Friday 25 June 10am and Saturday 26 June 8am, and also on podcast:
If you sit down in your own country, you will be recognised as belonging to it. You will come to know it. It is all in the land and the stars. Eventually, the land teaches you.
Acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter Neil Murray grew up in Tjapwurrung Country around Lake Bolac. From his earliest days he was intrigued as to where the original people from that land had gone, and what of the life patterns they lived in that area for millennia.
It wasn’t until 2005 that he was able to get together with some Tjapwurrung people and begin the first walk from the mouth of the Hopkins River to Lake Bolac, through fenced country and not always welcomed. But that Healing Walk as it became over the years, led to the Lake Bolac Eel Festival and the regional recognition of the Tjapwurrung and their traditional hunting paths.
On EarthChat this week, Neil Murray joins us from Darwin, and we discuss this important journey back in 2005, and his own journey around the desert communities and the role that music (Warumpi band anyone?) has played in the healing stories across Australia.
And we’ll play a number of Neil Murray’s songs to round off his “return to country” and enriching his roots.
EarthChat on Friday at 10am and repeated Saturday for breakfast at 8am.
Neil Murray’s newest album …the title suggests his continued search for connections.