Rose Bygrave

Roslyn Louise Bygrave (born 1955) is an Australian singer-songwriter.

Life and career

Roslyn Louise Bygrave grew up in the small town of Willaura in the Western District of Victoria and later attended secondary school and art school in Ballarat and Melbourne, majoring in painting and printmaking.

Her career as a professional musician began in 1974 when she began performing in Ballarat then circa 1977 on the Bellarine Peninsula (early band: The Salty Dogs; Blue Grass, Reggae, eclectic ). Bygrave later joined the Goanna Band, rising to prominence as keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter alongside Shane Howard and Marcia Howard in the early 1980s. The band recorded three albums and toured extensively, performing in some of the remotest areas of Australia and forging strong bonds with Aboriginal people and their culture. Their debut album, ''Spirit of Place'', won the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Best Album of the Year award in 1982, with "Solid Rock" winning Best Single of the Year. They also won the Best new Band category. Her songwriting debut on that album was a haunting ballad called "On the Platform"; the 'B' side to the single "Solid Rock".

In 1986 she toured briefly playing reggae, jazz and blues with Australian singer Wendy Saddington with Mick Liber on guitar, Angelica Booth on bass, Javier Fredis on congas and Dezzy McKenna on drums.

Bygrave issued a solo single, "Maybe Midnight", in June 1989 and commenced work on a solo album but nothing eventuated due to artist management difficulties. Bygrave began performing solo in 1991 and worked as a sought after session musician. Around early 1990 she worked with Yothu Yindi's Mandawuy and Gurrumal Yunupingu as vocal collaborator and coach and sang backing vocals on tracks from their first album, ''Tribal Voice'', including the song "Treaty" (the first Aboriginal song to make it onto the Australian music charts and achieve international recognition). From the late 1990s she toured with Deb Byrne as keyboardist and backing vocalist on several of Byrne's tours around Australia promoting Byrne's foray into country music. Other musicians on that tour were Paul Gildea (Little River Band and Ice House) on guitar, Chris Bekker (James Reyne, Ross Wilson) on bass and backing vocals, Davy Porter on drums and James Uluave on percussion and backing vocals.

From 1998 to 2000, Bygrave contributed several songs to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television series ''SeaChange''.

Goanna reprised with a third album, ''Spirit Returns'', in 1998, to which Bygrave contributed three songs. The album was released at the Melbourne Concert Hall as part of the 1999 Melbourne International Festival Program.
Between 1998 and 1999 Bygrave was involved as a mentor in the Aboriginal Song Lines program which fostered emerging indigenous musicians.

In mid-1999, Bygrave produced and released her first solo album ''White Bird''. Four of the songs were added to compilation CDs and America's Mollie O'Brien recorded one of the songs and two songs received extensive Radio AirPlay. Musicians featured were Kerryn Tolhurst Lap Steel ( The Dingoes and Country Radio), Paul Gildea; Guitars, Shane Howard; Acoustic Guitar and vocals plus co-write on Big Blue Sky, Archie Cuthbertson; Drums, Dave Steel; Harmonica, Mandolin, Marcia Howard; Backing vocals, Michael Santamaria; Irish Whistles.

In 2000 at the Woodford Folk Festival, Bygrave was invited to be the soloist with the choir (directed by Kavisha Mazzella) during the famous fire event. This was broadcast live to 1.5 billion people on a worldwide link via the BBC
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