Gurrumul performing with Michael Hohnen and Francis Diatchenko. Photo: Tasso Taraboulsi
As Gurrumul enters the stage at the New Morning club in Paris, the blind Aboriginal singing sensation from Australia is guided by his producer, double bassist and close friend Michael Hohnen. He doesn't say a word, but instead launches straight into ‘Wiyathul,' the first song on his eponymous CD which has already sold an estimated 300,000 copies worldwide. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an Indigenous Australian musician, who sings in the Yolngu language. In Australia last year, he was named 'Best New Independent Artist', and his album, Gurrumul, 'Best Independent Album'. He counts among his fans Elton John, Sting and Björk. While he was in Paris Gurrumul recorded with Sting a rendition of ‘Every Breath You Take,' to be broadcast on the celebrated French TV music program "Taratata" (December 16, 2009).
Michael Hohnen, who is a well-known Australian musician himself, discovered Gurrumul while researching Aboriginal sounds on behalf of Charles Darwin University. Since Gurrumul doesn't speak so much English or give interviews we asked Hohnen a few questions about Gurrumul and the European tour while they were in Paris recently.
What has been the highlight of Gurrumul's first European Tour?
Michael Hohnen: I'd say one of the highlights was the collaboration that we did with Sting. It was a strange experience because Gurrumul comes from such a remote area of Australia... He's got so much knowledge about music, both traditional (Aboriginal) and contemporary, but there are gaps in terms of some big stars who he doesn't know much about. So when we told him about the collaboration with Sting, he didn't really react. And it wasn't until the camera rehearsal at "Taratata" that I realised that he didn't actually really know who Sting was or how big the whole experience was going to be.
We went back to the dressing room and Gurrumul took it really seriously and put some words together from what his uncles had told him and did a beautiful humming to begin the song, does a guitar solo in the middle, did this traditional thing in the bridge and then he was going to do another verse but, because he's blind, he couldn't see that Sting was cueing him in and then they sang off each other towards the end and then he harmonised ‘I'll be watching you' right at the end.
So that was probably the highlight for us because it's probably going to change a lot of people's perception about Gurrumul. Because it's a big endorsement, coming from someone who's so well respected as a musician and it's a classic song and Nagui, the host of the show was just so full of praise. We also did the opening track from Gurrumul's album on the show and they did a bit of a feature and showed some video.
Is Gurrumul's huge success due to a new interest in world music?
MH: Well, that's a curious one because it depends what ‘world music' is. If it's music that's not in English that has cultural roots, then I suppose you could call Gurrumul's music that. I don't actually see Gurrumul's music as world music because the music side of it is too mainstream pop. The melodies that he sings - apart from ‘Wukun' the last song on the album- and everything about the way he writes is more folk pop than world music. I think the only thing making it world music is the language. He got rejected from a WOMEX (world music) Showcase because he wasn't Aboriginal enough. Probably cause he wasn't using a didgeridoo or clap-sticks! That was a big sign for me not to worry about world music as such, but just concentrate on the fact that he's doing beautiful acoustic, folk pop and that actually works for most of the industry.
When Gurrumul plays on stage, you help the audience out by explaining some of his lyrics and you also speak with him in his native Yolngu. Did you speak his language before you met him or did you learn it afterwards?
MH: There's lots of languages across the top of Australia so I speak a little bit of a few of them. But I'm by no means fluent. Normally when we do live shows we have projections, which show you translations of some of the lyrics and images and some video. But in the New Morning (in Paris) it was too small so in such situatons I try to speak a little bit more. But I only picked it up from working with him and his band.
How did you meet Gurrumul?
MH: I was doing heaps of classical and pop...mainly pop music and I got to my late 20s and I thought I've had enough of just the boring Western music thing and I want to do something a bit more different. And I met Archie Roach and a couple of other interesting Aboriginal performers and I thought I need to know more about people from this country I've grown up in. When I was educated (at school) we weren't taught anything about Aboriginal people - I think it's changing a little bit now. So I went up North (of Australia) and I ended up running this course for the university up there in really remote locations, teaching musicians about the music industry.
I ended up on his island and he was presented to me and we got on really well. He played this beautiful song for me, which ended up being track two on the album, ‘Djärimirri' all about a Totem. He ended up starting a band of his own called ‘Saltwater' and I helped them make their first album, then second album so through that, we got to know each other really well. But I kept hearing him in these big bands and his voice wasn't coming through. It was kind of hidden in the band. So that's when the solo idea came out.
People often react emotionally to Gurrumul's music. Some people were in tears at the Paris concert. Why do you think that is?
MH: Seeing him sitting up there on stage... He's showing you himself, isn't he? Fully. And he's sitting there going ‘this is me and I'm not wearing glasses... Then he sings about stuff that is so much about himself and identity and it's not like, I've lost my boyfriend and I'm down and out about it. It's more like sitting up going ‘this is who I am, I am Gurrumul, I am connected to this land and this crocodile'.... all the ancestors and unfolds the knowledge and experiences of the stories that he's been told and there's nothing to hide. There's no veil. It's all acoustic and all incredibly real. There's so much passion and real sort of grittiness about it. I believe that he's kind of channelling some sort of feeling of nostalgia and you can almost get emotional thinking about a beautiful aunty that you had that you don't have anymore and you have great memories about her... And you also have sad feelings that she's not with you anymore so he's bringing up those sort of feelings through the way he sings and then you empathise with him.
