Winning major awards has become as regular as a riff for gifted Aussie songwriter and muso, Tony King.
The guitarist and vocalist supremo has just been awarded Australian Songwriter of the Year by the Australian Songwriters Association and APRA. He also won this award in 2009.
The highly respected musician, who regularly visits WA, has been awarded Best Song eight times during his career.
The 2020 awards, delayed until this month due to that pesky virus, saw King win Best Lyrics for his “A Library Burns” and Best Comedy Song for “The Day the Queen Smoked a Joint”.
King was also a finalist in two other categories for his piece “The Tide Will Come In”.
Kingm who lives and creates on the far south coast of NSW at Bermagui, says he doesn’t need the big city to drive his imagination.
“The tranquil rural setting cuts out the constant static that can prove distracting in Sydney. Living in Bermagui is no impediment to the muse knocking on the door.”
This year the Australian Song writing Awards invited nominations from international writers, proving Australia is home to some of the best musical writers in the world.
King has also made his mark on the international stage.
In 2014 he was awarded Best Lyrics at the International Songwriting Awards, judged by Tom Waits and Bernie Taupin, and last year was runner up in the UK Song writing Awards for Best Jazz Song with “I Wish I’d Lived When Django Did”.
King’s latest accolades come at an extremely difficult time for the entertainment industry, he says.
“The last year has been really tough on musicians. Covid has been gruesome for entertainers. There have been virtually no gigs and income.
“I was determined to find a silver lining, so with my partner Nina Vox, who has kept me inspired and sound of mind during the last year, we decided to up-skill, learning to make music videos and doing a lot of writing.
“It made us feel like we weren’t just treading water,” he says.
Watch the beautiful “A Library Burns” video by Beautifully Mad below this story. It was one of the songs that led to King winning Australian Songwriter of the Year.
King also shared some thoughts regarding modern music distribution and sales.
“Streaming services like Spotify have decimated income for songwriters,” he says.
“I can provide an example of just how grim it is. Over the last year, total income from all streaming services combined for my entire catalogue, adding up to tens of thousands of streams, was a miserly $100.
“As a result, songwriters have been forced to rely on organisations like Patreon, which offers subscriptions to your favourite artists so they can keep making music.
“Bandcamp has also become a favourite site for musicians to sell their music,” he adds.
Here are the links to those sites for Tony King’s band Beautifully Mad.
https://www.patreon.com/beautifullymad
https://beautifullymad.bandcamp.com
A Library Burns – Watch the Video
More much deserved awards for the great TK!