Archie Roach to receive Ted Albert award at APRA awards ceremony

Indigenous music legend Archie Roach has been announced as the recipient of the 2017 Ted Albert Award at this year’s APRA Music Awards.

The APRA Music Awards are set to take place next Monday, April 3 at the International Convention Centre Ballroom in Sydney.

Organisers of the event have today announced that the prestigious Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music for 2017 is set to be awarded to Archie Roach.

Roach, whose debut album Charcoal Lane was released back in 1990, has spent the last 27 years making a name for himself as one of the most important musical voices to come from Indigenous Australia. Known for his famous song ‘Took The Children Away’, which tells the story of the Stolen Generations and his experiences of its horrors, has seen Roach considered as one of Australia’s most revered and respected singers and songwriters.

With five ARIA awards under his belt, seven Deadlys, three National Indigenous Music Awards, and having been inducted into the NIMA Hall Of Fame in 2013, Roach is also notable as being the first musician to receive a Human Rights Achievement Award, thanks to his track ‘Took The Children Away’.

Previous winners of the Ted Albert Award include a highly respected list of names including. Paul Kelly, Jimmy Little, Slim Dusty, The Seekers, and Cold Chisel.

The APRA Awards have today also released the winners of a variety of different categories as well. Categories include ‘International Work Of The Year’, which has been taken out by Adele’s ‘Hello’, beating out other works by artists such as Justin Timberlake, and Justin Bieber and Duke Dumont. The ‘Licensee Of The Year’ award is a newly created award whose intent is to reward licensee groups for their role in good music citizenship. The inaugural award has been given to the beloved Adelaide venue The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, also known as The Gov.

The awards will feature performances from artists such as  Paul Kelly with A.B. Original & Dan Sultan, Kate Miller-Heidke, Tkay Maidza, Holy Holy, Julia Jacklin, Cloves, and Busby Marou. Presenters at the ceremony will also include Bernard Fanning, Hayley Mary (The Jezabels), and Tex Perkins, among others.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.