'Just keep walking': Archie Roach, the voice Australia needed to hear

Archie Roach emerged on Australia's music scene in 1991 and has had a profound impact that goes well beyond the power of his music.

Archie Roach is the 2020 inductee into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Credit: Joe Benke

As a member of the stolen generations, Roach put his ''deeply personal'' stories to music and became an advocate for Indigenous Australians, giving a voice to others that had experienced the same pain of being forcibly removed from family and country.

"I am glad that I was among the first people that opened up about that and began that conversation," he said. "People have grown, they understand a bit more about things, about First Peoples in particular."

As one of the country's most important singer-songwriters, his talent will be recognised when he is inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame later this month.

Who is he?

For many years Roach didn't know who he was. Known to family, school teachers and a few friends in Lilydale, north-east of Melbourne, as Archie Cox, he grew up from the age of six with loving foster parents Alex and Dulcie Cox. Before this he had experienced several years of dreadful foster conditions after being taken, aged three, from his parents at the Framlingham Aboriginal Station.

Archie Roach says their has been some movement in perceptions: "People have grown, they understand a bit more about things, about First Peoples in particular." Credit: Sandy Scheltema

At the age of 15 he received a letter from his sister in Sydney. He made the difficult decision to leave the security of his home and travel by foot to find the siblings he'd been separated from for more than 10 years.

"Your dear old mum passed away a week ago," his sister, Myrtle, wrote in the letter that reached him in 1970. Two decades later, having searched and found many of his siblings, Roach released Charcoal Lane, the first of many albums made over 30 years. His deeply personal songs are about loneliness, the impact of being removed from family and the redemptive power of love, family, community and connection to country.

What does he do?

Alongside family and caring for his community, it has always been music and the creative process that’s given Roach enormous joy. It's served as a significant outlet for the deep pain he’s felt, helping convey the enormous loss that he and other members of the stolen generations have experienced.

Meeting his partner and soul mate, Ruby Hunter, would change his life forever, Roach wrote in his autobiography Tell Me Why, published last year. Together they raised their family and Roach would begin to forge his stellar musical career.

His song Took the Children Away, from Charcoal Lane, propelled him into the national spotlight - a place he’s not always felt comfortable. His first appearance at the ARIA awards in 1991 left him baffled.

“I wasn’t quite sure what was going on with the ARIAs," Roach said earlier this year, recalling his first stroll down the red carpet. "It was on the harbour in Sydney and it was all a bit strange at first. I remember Ruby saying ‘just keep walking’ and there was a lot of artist there that I admire." In that same year, he won two of the four categories for which he was nominated.

What did he do this week?

After numerous ARIA award nominations and three more wins over the years, Roach was named as this year's ARIA Hall of Fame inductee. The awards ceremony will be held on November 25.

ARIA chief executive Dan Rosen said Roach was "an artist of enormous integrity, writing songs of deep personal honesty" that had made a long-term impact in Australia. "He told stories that no one else was telling, and brought these issues to the forefront of the Australian psyche," Rosen said.

Celebrated this week by fans and peers, including Paul Kelly, the Hall of Fame announcement comes after Roach was last year nominated as Victoria's representative in the 2020 Australia Day awards and 30 years after he first began advocating on behalf of Indigenous Australians.

Why is this important?

The 63-year-old becomes the fourth Indigenous performer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame but more importantly, it comes at a time when fellow musicians, including Midnight Oil, are again putting the spotlight on reconciliation and justice for First Nations people.

It also coincides with NAIDOC Week and its theme: Always Was, Always Will Be, recognising that First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for more than 65,000 years.

There was also a renewed call this week from Indigenous leader Pat Turner for a First Nations Voice to the federal parliament. Turner in her Dr Charles Perkins Memorial Oration on Thursday said that the reform of relations with government was far from complete while such a body remained absent from the national stage.

Indigenous leaders also backed the call from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian for an amendment to the national anthem to better recognise ''our proud Indigenous history''.

Meanwhile for Roach dealing with fame was an ''odd'' and ''bizarre'' experience at first. "But you get to understand this is just part of what you do ... once I was comfortable with that, I was OK [and] what better way to talk about something, or try to reach people, than with music."