Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
ORLD
I
n the year since the release of his debut solo album Gurrumul in Australia, Geoffrey Gurrumul
Yunupingu has quietly become the country’s first ‘Aboriginal superstar’. He’s won an ARIA plus
W a nomination for Australian of the Year, and Gurrumul has sold a staggering 100,000 copies,
sitting alongside AC/DC and Pink in the Australian pop charts.
All this despite minimal promotion, and Gurrumul’s seemingly eccentric refusal to engage directly
with journalists. He feels they are ‘hunting him like a kangaroo, trying to spear him’, according to his
bass player and producer Michael Hohnen, who largely speaks on his behalf in the rare interviews
he grants.
“The whole Gurrumul phenomenon is really intriguing”, observes Hohnen. “It’s taken over my life,
but I’m trying to not let it take over his, so I’m almost trying to cushion him from a lot of it. Because
I’ve seen how fame and being in rock [music] tends to affect a lot of Aboriginal people. It’s just
like they’re not built to live on the road and go the hard life... all that sort of stuff,” Hohnen sighs,
perhaps silently recalling his own days with hard gigging Melbourne alt. rockers The Killjoys.
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But it’s not as if Gurrumul is an overnight sensation. As his autobiographical song Gurrumul History
ALBUM COVER
(I Was Born Blind) hints at, the 38-year-old spent seven years with Aboriginal rock/roots band Yothu
to buy now
Yindi, touring as far as London and LA before leaving in 1994. Although he sings in four indigenous
languages, he also speaks and sings in English, so his way of keeping the music press at arm’s
length might seem a little precious. Even so, it’s generated a great mystique around the enigmatic
artist.
Hohnen considers the fact that the newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his famous
apology to Australia’s ‘Stolen Generation’ just before the success of Gurrumul to be a co-incidence
rather than a case of white Australians using retail therapy to assuage their guilt. Instead he points
to the album’s understated, folky, acoustic arrangements, which subtly showcase Gurrumul’s soulful,
wailing voice. It’s totally unlike most Aboriginal pop music, which is usually more rough-hewn rock,
country or reggae – as is the case with Gurrumul’s other outfit, Saltwater Band. And you won’t hear
Geoffrey Gurrumul
any didgeridoos on Gurrumul. It seems that overseas audiences have already picked up on the
Yunupingu
emotional resonances in Gurrumul’s delivery, which transcend any language barriers. The iTunes
Gurrumul
Folk chart has already seen Gurrumul achieving top ten status in 6 European territories, including a Skinny Fish Music
number one in Italy. And the UK release will be followed up by live shows later this year. SFGU080201
Jon Lusk
Daby Touré And Skip McDonald
D
aby Touré never considered which is where all music comes from anyway.”
himself a collaborator. After
relocating to Paris from Mauritania,
Call My Name is a pop-fusion album that captures the magic
West Africa, in the 1980s, the 30
of this unique creative union, that sees songs – some by
-something musician had his fill of
Touré, others by McDonald – transformed via imaginative,
groups and associates and established
instinctive collaboration. “Skip would play me a rhythm and
a reputation as a virtual one-man band.
quickly establish a groove, the way a traditional musician from
Daby Touré And Skip
His Real World albums Diam and Stereo
Mauritania or Senegal does,” says Touré, who sings in English
Mcdonald
Spirit showcased his mix of tradition
and a variety of African languages and – with Keith LeBlanc

CALL MY NAME

and innovation, his gloriously agile
on drums – plays guitar, bass and the occasional percussion
Real World Records
singing and frankly astounding multi-
instrument.
CDRW164
instrumentalism. There was no need to With a career built on shared musical ideas, McDonald says
collaborate, Touré figured, when he could do it all himself. that this time around he’s entered new territory: “I’ve gone
“It was really important for me to express exactly what I
from gospel and reggae to funk and dub, taking the old blues
needed to express, to say to people exactly what I needed to
and putting today’s stamp on them. But working with Daby is
say,” he says, “and I never met anyone I could share that with.”
something else; being in the same room when he really goes
for it is quite incredible.”
Then he met Skip McDonald. An old school African American
blues guitarist from Dayton, Ohio, long time resident in
Touré shrugs a modest shrug. “When Skip plays guitar
London, England and erstwhile frontman for 21st century
it is easy for me to find the right feeling,” he says.
blues project Little Axe (think Real World albums Champagne
“We understood each other from the start.
And Grits and Bought For A Dollar, Sold For a Dime). The
Skip said to me,
veteran of such hallowed outfits as Tackhead, On-U Sound and
‘Whenever you call
The Sugarhill Gang. Intrigued between coinciding recording
me, I will come’.
schedules at Real World Studios, they jammed – then kept on
And he has.”
meeting and jamming at festivals around the world. “Which,” he
Their connection was immediate and, they insist, inspired.
adds, “is a
“We both children of the Motherland who’ve ended up
very Af

rican

somewhere else,” says McDonald. “So we’ve got African/
thing.”
French culture. African/American/English culture. We’ve got
Jane
a load of other influences. We went in and out of Africa, Cornwell
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