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JOHN LAWS

Legendary Australian broadcaster John Laws says it came as a great surprise to learn ARIA wanted to present him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the Australian music industry.

In an incredible career spanning over 50 years, Lawsie – as he's always been known to generations of loyal fans and listeners – has received all manner of awards from various media and entertainment institutions, alongside accolades and commendations from royalty through to a long succession of Australian prime ministers.

But ARIA? Laws says he's always thought ARIA only paid tribute to music makers.

Of course, harking all the way back to the birth of rock & roll in Australia in the late-1950s, between his constant daily gig as the nation's premier radio broadcaster, and parallel careers as an author, poet, a newspaper columnist, a TV presenter, in between all that Laws did manage to find the time to record a dozen or so solo albums in his own inimitable style. They ranged in genre over the years from rock, pop, standards, spoken-word and, of course, his most beloved country & western.

"They were terrifically enthusiastic times," Laws says of those early days when his gang of best mates included the likes ARIA Hall of Famers, Johnny O'Keefe, Frank Ifield and Cole Joye. "We were young and stupid and just having fun. We were the first really to make Australian records, apart from Slim [Dusty] and Smoky [Dawson] and Buddy Williams."

But a full-time career as a pop idol was never an option for Laws. For one thing, hardly any disc jockey in the country, especially in Sydney where Laws dominated the airwaves for generations, would ever spin a Laws record in a fit.

And then there was that other small matter of what can be best described as Laws's own crippling stage fright. In a recording career which would span decades, Laws never once performed a live concert. To this day, he's abhorred by the idea of singing in front of a live audience.

"Hate going on stage," Laws says with a trademark deep chuckle. "I’m not good at that at all. I'm alright behind a microphone, or behind a bunch of girls," he adds with a smile, pointing to the classic front cover of his 1976 album, You've Never Been Trucked Like This Before, where he's posing with a truck, a bottle of bourbon and three scantily clad young ladies.

"He didn't sing a lot, but he likes to sing," says Cole Joye, one of John Laws's oldest friends, as well as producer of many of Laws's albums. "They were different to most other sessions that I've done. We drank a bit more bourbon than most sessions ever. But we came out with some good music. But he would never perform in public. He used to do television shows, but no, he didn't do any public performing. When we'd have parties, we'd sing. But I think those were the only times that John performed outside of the recording studio."

Despite the relative success of his unique music career, that small facet of John Laws's talent isn't the reason why he's being presented ARIA's Lifetime Achievement Award.

John Laws is bestowed this honour in recognition of his unwavering support of Australian artists and the Australian music industry across the breadth of his time in radio.

Late last year, at the age of 72, John Laws signed off from his daily radio show on Sydney's 2UE for the very last time, bringing to an end an illustrious and unparalleled broadcasting career that had started in a small country radio station in Bendigo, Victoria, back in 1953.

Right up to his final day on air, Laws had a massive radio audience across the country, over two million listeners daily. It's why the Golden Tonsils was, for a long time, the highest-paid radio star in the world. When Laws spoke, Australia listened. When Laws played his favourite music, Australia listened, and went out and bought the records.

Regularly controversial, a great intellect, part of Laws's eternal charm was that he was a genuine maverick, always spoke his mind, walked and talked with the swagger of a true rock & roller.

And as far as Australian rock & roll goes, John Laws was there at the very start as an influential facilitator. He first arrived in Sydney in 1957, just as the sound of rock started seeping through to our shores. Laws's new job at 2UE gave him access to the latest discs straight off the hit parade in the US and he became a pioneer in broadcasting rock & roll to Australian ears.

"Import by fair means or foul, records for me to play on the air, Top 40 records," Laws remembers. "If there was something in there that I thought was good that could interest someone [a local artist], I'd give it to them [to re-record]. I didn't have any program managers telling me who to play or what to play. I played what I wanted to play and I got away with it.

"Then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and the Australian music industry grew as the disc jockey business grew, and there became a demand for Australian material that had not been met before. In the beginning, I remember the first Australian records we used to play were 78s, they weren't even 45s, so that's going back a way."

By as early as 1963, Laws moved into the new world of talk radio, but music would forever play a significant role in his broadcasts. To that last day on radio, Laws always championed the music he loved, introducing countless new and established Australian performers to his enormous audience. His influence on early home-grown rock & roll was matched only by his love and incredible on-going support for the Australian country music scene.

Indeed, Laws's impact on the growth of home-grown country music in Australia is immeasurable. For decades, his radio shows remained the solitary outlet through which country music – from both legends and newcomers of the genre alike – could get exposure to a massive mainstream audience across the country.

Laws is widely credited with playing a major role in either helping break or elevate the careers of country stars ranging from relative newcomers such as Lee Kernaghan and Troy Cassar-Daley, right back to local pioneers including Slim Dusty and Reg Lindsay. Local country music icon John Williamson, who is also president of the Country Music Association of Australia, was such a regular on Laws’s shows that the broadcaster nicknamed him "my little brother".

"Although Lawsie is the greatest talkback personality the world has known, he has also been a great supporter and lover of music," says Williamson. "Always a DJ at heart, he has brought many great songs to our attention and always stood by Aussie country music artists. My 'Aussie Big Brother deserves to be honoured in this way. He is as big a star in Australia as this country has produced. He is 'True Blue'."

"It would have been tough starting out without having someone like Lawsie to play my songs," adds Troy Cassar-Daley. "It is very rare to find someone who hosts a talk show as popular as John's, but who also included so much music in his program. I would go as far as to say that Lawsie was single-handedly responsible for introducing my music to the rest of Australia."

Personally, Laws remains modest about the scope of the impact he's had on local music. As far as his own recording career goes, he offers: &qI found some good songs – I didn't necessarily sing them well but I found good songs." As for his incredible broadcasting career and whatever light he may have shown on others as a result of his own success, Laws says that was his absolute pleasure.

"I was so lucky to grow up in the time that I did," he says. "When I first started doing radio when I was 18, there was nothing you wanted to do more than play records on the radio to impress girls. Then as I developed in radio and became a smart ass at 22 or 23, I did a lot of television then, I fancied myself on some kind of star, drove around in expensive motor cars. Then I got interested in politics and talk radio came along. So I was very lucky. I was born at the right time."