Emma Donovan’s tribute to family and country show she’s a Voice to be reckoned with

Indigenous soul diva Emma Donovan takes an emotional trip back to childhood with jazz genius Paul Grabowsky.

Emma Donovan and Paul Grabowsky performing in The Rugged Cross at City Recital Hall as part of the Sydney Festival. Picture: Jess Gleeson

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“I wanted the best possible band to play with the best possible person,” Paul Grabowsky told the audience towards the end of a 90-minute Sydney Festival concert with Emma Donovan.

And he certainly delivered with an ensemble that fused jazz with country gospel as the Indigenous soul diva took her packed audience back to northern NSW and her country music roots in Macksville as part of the famed Donovans, started by her grandparents Micko and Aileen who both grew up on missionaries where they learned the hymns and gospel songs which were to become their stock in trade.

Although there were only nine songs on the set list, nobody felt short-changed as with Grabowsky directing his stunning arrangements for the six-piece band from the piano, and Donovan’s affectionate anecdotes, this was a full evening indeed.

Donovan sang her heart out, her smoky contralto, sitting somewhere between Mavis Staples and Patsy Cline. At times she raised hairs on the necks of her audience as she fought back tears dedicating the old country hymn tune In The Sweet Bye and Bye to Micko. We all cracked up at the words “we shall meet on that beautiful shore, bye and bye”, before she went on to sing her grandfather’s Promised Land, which he wrote in 1972 when he was in Canberra for the Tent Embassy demonstrations.

There was emotion from the start with Grabowsky’s arrangement of the Johnny Cash hit I’ll Fly Away, with James Greening’s trombone, Phil Slater’s trumpet and Paul Cutlan’s reeds forming a mellow gospel choir, backed by Carl Dewhurst’s atmospheric electric guitar, Brett Hirst’s stand-up bass and Simon Barker’s drums.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Emma Donovan and Paul Grabowsky performed in The Rugged Cross. Picture: Jess Gleeson

“This is a song close to my heart so let’s all have a good cry at the start and get it out of the way,” quipped Donovan.

The song which gave the show its title, The Old Rugged Cross, was taken as a slow waltz and featured a melting solo from Slater and some superb vamping piano from Grabowsky.

Another Micko Donovan original, Miracle Man, was given the reggae treatment after Cutlan’s soulful clarinet solo. He switched to bass clarinet for the Elvis Presley number Help Me, before the versatile Dewhurst unbuttoned a dazzling guitar solo.

After her country music start Donovan went on to great success forming the acoustic trio Stiff Gins in 1999 with Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs, and later joining the Black Arm Band music theatre group whose members over the years have included Paul Kelly and Indigenous icons Ruby Hunter, Kev Carmody and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

But it is as a soul singer that she is best known and she closed this nostalgic evening with a tribute to one of her heroes, Aretha Franklin, giving a raw and searing rendition of Amazing Grace.

There was nothing left to say after the closing chords died away and the audience rose to its feet. But with politicians arguing the toss about how The Voice should be set up in parliament, perhaps this is a voice that they should all be listening to.

DETAILS

• CONCERT The Old Rugged Cross: Emma Donovan and Paul Grabowsky

• WHERE City Recital Hall

• WHEN January 19