Kev Carmody

Wed 20th Apr, 2011 in Features

“You walked into a school 30 or 40 years ago and if you talked about Aboriginal people or you talked about the environment or spiritualism or the wilderness of the spirit world and they would give you a blank look. Nowadays these young people are up on it and even in kindergarten they are learning these things. They take it on and I do feel optimistic that people are sharing ideas and change can happen at any time.”

Kev Carmody is one of the most prominent Aboriginal statesmen and we are blessed to have him in our presence from a political, musical and humanistic standpoint. He explains that he is an old man for an indigenous Australian; the body may be weary and the road may be long but Carmody is still involved where and when he can be.

He believes that the young people and the ability to use technology today are helpful in spreading words of dissent and optimism. “It is coming from the young ones,” he explains, “All this put down of them being the Y Generation and they are all stuck on their mobile phones texting, twitting and blogging. You have a look at an organisation like Get Up with 470,000 members and there are about ten organisations like that in Australia with a minimum of 60,000 members. It is the younger folks using that technology to get their point of view across. The old political parties have to start taking notice of them.”

Carmody was given the tribute treatment in 2007 with the release of Cannot Buy My Soul: The Songs of Kev Carmody, which featured musicians including Bernard Fanning, The Waifs, Dan Sultan and The Drones. “It was all Paul Kelly’s fault,” Carmody laughs, “Paul mentioned it to me and two weeks later he is ringing me back and saying every bugger I have asked wants to do it and we will never fit them all on the CD. I felt so proud as an Aboriginal person to see these fantastic musicians and songwriters doing their own versions of my songs.”

“To me, I come from an oral tradition and did not go to school until I was ten and everything was passed on orally,” Carmody explains, “Music was an integral part of that. To me the 20th century is just an aberration and with corporations and individual owning the music instead of cultures is just not what it is about. If you look around the world for thousands of years music carried people’s lore and aspirations through local music and that is how it was passed on. Look at the Irish, the American Indians, the Jewish, so much music and over the centuries.”

And what is happening for Carmody musically today? “There is nothing like sitting down and having a jam session. Anything goes, just throw it in, mucking around , bang, bang, bang. I did one with Tex Perkins and James Cruickshank from The Cruel Sea and Andy in two half days. You should hear the crazy stuff that comes out of it but to me it makes sense. I did not even want to go back and record it I just wanted to leave it on there as it was. You can hear chip packets crinkling and the lot, good fun.”

“I have been rubbing shoulders with Tex Perkins and Johnny Butler who were on that stage with me and gave me such a creative energy and it was like a big musical family. Paul and I are always ringing each other up sharing recipes, he is a good cook. We are doing a big thing for the 45th anniversary of the Walk Off at Gurindji. We are all going back to where the walk off was and that should be exciting.”

Playing live shows can be difficult – “The old arthritis has got me pretty well crippled” – but he will be playing a pair of shows supporting Native American legend Buffy Sainte-Marie in Sydney and Melbourne. “When she heard that I was available and she would cut her bracket to get me in, that sounded beautiful. We have Michelle Shocked too, she has covered one of my songs, but it was never released on Cannot Buy My Soul.”

Along with that, Carmody is also working with folks like Deb Conway, Dave Faulkner and Stephen Cummings on the Songtrails project. A unique project where celebrated Australian songwriters visit regional Queensland areas and work with artists on their craft. This year there will be a special all-star gig with many of the artists playing in Gatton on the 29th July to raise money for the Queensland Flood Appeal.