WITH good friends Pam Delgado and Nina Gerber singing Bound For Glory by her bedside, Tasmanian-born singer-songwriter Audrey Auld died peacefully on Sunday morning, aged 51.
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The past two years had been a whirlwind of emotions for Audrey and husband Mez – from the career high of her performance at the 2014 Tamworth Country Music Festival opening concert to being diagnosed with melanoma and a brain tumour.
Six months after her diagnosis, in July 2014, Audrey and Mez, a plumber and firefighter, packed up their Nashville home and returned to the place Audrey felt was her spiritual home in America – the small, loving, supportive community of Stinson Beach.
It is a beautiful place. I spent a precious week staying there with this loving couple in June, before returning from my trip to America.
Long beach walks, hikes up winding mountain tracks, warm hugs from friends and daily trips to the post office to write and receive letters took up much of her time when Audrey wasn’t writing or performing.
She played her final gig just two weeks before her passing.
During my visit with them, we took a road trip across Mt Tamalpais to the Santa Cruz Mountains, where Audrey played a house concert in the middle of a gigantic redwood forest.
It was fabulous to see her singing her heart out, even though she’d been feeling less than fabulous prior to the event. Nobody would have known. She was a true professional.
Last month Cheryl Byrnes asked me to write a feature article on Audrey for the August edition of Country Music Capital News.
I had no inkling at the time I wrote that article we would lose this beautiful soul so quickly.
However, among the sadness and sense of loss, I hope her friends and fans will find a little comfort knowing what a peaceful and beautiful way she departed this world, surrounded by music, wonderful friends and her beloved Mez.
It was my pleasure to share the news about her latest album, Hey Warden, which she recorded with some sense of urgency, before leaving Nashville.
Five of the songs on the eight-track release were co-written with inmates from San Quentin Prison.
Since first playing in the prison for the Bread and Roses organisation, Audrey returned often, conducting songwriting workshops with the inmates.
The day they left Nashville in July 2014, Audrey filmed a video clip for what I feel is the standout track, I Am Not What I Have Done. Search YouTube for the clip.
Men dressed in work boots, jeans and plain shirts, walking endlessly in circles, symbolised the confinement of prison life. It’s incredibly moving in its simplicity.
When Audrey returned to San Quentin and played the clip to inmates, it received a standing ovation, with all agreeing how much it captured their life, pacing endlessly in the prison yard.
With the body of work she’s created during her 30-year career, Audrey Auld has left a lasting legacy, as well as inspiring countless others to
follow their dreams, with the simple message of living for today and enjoying the present. Tomorrow may never come.
Farewell, beautiful soul. You’ve left your footprints in my heart.
