Shirley Thoms

Shirley Thoms-Bystrynski (12 January 1925 – 1 July 1999), was an Australian country music singer and pioneer of Australia's country music industry. She was known as Australia's Yodelling Sweetheart.

Thoms was born in 1925, in Toowoomba, Queensland and was raised in a family of seven children. She began her career singing and yodelling songs by Tex Morton and Harry Torrani, and won a Bundaberg talent quest with Torrani's Mockingbird Yodel. In 1941, aged 16, with what is now EMI Records she became the first female solo act to record country music in Australia, as well as the first Queenslander to be featured on disc. This first batch of songs included ""Faithful Old Dog". She went on to tour Australia and New Zealand, entertaining the troops during World War II and writing songs. Thoms became known by the title of Australia's Yodelling Sweetheart. She later toured with Sole Bros Circus and met her first husband John Sole. The couple had a son, Peter and Thoms stepped away from show business, however John Sole died prematurely. In 1970, Thoms came out of retirement to appear on the Captain Cook Bicentenary Show in the Tamworth Town Hall and briefly revived her career with album releases in 1970 and 1972.

Her most popular and best selling recordings were "The Faithful Old Dog", "Where The Golden Wattle Blooms" and "Yodelling In The Moonlight".

She was elevated to the Australasian Country Music Roll of Renown in 1980 (only the fifth artist to be so honoured and the first woman). She was also inducted into the Country Music Hands of Fame in that same year.

After suffering from Parkinsons Disease and a heart condition, she died in 1999, at Summerland Point, Lake Macquarie, NSW, aged 74.

There is a collection of bronze busts in Bicentennial Park, Tamworth that includes Shirley Thoms, Stan Coster, Tex Morton, Gordon Parsons, Barry Thornton and Buddy Williams.