Born in Cairns and shuttled between Victoria and Queensland as a kid, Red fell upon music with a voracious hunger for its origins and its tentacles. On the way to being informed and enthusiastic he moved through his parents record collection - Johnny Cash, Bobby Goldsboro, Red Sovine, Marty Robbins, Johnny Horton and a bunch of country staples.

Listening to Cash's Tennessee Two he was besotted by the guitar playing of the great Luther Perkins; listening to Horton and Robbins he was dazzled by the Nashville picking of Grady Martin. Then it all started to break over him in waves, as he delved into the work of great string benders - Charlie Christian, Duane Eddy, Merle Travis, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, T. Bone Walker.

It wasn't until he began touring with his own band, the Rocketones, and made his way down to Melbourne where he played the Continental Club and was exposed to the southern rockabilly community of the day (Rockbottom Jones & the Detonators, the Starliners, etc) that he came into his own. As he told Australian Guitar magazine in 1999: "By this time I began to generate an interest in developing my own style. While I was playing in Catfish I was accumulating a larder of songs for the first Red Rivers album.”

Red cut his debut album, Hillbilly Heart in 1994, co-producing with Rondor Music's Creative Manager Graham Thompson. Since then, Red has released three more albums, Quarter Mile Down in 1997, his self produced album, Low Down Heart (1999) and most recently, his 'multi-hued working man's lament', 1950s inspired Wishbone.

“I love all kinds of roots music, but I just can’t get past my love of great country guitar playing and a great country song” Red insists. “But having said that, there’s still a lot of music that I haven’t got to yet!”

There's no denying that Red Rivers is destined to have a career of length and depth. His is a future that definitely bears watching. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.