Robert Finley will tour Australia for the first time in May 2026, marking a major chapter in a career that has grown across decades of hard work, steady reinvention and spiritual fire. The run is presented by Love Police, who have long championed artists who build their craft on soul, truth and lived experience. Finley, now 71, steps into Australia with the force of his new album Hallelujah! Don’t Let The Devil Fool Ya, his fourth for Easy Eye Sound and a work that stands as his most personal statement.
Finley grew up in Bernice, Louisiana, where music shaped every corner of his childhood. Gospel was his first language, and church gave him a stage before he ever knew he needed one. He began playing a thrift shop guitar at age eleven, then sharpened his craft watching gospel quartets with intense focus. His musical path shifted when he joined the United States Army in 1970. He travelled through Europe with the Army band as a guitarist and leader, gaining a grounding in performance that carried him through later years.
After returning home, Finley split his time between street performance, gospel work with Brother Finley And The Gospel Sisters, and carpentry. Vision loss ended his carpentry career, yet that loss opened a door to the chapter that reshaped his life. Music Maker Relief Foundation discovered him performing in Arkansas in 2015, which led to packaged tours with Robert Lee Coleman and Alabama Slim. The visibility gave Finley the momentum to finally record a debut album that revealed a voice capable of commanding global attention.
Finley released his debut Age Don’t Mean A Thing in 2016 on Big Legal Mess Records, created with the Memphis based Bo-Keys under the guidance of Bruce Watson and Jimbo Mathus. The record established Finley as a blues and soul craftsman with a remarkable ability to fuse autobiography with groove. That album also led him to collaborator Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, who worked with Finley on the Murder Ballads soundtrack, then produced his next album Goin’ Platinum! in 2017.
The partnership expanded across tours and global recognition, including appearances on the Easy Eye Sound Revue tour and increased international bookings. Finley amplified his profile again in 2019 when he performed his original song Get It While You Can on America’s Got Talent. He reached the semi-finals, giving a mainstream audience their first encounter with his story and sound.
Finley followed with the autobiographical Sharecropper’s Son in 2021, a detailed account of his upbringing in Louisiana. In 2023 he returned with Black Bayou, recorded with musicians from Sharecropper’s Son and joined by Patrick Carney and Jeffery Clemens. Through each release, Finley expanded a catalogue that stands as one of the most distinctive bodies of modern blues and soul.
His 2025 album Hallelujah! Don’t Let The Devil Fool Ya represents the culmination of his life in music. Recorded in one spontaneous day in Nashville with Auerbach and an all-star studio band, the album pulls gospel, blues, soul and R&B into a sound built on instinct and lived conviction. Finley’s daughter Christy Johnson brings a call-and-response presence that deepens the work, creating a record that feels ancient and immediate at the same time. Far from a traditional gospel release, it carries the emotional weight of artists such as Sam Cooke and the gospel ensembles of the American South.
Finley’s first Australian tour will bring this full story to the stage. His live shows carry intensity, humour, testimony and groove, delivered by a performer who has built his life on them.
ROBERT FINLEY, MAY 2026
17 May – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW with Daddy Long Legs
20 May – Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
21 May – Memo Music Hall, Melbourne, VIC
22 May – Meeniyan Town Hall, Meeniyan, VIC
23 May – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC
Also performing at Blues On Broadbeach, Gold Coast, QLD
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