Emma Donovan Shares Breathtaking Cover of Al Green’s ‘Take Me To the River’
The proud Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji artist makes the song her own.
Image Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore
Proud Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji artist Emma Donovan has unveiled a stunning cover of Al Green’s classic 1974 hit, ‘Take Me To the River’.
Donovan’s take on the song transforms ‘Take Me To the River’ into a powerful meditation on family, community and connection.
“I’m quite nervous releasing a song like ‘Take Me To The River’ because the Al Green version is such an iconic version, and it’s a big song!” shares Donovan. “But it’s exciting and good to share my perspective on it. A song like ‘Take Me To The River’ is similar to an Archie Roach song like ‘Get Back To The Land’. It’s about filling that cup up after a big breakup, going to look for that Country, looking for that water, to cleanse and feel good. I love my connection to that song, and I’m excited to share it.”
“My take on this song is really about family and community,” Donovan continues. “We always talk about going up the river, that’s our outlet. We go fishing, we go swimming, we go to hang out, and we take the little ones, and we’re there with family. We’ve been following my nannas and my grandfathers for years to the river. So hopefully, with that bit of language that we translated, people will feel the connection to that.”
Donovan worked closely with her longtime guitar player Ben Edgar and Boy & Bear bassist David Symes when reimagining ‘Take Me To the River’, weaving her own narrative through the song.
“For the song itself, I was channelling my nanna, my mum and her brothers,” Donovan say. “I grew up having these big fishing trips up the river of Kempsey, a little place in Northern NSW. We used to have huge trips there. Now, it’s probably not as big, but when I was a kid, we’d take all these cars full of kids and families, and we’d go out onto the back areas of the river near the airport at Kempsey. My grandmother would have to get permission to go on properties — these white fellas had bought properties, but they were at the back of the river.
“So, we’d go and my nan would make friends, or she’d have some connection to a lot of people who owned these properties. These were areas she’d been to when she was growing up, so I was channelling a lot of my grandmother and all of the family trips that we had going to the river in this song.”
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For more than two decades, Emma Donovan has been ever-present in the Aussie music scene, telling personal stories through music, fusing together gospel, country and soul.
Donovan has released two solo albums, Changes (2004) and Til My Song Is Dine (2024), and three records with The Putbacks, Dawn (2014), Crossover (2020) and Under These Streets (2021), earning critical acclaim and establishing herself as a musical force.
Inducted into the National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame alongside her family band The Donovans in 2021, Donovan has announced a “multidisciplinary show – also titled Take Me To The River — that reimagines her catalogue with powerful new arrangements, visuals and storytelling.”
Having premiered the show at Darwin Festival, Donovon will appear at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival this month and Sydney Festival in 2026.
“With these upcoming performances, fans can expect a deeper connection to these songs,” says Donovan. “I love storytelling, I love putting my own spin on things. And playing live, I’ll be sharing lots of reasons why these particular songs in the show mean so much to me. I feel like with my last album I focused so much on the family, country vibe, and the gospel vibes. So, it’s been a while since I’ve sat in the soul hot seat again. This is just me slowly driving back into that area!”
‘Take Me To the Ricer’ by Emma Donocan is out now via Civilians.
