Archie Roach the Australian Aboriginal Singer Has Had a Remarkable Life and Career, As Jane Cornwell Reveals
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FestivalBeginner’s pass guide ARCHIE ROACH The Australian Aboriginal singer has had a remarkable life and career, as Jane Cornwell reveals 52 songlines › issue 99 SARAWAK hen Archie Roach walked on and played a Hank Williams tune. That was it; I BEST ALBUMS stage at the Playhouse Theatre wanted to play guitar after that.” in Melbourne during the 2012 He was 14 when he got a letter from his blood Into the Bloodstream W (Liberation Music, 2012) Australasian Worldwide Music Expo (AWME), sister, Myrtle, explaining who he was, who Having suffered the loss of the applause bounced off the walls. The stocky his siblings were and that his mother had just his wife Ruby Hunter, and 57-year-old is one of Australia’s most beloved passed away. Head spinning, Roach grabbed survived both lung cancer voices and songwriters, but this was something his guitar and left to search for the truth. He and a stroke, Roach rose from the ashes like else. Having endured a stroke, lung cancer and fell apart along the way, living on the streets as a proverbial phoenix with what is arguably the loss of his partner and muse Ruby Hunter an alcoholic. It was at a Salvation Army hostel his finest album to date. Reviewed in #89. in the preceding three years, that Roach was in Adelaide that he met Hunter. Roach was Charcoal Lane there at all – let alone dressed in a dinner suit, 17; they would be together until she died in (Hightone, 1990) with a 13-piece band and ten-voice indigenous February 2010. Later in their marriage, once Roach’s gentle, moving choir behind him – was simply remarkable. they’d had a family themselves, the doors of debut features minimal This was the launch of Into the Bloodstream, their house were open to troubled indigenous acoustic arrangements, deft accompaniment by Paul Kelly and the late a gospel-flecked album chock full of songs teenagers, as they themselves had been. Steve Connelly, and such powerful ballads as of hope, joy and redemption and Roach’s Together they made music and formed a ‘Native Born’ and ‘Took the Children Away’. first release of new music in five years. Here band; Roach was working at a homeless shelter were songs such as ‘Big Black Train’, with its when he was asked to support the well-known Jamu Dreaming (Aurora, 1992) cautionary bound-for-hell lyrics; the beautiful singer-songwriter Paul Kelly in concert. “I only Roach’s sophomore effort ‘Mulyawongk’, a tribute to the life, land and did two songs. The first was ‘Beautiful Child’. casts the net wider with spirit of Hunter; and ‘Old Mission Road’, a The other was ‘Took the Children Away’. I sang songs about everything lament on a lost childhood and an imagining that and there was dead silence.” A shrug. “I from marital happiness (‘Love in the of what might have been. ‘Won’t you walk with thought, ‘Fair enough, no one knows me,’ and Morning’) and fatherhood (‘Mr T’) to me darling just a couple of miles,’ he sang in his got up to walk out. Then the clapping started, domestic violence (‘Walking Into Doors’). familiar cracked baritone, sitting on a high stool here and there at first, and then it was like rain Journey with a heel hooked on a rung, coming down.” (Liberation Music, 2007) his tie undone Sinatra-style. His career took off with A companion piece to the ‘Won’t you tell me the stories of “I felt like I’d the Kelly-produced Charcoal acclaimed documentary when I was a child…’ sung enough Lane; peppered among a Liyarn Ngarn, a tale of racism and a plea for reconciliation between black Fast forward a year and series of acclaimed albums about troubles and white Australia that featured Roach’s Roach is telling me about his and innumerable live shows powerful lyrics and voice. Reviewed in #51. story and how it is depicted and pain, and have been soundtracks for on the vibrant ochre cover of films such as Rolf de Heer’s his new album. Two images I needed to The Tracker, opening slots for BEST COMPILATION flow into each other: on the the likes of Bob Dylan, Billy turn a corner” Creation left is a close-up of a blood Bragg and Patti Smith and (Warner Music Australia, 2013) cell. On the right, an extract of a painting by projects including the Black Arm Band This four-CD set features Robert Lowe Senior of the Aboriginal mission (a supergroup of indigenous Australian artists) remastered versions of at Framlingham in south-west Victoria, where and Ruby’s Foundation, an organisation that Roach’s first albums, and includes songs such as ‘Down City Streets’ Roach’s mother was born and where he lived supports Aboriginal arts and culture. and ‘A Child Was Born Here’, on which the with his sisters and brothers until he was three. Understandably, the triple whammy-tragedy great man’s reputation was built. Here, too, “Then we were taken away,” he says of 2010-11 made him think about retiring. are 14 previously unreleased bonus tracks. matter-of-factly. Roach is a member of the But with the support of his family, long-time Stolen Generation: the Aboriginal children manager Jill Shelton and the producer and If YOU LIkE ARCHIE forcibly removed from their families by guitarist Craig Pilkington, Roach went into the ROACH, THEN TRY…. Australian government agencies and placed studio and recorded Into the Bloodstream with in orphanages and then with white foster an oxygen bottle on standby: “Slowly, the songs Shane Howard families. His landmark song, 1990’s ‘Took came into me, and as I sang them I started to get Goanna Dreaming (Goanna Arts, 2010) the Children Away’, tells the sad truth of better mentally, emotionally and spiritually. One of Australia’s most indigenous Australia and subsequently “I felt like I’d sung enough about troubles, beloved singer-songwriters received two ARIA Awards and an international sorrow and pain, and I needed to turn a corner,” and one-time frontman Human Rights Achievement Award. he says in his quiet, dignified way. “I wanted to of the iconic Goanna, Howard has spent The young Roach was eventually fostered write about coming through pain in a positive most of his working life collaborating with by the Coxes, a family of Scottish immigrants way. We can all rant and rave and I’ll still do Aboriginal musicians including Roach. This, Howard’s 11th album, combines poetic in Melbourne: “Dad Cox had LPs by the Ink that,” he adds with a grin, “but I wanted to say and folk traditions as it underlines his Spots, Nat King Cole and Mahalia Jackson, ‘hang on a minute. It’s good to be alive.’” commitment to indigenous Australia. whose version of ‘Amazing Grace’ blew me away. My sister Mary Cox played pedal organ in + V IDEO Watch a video by Archie Roach on church; one day this lady got up with a guitar the Songlines YouTube channel issue 99 › songlines 53.