A cool thing happened this week in Australia. Singer-songwriter Anthony Snape, who has never spent a minute with a major label, ascended to number one on the Australian Country Airplay Chart with “Red Dirt Road”, jumping eight places to get there, and marking his first ever number one song.

Prior to this week, Snape had only appeared on a Billboard number one as a co-songwriter and session player, which he did in 2018 with Tommy Emmanuel’s “The Duke’s Message.” And Emmanuel is how Snape has risen to such heights. For much of the last two decades he has been Emmanuel’s opener on his world tours and a frequent co-collaborator. This very writer saw Snape open for Tommy Emmanuel here in Orlando.

Snape at the time was engaging, his music was plaintive and heartfelt and there were glimmers of promise. But a number one song seemed a bit far off. And then Snape began writing country music and building a strong platform on Patreon and that leads us here to this post. Twenty-plus years into his career Snape is finally seeing all that hard work pay off. We couldn’t be happier for the lad. Cheers, Anthony, cheers!