Maverick songman, Neil Murray, founding member of the pioneering Warumpi Band, which, over three albums and twenty years of performing, thrust contemporary Indigenous music into mainstream Australia. He has since become one of Australia’s finest singer/songwriters, enjoying a solo career since 1989. He has released a remarkable string of albums – the latest being The Telling, which marks a recording career of four decades. Collectively, his work has done much to deepen Australia’s contemporary music heritage.
In 1995, Neil Murray was awarded the APRA song of the year for My Island Home originally written for the Warumpi Band and re-recorded by Christine Anu. In 2007, Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out From Jail), the Warumpi Band’s debut 1983 single in the indigenous Luritja language was honoured by the National Film And Sound Archives as a significant recording in Australia’s heritage and credited as the first commercially released pop rock single in an Indigenous language.