Friday March 19 2010
Time: 01:30 pm
Event: Geoff Dutton
Event: Geoff Dutton
Back in 1985, singer-songwriter Geoff Dutton, took out Tamworth Country Music Festival’s prestigious Starmaker quest as part of the successful country duo Great Divide.
Back in Tamworth the following year, the duo won a Golden Guitar award for Australia’s Best New Talent.
They went on to record a string of singles for radio, all finding their way on to the Australian Independent Country charts.
Finally in 1994, Great Divide recorded their long awaited, highly acclaimed, debut album; Unlevelled on which Dutton co-wrote and co-produced the ten tracks.
Geoff Dutton is no stranger to hard work. “There was more than fifteen years of musical grind, in clubs, pubs & restaurants before Great Divide was formed in 1984”, Dutton recalls, “And then the hard work began.”
Over the next few years and while Great Divide was taking time off, Geoff was back in the studio with guitar buff, Tony Ceglinski, recording Close To The Grain, an album which was licensed by AIM records and on the strength of it’s success, led to the recording of No Alibis, Geoff’s self-penned, self-produced and ‘self-everything-elsed’ debut solo album.
The release of Jackaroo, the first single from the No Alibis album, enjoyed significant air time on Australian country radio, but more importantly for Dutton, it secured some friends inside the industry who would help expand his audience.
While Geoff was working on his solo career, he was also working on some new recordings with Great Divide. “These radio singles ended up on the play lists at the same time as the singles
from No Alibis, so I’d hang out for the charts, to see what was there.” Says Dutton.
Geoff Dutton put his solo career on hold in 1992, to concentrate his efforts on Great Divide. The duo promotes their 1994 album Unlevelled with radio television and live performances. Unlevelled was well supported by Australian country radio.
In 1996 the Great Divide show was brought home for the last time.
And now Geoff Dutton is back on the solo trail. A professional musician for more than thirty years, his enthusiastic approach to the task at hand , be it a new recording project or his live shows, ensures he will continue to wow the audiences as an inspired singer, guitarist and songwriter.
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