BUDDY BISHOP 1923 to 1995 .
Born at Tinonee near Taree in NSW Australia on the 3rd August 1923 where he lived and worked on his fathers dairy farm at Bootoowaa until the age of seventeen.
Coming from a musical family Buddy began teaching himself guitar at the age of twelve years, singing and playing at parties, dances, on boat cruises on the river and anywhere else the opportunity arose.
Being a conscript in 1942 he played at many camp concerts and was often in hot water for songs written about commanding officers. A bad truck smash in 1944 saw Buddy on the critical list with doctors of the opinion he would never walk again even if he lived. But a long stop in Concord Hospital saw them proven wrong.
On June 2nd 1945 he was given a leave pass to perform his first fifteen minute broadcast on 2TM Radio in Tamworth. He received his discharge papers in 1946 marrying Rae Ham. They moved to Tamworth in 1947 where they conducted a mixed business for the next ten years. Buddy started singing at the Tamworth cycle races of a Friday night, at the Police Boys Club boxing matches and at Radio Club shows in the town hall.
Reputed to be Tamworth’s first recording artist with “The Farmyard Yodel“ that he initially privately recorded at 2TM’s Peel Street Studio in 1948, the same song which he won Australia’s Amateur Hour with in 1949, a premier radio show of the time that had a huge national audience.
The Great Levant immediately signed him to take part in his three month vaudeville show tour of Queensland.
In January 1950 the John Mystery Label did a commercial release of “The Farmyard Yodel“ making Buddy Australia’s eleventh country music recording artist.
2TM in Tamworth had Buddy do a radio show in 1951 that finished with a talent quest that was won by a young artist who became known as Gentleman Geoff Brown.
The fifties saw regular tours with artists like Slim Dusty, Gordon Parsons and Smiling Billy Blinkhorn.
Returning to 2TM in the late fifties, he eventually ran the Mickey Mouse Club with David Longe.
With the sixties bringing semi retirement Eric Scott of Hadley Records, Tamworth persuaded Buddy to do several albums through the seventies, one of which was recorded with his eight year old daughter.
He then again returned to the recording studio in 1994 with Shorty Ranger, Les Partell, Brian Watkins and John Vaughan for the album “Shorty Ranger and Friends“.
His Rodeo label recordings are now valued collector items.
Buddy Bishop died at his home in Tamworth on April 13th, 1995.
