Brisbane singer-songwriter Tara Simmons passes away

Brisbane-based electronic-folk singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Tara Simmons (born 1984) grew up on a farm in the NSW Blue Mountains.

She began to play the piano at age three, and cello at eight (and later banjo). She moved up north to study production and songwriting at the Queensland University of Technology.

Her debut EP Pendulum arrived in August 2006, delayed by a year as she had shelved it thinking it wasn’t good enough.

There was a change in attitude after triple j playlisted the track ‘Everybody Loves You’, which was also nominated for the Q Song Awards.

Following a number of EPs, she made her debut album Spilt Milk with her flatmate and cellist-playing band member Briony Luttrell.

The follow up It’s Not Like We’re Trying To Move Mountains, with producer Yanto Browning, went a different direction.

She admitted she was on stage performing the first album when she realised “I was bored, because most of my stuff was down-tempo.”

Supported by triple j and a loyal following, Simmons had the confidence to keep her career flexible, writing with Dean McGrath of Hungry Kids of Hungary, touring as the female vocalist for Brisbane production duo YesYou, dreaming about cutting an album with a small chamber ensemble and getting a song on US sitcom Gossip Girl.

When she was diagnosed with cancer, she recounted that journey on social media, and she and Browning kept working on new music right until this month.

Friends as Dean McGrath, Danny Harley (the Kite String Tangle), Gav Parry (Yes You), Jungle Giants’ Sam Hales, writer/producer Konstantin Kersting, Kate Miller-Heidke and Megan Washington rallied around her in the studio as she made a record that was beyond anyone’s expectations.

Browning recalls, “The strength of her character and her absolute resoluteness and fearlessness in the most trying of circumstances. She was immense.

“In all the time we spent together, Tara expressed sadness and regret only a few times, and she expressed fear exactly never.

“She faced her mortality with a grace, poise, strength, and humour that was truly remarkable.

“Tara found herself, well before her time, on the edge of an abyss.

“Many people in the same situation would look over the edge and just crumble.

“Tara looked over. And then she laughed.

“And then she danced up and down the edge until the very end, singing the entire time.”

Her final album will be competed and released this year.