Growing up in a family of seven children in Torquay, Victoria (Australia), near the famous surfing location Bells Beach, Rudd showed a keen interest in music. While primary school-aged, Rudd used his mother's vacuum cleaner as a makeshift didgeridoo and he began playing his brother's guitar. He also played saxophone and clarinet as a child.
Before launching his solo career, Rudd began playing music as part of the band 'Xavier and the Hum'. In 2004, Rudd released Solace, his first album to be distributed by a major label.
Rudd's music is compassionate and always manages to render emotion in his fans. His songs include stories of the mistreatment of the indigenous people of his homeland; they tell of humanity, spirituality or the environment. The songs are written and sung with compassion and they urge the celebration of life.
Rudd is skilled with a variety of instruments, include guitar, shaker, didgeridoo, Weissenborn slide guitar, Tongue drum, stomp boxe, djembe, harmonica, ankle bells, and slide banjo. It's an experience to watch him perform his songs live, as he plays the guitar, digeridoo and various percussion instruments simultaneously, using a unique stage setup. But the real magic comes when he opens his mouth and his soulful voice spills upon his audience.
Rudd recalls that when he was 10, his dad took him to see Paul Simon’s Graceland tour. “I remember seeing it and knowing that that was what I was gonna do,” he says. “I had no doubt. It sort of made sense, because I’d always lived in my head, in this world of song that was my own little secret. But to see that show and that whole thing happening, I sort of felt comfortable as a human, and thought.” He learned to play the digeridoo, the 50,000-year-old wooden trumpet of the Aboriginal people, by practising on a vacuum cleaner pipe.
As a teenager, Rudd really got into songwriting. He started performing at his school, with solo gigs following. He drew inspiration from artists such as Leo Kottke, Ben Harper, Natalie Merchant and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, as well as music from diverse sources, such as Hawaii and Native American music.
As with most solo artists, Rudd has experimented playing in a band. Though it was a short- lived experiment, as Rudd quickly found that it wasn't the right way to go for him. “What I do now is just more me,” he says. “And it sounds full.”
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“It’s all about peace and happiness,” he says of his performances. “That’s sort of the blanket that seems to sort of settle in the room, or on the venue when I play, but I sort of feel not solely responsible. I don’t really feel like it’s me and the audience. I feel like it’s all of us, one big connection and I just happen to be channeling the energy through music. It comes from the audience and channels through me and I put it back in the audience.”
“My music is about good spirit. I’m so lucky to be able to do what I do. I’m so blessed to be able to be able to travel around and play music and connect with so many people in so many places in so many cultures. It’s a gift of life as a musician.”
After the failure of his marriage in 2009, Rudd was supported in his grief and recovery by new South African bandmates, bassist Tio Moloantoa and percussionist Andile Nqubezelo. Rudd had met Moloantoa and Nqubezelo performing at the 2008 Wiesen Nuke Festival in Austria. Rudd described his connection with Moloantoa and Nqubezelo as musical, spiritual and emotional—"I feel like they were sent to me," he said.
In 2010 Rudd bought 20 hectares of property at Koonyum Range, Mullumbimby, the location was the inspiration for the name of the album Rudd would release with Moloantoa and Nqubezelo, titled "Koonyum Sun", as Xavier Rudd & Izintaba. The album moved away from the heavier sound of Rudd's 2008 album "Dark Shades of Blue" to a more up-beat style.
"Nanna", the 2015 album Rudd released as Xavier Rudd & the United Nations champions cultural understanding and condemns racism and intolerance. It features a diverse group of musicians from Australia, South Africa, Samoa, Germany, Ireland, and Papua New Guinea.
In 2018, Rudd released "Storm Boy".
No Woman No Cry
Xavier Rudd Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
And I remember when we used to sit
In a government yard in Trenchtown
Oba, oba-serving the hypocrites
Good friends we have and good friends we've lost along the way
In this bright future we can't forget our past
So dry your tears I say
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
I remember when we used to sit
In a government yard in Trenchtown
And Georgie would make fire light
Log wood burnin' through the night
And we would cook corn meal porridge of
Which I'll share with you, mmm you and you
My feet is my only carriage now
So I've got to push on through
But while I'm gone
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright well
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright well
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
Xavier Rudd's version of No Woman No Cry, originally by Bob Marley and the Wailers, is a poignant tribute to the strength and resilience of individuals in the face of adversity. The song's titular refrain, "No woman, no cry," can be interpreted as a reminder to persevere despite times of hardship and loss, particularly for marginalized communities. The government yard in Trenchtown mentioned in the song is a reference to a low-income housing complex in Kingston, Jamaica, where Bob Marley grew up. Throughout the song, Rudd reminisces about sitting in the yard with friends, sharing food, and making fires to keep warm.
The lyrics also evoke a sense of solidarity and community in the face of systemic oppression. Despite having to endure the hypocrisies and injustices of those in power, the singer finds solace in the company of good people, both present and past. This sense of collective memory and strength despite struggle is exemplified in the lines "good friends we have and good friends we've lost along the way / in this bright future we can't forget our past." Ultimately, the song's message is one of hope and reassurance, with the repeated refrain "everything's gonna be alright" serving as a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of solidarity.
Line by Line Meaning
No woman, no cry
If you don't have a woman with you, don't cry or worry.
And I remember when we used to sit
I remember the times we used to sit together.
In a government yard in Trenchtown
We used to sit together in a public space in Trenchtown.
Oba, oba-serving the hypocrites
We would observe people around us but didn't like the hypocritical ones.
As we would mingle with the good people we meet
We would socialize with the people who were good to us and vice versa.
Good friends we have and good friends we've lost along the way
We had some good friends in the past, but we've lost them over time.
In this bright future we can't forget our past
Although we have a bright future ahead, we can't forget the lessons we learned from the past.
So dry your tears I say
I'm telling you not to cry.
And Georgie would make fire light
Georgie used to start a fire.
Log wood burnin' through the night
We would use the log wood as fuel for the fire which would burn through the night.
And we would cook corn meal porridge of Which I'll share with you, mmm you and you
We would cook corn meal porridge, and I would love to share it with you and other people too.
My feet is my only carriage now
I don't have any other means of transport other than my feet.
So I've got to push on through
I have to keep moving forward.
But while I'm gone
While I'm away from you,
Ev'rything's gonna be alright
Everything will be okay.
Ev'rything's gonna be alright well
Everything will be good in the end.
No woman, no cry
If you don't have a woman with you, don't cry or worry.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Vincent Ford
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind