__NOTOC__ The Mills Sisters, formerly known as the Singing Grandmas, were a group of three sisters from

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...

, Rita Mills and twins Cessa and Ina.

Early life

Ina and Cessa, who were twins, were born in 1927, and Rita in 1934, on Naghir Island in the

Torres Strait The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mai ...

. They have

Torres Strait Islander Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped ...

heritage, including a great-grandmother of the

Kaurareg Kaurareg (alt. Kauraraiga, plural Kauraraigalai, Kauraregale) is the name for one of the Indigenous Australian groups collectively known as Torres Strait Islander peoples, although many or most identify as Aboriginal Australians. They are the ...

people (the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

of Possession Island, aka Bedanug), and a grandfather from

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

. Ina married an Indonesian man from

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is East Timor–Indonesia border, divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western p ...

. Their married names were Cessa Nakata, Ina Titasey, and Rita Fell-Tyrell.

Career

All three sang and Rita played

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, Cessa the

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

and Ina the

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

. Formerly known as the Singing Grandmas, the group started singing in the 1950s, with their first public appearances in pubs on

Thursday Island Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately north of Cape ...

, and in the 1980s started to tour outside the

.Sunday Herald Sun, 14 March 1999, "Rita's family affair" by Paul Stewart They performed at the Brisbane Expo in 1988, the

Woodford Folk Festival The Woodford Folk Festival is an annual music and cultural festival held near the semi-rural town of Woodford, north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the biggest annual cultural events of its type in Australia. Every year ap ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, around Australia, and in the early 1990s toured England, France and New Zealand. They also performed all over the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

Their version of "TI Blues" (a song written by

Seaman Dan Henry Gibson Dan (25 August 1929– 30 December 2020), known as Seaman Dan, an Indigenous Australian, was a Torres Strait Islander singer-songwriter with a national and international reputation whose first recording was released in 2000. His al ...

) has been called "a signature tune for the Torres Strait". In 1995 they released an album, ''Frangipani Land''. Cessa and Ina retired in 1995 or 1996 and Rita continued on a solo career, until retiring in 2001, and she died in 2004.

Musical styles and languages

The Mills Sisters had a repertoire of over 200 songs, which ranged from Torres Strait Island love songs to contemporary music, and included

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

. They sang in many languages besides English: a variety of Samoan, Hawaiian, Papua New Guinean, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages.

Awards

The

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

has since 1993 awarded a

Red Ochre Award The Red Ochre Award is an annual art award for Indigenous Australian artists. Background and description The Red Ochre Award was established in 1993 by the Australia Council for the Arts. It is awarded annually to an outstanding Indigenous Au ...

to an outstanding

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

(

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

) artist for lifetime achievement. It was awarded to the Mills Sisters in 1995.

In film

The half-hour documentary film ''Frangipani Land Forever'' was made by the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

's Indigenous department in 2008 in their "Message Stick" series, directed by Douglas Watkin.

Discography

*''Frangipani land'' (1993) - New Market Music *''Those beautiful TI girls'' (2002) - Zuna EntertainmentThose beautiful TI girls listing
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References

{{Authority control Queensland musical groups Indigenous Australian musical groups Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islands culture Australian folk singers Musical groups established in the 1950s