The 13th entry to the Roll of Renown, Inducted January 1988, was the first and only inductee that was not a singer John "Mr. Hoedown" Minson. John grew up in Waverley, NSW, but moved to Tamworth to work at Radio 2TM where, for 23 years, he produced and presented Australia's most successful country music radio program Hoedown.
Small communities scattered all over Australia are linked by the power of country radio. Twenty five years ago, disk jockey John Minson had a nightly country music show called “Ho-Down” on 2TM in Tamworth. John formed a special relationship with his listeners and from his program emerged the Tamworth music festival as we know it today.
He was instrumental in the development of the Country Music Awards, himself instrumental in creating the first Golden Guitars. John is a founding member of the Capital Country Music Association and has given generously, forfeiting his own financial gain, to establish country music as a major part of Australian arts.
He is a renowned craftsman of pedal steel guitars and a gifted harmonica player and has also been a tremendous source of encouragement to newcomers and old-hands alike in the country music community.
When television hit, night-time radio fell apart. Most radio stations took on talk shows. We did a number of music shows and one of them was country. And when they did a rating, they found that it was the highest rating of all the shows. The fact that you were playing a record and it's being listened to by people in Birdsville, a stock contractor bringing stock over from the Kimberley in the Northern Territory, someone sitting in a lounge chair down in Northern Tasmania, or even someone in New Zealand. Country people, at night, they've finished the day's work, they sit down and they have dinner. All of these people love country music. Suddenly, they find this country music show on radio, and it's playing the kind of music that they like -- a lot of Australian country, a lot of Slim Dusty, a lot of Tex Morton, a lot of Buddy Williams. And they say, “Get a nail and scratch it on the dial so we can remember where that station is.”
Being a broadcaster can be a lonely life but not if you have a telephone and you're prepared to answer it all the time. We had a lady who used to climb in a van and do a mail run. And one night, she had a head-on collision with a truck. She was run off the road and killed. Now, that family used to send her calls at night through the program because she'd be listening on the radio. It was just so heart-rending. Because all those thousands of people out there who used to hear you do that call every night would hear you say, “Shirley -- Shirley died -- last night.” And our program actually touched people everywhere and was able to launch the careers of pretty well all the artists who are about today, who have become successful.
What radio has done, country radio especially, is to bring communities together. It binds communities together in a way that television has never been able to do. If you were to be remembered for anything, I would like to be remembered as the one who brought country music to the people who love it. And taught others to respect it.
Now retired, John holds enormous respect in the industry
