Touring and playing music with his family has been a constant part of Jim Arneman’s life.
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As a school kid he would head off from Sydney during school holidays to meet up with his grandparents, Slim Dusty and Joy McKean, wherever their show was around Australia.
Now Jim is hitting the road this year, with his wife Flora Smith, and their band Small Town Romance, which will bring them to Armidale next month.
On April 8, the duo is playing at Two Goats Cafe & Baa.
“The constants in my life have been a lot of touring and getting around Australia and playing with my family,” Jim said.
“I had a couple of years off when I was living in Melbourne and working in film. But as they say, just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in, and we’re full steam ahead doing as much touring as we can this year.”
Growing up in Sydney, Jim recalls flying out during the school holidays to wherever Slim and Joy were, which he said could be anywhere from Fitzroy Crossing to Cunnamulla.
“It felt very normal, but I knew it wasn’t what all my friends at school were doing during the holidays,” he said.
It felt very normal, but I knew it wasn’t what all my friends at school were doing during the holidays.
- Jim Arneman
Looking back at his grandfather’s recording career, Jim said it was Slim’s earliest songs and recordings, written when he was still a teenager in the Macleay Valley. Such as When the Rain Tumbles Down In July.
“The scope of those songs, and the vernacular he’s using, for a 15-year-old who had dropped out of school, these are pretty amazing songs to be writing.”
Fast forward to his own music career, Jim explained that Small Town Romance was formed after he met Flora in Melbourne in 2014.
He had moved to Victoria in 2009 to complete post graduate studies at university and later work as a film editor.
“I went and did some post grad studies and worked for a few years, but I came back around to music when I met my now wife, Flora,” he said. “And we started a band together.”
The couple bonded over a love of classic country music and roots music.
“We decided we were going to start a band and one thing led to another, and here we are.”
As they hit the road after releasing an album last year, the full band will be playing some Queensland shows, before Jim and Flora bring their duet show to concerts in northern NSW, where they will play at Byron Bay, Gloucester as well as Armidale early next month.
“When we’re in duet mode, we’re very focused on the duet singing Flora and I,” Jim said. We love singing duets, we love using both our voices to sing harmony.”
Jim and Flora share the singing duties on the album as well as the songwriting credits.
“There’s a lot of truck songs, lot of train songs, lot of driving songs in the family catalogue and I was happy to continue that.”
The Victorian band played at the Tamworth Country Music Festival for the first time this year.
When Jim and Flora attended the Toyota Golden Guitar Awards in January, their band was given by a plug when Joy McKean was on stage and suggested they could be next family members to join Slim, The McKean Sisters and Anne on the Roll of Renown.
“That was her and Max Ellis playing a prank on Flora and I,” Jim laughed.
“They said do you want to go to the awards this year, and we said sure let’s go to the awards.
“And Joy said if we’re going to the awards we’re going to do it properly and walk the red carpet and we’re going to give you a plug on stage, and I said ‘sure, why not?’
When Max and Joy were on the stage, Max pointed out that they were the only family to have three plaques on the Roll of Renown, prompting Joy to reply that they could have a fourth in 20 or 30 years with Small Town Romance.
“Max, who’s a good family friend of ours, he’s the one who wrote that script and played that prank on us, so no pressure at all, of course,” Jim laughed.