How does an artist capture the feeling of longing? That feeling that seems to come from somewhere deep in the soul — a mix of nostalgia, beauty, pain … the unfathomable? Michael Ondaatje evokes that feeling with the descriptive beauty of his prose. Auguste Rodin conveyed that feeling in his sublime sculptures. Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen seem to draw directly from that well of longing. And another musician to draw water from the deep spiritual well is a man from Australia with a haunting voice.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is a blind indigenous musician, born on Elcho Island, off the north coast of Australia. As a kid, Gurrumul taught himself to play guitar. Because he was born blind and is left-handed, he learned to play guitar while holding it “upside down” — a right-handed guitar, held to the left, with the small E-string at the top, rather than the bottom. But the most amazing part about him isn’t the fact that he is blind, or painfully shy, or plays a guitar upside down, but his voice.
Listen to his song “Wiyathul” to get a sense of what I’m talking about:
(English translation of song lyrics)
To me, his voice radiates gentleness, peace and a sense of the divine. Here he is singing in English, probably his most famous song, called “Gurrumul History” (I Was Born Blind), which is also an auto-biography of sorts.
Here’s the nutshell version of Gurrumul’s story: He was born in 1970, and first reached musical fame with the Australian Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi. But he was in his late thirties when he recorded his debut solo album. And it’s true that his blindness, shyness and lack of proficiency with English make him an unlikely — and reluctant — star, but his music speaks for itself. He released his second solo album last year, and hopefully will tour Canada sometime in the future.
Here’s the first song from his second album Rrakala, Gopuru:
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