Adam Harvey’s new album Let the Song Take You Home features the heartfelt song Remember Me about his mother’s dementia.

Nine-time Golden Guitar winner Adam Harvey thought his mother was joking when she said he was like the son she “never, ever had” after “the best day ever”.

“And I said, ‘Oh, that’s really funny, Mom,'” Harvey told ABC News.

“And she was serious.

Harvey’s mother has dementia, prompting Harvey to write a track called Remember Me, which is included on his 17th studio album, Let The Song Take You Home, released Friday.

“It’s a sad song, but it’s not all doom and gloom because Mum still has moments like people with dementia,” he said.

“You think they’re completely lost and then they have moments of clarity that she’s back.

“Sometimes she says things that I have to just walk away or say, ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ and you go and cry and shed a few tears,” he said.

“But sometimes she does funny things too.

“My daughter Leila is studying to be an opera singer and she is an amazing singer.

“And one day, completely unexpectedly, my mother was having dinner and simply said: “Leila is a great singer.”

“And I said, ‘Yes, Mom, it is.’ And my mom looked at me very seriously and said, “I have no idea where she got that from.”

“I said, ‘No, me too, Mom,'” Harvey laughs.

Harvey, Australia’s Dementia Ambassador, says his mother’s diagnosis made him realize how many families in Australia are affected by dementia.

“The other day a guy pulled me out in the supermarket and said, ‘Oh, mate,’ he said, ‘I heard this song. Remember me.”

“He said, ‘You don’t know me from Bar of Soap, but I just have to tell you, I lost my wife to dementia. And every time I hear this song, it just brings me to tears.”

“I had no other choice”

Also on the album are the previously released It’s Gettin’ Late, which charts high on country radio, Sail Away, originally recorded by Kenny Rogers in 1978, the tongue-in-cheek “What’s a Man Gotta Do” and the title track, “Let The Song Take You Home” , which explores how songs and memories are closely connected.

Harvey, 49, is far from “a young guy who dreamed of making one album,” but he feels like it wasn’t that long ago.

“You blink and you’re lucky enough to have recorded 17 songs, which is amazing,” he says.

As a child, Harvey had only one goal.

“I had no other choice.”

However, for some time he thought that this would not happen.

“I was working full time and I thought, ‘Well, maybe this shouldn’t be, and music should just be my hobby that I do when I come home from work, get out the guitar and strum a little bit for therapy and sing a song for family and friends.”

But when Harvey’s duet with Tanya Self, Drive Away, won him his first Country Music Award at Tamworth in 1998, it seemed his dreams would come true.

“I got a record deal that same night and it went from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye,” he said.

However, this deal did not last long: Harvey had to pull himself together, dust himself off and “start from scratch.”

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Over the years, he has experienced both incredible ups and downs.

“It was a real roller coaster,” he said.

With a career spanning more than 20 years, half a million album sales and multiple gold and platinum albums, he says tough times have made him more resilient.

“I think it also makes you really appreciate that you get to where I am now, 17 albums later, I can travel all over the world,” he said.

“My wife and my children have seen the world.

“I travel all over the country and play songs that I like, country music, play country music to people in cities all over Australia.

“So, I think the hard times have made me probably appreciate the life that I have now even more.”

Adam Harvey’s new album Let the song take you home out now. You can check it tour schedule on his website. And to find out more or help support those living with dementia, contact Here.