Incredible sum Australian music legend Slim Dusty’s estate is worth

He was the first Australian music star to score an international hit record and went on to sell 7million albums in a career that spanned five decades.

And twenty years after the death of Slim Dusty, the empire built by the music icon is said to be worth an estimated $5million.

The boy from Kempsey on the New South Wales mid coast, who died at age 76 in 2003, set up a company called The Slim Dusty Group in 1973. 

It controls the country music legend’s assets and has been rebranded as Slim Dusty Enterprises, reported Confidential on Friday.

According to the publication the new company was set up on May 2, while the Slim Dusty Group went into voluntary liquidation on July 1.

‘It’s just a reorganising of all the business interests and doesn’t affect the overall operation which is continuing,’ Slim’s daughter Anne Arneman said in the report.

Anne is director of Slim Dusty Enterprises alongside her brother David Kirkpatrick.

The company controls and manages Slim’s surviving assets including his intellectual property, finances and the Slim Dusty Centre which is located in his old home town, Kempsey, 428kms from Sydney. 

Slim’s widow Joy McKean, who found her own acclaim as an award-winning songwriter died of cancer aged 93 in May, 2023.

‘Joy passed away peacefully last night with family by her side after a long battle with cancer,’ her record company EMI announced in a statement at the time.

‘She will be remembered as a pioneer in Australian music.’

Joy was a talented singer and gifted songwriter who penned many of her husband’s most famous tunes including Lights on the Hill and The Biggest Disappointment.

She won the first Golden Guitar awarded at the inaugural Tamworth Country Music Festival, of which she was a founder, in 1973 for Lights on the Hill.

McKean’s musical partnership with Dusty produced more than 100 albums, 45 Golden Guitars and total sales of more than 8 million.

She is survived by her children Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick – both accomplished singer-songwriters – as well as four grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Slim Dusty, whose real name was David Gordon Kirkpatrick, died in 2003 aged 76.

McKean was born in Singleton in the New South Wales Hunter Valley and raised on a dairy farm. She was introduced to the music of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family by her parents.

When Joy was 18 she and Heather began performing as the McKean Sisters and had their own half-hour radio show.

The McKean Sisters had recorded hits Gymkhana Yodel and Yodel Down The Valley by the time Joy met Dusty.

They married in 1951, while Heather wed country star Reg Lindsay.

Dusty found international success with his 1957 song Pub With No Beer and was the biggest name in Australian country music until his death.

McKean wrote Walk A Country Mile, Indian Pacific, Kelly’s Offsider and The Angel of Goulburn Hill for her husband and remained his manager for more than 50 years.

She helped create the Country Music Association of Australia and was chairwoman of the Slim Dusty Foundation which built the Slim Dusty Centre in the singer’s home town of Kempsey.

In 2021, McKean won the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music at the APRAs.

The McKean Sisters were inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown for country performers in 1983 and Joy was given the same honour as a solo artist in 2020.

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