Country music radio, TV and film. Slim Dusty (1927–2003) was known as the "King of Australian Country Music" and helped to popularise the Australian bush ballad. His successful career spanned almost six decades, and his 1957 hit "A Pub with No Beer" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, and with over seven million record sales in Australia he is the most successful artist in Australian musical history. Dusty recorded and released his one-hundredth album in the year 2000 and was given the honour of singing "Waltzing Matilda" in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Dusty's
Australian country music international hit "Armstrong", a tribute to the historic 1969 moon landing by American astronaut Neil Armstrong is now included in a time capsule at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Ted Egan (AM) began recording in 1969 and has released 28 albums, mostly themed around outback life, history and Aboriginal affairs. Eric Bogle's 1972 folk lament to the Gallipoli campaign "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" recalled the Celtic origins of Australian folk-country. Singer-songwriter John Williamson, (OAM) began to build his reputation as an iconic Australian entertainer with his 1970 performance of his first song "Old Man Emu" on