Spoon legend off to US for TV show

Augusta spoon artist Deb Perry has hit a fork in the road.

After rising to prominence in Australia, spoon-playing Perry is now off to Los Angeles as part of a new NBC television series called Forever Young, hosted by Steve Harvey.

Perry told the Times the show was aimed at the young at heart and would showcase older people from around the world with hidden talents.

“Just when I think I’ve achieved enough, something else pops up,” she said.

“They looked all over the world for people and that’s what pleases me. I’m rapt to be going as an Aussie.”

Taught to play the spoons by an old man at The Stoned Crow in North Fremantle in the early 1970s, Perry’s thigh-tapping skills have earned her a worldwide fan base and more than a million views online.

Perry rose to fame after her performances as a finalist on Australia’s Got Talent in 2008 and was voted in the top 10 of 600 buskers in the 2012 Australian Country Music Busking Championships at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

“I’m a drummer with a pair of spoons in a sense,” she said.

“I started messing about at home and it’s just developed and grown from there.”

Perry said performing in the WA Symphony Orchestra and performing and teaching 1600 people how to play the spoons in a world-record attempt at TEDxSydney at the Sydney Opera House last year were her main highlights.

“Just to play in the Opera house was huge, but to have the stage all to myself was amazing,” she said. In 2012, she performed the Black Keys’ hit Lonely Boy, which was filmed by Warner Music and racked up more than one million views online in just over four weeks.

The clip also featured in The Ellen DeGeneres Show’s top 100 clips for 2013.