In The Family Chambers
January 18, 2010Watching a Kasey Chambers gig, you’d swear you were at a Sunday jam in the family lounge. A new collaboration album proves that’s not far from the truth. By Julia Gaw
No one can be certain whether musical talent is born, or made. Perhaps it’s a little of both. Kasey Chambers grew up in isolated outback Australia, with father Bill, mother Diane, and brother Nash. With both parents being musicians, their main entertainment was music and campfire sing-a-longs; it’s no surprise a family band was formed in the late ’80s. Kasey, brother Nash and father Bill all maintain simultaneous (and often collaborative) music careers today. When I pose the ‘nature or nurture’ question, Kasey is philosophical.
“Music is born into some people, some people love it, know how to do it, and nurture that talent,” she says. “But I do think it’s about what you have around. Music was a big part of my life when I was growing up, and my dad’s.”
Living out of their car for a large part of Kasey’s and Nash’s upbringing, the family Chambers relied on a shared love of music to get through. “Music was our entertainment,” says Kasey.
“When Dad was growing up it was because they didn’t have a lot of entertainment – TV and such – back then. And when I was growing up, it was more because we lived in such a remote area. Our kids are growing up in pretty normal households these days: with TV, Nintendo, all of that. We try and make sure music is always around them. We sing a lot together.” This family-centric approach to music has manifested in a collaborative album between Kasey, ‘Poppa’ Bill, and a gaggle of children from the Chambers family circle.
The self-titled album with The Little Hillbillies includes a lullaby, some crankin’ country tunes, and even a song penned by Kasey’s seven-year-old, Talon. Writing for children, without feeling the need to wear skivvies or adopt a large costumed animal mascot is quite a challenge. Kids, after all, can be the most honest critics.
Somehow, Poppa Bill and Kasey maintain credibility on a light-hearted album without musical sacrifice. “We said from the start we didn’t want this project to be taken too seriously,” says Kasey. “We don’t have the training that people who make children’s albums would, but some of the best training is having your own kids. My youngest is two, and I’ll know instantly (if he doesn’t like a song). He’ll just ignore the songs he doesn’t like and walk into a different room!”
Kasey explains that this album is rooted in the idea of bringing families together with music, harking back to her early musical references. “One of the reasons for this album is to try and get those old fashioned values into families.” Bill introduced Kasey to many country greats early in life, including Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, John Prine and Tammy Wynette. “All those guys had such strong family values. Johnny Cash took his family everywhere!” he says.
Bill (whom Kasey says taught her all she knows about music) gushes about watching his daughter successfully develop, and having such a close involvement. “I feel like the luckiest man alive,” he says, “I’ve got the best of both worlds. I’ve witnessed her career grow from the very start, and have been part of it; but she’s had all the work and the worry, I just have all the fun!”
With Bill by her side on stage and in life, Nash on sound and production duties, and husband Shane Nicholson having recently toured with her on the back of their collaboration, Rattlin’ Bones, Kasey always has loved ones close by. “I don’t know what I would do without them on stage,” she says enthusiastically. “I just couldn’t play with a bunch of strangers!”
As to her own offspring, Kasey hopes they are as all-involved in music as their mother “I hope they find the thing that makes them happy. It would be nice if that were something to do with music. I’ve told them, if they become famous artists they have to have me in their band. And they have to do it cheap, like Dad does!” she laughs, in that uninhibited, infectious cackle that could only come from a country girl with honest family values.
But Bill Chambers is much more than Kasey’s mere sidekick. He’d had a successful music career of his own, drove this current project, and recently released a solo album – a tale of his life growing up in a fishing family. And it’s Bill Chambers, after all, who took Kasey’s born talent and inspired her love of good music and country aesthetic with strong family values. Kasey’s right: it’s definitely a combination of nature and nurture to inspire this true modern musical family.
Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and The Little Hillbillies is out now via Liberation. It comes packaged with a book by Kasey Chambers and Bernadette Werchon, called Little Kasey Chambers and the Lost Music.
