28 Facts About Bart Willoughby

In 2024, Willoughby received the Ted Albert Award For Outstanding Services to Australian Music at the APRA Music Awards of 2024.

Bartholomew Edwin Willoughby was born in 1960 at Koonibba Mission, near Ceduna in South Australia.

Bart Willoughby is a Pitjantjatjara man and Mirning man on his mother's side, and Kokatha on his father's side.

Bart Willoughby's father is from the Simpson Desert, and was raised traditionally, with Warlpiri as his first language, and artist Clifford Possum his best friend.

Bart Willoughby was removed from his family at Koonibba when he was three and placed in a children's home, making him one of the Stolen Generations.

Bart Willoughby contracted bone marrow disease when he was six years old, and was encased in plaster for two and a half years.

When he was 16, Bart Willoughby found his way to the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music at the University of Adelaide, where he was introduced to music and met the members of his future band, who are all related.

Bart Willoughby formed his first band, Australia's first Indigenous rock band, No Fixed Address, in 1978, with Ricky Harrison, Leslie Lovegrove Freeman, John John Miller, and Veronica Rankine, who played saxophone.

Bart Willoughby reformed No Fixed Address in 1987, and in 1988, the band toured Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall, on a tour initiated by the Soviet Union.

In 1989, Bart Willoughby left Yothu Yindi to form a new band, Mixed Relations.

Bart Willoughby then continued working with Mixed Relations, representing Australia at the 1990 and 1992 South Pacific Music Festival and the 1990 and 1992 Asian Music Festival.

Bart Willoughby played as a member of the musical theatre organisation Black Arm Band.

Bart Willoughby was the first Indigenous artist to do play the pipe organ, and played the Grand Organ in Melbourne Town Hall for a concert "We Still Live On", as part of the Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival in 2014.

In November 2008, Bart Willoughby played with the band at the Tarerer Festival at Killarney, and a week later at the Australasian World Music Expo in Melbourne.

From October 2013 through 2014 Bart Willoughby was bandleader for the Malthouse Theatre production of The Shadow King, an Australian play based on King Lear, starring Jada Alberts and Jimi Bani.

In 2016, Bart Willoughby headlined the Yabun Festival at Victoria Park, Camperdown, Sydney.

Bart Willoughby has said that the aim of his music is to impart love, hope, and unity.

In 1980, Bart Willoughby starred with another Indigenous band, Us Mob, in Ned Lander's film about Aboriginal musicians, called Wrong Side of the Road.

Bart Willoughby directed, composed, and recorded the music track with his band for Always Was - Always Will Be, which was produced, directed, and written by Indigenous filmmaker Madelaine McGrady.

In 1990, Bart Willoughby was cast as "Ned the Computer Expert" in German director Wim Wenders' Until the end of the World starring William Hurt, Sam Neill, Ernie Dingo, David Gulpilil, and Jimmy Little.

In 1992, Bart Willoughby was invited by Australia's first Indigenous feature film director Brian Syron to become the first Aboriginal person to compose, play and direct the music track of a feature film Jindalee Lady.

In 2011, Bart Willoughby appeared with other artists of the Black Arm Band in the documentary film Murundak: Songs of Freedom, directed by Natasha Gadd and Rhys Graham.

In 1993 Bart Willoughby received the inaugural Indigenous ARIA Australian Lifetime Achievement Award for his Outstanding Contribution to Indigenous Music in Australia.

Bart Willoughby notched up a list of firsts that paved the way for a lot of Indigenous artists.

Bart Willoughby was the first to perform on Countdown, his was the first Aboriginal band to make a documentary, the first Aboriginal band to sign a record deal and the first, the very first, to tour overseas, and Willoughby was the first, the very first to score, play and direct the music track of a feature film itself the first to be directed by an Indigenous director.

In 2013, Bart Willoughby was a finalist in the Melbourne Prize for Music, and in 2016 was awarded a music fellowship by Australia Council.

In 2023, Bart Willoughby was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division, for service to the performing arts, particularly through music.

Bart Willoughby was honoured in the APRA Music Awards of 2024 with the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music.