HEAVEN knows what the tourists thought. As the trains rumbled overhead and the seagulls squawked, hundreds of people gathered at Circular Quay in Sydney yesterday to farewell the Jimi Hendrix of didgeridoo players, the much-loved Alan Dargin.
For more than 20 years, Dargin and his stick, as he called his yirdaki or didgeridoo, were fixtures at Circular Quay, where he was one of Sydney’s best-known buskers. But his fame, and the rock’n’roll sensibility he brought to the most ancient of Aboriginal musical instruments, spread much further. Over the years, Dargin had played at festivals, clubs and concert halls around the world, from London’s Royal Albert Hall to New York, Paris and outback stations.
The country’s most revered didgeridoo player died in hospital on Sunday following complications from a stroke. He was 40.
Yesterday’s memorial celebration began shortly after 7am at the eastern end of Circular Quay. With the Opera House in the background, a traditional smoking ceremony heralded a group of Aboriginal dancers who then weaved their way through the morning throngs of office workers to First Fleet Park.
Hours later, a symphony of didgeridoo players “sang” Dargin’s spirit back to his tribal homeland in Arnhem Land, a tearful crowd clapping in time to the clapsticks.
In between, speaker after speaker paid tribute to a remarkable man, talking fondly of his musicality, his capacity for friendship, his eccentricities, his wild enthusiasms; the speeches were interspersed with traditional dances and music from his albums, including the yet-to-be-released MRD – named after his beloved daughter, Madi Rose.
Professional photographer Lisa Hogben, who had photographed Dargin since the 1990s, said his prodigious talent as a musician had pioneered a new musicianship, celebrating the collision of old and new.
Among those paying tribute was University of Western Sydney music professor Michael Atherton, who collaborated on Dargin’s albums Bloodwood and CrossHatch.
“He was a brother and a friend to me, but speaking as a musicologist, what he could do with the didgeridoo was inspirational,” he said.
“He could make classical and jazz players envious. He wanted respect for his instrument. While he was not openly political or an activist in the known sense, he talked through his instrument about bringing people together, about healing.”