A stirring collaborative cover of a Kev Carmody song is being released for a worthy cause this week.
Put together by Stu MacLeod, a collection of Australian musical icons have joined the Eskimo Joe guitarist for a heartfelt rendition of Carmody’s song “Just For You”.
On vocals, Men at Work’s Colin Hay performs alongside Carmody himself, Paul Kelly, and Jess Hitchcock. MacLeod leads the way on piano, while The Living End legend Chris Cheney plays guitar on the cover.
All musicians involved in the project gave up their own time to record their parts separately, with the accompanying video showing the disparate performances coming together wonderfully. “This is a song for our children,” the video poignantly declares at the beginning.
And it’s all for a great cause: MacLeod has been working at the Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health, a not for profit organisation and charity. It was started in response to the tragic 13 deaths of Aboriginal children in the Kimberley, which led to the 2019 Fogliani Coronial Inquiry.
These 13 deaths, coupled with the continuing deaths of Aboriginal people by suicide, compelled Dr Westerman to decide to do something about the level of access to mental health service that were both clinically and culturally appropriate, and which could provide measurable outcomes for at-risk communities.
This led to the creation of the Dr Tracy Westerman Indigenous Psychology Scholarship Program, which was launched as a direct result of hearing the voices of decades of bereaved Indigenous parents and communities who were in dire need of assistance that they couldn’t access. The program named 15 national recipients in 2020 and a further 11 the following year. You can find out more about the work the Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health does here.
You can listen to the “Just For You” cover above, before it officially gets released this Friday, September 9th.
