Interview: Emma Donovan on her country music roots and Paul Kelly’s friendship
‘Her sound seems to come up from down in the earth,’ says Paul Kelly of Emma Donovan. ‘Like all great soul singers, her voice holds both joy and sorrow simultaneously.’
Page through Emma Donovan’s childhood photo album and you’ll find some of the earliest images of her alongside her brothers, all holding pretend microphones, while the extended family sits and takes in their makeshift concerts.
Born into a family of performers whose history trails a long musical reputation performing in a country music band called The Donovans, hers was a voice that was first heard in a group setting, both in times of joy and sorrow.
“I feel like we were the family funeral singers,” Donovan, 42, tells Review in a video call from her home in Bunbury, WA.
“Nan and Pop (Aileen and Micko) wrote gospel music, and they’d do all these old-time ‘barn dos’, and all the mob would pay $2 to enter. It was fundraising money for health, community, funerals – and then when they had actual funerals, all my family is known to sing there, at the gravesite or the church. That’s what I grew up doing, with mum and all my uncles.”
But as the years marched on, even before she became an acclaimed singer, songwriter and band leader, Donovan was increasingly pushed to the front to share her unique talents as a soloist.
“As I got older, and a lot of my family started recognising my voice, there’d be these requests,” she says. “I’d have aunties who’d say, ‘When I go, babe, I want you to sing for me’, and ‘When I leave, I want you to sing that song’. It still happens today: when Aboriginal mob have funerals, if there was a link to someone in the community, you just had to be there. I think we had more of a responsibility because everybody knew our family sang; we’d go along, just to sing.”
After almost a decade fronting the Melbourne soul/funk act The Putbacks – whose releases were nominated for ARIA Awards in 2021 and 2022 – her fifth album, titled Til My Song is Done, will be released next week. The 11-track set marks the first time since 2004 that Donovan is issuing music as a solo artist.
Its roots are in country-tinged rock ‘n’ roll, coloured by spidery banjo, pedal steel and trebley lead guitar tones, all of which hark back to her childhood travels from Nambucca Valley on the north coast of NSW to Tamworth for the annual country music festival.
The Donovans were regular performers there, and it’s where Emma joined the annual busking contest held on Tamworth’s Peel St, too.
“When mum discovered that I sang, she went a little bit overboard,” Donovan recalls with a laugh. “She was one of them ‘dance mums’ on the Tamworth scene; she went a bit crazy with outfits and tassels and stuff, but she really pushed me. She wanted me to do country music; she was like, ‘I just want you to be my little black Tammy Wynette’.”
With a head full of US country artists Wynette, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn – as well as her grandparents’ gospel music – Donovan fulfilled her mother’s wishes, until the age of 17 or so, when she pushed back against her childhood tastes in favour of R&B and soul performers like Christine Anu and Lauryn Hill.
The eventual return to her roots for the new album is fortuitously timed: country music has surged in popularity in the past few years, both here and abroad, and its artists are now being booked on festival line-ups with increasing regularity.
As well, one of the biggest names in global pop music, Beyonce Knowles-Carter, has released Cowboy Carter, a country-influenced album that contains flavours from dozens of genres and decades of US music history to create a fresh, headline-grabbing brew.
“I feel like I’ve come back to country at a good time,” says Donovan with a laugh. “It’s funny because I look back then, and I was so embarrassed, towards the end, being a teenager – whereas now I think, ‘Oh, this is me! I’m proud!’”
“What would I have done if mum didn’t teach me all them bloody Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette songs? I’ve got a bloody library; I’ve got some unreal songwriters (memorised). I reckon that’s where a lot of my songwriting comes from: they were boss, pretty strong women to write about some serious stuff.”
Her songwriting sparkles throughout Til My Song is Done, which also features two guest vocalists: firstly, on album opener Change is Coming, fellow singer-songwriter Liz Stringer.
“I’m a massive fan of hers,” says Donovan, who describes Stringer’s 2021 album, First Time Really Feeling, as one of her favourites. “A lot of inspiration from my album comes from Liz’s album. I had a ball with her in the studio; she was unreal.”
Mournful mid-album track Sing You Over was written with Donovan’s late mum Agnes in mind, as well as Uncle Archie Roach, who requested the company of his fellow musicians in his final days of life. To accompany her on this song, Donovan asked Paul Kelly, a longtime mutual friend of Roach.
“I wanted to share that song with Paul,” she says. “He’s so approachable. He’s always got some musical ideas that I’ve been a part of now; a few collaborations. So I just asked him to play harmonica on this track, and then toward the end (of the recording session), I thought, ‘Ah, maybe you should do some of your beautiful voice in there.’ I feel pretty lucky that he did it.”
For Kelly, the admiration is mutual. “Her sound seems to come up from down in the earth,” the acclaimed Melbourne-based artist tells Review.
“Like all great soul singers, her voice holds both joy and sorrow simultaneously. I love singing with her. We are very different singers but somehow we blend. We were born to sing (Ruby Hunter’s song) Down City Streets together!”
“Her work with The Putbacks is a great example of a singer and band totally in sync, both in writing and performance,” adds Kelly, 69. “She is a wonderful collaborator with a generous big-hearted presence on stage. Over the years she has become a mentor to younger singers while she herself seems to get better and better.”
Earlier in her career, Donovan was performing at Byron Bay Bluesfest and noticed that some of the festival’s star performers, Kasey Chambers and John Butler, were entirely comfortable with bringing their children along backstage, to see mum and dad at work.
Those artists’ parental modelling made a big impression on Donovan, who thought to herself: “Hopefully one day, that’ll be me. I can do that!’” she says. “That was long before I had the babies – I was already dreaming it up.”
Now mother to Jirriga, 7, and Agnes, 5, that dream is a reality. Her daughters have been in and around live music venues – mum’s workplace – throughout their lives. “We’ve done it all; every little situation you could think of,” she says with a laugh. “Mattresses backstage, green room lights turned down so they can have a rest.
“I’m very proud to bring my girls. Sometimes people see what’s happening with them, and it’s just creating that awareness. I think it’s changed, too. I’m always yarning up about family space (at shows). I think it’s gotten a lot friendlier; not that it wasn’t friendly, but you weren’t sure if someone would think any less of you – being professional, or being an artist.”
Her willingness to bring her children along helps normalise that experience for fellow mums and dads working in the performing arts, too. In early October last year, at the Now & Forever concert in support of a Yes vote for the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, Donovan was on stage performing alongside Jimmy Barnes and his daughter Mahalia.
When she glanced to the side of the stage in Shepparton, she saw her daughters, wide-eyed and thrilled at the sight of their mum at work, at full strength.
“I see them proud. It’s the best feeling: they love it, and they’re always looking at photos and videos,” she says, beaming. “I can hear them when they’re proud of me, telling people about me: ‘My mum sings!’”
Til My Song is Done is released on Friday, April 19 via Cooking Vinyl. Emma Donovan’s tour continues in Drysdale, Victoria (April 13) and ends in Traralgon, Victoria (August 2). Tickets: emmadonovan.com
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