Hailed in New York, Aboriginal Singer Transcends Barriers of Language and Time

Indigenous folk artist receives support from Sting, Elton John and Quincy Jones as he performs for capacity crowd in New York.

Gurrumul is painfully shy, blind and grants no interviews, but the indigenous Australian singer’s music is so striking that he has won star backing for a first American tour.

With a plaintive yet mellifluous voice, Gurrumul transcends language barriers as he sings in his Gumatj dialect which is understood only by around 3,000 people.

Gurrumul has sold more than half-a-million albums worldwide, largely in Australia where the reserved 45-year-old has become an unlikely chart sensation with his two albums both entering the charts in the top five.

After several plans fell through to play in the US, Gurrumul opened a tour Wednesday night in New York with the support of legendary producer Quincy Jones.

“It’s unbelievable. I know you’re going to get blown away as much as I was when I first heard him,” Jones, best known for his work with Michael Jackson, said of Gurrumul in a video message.

“This is one of the most unusual and emotional and musical voices I’ve ever heard,” he added.

Writing on his Facebook page, Jones called Gurrumul’s music a reason to reject the mindset of colonisation, saying: “When you look at the cultures of the indigenous peoples of the lands, there is always such authentic beauty.”

While no one is betting that Gurrumul will win Michael Jackson-type fame, Jones’ production company promoted the sold-out show at the Subculture club in Manhattan.

The tour was continuing yesterday, taking Gurrumul to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Jones is not the only musical giant to support Gurrumul. Elton John joined him on stage in Australia, and Sting recorded a collaboration when Gurrumul earlier toured Europe.

The singer, whose full name is Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, comes from the tropical Elcho Island off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory.

He is said to know hundreds of songs from his Aboriginal tradition but his music, save for the lyrics, carries a familiarity for Western listeners.

The sound is in line with Western folk music, with occasional echoes of sixties songstress Joan Baez. Gurrumul sings, strums guitar and often carries the melody through humming.

Along with a drummer and second guitarist, the back-up band features double bassist Michael Hohnen, who became Gurrumul’s collaborator and alter ego after meeting him on Elcho Island two decades ago and eventually persuading him to record.

Hohnen said the band took advantage of the trip to New York to work in a studio on an upcoming album, which will have a more Gospel feel, a sign of the Methodist Church’s strong presence on Elcho Island.

Gurrumul gives no interviews – a mixture of his shyness and clan traditions – and rarely moves on stage, instead allowing Hohnen to speak on his behalf.

“If anyone has ever seen a saltwater crocodile lying in the mud, that’s about how much he moves,” Hohnen said at the New York concert, to laughter of the crowd but no reaction from the singer.

But a saltwater crocodile, Hohnen quickly explained, is a totem for Gurrumul that he has put into verse. Another totem for Gurrumul’s people that appears in song is the djilawurr, known to English settlers as the orange-footed scrub fowl, and Hohnen succeeded in encouraging the audience to imitate the bird.

Gurrumul sings occasionally in English as in the moving Gurrumul History, in which the singer, begins: “I was born blind … And I don’t know why.”

He also chose English for a brief, surprise, comment to the crowd: “We love you, New York.”