Barry Harley OAM was making displays for Myer when he was asked to help organise what would become the biggest country music festival in the southern hemisphere.
It was 1973, and he was not the biggest fan of the genre.
“Good music is good music, so I have a lot of country music in my library,” he said.
“But a lot of that [was] 60s and 70s Beatles and The Rolling Stones.”
Barry Harley has been a part of the Tamworth Country Music Festival since the very beginning. (supplied)
He was using his marketing skills to make band posters for Tamworth’s local radio station 2TM — which largely founded the Country Music Festival.
When he agreed to transfer those advertising talents from the department store to the stage, he fell in love with the scene.
“I became very fond of the country music family — not necessarily led by the music — but by the people in the industry that were producing this music,” he said.
“They were also producing great friendships.”
Those relationships encouraged him to stay on, and he eventually took over as coordinator in 2015.
Barry Harley (left) met with big names like Buddy Williams (right) while working as a stage designer. (supplied)
Now as he prepares to bow out after 54 festivals, he cannot imagine life without country music.
“The job has always been not only my work, but it’s been my social life, it’s been my hobby, it’s been my sport all rolled into one,” he said.
“So to plan for that all to cease all on one magic day is probably a big job that I haven’t really approached yet.”
From hundreds to hundreds of thousands
No crowds filled the city’s main drag, Peel Street, for the first festival in 1973.
“You could probably fire a cannon up the street and you wouldn’t hit anyone,” Mr Harley said.
“It wasn’t extraordinarily successful.”
2TM partnered with the Country Capital Music Association’s talent search competition that year, which grew into the Golden Guitar Awards.
The festival was at its most popular in the 1980s. (ABC archives: A Big Country 1987)
“But in very quick time the town hall, where the first awards were held, went from two or three hundred in the audience to a thousand,” he said.
Since then, the festival has grown to the largest country music event in the Southern Hemisphere.
More than 300,000 attendees visit every year to see 700 performers at 80 venues.
Crowds still pack out Tamworth’s CBD for the biggest country stars like Lee Kernaghan and The Wolfe Brothers. (supplied: Tamworth Country Music Festival)
Mr Harley said as the genre changed over the years, so too did the festival.
“I think the shift in country music is what’s kept Tamworth alive for 54-years,” he said.
“It hasn’t required any wholesale changes to attract new audiences, because the music itself has changed to a point where it’s broadened its appeal.”
Country music ‘family’
Mr Harley said forming a family-like bond with so many artists meant he could not pick a favourite musician.
“People like Troy Cassar-Daley, he’s what you see is what you get, and then you see these new people like Max Jackson who won Star-Maker, and more recently Wade Forster knocking goal after goal.
Barry has worked with country greats and rising stars like Wade Forster. (ABC News)
“All of that variety, that no-nonsense authentic feel of the artists, that translates into the audience,” he said.
Coonamble born country musician Max Jackson said it felt surreal that Barry Harley was stepping away as coordinator.
Appointed festival ambassador in 2023, Ms Jackson said much of what she had accomplished would not have been possible without him.
Max Jackson said everything she had done wouldn’t have been possible without Barry Harley. (ABC New England: Peter Sanders)
“Having someone like Barry who really thinks about everyone through from the buskers, someone getting their first guitar … all the way through to the Golden Guitars, it really makes it possible for everyone to have an opportunity and for everyone to know how important they are,” she said.
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to have a beer with Barry at a show because he won’t be working. I can’t wait for that.”
As a third generation Tamworth musician, Ashleigh Dallas said Mr Harley has supported her entire family.
“I’ve seen his kids grow up as well, it’s been a long relationship, and that’s not going to change just because his role is changing,” she said.
Ashleigh Dallas’s relationship with Barry Harley spans over multiple generations. (ABC New England: Peter Sanders)
“I hope we get to just see him enjoy family time and all the things he loves as an individual and of course anytime there’s a show on, his family’s name is on that door list.”
While Barry Harley’s main gig as the festival coordinator ends, he does plan on performing an encore in an advisor role at future events.
Joel Ulbricht will step into the manager position after learning the ropes during this year’s festival. (ABC New England North West: Brigitte Murphy)
Joel Ulbricht will take over from Mr Harley next year but for now he is meeting with stakeholders, locals and learning from the best.
Mr Harley said his career was not about leaving a legacy.
“What we are witnessing now, 54 years on, is the results of many hours of hundreds and hundreds of people that have all, developed where the festival stands today,” he said.