Beccy Cole has been delighting audiences for 25 years and now the singer-songwriter is kicking up her country boots and heading to Crossley.
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The Golden Guitar and ARIA winner, who has several hit records under her belt, has made a living out of entertaining with her country music and girl-next-door charm.
She will hit the Crossley stage on September 28 and she said she was excited to bring her music to the south-west as part of her tour Beccy Cole and friends.
"I'm on the road with a bunch of great friends where they all get up and not only help me present my songs but do a couple of their own," she said.
"I've always wanted to play this venue, it's one of those venues people talk about. I've only ever played in Port Fairy at the folk festival so this is an opportunity to play this wonderful venue and it's something I've been looking forward to."
Cole had a musical family and a string of instruments always at her disposal.
"My mum and dad actually met in a rock'n'roll band in the 60s so I'm a child of rock'nroll," she said.
"Then country music became popular and then I came along. When I was little I thought all mums were singers, I thought that's just what mums do. I grew up watching my mum perform and I always wanted to do the same.
"When I was a kid I played lots of different instruments quite naturally and then I guess that stuck. I've never had lessons but I've always been happy to give anything a crack."
Throughout her career Cole has been surrounded by the who's who on the Australian music scene.
"Certainly when I younger I was all ears and I'd try to take in as much as possible," she said.
"Someone like Slim Dusty was always so incredibly generous with his advice and his information. He and his wife Joy were really well-known for taking young artists on the road and that was me at that time and that's encouraged me to now do the same.
"It can be a lonely old business and you really do need to listen to the advice of people and those who genuinely encourage you and want to see you do well."
Cole admits the music industry is a tough one; particularly for females.
"I think there's always been a huge gender gap in the industry, you only have to look at the amount women are in the ARIA Hall of Fame compared to men, and you'll see the number is hugely different," she said.
"Even today when you look at a festival lineup and you take away the male names and you see the female names remaining; they're always less.
"Sexism is rife in the industry since the dawn of the industry.
"I have an all girl band and people say to my drummer 'you're a great girl-drummer', why do they need to put 'girl' in front of 'drummer'? Ridiculous.
"In saying that, it has made strong and resilient women who are able to get beyond that. We know that we might not ever get the top billing, but there's something nice about an underdog status that makes you want to get up on stage and blow them all away."
Cole has 22 Golden Guitars to her name and has multiple ARIA Top 10 Country and Top 40 Mainstream albums, three gold-certified releases, and more than a dozen number one Australian country singles.
"I'm just amazed the time has gone so quickly," she said.
"I look back with fondness and such great memories and I think one of the biggest things you can achieve in this industry that means the most is longevity; that's worth a billion Golden Guitars and all the rest they give you because you can win them one year and be forgotten the next.
"The fact I'm just about to celebrate 20 years since my second album and my first gold album just blows me away."
"The best advice I ever got was simply to be yourself.
"It makes more sense as time goes on and you realise you're not going to get anywhere trying to emulate someone else. It's about finding the thing you do best and then doing it deliberately over and over again.
"We all start out trying to emulate someone else, for me it was Dolly Parton, but in the end it's when you find out what it is that makes you different and then that's when people go 'wow'."
Tickets are on sale for Beccy Cole and friends at Crossley Hall on September 28 via beccycole.com/tour-dates
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