Voice with the power to transfix

This article originally appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on July 14, 2008

WORLD MUSIC: DR G YUNUPINGU at The Studio, Opera House. July 11, 2008.

THE audience was already familiar with Dr G Yunupingu's remarkable debut self titled solo album. So the only question remaining was whether this Arnhem Land singer with the amazing voice was as good live as he clearly was on record.

The answer, offered in a short set of only 10 songs, was a resounding "yes", with the interesting addenda that in live performance the overall sound is richer and more complex and this provides a new and interesting depth to the rather minimal arrangements that characterise the recorded versions.

Accompanied by bass player Michael Hohnen (who produced the album and offered simple explanations of the songs' themes on stage), the Finnish violinist Erkki Veltheim and the Argentinian guitarist Francis Diatschenko, this was a demonstration that Yunupingu's traditional songs can work in any context.

The result was a richer, warmer sound that moved the vocals - surely the most remarkable feature of his performance - further back into the mix.

The concert varied only slightly from the album. It opened, as the album does, with Wiyathul and Djarimirri, there were a couple of songs from the repertoire of Yunupingu's Saltwater Band and an amusing, almost funky, rendition of Marwurrumburr (known affectionately as "The Pussycat Song") with Veltheim plucking his violin and the appreciative audience rocking gently to the rhythm.

The concert finished, appropriately, with Yunupingu singing his hymn-like autobiographical song. No encores. Just a heartfelt standing ovation after which a suitably deferential and admiring Hohnen led Yunupingu from the stage.

Dr G Yunupingu's importance should never be underestimated. His ability to synthesise deeply traditional sounds and stories from East Arnhem Land and bring them, enriched by his very multicultural quartet and his unforgettable voice, to an appreciative audience at the Opera House is recognition that he has the ability to reach beyond his own culture.

I suspect that this is just the beginning of an extraordinary period when Yunupingu will be feted around the world. Certainly, like other great and original world music vocal stylists - I think particularly of Sweet Honey in the Rock and Ladysmith Black Mambazo - the first time Yunupingu is seen live the audience is simply left to gasp in amazement at the unique, pristine and angelic beauty of his voice. This was one of those "I was there" concerts that the lucky audience will remember with affection and awe for decades to come.