"Ruby's new ground"
Ruby Hunter warns there is no point taking her latest disc 'Ruby' off the CD player because the music is so compelling that it demands to be heard over and over. "It just keeps playing, it works on you," the indigenous performer said. "There is a magnetism. You have to re-listen, it leaves the sound with you." 'Ruby' is new territory for Hunter and long-time collaborative partner Archie Roach. The pair have joined with jazz great Paul Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchesta to put a new spin on some of their most loved material. The change has the approval of Hunter's extended family whose stories she tells among the 12 tracks. "I was born in traditional way," she said. "Children playing games, playing with my sisters and later taken away. It all revolved around the Riverland (South Australia)." Hunter's foster parents also travelled from Port Augusta to the Sydney show and gave their stamp of approval for what is a new direction for the passionate singer/songwriter duo. For Hunter, 'Ruby' is a story-telling album and she sought the permission of her family before touring with the songs and finally recording them. "It has already been received well," she said. "My family loved it. I was surprised because dad said he liked the way I had branched out and he doesn't usually say much. And mum thought it was not my style. My brothers went quiet when they heard it. So it is good the family has different ideas." The disc is the culmination of a series of live shows, including a sell-out show to 3000 in Mexico City, with Grabowsky and the nine piece Australian Art Orchestra. Hunter said she was not much of a jazz fan before agreeing to collaborate with Grabowsky but was pleasantly surprised with the way the tunes turned out. "I was surprised at a lot of the instrumentation, she said. "But if you listen to those tunes, the way they have been re-done, it really shows the images. The orchestra takes you on a journey. Grabowsky has been a fan of the music Hunter and Roach make together. "I have known them since 1996, when we met at Womad, out in the desert near Woomera,' he said. "A friend of mine describes Archie's music as 'masterpieces of minimalism', by which he means that the songs have something absolutely essential about them. "not a note or a word could be changed. Ruby's have something more mysterious about them, something more organic. They undergo slight modification during the arrangement process. "For her the order of events in a song is is of the utmost importance." Grabowsky said the hunter songs wre connected to traditional ways of story-telling. In arranging the 12 tracks, Grabowsky was careful not to upset the simple, fundamental harmonic language so important to the roving balladeer tradition Hunter reprstents. "There is a certain incantatory quality, " he said. "She summons up particular times and places which announce her identity in very specific ways. "The roots of both their songs can be found within the experience of so many indigenous people around the world. "Namely in the church and in the country and blues traditions which express the hopes and dreams of the dipossessed.' The working relationship gelled quickley, Huntr said, thanks largely to Grabowsky's professionalism and easy manner. "We first met Paul and the orchestra and he just said, 'come on and try a song', she said. "So we did Ngarrindjeri Woman. It was like 'hello' and we just started playing and singing. "There was always going to be differences, but the sounds settle in after you listen to them a few times. "Archie and I talked about it and we can't believe what we have done." Hunter knew they had a winner during the tour of Mexico when an old man approached them backstge after the gig with a tear in his eye. "He was just so interested in the music," she said. "They understood it."
- THE KOORI MAIL, March 15, 2006.
