ADD the sound of The Carpenters to the style of the Partridge Family, and you have Gavin Chatelier and his seven children.

"We sound very '70s, but it's just our style," said Gavin of his family band, from Yarragon in Gippsland.

It's a sound they can't get enough of at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

This year 'Gavin and the Sparrows' will embark on their fifth annual pilgrimage to the NSW festival, as one of rural Victoria's most successful and popular busking acts.

The Chatelier family will be joined by a migration of about 28,000 Victorians who make the annual journey to Australia's biggest country music event, which runs from January 18-27.

While the Chatelier family - who have produced 18 CDs of self-penned songs - spend half a year on the road around Australia and the world, Gavin said Tamworth was the big-ticket item.

"I busk on the street for 10 days and the kids join me in brackets. I busk for eight hours from 10am to 10pm, which is too much for them," Gavin said. "But in that time I can get $1000 a day in CD sales and coins."

Gavin has been singing since he was a lad and was in a high school band when he met his wife, Trudi. When the couple started a family, Gavin began his solo career and said as the children grew up they started joining him on stage, while being schooled by distance education.

The children range from Jessika, the eldest at 21, down to Grace, the youngest at seven, with Elijah, Jordan, Moses, Jotham, Isaiah in the middle.

"The kids always accepted the singing is part of their life," Gavin said.

"When they reach 18 they're given the option of not singing, but they all want to be there in Tamworth."