The Ebb and flow-songs from the river of life
Liberation from sorrow is at the core of a passionate new album, writes Daniel Ziffer.
A GEM of a life has been committed to disc. The long and at times difficult journey of the singer Ruby Hunter has been captured in the words and music of her new album, Ruby. A member of the "stolen generation"- she was eight years old when she was taken from her Aboriginal family in South Australia and fostered by a white family- Hunter's memories are the foundation for a passionate album created with her partner Archie Roach, the composer Paul Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchestra. Hunter says: "Before we were taken we only knew happiness...no different kind of feelings, like putting down feelings. "[But] I don't concentrate on the bad things." Hunter grew up on the Murray River near Mildura and lived on the streets. She met Roach at a Salvation Army drop-in cente in Adelaide. "Archie been part of my life,' she remembers. "He started singing [about] the taking of children away, being down [on] the streets. After, things been good since then." Grabowsky said the genesis of the project was hearing Roach perform at the Brunswick Music festival several years ago. Whenever he ran out of ideas, Roach told the audience, he went down to the river for more. Together, they assembled two biogaphical performaces: Ruby's Story for the 2004 Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Kura Tunga for the 2005 Melbourne International Arts Fetsival. Festival. "Kura Tunga means river songs and stories," Hunter says. "Stories from the river land, about how the river was important to me, from the time of birth to the time of taking, to what the river is to me today. And not only to me, but to other people who live in the river land-all people." For Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchestra, the current that runs through the pair's stories has a mirror in the drift of water. "The music is of the river, it really attempts to evoke that flowing, that progress the current has - that spirit that flows through all of us," says Grabowsky. "Though they deal with sorrowful subjects, the songs sound very positive to me." An international tour of the group's emotional work led to furthere acclaim. "Standing ovation in Mexico." says hunter, happily. "When someone in another country stands up for you..." She just shakes her head and smiles.
- The Sydney Morning Herald, March 14 2006
