Unique and diverse career came naturally

He has nine Golden Guitars to his credit, is an APRA and ARIA award winner, is loved by a generation of children for his role on ABC TV’s iconic Play School, is one of Australia’s most successful picture book authors and internationally acclaimed Christian children’s artist.

When exactly did Dublin-born Colin Buchanan’s creative career begin? 

His musical heritage can be traced back to those Saturday afternoons, when, as an 8-year-old, he’d make up impromptu songs as he played in the backyard of his southern Sydney family home. 

Entertaining has always come naturally - his reputation as class clown was tactfully toned-down by Miss O’Brien in his Year 4 school report when she wrote, “Colin is outspoken”.

“My career has been an adventure in doing what comes naturally,” Colin admitted. “I’m so blessed over the last 20 years to have made a career of basically being Colin! I like to say I make a living out of what I used to get in trouble for at school!”

Colin Buchanan was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1964. In 1970, just before his sixth birthday, his family arrived in Melbourne to start a new life in Australia. 

His father found work in Sydney and suburban Peakhurst was home until, at 21 and as a recently graduated primary school teacher, he married his wife, Robyn.

It was his time at Pera Bore in 1988, then Grenfell in central-west NSW that really ignited Colin’s songwriting. 

In 1989 Australian country band The Flying Emus came to Grenfell. Colin handed a ‘lounge room’ tape to band leader John Kane after the gig. 

The result was a deal with Universal Music Publishing - the beginning of a rare, two decade-plus partnership and the first of three albums with ABC Music. 

1993 saw Colin’s first appearance as presenter on ABC TV’s Play School. Colin wrote songs and performed on the program for more than 10 years before spending five years on Playhouse Disney.

Colin’s multi-media career broadened, so that, by 2000, as well as continuing his country music career he was co-hosting the most syndicated radio program in the nation, The Toyota Outback Club. 

On primetime TV, Colin was presenting “Australia’s Strangest Home Improvements” on the Seven Network and he became a fixture on the nationally broadcast Golden Guitar Awards, with an unrivalled 10 straight gigs as MC. 

He can still be heard literally anywhere in the world as long-running host of “Big Country”, the Qantas inflight audio country channel. And as a regular TGIF guest on Richard Glover’s ABC 702 Drive program, Colin has amassed an impressive collection of impromptu topical songs, slated for long-awaited album release in 2013.

But it was a casual request by fellow country star Lee Kernaghan in the mid-90s that would create yet another role for Colin, that of songwriting collaborator. 

Colin has grown to become Australian country music’s go-to song collaborator, contributing to the award-winning careers of not only Lee, but Troy Cassar Daley, Adam Harvey, Beccy Cole, Adam Brand, Melinda Schneider, The Bushwackers, Tamara Stewart, Amber Lawrence, Markus Meier and Tania Kernaghan.

Yet what must be Colin’s most off-beat collaboration (with fellow songwriter Greg “Champs” Champion) became his biggest - and most unexpected - hit. The platinum-selling “Aussie Christmas with Bucko and Champs” became an Australian classic. 

“Thanks to that record,” laughs Colin, “Kids all over Australia think “Dashing through the bush in a rusty Holden ute” are the real words to Jingle Bells!!”

Fifteen years and multiple albums and DVDs later, Colin is unquestionably Australia’s leading Christian children’s artist. 

His songs have been the Christian music soundtrack to countless car trips, kids clubs and Sunday schools. 

For more about Colin Buchanan go to: http://colinbuchanan.com.au/about/#sthash.sODREgPT.dpuf

seriously - I just happen to do it in dressed as a caveman or in an inflatable chef suit! I think my UK friends consider me slightly eccentric!”

- 2012 saw the release of “The Songwriter Sessions” CD & DVD, a landmark live-to-tape recording with a stellar list of collaborators - John Williamson, Lee Kernaghan, Troy Cassar Daley, Sara Storer, Diana Corcoran, Dobe Newton, Markus Meier, Anne Kirkpatrick and Peter Denahy. It’s a fitting monument to a delightfully diverse career that began with some songs written in a caravan out the back of Bourke.

“Of course, I never knew what lay ahead when I started this whole songwriting thing!” admits Colin. “I’m no more sure now, really! I just keep writing songs and the road keeps unfolding, with all its interesting twists and turns. It’s such a blessed life and I thank God for opening the doors as he has.”

- See more at: http://colinbuchanan.com.au/about/#sthash.sODREgPT.dpuf