GURRUMUL

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following story may contain names and images of people who have died.

National Indigenous Music Awards – NIMA Hall of Fame 2022

by Tracee Hutchison

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is the highest selling First Nations artist in Australian music history. A saltwater Gumatj man from Elcho Island in the Northern Territory Gurrumul, as he became known, hailed from the famed musical and political dynasty that delivered both land rights for Yolngu people in Arnhem Land and the legendary band Yothu Yindi, with whom Gurrumul started his career as a teenager.

“I was born blind, and I don't know why, God knows why, because he love me so
As I grew up, my spirit knew, then I learnt to read the world of destruction
United we stand, divided we fall, together we'll stand, in solidarity…
Trying to bridge and build Yolŋu culture
I've been to New York, I've been to LA, I've been to London
Ŋarranydja Gurrumul”

‘Gurrumul History (I Was Born Blind)’ – Gurrumul LP 2008
(Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu/Skinnyfish Music)

The story of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, self-documented on his 2008 eponymous debut album, is one of the most extraordinary in Australian music history: an Aboriginal performer, born blind on a remote island off the Arnhem Land coast, who teaches himself to play a range of instruments as a child and goes on to become a global superstar. His soulful high tenor voice, singing mostly in the languages of the Gumatj, Galpu and Djambarrpuynu clans and captivating audiences in concert halls around the world led Rolling Stone magazine to declare Gurrumul – as he came to be known – as “Australia’s most important voice”. A voice universally described as the “voice of an angel”, a voice and a musical style deeply embedded in the spiritual heart of the ancient culture it evoked.

Angelic, ethereal, mesmerising and transcendental became common descriptors of his artistic work. Fitting, perhaps, for a boy raised singing hymns in the Christian community of Galiwin’ku, a settlement originally established as a Methodist mission on Elcho Island in the 1940’s. The eldest of four sons born to Ganyinurra (Daisy) and Nyambi (Terry) Yunupingu, Gurrumul’s fascination and natural gift for making music started early. At five years old he taught himself to play a toy-keyboard given to him by his parents, by ear. When his uncle gave him a guitar, strung for a right-handed player, the left-handed child quickly adapted it by flipping the instrument upside down in a style he maintained throughout his career. Learning braille didn’t interest him. Instead his preferred communication was through the music he created, blending the western pop influences he’d heard on the radio with the spiritual influences of the Christian Church and the multilingual lyrics of his familial clans that spoke of a 60,000-year cultural connection to country and tradition.

In 1989, the then 18-year-old was invited to join the trailblazing culture-bridging band Yothu Yindi, co-founded by his Gumatj clan relative (the late) Dr. Mandawuy Yunupingu and with whom he shared the saltwater crocodile as his spirit totem. The teenage guitarist, keyboardist and drummer rode an extraordinary wave of international success with Yothu Yindi. By 1991, the band had a bestselling international album, Tribal Voice, and a bestselling global hit with 'Treaty', a musical call to action reminiscent of the famed bark petitions presented to the Australian Parliament by Yolngu leader and Mandawuy’s elder brother, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, in the 1960’s, paving the way for the granting of native title for Yolngu in 1978. The song lists Gurrumul in the songwriting credits (along with Mandawuy Yunupingu, Paul Kelly, Peter Garrett, Stuart Kellaway, Cal Williams, Banula Marika and Milkayngu Mununggurr).

It was a heady and hopeful time. Yothu Yindi gave the young Gurrumul his first taste of stardom, touring Australia, the US, Canada and Europe. But, after a few years on the road, he returned to Elcho Island, heeding the advice of family to consider a quieter lifestyle at home. By his mid-twenties another musical opportunity presented, this time with his good friend Manuel Dhurrkay who had been encouraged to get a band together as part of a music programme at the local TAFE by a young classically-trained music teacher, Michael Hohnen. Together, Gurrumul and Dhurrkay formed the Saltwater Band, along with other family members, playing a blend of roots and reggae music and singing mostly in Yolngu languages. Hohnen loved them and set up the independent label Skinnyfish Music with his friend Mark Grose to release a string of albums by the band, with Gurrumul as lead singer. It was a partnership that would steward the next extraordinary phase in Gurrumul’s career, cementing his stellar rise to global fame as a solo artist.

With momentum building, Gurrumul embarked on a solo career under his namesake moniker and, in 2008, released his debut self-titled album to international acclaim. Gurrumul would go on to become the highest-selling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island artist album in Australian music history, selling over 500,000 copies worldwide and catapulting its creator into a global spotlight that didn’t always sit comfortably. He rarely gave interviews, speaking instead through Hohnen who became his constant companion, musical accompanist and producer.

"He doesn't see the point in talking about himself," Hohnen told writer Nicholas Rothwell in 2009. "He doesn't understand why people want to know about him when he already shows them in his music everything he is."

Grose took on management duties and the trio went on to traverse unprecedented and unchartered territory, with Gurrumul performing for the Queen and the Obamas, collecting awards, accolades, an Honorary Doctorate from Sydney University and releasing a string of studio and live albums over the next decade; Gurrumul in 2008, Live in Darwin in 2010, Rrakala in 2011, Gurrumul: His Life and Music recorded at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2013, The Gospel Album in 2015 and Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow), released posthumously in 2018.

In 2015, Gurrumul retired from touring due to deteriorating health related to the Hepatitis B he had carried since childhood, but the collaborations and projects continued. Including teaming up with Adam Briggs on a joyful reworking of Archie Roach’s Took the Children Away called The Children Came Back, and co-producing a biopic film, Gurrumul, with director Paul Williams.

In 2016 he started on dialysis but his ailing health meant he was increasingly frail and required regular hospitalisation. In the months before his death, he began to refuse treatment. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu died in Royal Darwin Hospital in July 2017 from complications attributed to Hepatitis B, liver and kidney disease. He was 46. In the immediate aftermath traditional protocols dictated Gurrumul be known as Dr G Yunupingu, a protocol later relaxed by family to ensure his legacy and profile was maintained.

The following year, in 2018, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) included his breakthrough debut album, Gurrumul, in its Sounds of Australia collection which documents the essential sounds that help define Australian history and culture. The NFSA website cites the following quotes on the announcement from Gurrumul’s daughter Jasmine Yunupingu, on behalf of his family: “The album “Gurrumul” represents identity of all Yolngu people of North East Arnhem. Dr G has sung in five different Yolngu languages and the publication of these songs is a treasure and a gift for all Australians and people all over the world.”

And from Skinnyfish Music’s Mark Grose: “We are honoured to have this landmark album added to the Sounds of Australia. As a label we are proud to be able to contribute to the artistic estate of this country, and present Dr G Yunupingu’s voice and musicianship - a treasure in its own right - to the greater population. Dr G. Yunupingu was a beautiful, gentle and significant force, whose important language, powerful voice and spirit embody a deeper culture of this country.”

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s legacy lives on in through his music and in the work of the Gurrumul Foundation which provides opportunities to Indigenous youth, particularly in remote communities, to realise their full potential through art and cultural programs. But it is, perhaps, the haunting and timeless sounds of ‘Wiyathul’ from his debut album that sings on with such a deep yearning for place that will enshrine his extraordinary talent in history’s soundtrack for generations to come.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is the 2022 National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame Inductee.

The Australian Music Vault is proud to honour the achievements of the 2022 National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMA) Hall of Fame inductee, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. The NIMAs are recognised as Australia’s pre-eminent showcase of Indigenous Australian music celebrating the achievements of both emerging and established artists. This year’s event will take place on Saturday 6 August at the Darwin Amphitheatre.

Find out more about the incredible stories behind many of the other inductees in the NIMA Hall of Fame

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tracee Hutchison
Tracee Hutchison is an award-winning broadcaster, journalist, TV producer, author and creative industries executive who has worked at the highest level in Australian and international media for over 30 years. Her high-profile on-air roles include triple j, ABC TV 7.30 Report, Radio Australia, co-host DIG TV with James Reyne and long-term broadcaster at Melbourne’s iconic community radio station, 3RRR. She is the author of the Australian music anthology, Your Name’s on the Door: 10 Years of Australian Music based on a triple j radio series she presented about Australian music in the 1980’s and is the subject of the 1990’s power-pop song, ‘Tracee Lee’ by The Chevelles.