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Monday, July 30, 2012

Southern Songlines

at 7:20 PM

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Dewayne Everettsmith

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Performing For Oprah Winfrey's Show

A LITTLE ABOUT 'dewayne'

Doing a duet with Paul Kelly during the Melbourne International Arts Festival would be a daunting gig for the most seasoned of performers. For Dewayne, it was an opportunity for this unassuming young man to strut his stuff and bring his gift to a new audience. Which he did very successfully, receiving rousing ovations on both nights of the Black Arm Band’s dirtsong show.

Just a few weeks earlier, he’d wowed an entirely different sort of audience, as support act for John Farnham’s Hobart concert. Always a tough gig – people, having paid hefty ticket prices to hear The Voice, usually just clap politely and hope the support act gets off stage quickly. But, as is becoming the normal thing for Dewayne, it was another audience stunned by the beauty of this young man’s voice.

It’s barely two years since his Australian Idol audition brought tears to the eyes of judge Mark Holden and led Marcia Hines to describe Dewayne’s voice as one of the most beautiful she’d heard. In the time since, that voice has taken him to American Samoa, New Zealand, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and many, many parts of Australia.

But, it’s not just his voice. Dewayne’s one of those rare performers with a gift, a presence. Untutored in stagecraft, he can talk and sing to a crowded room – and most individuals listening will feel he was singing just for them. He can’t explain it and he’s not consciously trying to use it; it’s just there, it’s just him.

He’s an Aboriginal man, descended from both the Aboriginal community of Cape Barren Island and the Gunai/Kurnai people of Victoria, but his music can’t be neatly pigeonholed as Indigenous. It’s been influenced by his heritage, but shaped by his tough early years and his love of so many musical styles and great singers. When performing, Dewayne invariably includes covers of other people’s songs – in his own style – because he wants to give voice to great songs, songs with meaning for him, whether they’re his own or from someone else.

Dewayne’s just twenty-three, barely begun his journey and his debut album won’t be available until early in 2011. But, you’d be safe in assuming he’ll be part of your life for years to come and that his gift will take him to the world in the not-too-distant future. There’s just so much more to come.