Powerhouse country-folk duo Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham are bringing their firebrand music to Canberra. Photo: Supplied.
She says she doesn’t know whether it was the banjo or the bloke, but country music legend Felicity Urquhart knew there was something pretty special about playing a few songs with Josh Cunningham when he rocked up at her place a few years ago.
For audiences who today see the pair performing their unique brand of folk and country, “something pretty special” is quite the understatement.
Both multi-instrumentalists and singers, Urquhart and Cunningham, on stage and on record, draw their listeners in with a perfect mix of poignant and playful music – which is altogether contagious.
Cunningham is a founding and continuing member of internationally acclaimed Aussie folk-rock band The Waifs, and he brings that same firebrand guitar work to this duo.
“What Josh does on the guitar is incredible,” Urquhart says.
“He has a very unique way of approaching music and it’s outstanding.
“I’ll hold the rhythm down and he does all the twiddly bits – in a very classy way.”
Cunningham even builds his own guitars, so he certainly knows his way around a fretboard.
And he’s quick to praise Urquhart’s musicianship.
“Felicity is a multi-instrumentalist and very good on them all,” he says.
“So together, we bring different musical voices to the game.
“When there are just two people on stage, you have to find different parts to play so it’s more vibrant and interesting, and not just both playing the same chords in the same positions.
“It’s those highlights and shades that really make a difference to a song.”
Urquhart has been a household name in Australia for more than three decades and is a mainstay of country music and broadcasting.
With 16 Golden Guitar Awards and a prime ministerial Centenary Medal to her name, Urquhart is the real deal.
They’ve only been a duo for five years, but they’re already working on album No. 3, with singles from it already released.
Those new songs, as well as many from their back catalogue of now folk-country favourites (plus a few Waifs numbers), will all feature in their upcoming show at the beautiful Belconnen Arts Centre – a Smiths@Belco event.
For the pair, who are now partners in music and in life, it all began in 2020.
“We were both invited to join in on something called Song Club in 2020, a creative challenge during COVID where we had to write a song a week,” Cunningham says.
“From there, the invitation was made that if I were ever going to be up on the Central Coast, then why not drop in and maybe play some music together.”
This is where Urquhart jumps in.
“So he turned up with a tenor banjo and I don’t know if I fell in love with the banjo or the bloke first,” she says with a laugh.
“But it all came together well and we started writing and playing songs together and we just fit.
“We were very nervous in our very first gigs together. We were like a couple of schoolkids.”
Now Cunningham interrupts with: “Well, I think I was nervous, but you were very composed.”
The Song Club is the title of their first album together, which features songs from that weekly creative challenge and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Country Albums charts in 2021.
Then came Birdsong in 2023, debuting at No. 2.
Both albums earned truckloads of awards.
The pair says the third album they are currently working on is an extension of where they are at musically, featuring more electric guitar than the previous offerings.
The latest single, I Want You, from the upcoming album, is being released the day before the concert in Belconnen, so Canberrans may well be among the first to hear it played live.
So, how do you put a brand on their style of country music?
“What is country music anyway?” Cunningham asks.
“We’re skirting the boundaries. It’s not what you’d call classic country.
“It’s Americana and that rootsy music we just love.
“And how we write songs together is: it’s simply when and where it strikes us.
“When it happens, that’s when it’s meant to be.”
Felicity Urquhart & Josh Cunningham appear at the Belconnen Arts Centre on Saturday, 20 September. Tickets are $49 ($44 concession) and can be booked online through Smiths@Belco.
