The Sunny Cowgirls will be at 9 Collins Road, Melton live on the West’s Best Country show Friday 15th March – listen in on 979fm or come and see the ladies live.
Powerful Australian sister act The Sunny Cowgirls will launched their eagerly anticipated fifth album, What We Do, on 23 January, in at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
For the celebrated duo – Celeste and Sophie Clabburn. the journey from Tamworth rookies to headliners has taken 12 years. Celeste and older sister Sophie first went to Tamworth when they were 12 and 16 respectively. Fast forward just over a decade and now they’re two of the most celebrated artists on the national circuit.
“We lived in Perth as kids,” says Sophie. “I remember the family drove across the Nullarbor, in utes, in convoys, for three years in a row, just to get to Tamworth.” Their evident persistence in pursuing their dreams of playing country music provides the key to understanding the Clabburn women: they are very real, very determined, and definitely products of the bush.
The pair was born in Dunkeld in Western Victoria. After spending the second part of their childhood in WA, the pair decided to move back east. Celeste headed back Dunkeld-way, and now lives on a 2000-head sheep farm near Hamilton. Sophie lives on acres outside Tamworth, making performances at the annual festival even more important now she calls the region her home.
And the sisters don’t just live on their respective farms. When they are not writing, rehearsing, recording, performing and touring their music, they are working the land.
“I love coming home to the farm. It’s great just being out alone with the mob and a couple of dogs. It’s really grounding” says Celeste. “When I write songs, I like to be as honest as I can, and working on the farm is good for that process. I hope living this way helps me relate to The Sunny Cowgirl audiences and, I hope, it helps them relate to me.”
Celeste and Sophie Clabburn were always going to be a country act, but their big breakthrough came in 2005 when the pair enrolled in the CMAA College of Country Music. While there they handed a copy of their first, independently produced album, Little Bit Rusty, to visiting country star Adam Brand. Weeks later they had both a mentor and a record deal. “That was good timing,” says Sophie. “Celeste and I had just decided that if we bombed out in the music business, we’d head up north and get jobs on a cattle farm. As it turned out, we didn’t need to.”
Since then, The Sunny Cowgirls have gone from strength to strength, building through four best-selling albums a reputation for fine playing and a mesmerising onstage presence that packs in the fans at B&S balls and concert halls alike. Their high-spirited and humorous approach to life and music has produced many memorable hits, such as Drinking Down Our Pay, Six Pack Short, Grog Monster and Bags Not Driving.
The first taster from the forthcoming fifth album is the single Green and Gold, penned by Sophie, it’s a high-spirited and heartfelt celebration of all things good and Aussie.
