandfather and a vocal ambassador for the Kamilaroi people, but despite country music stardom his roots remain firmly embedded in the dry soil of northern New South Wales.

His has been a long journey and at O’Mahony’s Hotel tonight he’ll share it with Warwick.

Mr Knox was born in a time of racial segregation; his childhood was spent at Toomelah Aboriginal Mission south of Goondiwindi.

He grew up fearing police, welfare workers and white people, was short-changed on formal education and joined the workforce in his early teens.

“My grandmother was a Sunday schoolteacher so we went to church four times a week,” Mr Knox said.

“So we grew up with gospel music and good behaviour.

“We went to church so often I once asked if I could stay home and just avoid hell with my credits from last week.”

But half a century later he believes his strict paternal grandparent set him on life’s straight path.

“I never drank alcohol or did drugs and we grew up knowing we had to work hard,” he said.

He put the latter into practice early leaving school to work on a tobacco farm near Tamworth.

As chance would have it the move proved timely with the teenager finally encouraged to pursue his other passion, music.

“The Tamworth country music scene was just kicking off and my cousin told someone, who told someone else, I could sing,” he said.

So he was railroaded onto the stage at Joe Maguire’s bar.

“I tried to get out of it, but they wouldn’t let me get down,” he said.

More accustomed to belting out a tune around a campfire with a family friendly audience, he forced down his nerves and finally sang a song called Blacktracker.

“They clapped and I guess it was the start of something,” he said.

With the modesty of a man who became known as the Black Elvis and the King of Koori country that “something” turned into a string of successful country albums, a national fan base and international tours.

But it wasn’t a road to stardom without hurdles.

In 1984 shortly after Mr Knox was discovered by country music talent scout and performer Brian Young his dreams came crashing down.

Or more accurately a light plane he was travelling in as part of a national tour came down in Central Australia.

A shaken Mr Knox was one of just two survivors from the crash near Oodnadatta and spent two months in intensive care with second and third degree burns to 95 per cent of his body.

He spent the next six months in hospital, then the following two years in bed tormented by physical pain and emotional turmoil.

“My hands were so badly burnt I couldn’t play guitar,” Mr Knox said.

“I was in a wheelchair and didn’t feel like making music anymore.”

In pain and desperation he returned to his childhood home and the bush medicine of his aunts.

“They bathed my sores with a solution made from the Euraba bush and I started to get my life together again,” he said.

What came from that dark time in the musician’s life was upbeat music created with the input of his sons and nephews, who formed the aptly named Euraba band to play alongside him.

Today he has become a role model and mentor for young Aboriginal Australians.

It is a position he takes seriously and with the quiet confidence of better days ahead.

“I am pushing for better education for our kids; they need tools that come with education to make it,” Mr Knox said. “I reckon tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

Now with a swag of life experience he can talk candidly about how racism impacted on his life.

“I think people are becoming better educated and more tolerant of others,” he said.

“I take pride in the fact down the track people won’t be judged on their skin colour, but on their qualifications and content of their character.”

Bandwagon

•Roger Knox and the Euraba Band play tonight at O’Mahony’s Hotel in Lyons Street.

• Music starts from 6.30pm

• Adults $10, students $5, under 16 free.