Tom LeGarde first successful country music exports — the LeGarde Twins.Tom and Ted...

1.          Graham Bell Website... www.gbellmedia2.com
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3. FANS of country music will converge on Tamworth to celebrate the genre and our best local talent, some of whom have made a name for themselves overseas. But they all owe a debt to our first successful country music exports — the LeGarde Twins.
   Tom and Ted LeGarde found fame in Australia in the 1950s before heading to the US where they met stars such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Johnny Cash. They appeared on variety shows, performed sold-out concerts and did guest roles in TV series Daniel Boone and Star Trek.
   Now in their 80s, they have recounted stories of their rise to fame in a self-published book Showbiz Hustlers. It tells of how two rough and to tumble boys from a Queensland sugar cane farm became country music stars.
   Born Thomas and Edward LeGarde on March 15, 1931, on a farm in Habana, near Mackay, in Queensland, their mother was an English migrant and their father Ernie LeGarde a hard man with a murky past who ran away from an orphanage at 14 to become a farmer.
   
   media_cameraTed and Tom the LeGarde Twins on 1963 TV show Country Style. News Archives
   
   At seven Ted and Tom’s older brother George brought home a wind-up gramophone and played them the country song Waitin’ For a Train by Jimmie Rodgers. The boys were “hooked” and when George later bought a guitar, Ted and Tom began singing country music. Shortly after, their mother also took them to their first movie. It starred William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, afterwards they told their mother that they wanted to be cowboys.