From Parkesbourne to Nashville

The shock was also mixed with pride however, it meant his music had gained more international recognition.

Roo juggles work on his property, “Candlebark,” with a music career that is gathering serious momentum, years after he thought the opportunity might have passed him by.

The title track from his album, This Here Cowboy, made it to number one in the Australian country music charts in late 2012, and by 2013 and early 2014 his music was getting played across the world.

It was a different story back in 2004, though, after he walked away from a promising start in the country music scene due to the pressures of drought, starting a new family and the tragic loss of his mother.

“I started in 1995 after coming back home from a year jackarooing up in Queensland, at Headingly Station west of the Isa,” he said.

“I ended up hooking up with a couple of friends who had their own band, the Mustang Billy’s, and helping them out as a roadie.”

By the end of that year, however, Roo was in his own band and by 1998 he was touring with Slim Dusty.

The legend of Australian country music even recorded a song Roo wrote called “Ringers, Rigs and Drivers,” and put it on one of his albums.

In 2000, Roo’s first album, Station Boy, was nominated for two Golden Guitars, and it looked like the sky would be the limit for the up and coming country music star.

Only a few years later, however, the demands of running his parents’ property during a crippling drought, combined with the emotional upheavel of his mother’s long struggle with leukaemia which ended with her death in 2003, resulted in Roo being ready to quit the music industry.

Then when his daughter was born in 2004, he decided it was time to put his guitar away.

It wasn’t until early 2012 he felt he could have another crack at fulfilling a passion he’d had since he first taught himself to play the guitar as a youngster.

“I thought it was gone,” he said, referring to his time as a country singer.

As soon as he started writing songs again, however, it all flowed back to him.

“It was like turning on a switch, it went BANG and I was really hungry to do it again.

“I had a vision of exactly the kind of music I wanted to make, a more traditional style of country music.”

Roo was quietly hoping for a positive reaction to his comeback album, but has been blown away by the response both domestically and overseas.

“The interest out of Europe was a shock,” he said, as This Here Cowboy became CD of the month at Netherlands radio station, ZuidWest FM.

There was plenty of airplay in England, Ireland and Scotland as well, and Roo was even more shocked when Cowboy’s Magazine in Italy contacted him through his website, asking to feature him and put him on the cover of their February edition this year.

“I asked them ‘how did you hear about me?’ and they said ‘we love your music’.

“Radio stations in the US are also playing This Here Cowboy, in places like Nashville and Texas, while at home, the second single from the album is moving up the rankings in the charts.

In May the album’s second single, “Out On The Farm”, made it to number one on the Australian Country Music Chart.

Roo isn’t ready to stop yet, either – he has already started writing his next album, and hopes to record it in Nashville later this year.

He also had a couple of trips to Queensland for shows last month.

Roo’s still flat out at “Candlebark” as well, managing his place through another drought.

“We recently sold a lot of cattle and brought it back to a smaller core herd,” he said.

Almost 20 years after he started in the music industry, Roo has found the balance between life on the land and life a musician, and once again, the sky seems the limit.