In the early 1930s, country music songwriter Buddy Williams started busking in front of the Civic Theatre at the intermission of movies screened at the Newcastle landmark.
Williams was the first Australian to record country music in Australia.
Newcastle entertainer and producer Phil Mahoney noted Williams' career, as he revealed he had chosen Civic Theatre to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his "Australian Country Music Stars of Fame Exhibition".
Along with Steel City Country Club vocalist David Mason, Phil announced that the stars of fame exhibition would be reborn in a "live club concert format".
The stars of fame pays tribute to Australian country music performers and promoters, especially those who have supported the development of other artists.
Phil started the awards when he was centre manager of Wallsend Plaza Shopping Centre in the 1990s.
Reg Lindsay was the first inductee. Others included Slim Dusty, Jean Stafford, Jimmy Little and Rex Dallas.
Photos and handprints of the inductees featured at the shopping centre.
The first awards ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 25 at Jesmond Bowling Club, with 15 performers to be inducted into the Hunter Valley division of the stars of fame. They will perform two songs each.
Inductees on this day will include bush poet Bob "Minmi Magster" Skelton, who has featured in this column many a time. Also to be inducted are longtime Newcastle country vocalist John Wilson and Upper Hunter country legend Bill Rowland.
Phil will co-host the event with radio presenter Mike Kennedy. Tickets are $10 at the door, with proceeds going to Camp Quality. It starts at 2pm.
An Old Song about the Future
Sticking with music, does anyone remember the 1969 song "In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)".
The song, released by American pop-rock duo Zager and Evans, was a number one song on the Billboard charts.
The song topped the charts during the first moon landing on July 20, 1969 and during the Woodstock Music Festival a month later.
"I loved this song as a kid. It came out in 1969 when I was nine," said a colleague, who will probably work as a journalist into his late 70s (see below).
"I don't know who Zager and Evans really were or whether they had another hit. That's for a Topics researcher to work out."
Topics can outsource that to Wikipedia, which informs us that "Zager and Evans are considered to be the archetypal one-hit wonder artists".
In their hit song, they warned of the dangers of technology and questioned whether the human race would destroy itself.
Imagine if we had no technology at all, though. What would we have?
That '70s Show
Topics came across a news flash that 78-year-old Jim Boeheim was retiring as coach of Syracuse Orange, an American college basketball team, after 47 years in the job.
This got us thinking about Wayne Bennett, who made the headlines this week after his new team - the Redcliffe Dolphins - beat the Sydney Roosters.
Reports of the victory noted that Bennett actually smiled after the win. Apparently he allows himself only one smile a year.
Bennett is now 73. Will he still be coaching at 78? Will he smile when he retires?
To see more stories and read today's paper download the Newcastle Herald news app here.
