About Kasey Chambers
Kasey Chambers is an Australian country singer-songwriter and musician born in Mount Gambier to musicians Diane and Bill Chambers. Her older brother is musician and producer Nash Chambers. All four were members of family country-music group Dead Ringer Band in Bowral, New South Wales from 1992 to 1998; Chambers launched her solo career thereafter. Five of her twelve studio albums have reached No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, Barricades & Brickwalls , Wayward Angel , Carnival Rattlin' Bones , and Dragonfly . In November 2018 she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and has won an additional 14 ARIA Music Awards with nine for Best Country Album. Her autobiography, A Little Bird Told Me..., co-authored with music journalist Jeff Apter, was released in 2011.
Kasey Chambers was born in 1976 in Mount Gambier, South Australia to Diane and Bill Chambers. Her older brother, Nash Chambers, was born in 1974. From July 1976 the Chambers family travelled around the Nullarbor Plain, where the parents hunted foxes and rabbits for pelts during seven or eight months a year, spanning nine years. During the "hot months" they returned to Southend, South Australia, where her family owned a fish and chip shop for a time.
From 1986 Bill and Diane returned to performing as a country-music duo while their children attended school in Southend. In the following year their parents added first Chambers and then Nash to their act, which became the Dead Ringer Band – named for the children looking like their parents. Chambers was recorded on vocals for two albums released under Bill's name, Sea Eagle and Kindred Spirit . From 1992 Dead Ringer Band released an extended play and four albums. For their first album, Red Desert Sky , she was named as Kasey Jo Chambers, provided vocals and wrote four of its tracks. It was co-produced by the group with Eddie Sikorski at John Reynolds Recording Studio, Adelaide.
Chambers met fellow country singer-songwriter Beccy Cole in mid-1989 in Adelaide, and she joined Dead Ringer Band on a tour through New South Wales before going solo. Chambers later recalled, "I never really met anyone at this point in my life that was of the same generation as me – a young girl who liked country music. And funnily enough the first song that I ever wrote in my life was called 'Beccy', about Beccy. It's the worst song you've ever heard in your whole life." She cited Emmylou Harris as one of her primary influences, recalling that her parents had frequently Harris' music throughout her childhood. The group ended when Chambers' parents divorced in the late 1990s, Diane moved to Norfolk Island, and Bill moved to Sydney.
Chambers recorded her debut solo album, The Captain, on Norfolk Island during July and August 1998 with her brother Nash producing and father Bill on guitar. United States country musicians, Buddy and Julie Miller added guitars and vocals to four tracks. The Captain was released in May 1999 via EMI Music Australia and in June 2000 in the US by Asylum Records. It peaked at No. 11 on the ARIA Albums Chart and No. 1 on the related ARIA Country Albums chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1999 she won Best Country Album and in the following year she won Best Female Artist for its title track, which was issued in 2000.
The Captain was certified double platinum for shipment of 140,000 copies by Australian Recording Industry Association in 2001. It reached the top 50 of the Billboard Top Country Albums in 2001. She toured the US as a support act to Lucinda Williams and later supported Emmylou Harris on the Australian leg of that artist's tour. "The Captain" was played in episode 8 of the third season of The Sopranos, in April 2001.
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