It’s 50 years since Allan Caswell and his family arrived in Australia from England. In that time Caswell has established a huge reputation as a singer/songwriter and almost legendary status in Country Music.
He is one of Australia’s most recorded songwriters with well over 600 of his songs being released around the world by artists of the calibre of Cilla Black, Patti Page, The Irish Rovers, The Living End, Slim Dusty, Barry Humphries, Ricki May, James Blundell, Jasmine Rae, McAlister Kemp, Graeme Connors, The Wolfe Brothers, Anne Kirkpatrick, Chad Morgan, Lynne Hamilton, The Delltones, Jade Hurley, Ella Hooper among dozens of others.
Caswell has also built a big reputation as a writer of children’s songs as, among other projects, the cowriter and co-producer of the hugely successful Don Spencer albums.
In 1979 Caswell wrote the theme for the Australian television series “Prisoner” (Cell Block H in England) … “On The Inside” was a number 1 hit in Australia and New Zealand in 1979 and later reached number 3 in the UK and the Patti Page version made the country charts in the USA. After the success of “On The Inside” he went fulltime and has made a living writing and performing ever since. Recently rising star Seleen McAlister took the song to Number 1 on the Australian Country charts.
The plan is for Caswell to go back to as many of the places he has played over the last 50 years as he can. This is no easy task given that Caswell’s performing career has taken him to virtually every town in NSW to every state of Australia, New Zealand, LA, New York, Nashville, East Timor, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
A glittering career in Country Music in Australia has netted Caswell 7 Golden Guitars (Country Music Awards Of Australia) from 31 finalist nominations … he has also been awarded 10 songwriting Awards from the Tamworth Songwriters Association, including The Songmaker Award … a virtual Hall Of Fame for country songwriters. He has won 9 Awards at the Independent Country Music Awards (Southern Stars) including Album Of The Year for his last 3 albums. For the last 3 years there has been hardly a week when there hasn’t been at least one song (often 2 or 3) on the Australian Country charts. He is the go to cowriter for many of Australia’s top country artists.
2016 is off to a flying start with 2 nominations for the Golden Guitars and winning the coveted Golden Guitar for “Bush Ballad Of The Year” with good friend Manfred Vijars. He also scored Top 10 records with “Shelly’s Song” “Until The Hurtin’ Starts” “Back When I Was Older” (with Michael Carpenter) and a number 1 hit with “Nothing Left For Them”
At the recent Southern Star Awards, Caswell won an unprecedented 5 Awards … Heritage, Single, Male Artist and Album of the Year … and the coveted Australian Independent Artist Of The Year.
At the recent Tasmanian Independent Country Music Awards Allan won the National Legend Award and was named a 3 time finalist in the 2017 Golden Guitars (including Male Artist Of The Year.