Lee Kernaghan

A son of Australia through and through, singer Lee Kernaghan has built himself a country music empire by celebrating and exploring his homeland in his Outback-evoking tunes. Born in 1964 in Corryong, Victoria, Kernaghan is part of a storied family tradition: his father, Ray, is an Australian country music trailblazer. The younger Kernaghan was an immediate success, with his boisterous 1992 debut, The Outback Club, which eventually went double platinum, spurred on by the chugging single “Boys from the Bush”. Since then, Kernaghan has been on a commercial tear with his dusty and dark story-songs (1995’s “This Cowboy’s Hat”), rowdy roadhouse joints (1998’s “Bare Essentials”) and highway tunes (2000’s “Rules of the Road”). While it might be typical for big stars to leave home behind once they’ve made their millions, one of the notable aspects of Kernaghan’s music is his commitment to the stories of his home and its people. In 2015, he nabbed his first No. 1 record on the Australian charts with Spirit of the Anzacs, an ambitious concept album that uses deeply affecting songwriting to explore the Australian military experience from World War I to the present day.