Bettie Fisher ( – 12 May 1976) was an Australian Aboriginal musician and theatre manager of the

Jerrinja Jerrinja is the name of an Aboriginal Australian people from the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Their traditional lands cover from Crooked River in the north to Clyde River in the south, from the coast ( Roseby Park) in the east to t ...

people.

Early life and education

Fisher was born at the Roseby Park Mission, now renamed the Jerrinja, in Orient Point, around 1939. Orient Point is a small village located in the Shoalhaven, on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia, and is on the southern side of the mouth of the Crookhaven River, and adjoins the village of Culburra Beach to the south. Jerrinja are a coastal "salt-water" peoples who have maintained a strong connection with their country. Her father was Leslie Amburlah and her mother was Christine née Connolly. While Fisher was still a child, the family moved to Newcastle, where she attended Cardiff Public School until her expulsion aged twelve.

Career

From about 1954, Fisher sang jazz and blues in clubs in both her native state and Queensland. With

Jimmy Little James Oswald Little, AO (1 March 19372 April 2012) was an Australian Aboriginal musician, actor and teacher, who was a member of the Yorta Yorta tribe and was raised on the Cummeragunja Reserve, New South Wales. Little started his profess ...

and Freddy Little, she was a member of the first all-Aboriginal show touring New South Wales clubs for six years. Her television appearances included '' Bandstand'' on 2 December 1962, singing ''

Up a Lazy River "(Up A) Lazy River" is a popular tune and song by Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodin, published in 1930. The melody is by Arodin, arranged and with words modified by Carmichael. It is considered a jazz standard and pop standard, and has been r ...

'' and ''

Basin Street Blues "Basin Street Blues" is a song often performed by Dixieland jazz bands, written by Spencer Williams in 1928 and recorded that year by Louis Armstrong. The verse with the lyric "Won't you come along with me / To the Mississippi..." was later added ...

'', and Graeme Bell's Trad Jazz program. After she had stopped touring, Fisher became a member of the executive committee of the

Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs The Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs (FAA), formerly Aboriginal Affairs Association, and nicknamed "the Foundo", was a community organisation for Aboriginal people in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1964 and 1977. It published an occa ...

in 1971. In early 1974, she became the first administrator of the newly reformed Black Theatre Arts and Cultural Centre. Under her leadership, the centre offered workshops in modern and traditional dancing, karate, photography, fashion design and modelling, and script writing. Fisher organised performances at the centre by visiting black artists, including Roberta Flack and

Osibisa Osibisa are a Ghanaian-British Afro-Rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London based Caribbean musicians. Osibisa were the most successful and longest lived of the African-heritage bands in ...

. The first play performed at the centre was ''

The Chocolate Frog ''The Chocolate Frog'' was a short Australian play by Jim McNeil. It was written when McNeil was in prison. The play was first performed in Parramatta Gaol by the Resurgents' Club, a club set up by inmates interested in debating ideas. The perfor ...

''; Fisher was instrumental in having the play workshopped with prisoners in NSW jails. Fisher argued for the cast of another play, ''

The Cake Man ''The Cake Man'' is a 1975 play by Aboriginal Australian writer Robert J. Merritt, Bob Merritt, notable for being the first play written by an Indigenous Australian person to be published, televised and to tour out of Australia. A telemovie was ...

'', to be Aboriginal only, with white characters played by black actors, as in the street theatre and short performances produced by the centre. The director, Bob Maza, disagreed, and discussions resulted in the casting of some non-Indigenous actors, including Max Cullen and Danny Adcock.

Personal life and death

Fisher was married twice. Her first marriage, to a man called Fisher, was terminated by divorce, but she retained the name. In October 1974, Fisher married Tom Hogan, state coordinator of the NSW Builders Labourers Federation. Attendants at the wedding included

Mum Shirl Coleen Shirley Perry Smith AM MBE (22 November 1924 – 28 April 1998), better known as Mum Shirl, was a prominent Wiradjuri woman, social worker and humanitarian activist committed to justice and welfare of Aboriginal Australians. She wa ...

and Bobbi Sykes. Fisher died in Royal South Sydney Hospital on 12 May 1976; the cause of death was

coronary arteriosclerosis Atherosclerosis is a pattern of the disease arteriosclerosis in which the wall of the artery develops abnormalities, called lesions. These lesions may lead to narrowing due to the buildup of atheromatous plaque. At onset there are usually no sy ...

. Her ashes are buried at

Botany Cemetery Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Eastern Suburbs Crematorium and Botany General Cemetery (aka Botany Cemetery), is a cemetery and crematorium on Bunnerong Road in Matraville, New South Wales, in the eastern suburbs district of Sydney, Australia. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Bettie Year of birth uncertain 1976 deaths People from New South Wales Indigenous Australian musicians Australian blues musicians Australian jazz musicians 20th-century Australian musicians 20th-century Australian women