19 Facts About Joy McKean

Joy McKean's daughter is country singer and musician Anne Kirkpatrick.

Joy McKean was awarded the OAM in 1991, with the citation "services to the entertainment industry".

Joy McKean won several APRA Awards and was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown in 1983.

Joy McKean was the first winner of the Golden Guitars, an award she would win 45 times in her career.

Joy McKean was born in Singleton in the Hunter Region, New South Wales, on 14 January 1930.

Joy McKean's father was a country school teacher and the family moved around to several regional centres during her youth.

Joy McKean's mother and their father, who was a steel guitar player, encouraged an interest in different types of music, including country performers Jimmie Rogers and the Carter Family.

Joy learned the accordion, piano and steel guitar, while younger sister Heather McKean learned the ukulele and both took up yodeling.

Joy McKean contracted polio as a child and was treated in Sydney by the famous Sister Kenny.

Joy McKean first performed on the radio around the age of 10 on Sydney's 2GB radio station.

Joy McKean was Dusty's wife and manager for over 50 years, creating a hugely successful body of work.

Dusty and Joy McKean had two children: Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick who are accomplished singer-songwriters.

Joy McKean developed a flair for melody and musical storytelling with vivid evocative imagery.

Joy McKean was awarded the first ever Golden Guitar award in 1973, for writing "Lights on the Hill", performed by Dusty.

Joy McKean received her sixth Golden Guitar award in 2007 with "Peppimenarti Cradle" winning the Award for Bush Ballad of the Year.

Joy McKean was one of the founders of the Tamworth Country Music Festival and the Country Music Association of Australia, and was a biographer.

Joy McKean was chair of the Slim Dusty Foundation Ltd, the organisation established to build and operate the Slim Dusty Centre in his home town of Kempsey, New South Wales.

The 2020 Australian documentary film Slim and I, directed by Kriv Stenders was released when Joy McKean was aged 90, and told the story of her life with Slim Dusty.

Joy McKean died of cancer on 25 May 2023, at the age of 93.