Charcoal Lane (1990) – Archie Roach

‘I’m a Survivor of Charcoal Lane’

Archie Roach

Australian Aboriginal singer Archie Roach can certainly tell a good yarn through song and Charcoal Lane is evidence of that. This title track is the third song to appear him from his 1991 debut album Charcoal Lane. I was a fascinated by this album as a young adult and still cherish it.
From the 1960s through to the 1980s, the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy was a meeting place for Aboriginal people who had left missions, Aboriginal reserves, and other government institutions and drifted to the city in a bid to trace their families. and Roach was one of these. A street behind a factory was a meeting and drinking place known to the community as Charcoal Lane.

Side by side
We walk along
To the end of Gertrude Street
Then we topple in muster for a quart of wine

Thick or thin
Right or wrong
In the cold or in the heat
We cross over Smith Street to the end of the line

And we laugh and sing
And do anything
To take away the pain
Trying to keep it down as it first went round
In Charcoal Lane

Spinning yarns
And telling jokes
Now the wine is tasting good
As its getting closer and closer to it’s end

Archibald William Roach (1956 – 2022) was an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. Often referred to as “Uncle Archie“, Roach was a Gunditjmara (Kirrae Whurrong/Djab Wurrung) – Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria, Australia. He was a Bundjalung elder who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. His wife and musical partner was the singer Ruby Hunter (1955–2010) who wrote and sung with him on the magnificent Down City Streets.

Vika and Linda Bull were backing vocalists on the album, and they will feature here when we reach the ‘W’ songs in the alphabet listing with When Will You Fall For Me. They already appeared here as backing vocalists of Paul Kelly’s live performance of Leaps and Bounds played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It’s a small world since Paul was a coproducer of Charcoal Lane.

The album Charcoal Lane was released in May 1990 and peaked at number 86 on the ARIA Charts in April 1991. Rolling Stone said, “In the best singer-songwriter tradition, Charcoal Lane is deeply moving in both personal and political terms“. The album was certified gold in 1992. A 25th Anniversary Edition of the album was released in 2015; including the original disc plus new interpretations by Australian artists (including Paul Kelly, Courtney Barnett and Gurrumul).

References:
1. Charcoal Lane – Wikipedia

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