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"Nude Boot Scootin" and "Let's Get a Cow" were two songs that our guest speaker sang to entertain us and he did that to great effect. Grant Luhrs, an accomplished song writer and singer, gave us an interesting insight into his life and the music industry.
Grant has not always been an entertainer. He played Australian Rules football professionally including in six winning grand final sides, in 1982 he came to Wagga.
In introducing Grant, Past President Geoff Breust said he first met him at a Tourism Wagga stand in Sydney. The purpose was to showcase what our city has to offer. Kay Hull, former member for Wagga, was president of Tourism Wagga and had invited Grant to be part of the promotion. The Wagga stand was very popular, thanks to Grant's singing and playing with people dancing and joining in. Geoff described Grant as a big supporter of Wagga.
Beginning his address, Grant said hello to the Zoomers and thanked Rotary for the meal, the first decent one he has had in twelve months, he said, so tough are things in the music industry. The nature of the industry has changed with the digital revolution. Creative people have taken a big hit. Royalties have reduced, CD sales have dropped, digital streams pay about 1c for 1,000 streams on spotify.
Artists have therefore turned to live performances to earn a decent income. This has increased competition from overseas artists and of course Covid has restricted this form of entertainment severely.
In 1982, Grant came to Wagga with his first big song "Let's get a cow". This song became very popular and was promoted by Macca on ABC Sunday Radio. Macca and Grant are mates. Chad Morgan also sang this song which Grant felt extremely happy about as it was testament to its popularity in the world of country music.
Grant has a recording studio here in Wagga and his band is known as "The Chook Raffle Band". On a trip to China for Music Festival, this name proved difficult to translate the meaning into Chinese. Something like the chicken lottery band was the best they could do. Not quite the same meaning.
After attending the Gympie Muster and observing the seriousness of the line dancers, one of Grant's group said wouldn't it be funny if the line dancers were all nude. So was born the idea for the song "Nude Boot Scootin". This led Grant, his band and our very own Geoff Breust, who was involved in Tourism Wagga, to the River Island Nature Retreat to attempt a world record for the most number of nude boot scooters doing line dancing. Not a pretty sight they said and hard to keep eye contact!
Grant loves what he does. Being immersed in the country and entertaining for a living, including five ship cruises is part of his dream job. Some of Grant's well known compositions are: "Full moon tonight"; "A Farming Man"; 'Nude Boot Scootin"; "It's Hard to be a Cowboy with a Poodle by your side"; "Two Old Ladies Dancing"; "Let's get a Cow".
After singing two songs which were enthusiastically received, Grant was thanked by President Richard for a very entertaining presentation and gave him a bottle of wine in appreciation. Loud applause from members!