Most visitors pack the same playlist. A bit of pub rock. Two festival headliners. Whatever played on the flight.
That fills the silence. It doesn’t match the country you’re driving through.
If you plan trips or travel content for long enough, you see the same gap. People book the scenery, then soundtrack it with music that could belong anywhere. The fix is simple: add artists tied to real regions, real rooms, and real road miles.
That matters as much on a Sapphire Coast stop in Tathra as it does on a Tamworth weekend or a Queensland highway run. Better music makes the kilometres feel local.
Here’s a short working list. Six names. Easy to load before you leave.
1. Norma O’Hara Murphy
Best for: Tamworth, the Murray, inland NSW and Victoria.
Norma O’Hara Murphy is a Murray Valley country singer-songwriter with five Golden Guitars and a Hands of Fame induction. Slim Dusty covered her work. Albums like River Gums and Mallee Dust, Vanishing Horsemen, and Whiskey Gully Road come from bush and rodeo life, not a dressed-up version of it.
Later records also lean into Irish-Australian and Celtic roots. Handy if you’re near Glen Innes festival country or want something less Nashville-generic in the car.
For background on her career and awards, her Wikipedia page is a solid quick reference before you build the playlist.
Start with:
- Tamworth (The Song)
- How the Firequeen Crossed the Swamp
- Tracks from her bush-ballad catalogue
Play these on the run into festival towns. The paddocks stop looking the same.
2. Sara Storer
Best for: farm country, silo towns, long dry drives.
Inside Australian country, she’s well known. Outside it, a lot of travellers still haven’t heard her. That’s a miss.
Storer has a stack of Golden Guitars and an ARIA for Best Country Album. She writes cleanly about rural work, weather, and people who stay when conditions turn. Silos and Lovegrass suit western NSW, the Riverina, and any day that’s mostly fence lines and grain sheds.
She’s also a practical live pick. Regional theatres and country festivals book her often enough that you can catch a proper show without capital-city crowds.
Check dates before you lock in accommodation. Local nights sell through local networks first.
3. Busby Marou
Best for: Rockhampton, the Capricorn Coast, wider Queensland runs.
Central Queensland gets rushed on many east-coast trips. The music doesn’t need to be.
Thomas Busby and Jeremy Marou have spent about twenty years building a harmony-driven roots sound out of Rockhampton. It’s melodic enough for a mixed car. Local enough that it doesn’t feel pulled from a generic global playlist.
Load a few albums before the Bruce Highway blur sets in. If they announce regional dates, book early. These rooms don’t have spare arena capacity, and the good nights go quietly.
4. Emily Wurramara
Best for: northern Australia links, festival bills, any trip where you want First Nations music done properly.
Leave First Nations artists off the playlist and the trip soundtrack is incomplete.
Emily Wurramara is a Warnindhilyagwa woman from Groote Eylandt. She writes and sings in English and Anindilyakwa, moving through folk, blues, roots and indie without turning culture into decoration. Milyakburra built her name. Nara won Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2024 ARIAs, a first for an Indigenous woman in that category.
Streams are good homework. A live show is better. Her work changes how place names and northern landscapes land before you arrive.
5. A.B. Original
Best for: Melbourne nights, sharper city bills, travellers who want more than soft scenery songs.
Not every pick needs a dirt road.
Briggs (Yorta Yorta) and Trials (Ngarrindjeri) made Reclaim Australia impossible to file under easy listening. That is the point. The album pushed First Nations political hip hop into wider Australian conversation with craft and force. Awards followed. Plenty of visitors still skip past it for safer tourist playlists.
Play them when you want context with the capitals. Australian travel is not only beaches and brunch. This pair makes that clear in a few tracks.
6. The openers you’ll actually remember
Best for: every city and regional stop on your route.
Here’s the industry pattern that affects your week on the road: the artist who sticks is often second on the bill.
Watch support acts on bigger regional tours. That’s where you find writers who haven’t been flattened into national brand campaigns yet.
Useful places to look:
- Smaller Melbourne rooms
- Meanjin/Brisbane pub and theatre bills
- Adelaide’s live circuit
- Hobart’s compact calendar
- South coast NSW pubs and halls when you’re base-camping around Tathra
- Venue Instagram pages and email lists
Simple rule: for every headline you already know, add one support act you don’t. If two tracks land, put them on the trip playlist before breakfast.
Names change. The method doesn’t.
How to use this list
Keep it light. Two or three songs per artist is enough. Group them by region. Download offline before you lose service west of the Divide or between coastal towns.
Quick match guide:
- Inland NSW and Victoria: Norma O’Hara Murphy, Sara Storer
- Queensland coastal and regional: Busby Marou
- Northern links and broader festival routes: Emily Wurramara
- Capital-city nights with more bite: A.B. Original
- Everywhere else: the opener on tomorrow night’s bill
Find gigs the plain way. Venue socials. Local record shops. Pub chalkboards. Visitor-centre staff who actually go out. Generic “things to do” apps are usually late.
If your NSW south coast leg includes beach days, wharf walks, and easy family stops, plan the non-music half through Tathra Tourism and leave room in the evenings for whatever local room is hosting originals. One deliberate show every few days beats five noisy bars playing the same international covers.
Buy the ticket when you see the date, not when you’re already dressed for dinner.
Bottom line
Underrated rarely means untalented. It usually means under-exported, regionally rooted, or left off the three-name playlist every itinerary already uses.
You don’t need a huge catalogue. You need a tighter queue, a couple of door times, and enough curiosity to let local music do some of the guiding.
Start with the six above. Edit as you drive. Keep the artists who make the kilometres feel specific.
