David Hudson

He also plays guitar, kit drums and percussion. Hudson plays primarily traditional music, as well as more ambient music, country-folk, rock, and new age.

• Name — David Hudson • Birth Name — David Charles Hudson • Born — c. 1962 • Origin — Cairns, Queensland, Australia • Genre — Country, folk • Occupation — Entertainer, musician, artist • Instrument — Didgeridoo, vocals • Years Active — 1985–present • Label — Celestial Harmonies, Indigenous Australia, Australian Sun • Website — davidhudson.com.au/ David Charles Hudson (born c. 1962) is an Australian musician, entertainer and artist. Hudson is a multi-instrumentalist and was taught to play traditional didgeridoo (yidaki) from an early age. He also plays guitar, kit drums and percussion. Hudson plays primarily traditional music, as well as more ambient music, country-folk, rock, and new age.

Hudson was born in the early 1960s and is a descendant of the Ewamin-Western Yalanji peoples of the western Far North Queensland region. He explained "I grew up in a household with uncles and aunts who painted and carved. I was taught traditional stories, so I was painting stories, and I learned what this line represents and this dot represents." He was also taught to play traditional didgeridoo. Hudson finished secondary schooling in 1979, then attended a teachers' college and was qualified as a recreation officer. According to Hudson "the majority of Indigenous teenagers left school in year 10 and followed their fathers and grandfathers to work on railways, in construction or on cane fields." In 1987 Hudson, his wife Cindy Judd, and other partners, established the Tjapukai Dance Theatre and the related Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park in Kuranda. Hudson, as a dancer and musician, toured with Greek-American musician, Yanni, from 1996 to 2005 and appears on the artist's albums, Tribute (November 1997), Ethnicity (February 2003) and Yanni Live! The Concert Event (August 2006). From 1997 to 2012 Hudson was General Manager of the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. Hudson worked on the film The Island of Dr. Moreau and played the role of the Bison Man, hybrid human-animal. In 2013, Hudson consulted for Dreamworld on the Gold Coast as cultural advisor, choreographer and script writer. On 26 March 2014 Hudson was given an Honorary Doctorate from James Cook University, in Cairns, for his outstanding service and distinguished public contribution to the Queensland community. In October 2014 Hudson gave a TEDx talk titled "Have Didge will Travel" at TEDxJCUCairns. Hudson's talk explained how a boy once classified by the Government as fauna, grew up and is now able to spread a positive message about Aboriginal culture, especially through his passion for the didgeridoo. Hudson continues to undertake motivational speaking, cultural workshops, original paintings and making customised didgeridoos. In April 2018 Hudson performed at the official opening of the Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux in France. He presented the didgeridoo he had made for the occasion to Prime Minister Turnbull for inclusion in the museum.