Jim Haynes has been a professional entertainer since 1988 and still performs at festivals and in club variety shows, often with our musical director Greg Hooper on piano. He has been the Australiana expert on the Macquarie Radio Network (2GB Sydney and 4BC Brisbane) for seventeen years and is also in demand as a speaker for literary events, libraries, historical societies and Probus clubs.
Jim, who was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day Honour’s List in 2016, ‘for service to the performing arts as an entertainer, author, broadcaster and historian’, has recorded for Festival, Sony, ABC Music, EMI and on his own label, Singabout Australia. He had a number one Country Music hit with Since Cheryl Went Feral in 1996 and a national hit in 1995 with Don’t Call Wagga Wagga Wagga, and has won the Comedy Song of The Year award at Tamworth four times.
The son of British migrants, Jim pursued a career as a teacher and academic for twenty years in Australia and the UK and has taught performance skills and song-writing for The Arts Council of NSW, University of New England and the Australian Performing Rights Association. He is the author of 26 popular books, with sales in excess of a quarter of a million copies, and was writer in residence at Charles Sturt University in 2011.