Backstage at the Queen’s diamond jubilee concert, held at Buckingham Palace in 2012, a blind and withdrawn Australian Aboriginal singer named Yunupingu sat quietly, seemingly oblivious to the celebrities — including Elton John, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones — milling around him.
He barely spoke a word, yet whenever he took to the stage his gentle voice and mellow guitar-playing had the audience spellbound, and after his jubilee performance the biggest stars in the world lined up to congratulate him.
Having sung in front of the Pope and Barack Obama, and been described by the Sydney Morning Herald as “the greatest voice this continent has ever recorded”, he should have been accustomed to such acclaim, but his unease in the spotlight was such that he never gave an interview.
“Yunupingu is only comfortable when he’s back home with family,” his musical collaborator, spokesman and interpreter Michael Hohnen explained in 2009. “He’s a very intelligent and intuitive person, but his shyness verges on fear when he’s in public situations and he’d rather not be quoted directly.”
Yet his reticence concealed a warm sense of humour. While being briefed on the protocol for his introduction to the Queen, he noted that women at the time were holding all of the top three positions in the government of Australia — monarch, governor-general and prime minister. “Any roles left for blokes?” he quipped. “Me and the Pope have to busk on the streets to make some money.”
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Yet he had little interest in the financial rewards of his career and gave most of his earnings to his mother and his aunts on Elcho Island, his home off Australia’s northern coast and a two-hour flight from the mainland. When not touring the world he continued to live on the island in the remote and tiny community of Galiwin’ku, where he is survived by his daughter, Jasmine.
He was born in Galiwin’ku in 1971, into the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people. The eldest of four sons born to Ganyinurra (Daisy) and Nyambi (Terry) Yunupingu, he was blind from birth and was given the “whitefalla” name Geoffrey. He was fascinated by music as a child, joining the choir at the local Methodist mission where he learnt to sing hymns such as Amazing Grace and The Sweetest Name, which he later recorded on an album of gospel songs.
His first “instrument” was a row of empty tin cans, which his mother and aunts set up for him on the beach and which he hit with a stick, like a DIY xylophone. He graduated to a toy accordion and then a guitar, strung for a right-handed player, but which he played left-handed and “upside-down”. He continued to play in the same unconventional style all his life.
His first solo album appeared in 2008 and brought him international success. At home his albums went triple platinum and, despite singing mostly in the indigenous tongues of Gumatj, Galpu and Djambarrpuynu, language was no barrier to him. He sold more than one million records around the world, supported by appearances at the world’s most prestigious concert venues, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Royal Albert Hall.
The only constraint on his burgeoning career was his fragile health and an ongoing liver condition, which was the result of contracting hepatitis B as a child. He was hospitalised in 2010, forcing the cancellation of concerts in Britain and America. He recovered and resumed working, making his delayed first US tour in 2015.
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He became ill again in 2016 and his plight became the subject of a debate about whether indigenous people systemically receive second-class healthcare compared with white Australians, after it was alleged that he had not received the treatment he required.
In line with Aboriginal custom, on his death many local publications refrained from publishing his photo or his first name, referring to him only as Dr G Yunupingu, in recognition of his honorary doctorate from Sydney University.
Dr G Yunupingu, singer, was born on January 22, 1971. He died of a liver condition on July 25, 2017, aged 46
This article was amended on 2 August 2017 to remove Dr Yunupingu’s first name and an image showing his face to respect Aboriginal customs on death