Auriel Andrew

Auriel Marie Andrew (1947 – 2 January 2017) was an Australian country music singer from the Northern Territory. She was the first Aboriginal woman to appear on Australian television.

Early life Auriel Marie Andrew was born in 1947 in Darwin, the youngest of seven children, and grew up in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). She was cared for by her mother and step-father, "Dad Simmo". Her mother was an Arrernte woman from Central Australia, while her father was a white Australian. Her mother was removed from her family to The Bungalow, where she was immersed in the English language, so Andrew never learnt her language. Her mother loved opera singer Mario Lanza pianist Winifred Atwell.

After her parents' marriage broke down, when Andrew was four years old and her sister Lorraine was five, they were moved to Mount Isa, Queensland, to live with his father's cousin and her husband.

Career Andrew made her stage debut at the Italian Club in Coober Pedy, before moving to Adelaide, South Australia aged 21 to pursue her music career. and she started appearing on live TV music broadcasts, and at the Darwin Festival in 2013.

Andrew's well-known recordings include the country classic "Truck Drivin' Woman" and Bob Randall's "Brown Skin Baby". Her 2013 album Ghost Gums included new original songs about her life and childhood. hosted by Reg Lindsay until 1972. In the 1970s, Andrew was a regular guest on The Johnny Mac Show and The Ernie Sigley Show. She starred in Tracey Moffatt's 1993 horror film beDevil.

In 2007 she starred in the short film Hush (2007), directed by Dena Curtis, which was screened in several film festivals and won the audience award for Best Foreign Short Film at the 2008 Créteil International Women's Film Festival in France. It was one of a series called Bit of Black Business, which showcased Indigenous Australian filmmakers.

She appeared in the SBS documentary Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music (2000) about Aboriginal country music

Awards and honours In 1991, Andrew was inducted into the Tamworth Hands Of Fame at the Australian Country Music Awards at Tamworth.

In 2005, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Northern Territory Indigenous Music Awards.

In 2011, she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM), for service to country music as a singer, and to the Indigenous community.

Later life and death Andrew was living in Waratah West in 2016, when she was included in the cast of the touring show Buried Country. By that time she and her husband had grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but said that she felt lonely from not performing any more. She would ring up her former fellow performers, such as Col Harvey and Chad Morgan.

She is buried in Wallsend Cemetery in Wallsend, a western suburb of Newcastle. Just For You (Nationwide, 1971) Chocolate Princess (Opal Records, 1982) Mbitjana (Imparja, 1985, 2010) Ghost Gums (2012) Let's Get Together (cassette; unknown date)