Still Standing

2 October 2013 | 4:00 am | Tyler McLoughlan

"Throughout all cultures, storytelling and the preserving of stories through music and art and keeping those stories for further generations [is important], so it just seems right I s’pose.”

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It's been a tough few years for Archie Roach. After losing his beloved partner and musical muse Ruby Hunter in 2010, he suffered a stroke, followed by the removal of half a lung to cancer. Roach's inimitable spirit, though – which has communicated afflictions of the mind, body, heart and soul so gently yet effectively throughout his career – guided him through the writing and recording of 2012's life-affirming Into The Bloodstream.

“They've been going really well. I'm working with a choir and a band and strings and horns – it's been a joy,” Roach says of the shows for the gospel and soul-tinged record that has taken him to the festivals of most capitals since the October release. “The last couple of years have been a bit rough and just doing this album and writing again was a good way of dealing with that and coming through those times. I think actually recording it was a way of getting better and overcoming the last couple of years.”

Roach is marking the year since Into The Bloodstream's release with another very special project: a four-CD box-set titled Creation that compiles the albums he made through Mushroom Records between 1990 and 2002 – Charcoal Lane, Jamu Dreaming, Looking For Butter Boy and Sensual Being – with over a dozen unreleased bonus tracks.

“My manager and dear friend Jill Shelton talked about it, and got in touch with Warner Music who had the back catalog of my music; it was decided to do a box-set of my first four albums, but also to incorporate songs, some live recordings and songs that were demoed for those albums but never made it onto those albums. They'll be remastered. Some of them were recorded back in the day when it was still reel-to-reel,” he says, describing some of the recorded rarities he's happy to have finally found a place for.

“Nowhere To Go is a song about when back in the day they tried to close the schools down here in Victoria; they closed a lot of schools down here. One school in particular that a lot of Aboriginal kids went to, they tried to close it down and we finally managed to get that reopened, so there's a song about that school. Dancing Shoes is one that we recorded for Into The Bloodstream. It's just about, you know, it doesn't matter what happens, you just pull on your dancing shoes; no matter what happens we're still here, we're still standin' and we're still dancing,” he says with a chuckle.

Roach has a lovely manner; kind and thoughtful, he speaks with the same calmness that permeates his vocal delivery. He explains how he's managed to maintain such a demeanour regardless of whether he is singing a song of injustice or one about the sacred land of his people.

“As the years go by you feel a lot better about – not just about what's goin' on in the country – but a lot better about yourself I think, and you start to learn to appreciate yourself a bit more and look after yourself a little bit, and just be grateful. [You] start to look at the more positive things in life and not dwell too much on the negative things in society and the negative things that have happened. I s'pose not forgetting things, you know, not forgetting that things happen, but getting on top of it and saying, 'Well, we've got to get on with things now, we've got to start living ahead and getting on with life rather than talkin' bout just surviving',” he acknowledges.
With such a sentiment in mind, there's no better place for Roach to premiere his new Creation show than on the box-set's day of release at the inaugural Boomerang Festival – a new world Indigenous festival for all Australians.

“It's great,” Roach starts, listing fellow songwriters Thelma Plum and Shellie Morris alongside comedian Sean Choolburra as festival acts he'd like to catch. “A lot of Indigenous performers and musicians, of course we've been on many festivals that they have throughout the country, but there's never really been a festival [of this scale for Indigenous artists] – except for maybe The Dreaming Festival at Woodford when that was happening. But since then there's been nothing else and there's just a gap as far as just a festival to showcase Indigenous up-and-coming and I s'pose older acts like myself. In Australia it just provides for us now, so I think it's great – it's exciting.”
The much-loved performer will be joined by a ten-piece musical ensemble featuring a string quartet under the direction of Jen Anderson, a collaborator of both Roach and his late partner, with backing vocals from Lou Bennett, Emma Donavan and Deline Briscoe, His 1990 song Took The Children Away – a personal account of being forcibly removed from his family as a very young boy – will no doubt be a moving festival highlight.

“Yeah, we'll play it at Boomerang. It's become more of a release now – a healing song – rather than a song condemning policy or what happened. Every time I sing it it's like you let that much more of it go,” Roach admits quietly of the track that was last month added to the National Sound And Film Archive. Behind the tragic chapter, Roach's sense of purpose as a historian for Indigenous culture remains an enduring motivator above awards, accolades or acclaim.

“I was very proud but also it's an old way, it's an old tradition – not just in Aboriginal people but throughout history. Throughout all cultures, storytelling and the preserving of stories through music and art and keeping those stories for further generations [is important], so it just seems right I s'pose.”