Redback on the Toilet Seat writer Slim Newton dies

This was the title of a song that would become folklore, written and performed by Slim Newton.

Ralph Ernest Newton was born on October 22, 1932. He died on Sunday, January 8, 2023; he was known professionally as Slim Newton and was one of the last Australian country music singer-songwriters from a golden age of performers.

His son Steve, a Tamworth resident who has been running a recording studio in Calala for the past 12 years, said apart from Chad Morgan, only a few of the old troupe of bush balladeers are still performing.

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"Only mum and dad called him Ralph; everyone else called him Slim," Steve said.

"Dad began performing in the '50s, last century, and was touring throughout regional Australia and across the top end."

However, his fame took a massive upwards trajectory in June 1972, when he issued an extended play, The Redback on the Toilet Seat, which peaked at No. 3 on the Go-Set National Top 40 Singles Chart and sold more than 100,000 copies.

"We know he got three gold records for Redback, there are two in the studios, which are a bit of a museum to him, and my sister has one too," Steve said.

"But I have a sneaking suspicion there was a fourth, but we don't know where that is."

In 1973 Slim Newton won a Golden Guitar Trophy at the inaugural Country Music Awards of Australia for Top Selling Record for the EP.

Slim Newton continued his career as a part-time musician and released several albums while also working in his trade as a welder.

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In 1977 the Country Music Association of Australia inducted him into the Australasian Country Music Hands of Fame, and in 2009, into the Australian Roll of Renown.

Steve Newton said his father's life was turned upside down when a car crash took the life of Eric Newton, Steve's brother and Slim's accompanist on stage.

"Dad never really got over the loss of Eric," Steve said.

"My brother was a great musician and dad's right-hand man on stage. Dad never really smiled properly again after that."

Steve said the Redback song piqued Australia's curiosity about redback spiders and outback dunnies.

"It wasn't dad's best song, but it was one where he seemed to get the right words together," he said.

"I travelled with Slim a lot, and in country halls, out the back among the discarded sets, there nearly always would be a folded up outback dunny with a redback spider painted on it."

Steve was also was a guitarist, and at 15, in 1978, he played the guitar on Rick and Thel Carey's All Star Western show, travelling with stars like Reg Lindsay, Chad Morgan, Kevin King, Nev Nicholls and Peter Mollerson.

Rick Carey also created a character for his show, Cousin Ratsack.

Slim Newton's funeral will be held at Ourimbah on Friday, January 20. Slim's family is working on an event to celebrate his life towards the end of the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

Tamworth's 51^st Country Music Festival begins on January 13, and the Golden Guitars ceremony wraps up the Festival on January 21 at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre.