It will honour Joy McKean, who perhaps contributed more to the recognition of Australian women's songwriting talent than any other female artist.

Country and pop stars including Paul Kelly, Don Walker (Cold Chisel), Kasey Chambers, Troy Cassar-Daley and Beccy Cole will perform Joy's songs while the 90-year-old rests in the audience.

Lights on the Hill and The Biggest Disappointment are two of my favourite Joy McKean-authored Slim Dusty songs.

Then there's Indian Pacific, Angel of Goulburn Hill, a long list of songs about Australia and Australians.

Her honour comes hot on the heels of her lifetime achievement award at the second annual Australian Women in Music Awards in Brisbane last October.

But it is the life story of this truly inspirational Australian that needs recognition.

Until I read her autobiography, Riding This Road, I didn't realise Joy McKean was a polio victim.

Just before her fifth birthday, Joy had said to her mother, "Mummy I can't walk." Joy had been sitting on the floor, and couldn't get up.

Sydney was experiencing a polio epidemic.

"I didn't live at home again for nearly three years," she wrote.

For much of that time she had to walk with callipers.

Her father was a teacher, and was transferred out of Sydney.

She was left at The Children's Hospital, then moved to a rehabilitation facility.

Then it was exercises at places like the Sister Kenny Clinic at Royal North Shore.

We used to talk to children about Queensland nurse Sister Kenny when I first began teaching, because polio had been quite common.

The indignity of having a nurse spray hot then cold water up and down your spine to stimulate blood flow, followed by physio exercises plus electrical stimulation of weakened muscles would have daunted many young girls.

This type of crude treatment was what pre-war polio sufferers had to endure.

Yet all the while Joy was developing her singing and instrumental skills on the piano, ukulele and guitar.

Her parents "... did everything they possibly could to assist me to grow up as an independent person; someone who adapted to my disability and did not regard it as an unassailable hurdle to my aims in life," she wrote.

Joy began singing as a child, and performing on stage with her sister Heather while both were still in their early teens.

I became a fan of The McKean Sisters, as they were known professionally, when I was a very young boy.

Joy and her sister Heather pioneered female country radio broadcasting in 1949 with their Melody Trail radio show on 2KY in Sydney.

Her book tells about meeting Slim Dusty, of course ... Not impressed at first.

When travelling with a touring troupe, she says, "By the time we hit Wagga Wagga, in the south-west of the state, it was freezing indeed, and I have a fond memory of an inebriated Slim holding up a lamppost in the main street ..."

Fortunately for all of us, they soon got together and were married in 1951, only to be parted by Slim's death in 2003.

I didn't actually see her perform until well after her marriage to Slim Dusty, probably in the late 1950s.

I'm sure that I have told my wedding story before, about arriving at Clermont in outback Queensland on our honeymoon, and discovering that the Slim Dusty Show was in town.

My new bride, having been a city girl, had never seen Slim Dusty.

We lined up outside the old hall. Joy McKean was managing front of house.

She escorted a group of us to a rather crowded hammock-style seat for what would be one of the most memorable shows of our lifetime.

I noticed that she had difficulty walking, but I didn't know then about her courageous battle against polio.

Beating polio and then overcoming her disability to reach the top makes Joy McKean a truly outstanding Australian.

Joy McKean has inspired other female musicians, and pioneered the place of female songwriters and performers in the Australian music industry.

May she enjoy Wednesday's Tamworth concert and the praise that will come her way.