The final memorial tribute for George Rrurrambu Burarrawanga- the deceased lead singer of the Warumpi Band- was held at Anzac Oval in Alice Springs on Sunday September 13^th 2009 in conjunction with the Black Arm Band concert. 

 ....

The first memorial concert for GRB had been held in Darwin in 2007 some 2 months after the singer had passed away at his home in Galiwinku NT.

It has long been coming that the people of Central Australia would have a chance to farewell the man who had started his performing career in their country and married into its people.

 ....

As a measure of the respect between Gumatj and Luritja peoples, over 25 Gumatj people from GRB’s family in Galiwinku made the long trek to Alice Springs to present traditional ceremonial dances intimately associated with GRB’s origins and identity. His father, Matjuwi Burarrawanga- though frail and almost blind- manned the clap sticks and sang powerfully leaving no doubt as to where GRB’s performing talent came from.

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A Warumpi Band line-up- comprising of myself, Sammy Butcher, his two son’s Jason and Jeremiah and 4 singers- GRB’S brothers, Bruce, Bluey and Billy as well as GRB’s son Carlos- performed Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out from Jail) and Blackfella Whitefella.

When the old Warumpi energy kicked in, the adrenalin was such that I may have fluffed a few chords in all my excitement. But what really transported us and the crowd was the encore of “ My Island Home” that the brothers sang in Gumatj and then when we switched to English the cast of the Black Arm band show joined us and there would not have been a dry eye on the stage or in the crowd when we reached the climax of the song and up on the big screen the last image we witness is footage of GRB with a fishing spear wading serenely into the sea.

Emotions were elevated everywhere. Tears where shed but what was at first sadness   soon became tears of elation, wonder and happiness.

A more fitting tribute I can’t imagine.

 ....

As the crowd departed, Anangu people could be seen wearing pieces of yellow cloth (representing the Gumatj people, that the dancers had been adorned with), taking it with them back to their homes and families in all corners of the country where they will continue to tell the story of the saltwater man who came among them and sang in a desert rock band that was heard by the nation.

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Neil Murray

New videos now online at You Tube

Long Grass Band

Get back to the country

Check them out

For the first time in their career's Sara Storer and Neil Murray will join forces to perform some very special shows.

With both artists releasing new albums in early November, this will be an opportunity for them to showcase some of their new songs as well as perform many audience favorites from their past albums.

The shows will be an intimate acoustic evening of songs and stories. Sara and Neil will be performing solo sets along and with some surprises!

They will be joined on stage by the multi talented Bill Chambers.

Sara Storer has had a busy 2007 – writing and recording her highly anticipated 4^th album which is set for release on 3^rd November through EMI Music.

Co-produced by the Waifs Josh Cunningham and highly respected musician/producer, Matt Fell, "Silver Skies" marks a new chapter for Sara in what has already been a stellar career so far.

Apart from the shows with Neil, Sara is also touring with the Waifs and the Songbirds (Gina Jeffreys and Beccy Cole) in October and November and international star, Suzanne Vega in early 2008.

Neil Murray has just returned from his second trip to the US co-writing and performing in NYC, LA, Atlanta and Nashville. Neil's new album "Overnighter" is released by ABC Nov 3^rd. The album is preceded by the first radio cut "Lights of Hay" which is accompanied by a brilliant video.

Neil continues to tour Australia in solo, band or 2 Songmen mode, the latter being with great friend Shane Howard.

The special guest opening act will be Bec Willis – an artist creating a buzz in the industry with her recently released, self-titled, debut album produced by Kasey Chambers and Bill Chambers.

Here's your chance to experience two of the finest singer/songwriters Australia has produced.

www.sarastorer.com.au

www.neilmurray.com.au www.myspace.com/neilmurraymusic

Don't miss Sara Storer & Neil Murray in concert!

Nov 30^th Harp, Tempe
Dec 1^st Heritage Hotel, Bulli

For further info contact Costa
www.artistnetwork.com.au
Ph:  02 98196411
Fax: 02 98196466
Mobile: 0417220380
PO Box 113,
Drummoyne,NSW 2047.
costa@artistnetwork.com.au

Hi there,

Straight after the G. R Burarrawanga memorial concert held in Darwin on August 25^th, which was an emotionally powerful yet serenely satisfying event, I found myself on a plane bound for the US.

Among other things I visited New York for the first time and I can report it certainly is a buzz. It truly is a world city that never sleeps. If money was no object and I was a big city person one might be tempted to live there for a spell. I found myself wandering around the streets, avenues, parks and squares thinking of all the songs I'd ever heard about New York. I thought about the beat writers and poets, the folk singers, the artists and jazz musicians that had come to the big apple. Innovative and ground breaking music, writing and art can be found anywhere in the world, its just that if it happens in New York the world gets to hear about it quicker. Its like New York is one gigantic all powerful radio transmitter.

I suppose a lot of people are attracted to New York and the US generally with an idea of making it on the big stage. I don't suffer that particular affliction. As an ambition, it seems somehow flawed to me, just as fixation on a destination can undermine the journey. I can only write from the life and times I was born into. That's enough for me to do.

Apart from a couple of gigs I did at "aussie" bars in Manhattan, I spent the time visiting galleries and museums and taking in the colourful street life. And yes I had a sobering walk around Ground Zero. I also caught up with Fred Myers, the head of the anthropology department at NYU. I'd first encountered Fred in the early 80's at Papunya. He'd been doing his research in the western desert since the mid seventies. We spent a couple of evenings pontificating on the impact that western desert Aboriginal culture had made to our lives. (We must have been the only 2 people to have ever had that conversation in New York).

I went on to Nashville and wrote several songs with writers there and did a couple of show case performances at cafes. It's nigh impossible to get paid for a gig in Nashville as the place is overloaded with music. I also did a house concert in Atlanta for Jill Sweetapple, who must be my number one fan in the US just about, well at least in Georgia.

I went home via several days in LA, where I played a gig at the Genghis Cohen and wrote a couple of songs with Stephen Rowe (originally from Broken Hill) and Henry Fenton (another aussie from Sydney). Both of these guys have been in the US for a long time and are pursuing their music there.

I can also report that I'm very pleased the ABC have got behind my new album Overnighter and I'm looking forward to the Spiegeltent show with Shane Howard on October 31st, the Tarerer festival on November 10^th & 11th and particularly the shows with Sara Storer at the Harp in Sydney on November 30th and the Heritage Hotel in Bulli on December 1st. I heard a sneak preview of some tracks from Sara's new album recently and I was very impressed.

Also I want to thank David Nicholson for the superb job he has done in cobbling together a film clip for "Lights of Hay" from my Overnighter album. You can see by clicking here to play the video

Anyway people, think green, plant trees, save whales and be kind to all creatures including your own families.

That should give you enough to do before I see you next.

Neil Murray

PRESS RELEASE  19th October 2007

Neil Murray is set to release 'Overnighter' on Nov 3^rd 07

Neil Murray, one of Australia's most respected singer/songwriters has enjoyed a successful solo career since 1989, releasing seven albums "Calm & Crystal Clear", "These Hands", "Dust", "The Wondering Kind", "Going The Distance", "About Time" (a 2cd retrospective compilation) and on November 3^rd, the brand new "Overnighter" will add to his repertoire of classic Australian songs.

 The songs on these albums - from the rollicking "Good Light in Broome", the prayerful "Native Born", the work ethic of "Big Truck", the roots groove of "Long Grass Band", the endurance of love in "Over the Moon" and "I Can Go On" or the journeyman monologues of "Lights of Hay" and "Drifting Ways", collectively describe an inner landscape to the heart and soul of Australia.

Neil's work doesn't shy from social commentary, nor is he preoccupied with it. His art is driven by a sense of conscience, justice and honesty. For Neil Murray, any truth gained - no matter how bad- is always liberating.

Neil Murray first appeared in the early eighties as a founding member of the Warumpi Band which over three albums (Big Name, No Blankets, Go Bush and Too Much Humbug) and twenty years of performing, set alight contemporary indigenous music as a force to be reckoned with in Australia.

In 1995, Neil Murray was awarded the APRA song of the year for "My Island Home" originally written for the Warumpi Band and re-recorded by Christine Anu. "My Island Home" has become something of an unofficial anthem and featured in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Those who have read his novel "Sing for me Countryman" or poetry book "One Man Tribe", or listened to his spoken word CD - "Spoken" or seen his play "King For This Place" would know of his affinity for the land and respect for indigenous culture.

Neil Murray performs regularly at festivals and live music venues in Australia and overseas and has just returned from his second visit to the US with gigs and showcases in NYC, LA, Nashville and Atlanta. In 2006 he performed in Nashville as part of the Americana Music Conference and in March this year he performed in a free concert for 20,000 drought affected farmers in Horsham, Victoria. He also often appears as one half of a duo known as 2Songmen - fellow songwriter and contemporary Shane Howard being the other half.

NEIL MURRAY'S TOUR DATES:

October 31      Spiegeltent  - Melbourne (with Shane Howard)
November 10  Tarerer Festival – Killarney / Warnambool, VIC
November 30  The Harp, Tempe – Sydney (with Sara Storer & Bill Chambers)
December 1    The Heritage Hotel, Bulli, NSW (with Sara Storer & Bill Chambers)
Jan 2008         Tamworth Country Music Festival – shows TBC.

For media enquiries:
Chrissie Vincent Publicity
Ph: 03 9534 6999
E: chrissiev@cvp.net.au

For ABC Music enquiries
Sara Caffrey, ABC Music
T: 02 8333 3951
E: caffrey.sara@abc.net.au

For further information, full discography and downloadable print quality photos visit:
http://www.neilmurray.com.au/
http://www.myspace.com/neilmurraymusic

After recent events, both at a government and personal level I am electing to keep still for the next few weeks.  Later next month I will be heading to Darwin to take part in a memorial service and concert for the late Kumantjayi Burarrawanga at the NT Music Awards before heading to LA, New York and Nashville to pursue co-writing and performing opportunities.

Thanks to all those who attended any of my recent gigs on the Overnighter Tour.

There will be more "Overnighter tour" dates in the future.

keep safe out there

neil

I

CHIPS OUGHT TO RESPECT THE WRITER TOO - by Neil Murray

Chips MacKinolty in his piece "Charismatic musician fought for respect" about the recently deceased George Burarrawanga, casts me in an unsavory light.

Easy picking if you are the white guy in the Warumpi Band. 

Chips' inference that I was only a co-writer of "My Island Home" is factually incorrect.  I wrote it when it came to me on a bus in the middle of the night and no one - not George or Christine Anu was with me at the time.

As I have tirelessly explained, I wrote it for George to sing and was writing a lot of material at the time that I hoped he would embrace - after all he was the front man for the Warumpi Band.  (He had become so after moving to Papunya in 1980 to marry Suzina McDonald, sister of Warumpi Band guitarist Sammy Butcher)

I deliberately wrote the verses talking from his point of view about his life so that he would identify strongly and sing with meaning. Yes, having time with George on Galiwinku certainly contributed to the ideas in the song but if you follow that line of the thinking you may as well credit my parents for having me too.

When I was turtle hunting with George and his brothers, I had no idea that I would be writing a song that would mention it in a month's time.

That it wasn't a hit for the Warumpi Band in 1987 was disappointing. But who can tell? We recorded songs and hoped for the best.  I had no idea that Christine would be successful with it either - it was one of three songs that I had written that appeared on her first album.

I empathise with George's frustration for not having had a hit with My Island Home in the first instance and I wish he had sung it in the closing ceremony of the Olympics too. Ultimately George did benefit indirectly from the song and his time in the Warumpi Band - he had earned a high public profile and was easily able to step into a solo career.

As for George "reclaiming" the song and singing it only in Gumatj, this is erroneous. George did write Gumatj lyrics about his home of Elcho Island (long after "My Island Home" had been recorded and released) and it contained as he said "more story" than the one I'd written for him.

Unfortunately, instead of it being a new song with a new melody, he chose to sing it to the tune of "My Island Home".  Music copyright law being what it is - it was deemed a translation of the original by my and George's publishers, Universal Music.

I guess it's the price of a song's success but I have had people confront me and say to my face that I didn't write "My Island Home", that George did and that I'm a rip off artist.

In the end we all had our roles and our talents within the band. Sammy Butcher was a brilliant natural musician with a gifted ear, I had a knack of fixing words to a tune and George was a born performer and showman who lit up the stage as soon as he stepped on it.

And I'm so grateful to have had that time and felt that powerful, irresistible energy whenever we played together. The Warumpi Band in full flight with George out front whipping up the crowd was the only band I ever wanted to be in.

Alas that can happen no more.

Neil Murray

A couple of songs from the new album Overnighter have been put up online. Please feel free to give them a listen. You can purchase the full Album online now at www.NeilMurray.com.au

A bit about the Overnighter Album

From the banks of the Murray River in 1979 where he first heard indigenous balladeer Youngie Doug, to the outback of the western desert where an impromptu jam with Sammy Butcher kick started the Warumpi Band that would later roar into the cities, pricking the nation's conscience with a new and strident voice.

The dust is still settling. People still wonder what that was. Neil Murray didn't stop. He shifted gears, hauled new cargo to different destinations. Calm & Crystal Clear, These Hands, Dust, The Wondering Kind, Going The Distance,- the solo albums kept coming like post cards and despatches- reports from some remote frontier, some hidden landscape he was writing from, yet was somehow strangely near and familiar so much so that we felt we'd touch it. That we'd been there too.

Since the 1980's Neil Murray has garnered a loyal following of die hard believers. Artists as diverse as Carus and Lee Kernaghan drew inspiration. Christine Anu, Adam Brand, Jimmy Little and Amy Saunders recorded his songs.

The man himself was hard to catch, hard to pin down and hold up to the light. He shrugged categorisation. Was he country, rock, folk or roots? A writer, a poet, an environmental activist ?

Tick all the boxes. He's delivered again with Overnighter his new studio album containing a dozen songs that – like sign posts - command your attention - if you want to know where you're going and where you've been.

Here's what Neil Murray says about Overnighter.

A lot of these songs came from the road. Driving, late at night and long distances. If you're a musician and you are doing an overnighter (going from one gig to the next that you have to travel overnight to make) the only other people out there at that lonely roadhouse at 3am are truckies, itinerants, late night party revellers, young lovers, lost backpackers, cattle rustlers and street kids, roo shooters and runners, hoodlums and misfits, the homeless and the dispossessed. Regular people aren't about. They're sleeping.

When you are that strung out and tired, there is an unspoken camaraderie with those with whom you share the night and the distance. You might not speak but there is a kinship. A glimpse of a face or a gesture is a snapshot that fixes itself in your memory. Its not too hard to imagine their story:- That bloke climbing down from his truck has a missus somewhere cheating on him. That young girl has a secret sweetheart. That kid is gonna be in trouble with the law. That woman endures an unhappy marriage. That old fella hasn't long to live….

You see it in their faces. The broken dreams, the anger, the resignation, the hope lost, and the hope gained. What am I gonna do with it? Nothing. But people want to know where my songs come from. I may as well say they come from an old shoebox and it rides with me everywhere. Anytime I want a song I just go to that shoebox and get one out.

We are all driven to make sense, to make some meaning out of seemingly random events. It may not mean much or it may mean everything. But it calms us down. Gives us something to consider and reflect on. Makes disappointment bearable. Makes light of the dark.

The Songs from the Album

"With you tonight"
I was driving from Western Queensland into NSW and got stuck behind these roadtrains that had come down from the Territory carting stock. I listened to their bullshit on the UHF. I wondered what was going on with their wives and girlfriends behind them at distance somewhere. The rest came from the vague memory of a Chris Knight song I heard once on late night radio.

"I can go on"
My daughter inspires me. I'm handing her the torch.

"Lights of Hay"
I was doing an overnighter, headed for a music festival at Nymagee. I was out the back of Moulamein, it was late and I'd had a shitty day. I could see a glow over the horizon- the lights of the town of Hay. But they didn't seem to be getting any closer. I wondered if I was getting anywhere at all… If any of us were…if the world even, was doomed.

"Drifting Ways"
I was on a coach bound for Darwin, I couldn't stand it (being cooped up on the bus) so I got off in Kununurra for a night. Checked into the pub, there were a few grizzled faces around the bar. I had a few beers. Nobody had much to say. I watched a wet season storm unleash over the town. Then I went to my room, pulled out the guitar and wrote the damn thing.

"Once in a While"
Frustration at obstruction, injustice or circumstances- whatever conspires to separate you from loved ones – can make you even more bloody minded and determined to conjure a win. The feel of this track recalls The Police - who were an influence on us in the early years of the Warumpi Band.

"You'll have to follow"
My father passed away in 2003. He wasn't a musician (though he liked to dance) artist, writer or anything like that. He worked with his hands and enjoyed it. A lot of what I am came from him. He was strong willed and brave. Braver than I'll ever be.

"Meet me in Bedourie"
Could I have written this song without going to Bedourie? Probably not but I could also never have written it without first hearing the songs of Youngie Doug, Herbie Laughton, Willie Nelson, Slim Dusty and Hugh McDonald.

"Key to my heart"
A man in a panic over some sweet young thang.

"Streets of Bourke"
An impression of a country town as a testing ground of the nation.

"Where my people go"
I probably couldn't have written  this song without first walking 150 km's overland with indigenous people in 2005. It was the first of our annual "Healing Walks". The tune came to me on the second day of the trek and I carried it in my head for a week before writing it down. One for the heartland.

"Get back to the Country"
Advice for those who seek to make it in the music business.

"Sing the Song"
I'd had the tune for quite a while. All of a sudden it came together one afternoon in Broome. Sometimes, if you shift your position on the planet a few thousand km's - reception improves. Broome's been good to me.