Singer returns to the Downs

COUNTRY music singer-songwriter Rod Williams returns to the area where he was born with his one-man show on Sunday.

The dual Gold Guitar finalist and former Allora publican will perform in Nobby and will include traditional country and Australian bush ballads.

Rod returned to music in 2010 after some 26 years away from the music scene.

Since then, he has recorded three albums including a bush ballad album, A Big Wide Country, the title track of which is a self-penned song about Australia.

The album also includes A Fencer From The Outback, which was a Gold Guitar finalist in 2012-2013.

The song is close to Rod’s heart, as his late father was a fencing contractor in western Queensland for most of his life.

During the early ’80s Rod wrote and recorded quite a few songs including The Shoe, a song telling the life story of the legendary champion jockey Mel Schumacher; another about the infamous Fine Cotton saga – the racehorse ring-in – The Punters Lament; and probably his best known song, The Mighty Maroons, the one-time State of Origin theme song.

Rod said back in the early days, his lead guitar player and musical director was the now superstar Keith Urban.

Nowadays Rod lives at Morayfield, north of Brisbane, and performs at clubs and festivals and loves taking his show out to the country, meeting fans from the old days.

He hopes some of the patrons from his days as the singing publican from Allora come to his show at the Nobby Town Hall on Sunday, from 1pm.