The Davidson Brothers will be performing in the Floating Tin Shed in Paynesville this Saturday and Sunday, 11am-2pm.
Hamish and Lachlan Davidson grew up in the rural Victorian town of Yinnar. Raised in a musical family, the brothers began playing music and performing from a young age.
With eight albums under their belt, they have built the reputation of being one of Australia’s hottest Bluegrass acts, multi-instrumentalists on banjo, fiddle, mandolin, dobros and great entertainers with an enormous respect for the traditions of the genre.
They have also written the majority of their repertoire – 68 of the 101 tracks they have commercially released are original songs.
With five Australian Country Music Awards (Golden guitars) to their name and a handful of Australian Bluegrass Championship titles, the Davidson Brothers are favourites at folk and country festivals nation-wide, taking the music they love to a whole new generation of music Hovers.
Troy Cassar-Daley describes them as being “the best young bluegrass pickers we have seen for a long while in Australia and a very exciting live act”.
Their latest album All You Need is Music was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee. Half the album (Side A) is acoustic and the other half (Side B) is electric, showcasing the wide variety of the music they love to play.
Twelve of the 13 songs were written by Hamish and Lachlan.
Children of the 1980s, they have toured extensively throughout Australia, Europe and America, which includes representing Australia at the IBMA World of Bluegrass in the USA (2004, 2009, 2014, 2018) and headlining at the European World of Bluegrass in The Netherlands.
They have had the honour of being invited to perform back-to-back with Ralph Stanley, performing at Bill Monroe’s childhood home in Kentucky, and presenting at the 2010 International Bluegrass Awards in Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.
The brothers have performed and recorded with many music industry veterans.
It is a lengthy list but includes Joe Camilleri (Black Sorrows), Andrew Farriss (INXS), Troy Cassar-Daley, Lee Kernaghan, Melinda Schneider, Tommy Emmanuel, Kasey Chambers and Dan Sultan.
They were featured on The Man From Snowy River soundtrack in their teens, and have appeared on many national television programs including Spicks & Specks and Good Morning Australia.
Both Hamish and Lachlan are graduates of the Australian Country Music College. In 2003 they won the state final and were runners-up in the grand final of the National University Band Competition, which also saw Hamish win Best Overall Musician At the Australian Bluegrass Championships. Lachlan took out the Mandolin Championship three years in a row from 2008 to 2010, with Hamish winning the Fiddle Championship in 2000, then later, the Banjo Championship in 2009.
Together, they were selected as finalists in the Most Outstanding Musicians category of the 2010 Melbourne Prize for Music.
From making their first formal recording in 1998, to being inducted by the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame into their prestigious Hands Fame in 2017, the Davidson Brothers have already achieved a lot, but as Hamish says, “We feel like we are just warming up”.
