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Paul Kelly (musician)
Encyclopedia
Paul Maurice Kelly is an Australian rock music
singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor Ratbaggy
and Stardust Five
. Kelly's music style has ranged from bluegrass
to studio-oriented dub
reggae
, but his core output straddles folk
, rock, and country
. His lyrics capture the vastness of the culture and landscape of Australia by chronicling life about him for over 30 years. David Fricke
from Rolling Stone
calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise." Kelly has said, "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don’t feel like I have got it nailed yet".
After growing up in Adelaide
, Kelly travelled around Australia before settling in Melbourne
in 1976. He became involved in the pub rock
scene and drug culture, and recorded two albums with Paul Kelly and the Dots. Kelly moved to Sydney by 1985, where he formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. The band was renamed Paul Kelly and the Messengers, initially only for international releases, to avoid possible racist interpretations. At the end of the 1980s, Kelly returned to Melbourne, and in 1991 he disbanded the Messengers. Kelly has been married and divorced twice; he has three children and resides in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, with his girlfriend, Sian Prior. Dan Kelly
, his nephew, is a singer and guitarist in his own right. Dan performed with Kelly on Ways and Means and Stolen Apples. Both were members of Stardust Five, which released a self-titled album
in 2006.
Kelly's Top 40 singles include "Billy Baxter", "Before Too Long
", "Darling It Hurts
", "To Her Door
" (his highest-charting local hit in 1987), "Dumb Things" (appeared on United States charts in 1988), and "Roll on Summer
". Top-20 albums include Gossip
, Under the Sun, Comedy, Songs from the South (1997 compilation
, his best-charting album), ...Nothing but a Dream, and Stolen Apples
. Kelly has won eight Australian Recording Industry Association
(ARIA) Music Awards, including his induction into their Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2001 the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) listed the Top 30 Australian songs
of all time, including Kelly's "To Her Door", and "Treaty
", written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi
. Aside from "Treaty", Kelly has written or co-written several songs on Indigenous Australian social issues and historical events. He has provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. The album Women at the Well from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute.
magazine, "legend has it" that Kelly's mother gave birth to him "in a taxi outside North Adelaide's Calvary Hospital". In the lyrics for his Comedy (1991) album track, "It's All Downhill from Here" Kelly wrote:
Although Kelly was raised as a Roman Catholic, he later described himself as not believing in any god. He is the great great grandson of Jeremiah Kelly, who fled Ireland in 1852 and settled in Clare, South Australia
. His paternal grandfather, Francis Kelly, established a law firm in 1917, which his father, John, joined in 1937. John died in 1968 at the age of 52, after being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease
three years earlier. Kelly was 13 years old. Kelly described his father: "I have good memories, he was the kind of father that, well, I missed him when he died very much. The older children were growing into him at the time he died. He was not well enough to play sport with me". In his song, "Adelaide", from Post
(1985), he wrote:
Kelly's maternal grandfather was an Argentine-born, Italian
-speaking opera singer, Count Ercole Filippini, a leading baritone
for the La Scala
Opera Company in Milan
. Filippini was touring Australia in 1914 with a Spanish opera company when World War I
broke out; Filippini stayed and later married Anne McPharland, one of his students. As Countessa Anne Filippini, she was Australia's first female symphony orchestra conductor. She sang the role of Marguerite in Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) Radio Perth
's performance of Faust
in 1928. Kelly's grandparents started the Italo-Australian Opera Company, which toured the country in the 1920s.
Josephine raised the younger children alone after John's death, but found time to assist others in need. Kelly's oldest sister, Anne, became a nun and went on to write hymns, while younger sister, Mary-Jo, plays piano in Latin bands and teaches music. Kelly's older brother, Martin, works for the Christian Brothers
' volunteer organisation Edmund Rice International, with another brother, Tony, a drug and alcohol counsellor, who ran as an Australian Greens
candidate in the 2001 and 2004 federal elections. Kelly's mother moved to Brisbane
, where she died in 2000, aged 76.
Kelly attended Rostrevor College
, a Christian Brothers school, where he played trumpet and studied piano. He was a cricket captain, and became dux of his senior year. Kelly studied arts at Flinders University
in 1973, but left after a term, disillusioned with academic life. He began writing prose and started a magazine with some friends. Kelly spent several years working odd jobs, travelling around the country and learning guitar before he moved to Melbourne in 1976.
His first published song, "It's the Falling Apart that Makes You", was written after listening to Van Morrison
's Astral Weeks
at the age of 19, although in an interview with Drum Media he recalled writing his first unpublished song: "It was an open-tuning and had four lines about catching trains. I have got a recording of it somewhere. It was called 'Catching a Train'. I wrote a lot of songs about trains early on, trains and fires, and then I moved on to water". In 1976 Kelly appeared on Debutantes, a compilation album featuring various Melbourne-based artists, and joined pub-rockers
The High Rise Bombers from 1977 to 1978.
The High Rise Bombers included Kelly (vocals, guitar, songwriter), Martin Armiger
(guitar, vocals, songwriter), Lee Cass (bass guitar
), Chris Dyson (guitar), Sally Ford (saxophone
, songwriter), John Lloyd (drums
), and Keith Shadwick (saxophone). Chris Langman (guitar, vocals) replaced Dyson in early 1978. In August, after Armiger left for The Sports
and Ford for The Kevins, Kelly formed Paul Kelly and the Dots with Langman and Lloyd. The High Rise Bombers recorded two tracks, "She's Got It" and "Domestic Criminal", which appeared on The Melbourne Club, a 1981 compilation by various artists on Missing Link Records
.
Kelly had already established himself as a respected songwriter—other Melbourne musicians would go to see him on their nights off. He was introduced to Hilary Brown at one of the Dots' gigs and they later married – the relationship is described in "When I First Met Your Ma" (1992). Brown's father supplied Kelly with a gravy recipe – used on "How to Make Gravy
" (1996). Their son, Declan, was born in 1980.
The Dots included various line-ups from 1978 to 1982. The band released their debut single "Recognition" in 1979, which did not reach the Australian Kent Music Report
Singles Chart top 50. Paul Kelly and the Dots signed to Mushroom Records
and issued "Billy Baxter" in November 1980, which peaked at No. 38. Rock music historian, Ian McFarlane described it as a "delightful, ska-tinged" track. Kelly's first television performance was "Billy Baxter" on the national pop show Countdown. Their debut album, Talk
, followed in March 1981, which reached No. 44 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart. Late in 1981 Paul Kelly and the Dots recorded their second album, Manila
, in the Philippines
' capital
. It was issued in August 1982, but had no chart success. Release was delayed by line-up changes and because Kelly was assaulted in Melbourne – he had his jaw broken.
In an October 1982 interview with Australian Women's Weekly
, Kelly indicated he was more pleased with Manila than Talk as "It has more unity ... with this one we didn't have people dropping into the studio to play." Years later Kelly disavowed both Dots albums: "I wish I could grab the other two and put 'em in a big hole". The 1982 film, Starstruck
, was directed by Gillian Armstrong
and starred Jo Kennedy. Paul Kelly and the Dots supplied "Rocking Institution" for its soundtrack and Kelly added to the score. Kennedy released "Body and Soul", a cover of Split Enz
' "She Got Body, She Got Soul" as a shared single
with "Rocking Institution". Acting in a minor role in Starstruck was Kaarin Fairfax
, who later became Kelly's second wife. Kelly was without a recording contract after the Dots folded in 1982.
Paul Kelly Band was formed in 1983 with Michael Armiger (Martin Armiger's younger brother, bass guitar), Chris Coyne (saxophone), Maurice Frawley
(guitar) and Greg Martin (drums). By 1984 Michael Barclay replaced Martin on drums and Graham Lee
(guitar, pedal steel guitar
) joined. Kelly's involvement in the Melbourne drug culture—he described his heroin addiction as "a long period of occasional use"—resulted in erratic performances. Problems with his marriage and drug use disrupted his career, and by 1984 the marriage had broken up. Hilary had moved to Sydney, leaving their young son with Kelly. He disbanded the group three months later and relocated to Sydney so he could share parenting responsibilities with Hilary while Declan grew up.
Paul Kelly stayed with Don Walker
(Cold Chisel
) in Kings Cross
– Walker had lived with Hilary's sister – and wrote new songs on Walker's piano. Kelly then moved into a flat with Paul Hewson (Dragon
) in Elizabeth Bay
. Both Walker and Hewson encouraged Kelly to continue with his song-writing. By January 1985, he recorded the self-funded album—at a cost of $3,500—Post
. Session musicians included Michael Barclay (Weddings, Parties, Anything) on harmonies, guitarist Steve Connolly (The Zimmermen), and bass guitarist Ian Rilen
(Rose Tattoo
, X
). They spent two weeks recording at Clive Shakespeare
's studio. Shakespeare engineered the album and co-produced with Kelly. It was released in May 1985 on the independent label White Records, and licensed to Mushroom Records
.
Kelly dedicated Post to his former flatmate, Hewson, who had died of a heroin overdose in January. According to McFarlane: "[it] a stark, highly personalised collection of acoustic songs that showcased the extraordinary breadth of Kelly's songwriting skills." Rolling Stone
(Australia) hailed Post as the best record of 1985. Allmusic's Mike DeGagne felt "While he focuses on life's daily tragedies and tribulations, there is a missing element in the music, as it lacks any vigor or flash". A single, "From St. Kilda to King's Cross", was released from the album, but did not chart. Russell Crowe
, during his first trip to the US, visited the tourist venue of Death Valley and used Post to refocus himself: "[his] concise insights and acerbic wisdom are exactly the music for strolling the bottom of ancient oceans, both literal and metaphoric". After recording Post, Kelly established a full-time band, which included Armiger, Barclay, and Connolly, bass guitarist Jon Schofield, and keyboardist
Peter Bull.
Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls were named through a joke based on Lou Reed
's song "Walk on the Wild Side". Armiger soon left, and the Coloured Girls line-up stabilised in late 1985 as Barclay, Bull, Connolly, and Schofield. Stuart Coupe, Kelly's manager, advised him to sign with Regular Records due to difficulty re-signing with Mushroom's Michael Gudinski
. Michelle Higgins, Mushroom's public relations officer, was a Kelly supporter and locked herself into a Sebel Townhouse Hotel
room—at Mushroom's expense—for nearly a week in mid-1986, and refused to leave until Gudinski had signed Kelly to a two-album recording contract. Kelly performed for The Rock Party, a charity project initiated by The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, which included other Australasian musicians. The Rock Party released a 12" single, "Everything to Live For", which was produced by Joe Wissert, Phil Rigger, and Phil Beazley.
In September, Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls released a 24-track double LP
, Gossip
. The album included remakes of four songs from Post, and also featured "Maralinga (Rainy Land)", a song about the effects of British nuclear tests
on the Maralinga Tjarutja
(indigenous people of Maralinga
, South Australia). Gossip peaked at No. 15, with singles chart success for "Before Too Long
" which peaked at No. 15, and "Darling It Hurts" which reached No. 25. A single LP version of Gossip featuring 15 songs was issued in the United States by A&M Records
in July 1987. DeGagne noted that "[it] bursts at the seams with blustery, distinguished tunes captivating both the somberness and the intrigue thrown forward from this fine Australian storyteller".
Gossip was co-produced by Kelly and Alan Thorne (Hoodoo Gurus
, The Stems
) who, according to music journalist Robert Forster
(former The Go-Betweens
singer-songwriter), helped the band create "a sound that will not only influence future roots-rock bands but, through its directness, sparkle and dedication to the song, will also come to be seen as particularly Australian. Ultimately, it means the records these people made together are timeless". Due to possible racist connotations, the band changed its name for international releases to Paul Kelly and the Messengers. They made a US tour, initially supporting Crowded House
and then headlining, travelling across the US by bus. "Darling It Hurts" peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard
Mainstream Rock chart
in 1987. The New York Times
rock critic Jon Pareles
wrote "Mr. Kelly sang one smart, catchy three-minute song after another – dozens of them – as the band played with no-frills directness" following the band's performance at the Bottom Line Club in New York.
Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls' second album, Under the Sun, was released in late 1987 in Australia and New Zealand, and in early 1988 in North America and Europe (under the name Paul Kelly and the Messengers). On the Kent Music Report Albums Chart, it reached No. 19. The lead single "To Her Door
", written by Kelly, peaked at No. 14 on the related singles chart. Forster indicated that the song demonstrated one of Kelly's finest qualities as a songwriter which is his unforced empathy. DeGagne observed a style similar to Elvis Costello
and Steve Forbert
, and said the album provided "acoustically bright story songs and character-based tales with unlimited substance".
Another single, "Dumb Things", was released in early 1989 and attained No. 36 on the Australian Recording Industry Association
(ARIA) Singles Chart
. In the US, it reached No. 16 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart
. The song was included on the soundtrack for the 1988 Yahoo Serious
film Young Einstein
. The video, directed by Claudia Castle, won an ARIA Award
for 'Best Video'. Kelly met Kaarin Fairfax, his second wife, in 1988 and they married in 1993. From 1989 to 1992 Fairfax supplied backing vocals on tracks by Paul Kelly and the Messengers. In 1990, as country music artist Mary-Jo Starr, she released three singles and an album, Too Many Movies, using the Messengers and Kelly as session musicians. Michael Armiger, Connolly, and Frawley were in her backing tour band, The Drive-in Motel. Fairfax and Kelly's two children are Madeleine (born 1991) and Memphis (born 1993).
So Much Water So Close to Home
was released in 1989 by Paul Kelly and the Messengers in all markets. It peaked at No. 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart, but none of its singles reached the ARIA Top 40 Singles Chart. Forster stated that, with "Everything's Turning to White", Kelly shows mastery in condensing a Raymond Carver
tale of fishermen who discover a dead woman's body but continue to fish before reporting their find. The same short story was used for the 2006 film, Jindabyne
, for which Kelly composed the soundtrack. DeGagne preferred "Everything's Turning to White" and "Sweet Guy" to the other album tracks, which "seem a little weak in the content department". Kelly relocated back to Melbourne after having lived in Sydney for six years. Another US tour was undertaken, but there was no further chart success for albums or singles released in the US market.
In 1991 the band released Comedy, which peaked at No. 12 on the ARIA Albums Chart. DeGagne noticed "a folk-filled tinge to each song, but the occasional quickened pace balances out these tunes rather nicely". "From Little Things Big Things Grow
", a seven-minute track from the album, was co-written by Kelly and Kev Carmody
. It highlights The Gurindji Strike
and Vincent Lingiari
as part of the Indigenous Australian struggle for land rights and reconciliation. Forster indicates it has Dylanesque influences, and shows Kelly "honing the skills of a fine balladeer and storyteller". A cover version that was released in May 2008 by The GetUp Mob, part of the GetUp! advocacy group, peaked at No. 4 on the ARIA singles charts. This version included samples from speeches by Prime Ministers
Paul Keating
in 1992 and Kevin Rudd
in 2008. It featured vocals by Carmody and Kelly, as well as other Australian artists. Kelly collaborated with members of indigenous band Yothu Yindi
to write "Treaty
", which peaked at No. 11 in September 1991.
"To Her Door" and "Treaty" were voted into the APRA Top 30 Australian songs
of all time in 2001. Paul Kelly and the Messengers gave their last performance in August 1991, with Kelly set to pursue a solo career. He justified his decision: "We forged a style together. But I felt if we had kept going it would have got formulaic and that's why I broke it up. I wanted to try and start moving into other areas, start mixing things up". Paul Kelly and the Messengers' final album, Hidden Things
, was a collection of previously released B-sides, stray non-LP tracks, radio sessions, and other rarities. It was released in May 1992, and reached No. 29. One track, "Rally Around the Drum", written with Archie Roach
, was about an indigenous tent boxing
man.
play about racial tensions in small-town Australia. Kelly took the role of a petrol attendant when the play premiered at the Adelaide Fringe Festival
that year and was directed by his wife, Fairfax. Kelly co-wrote "Hey Boys" with Mark Seymour
(Hunters & Collectors
) for the soundtrack of the 1992 Australian film, Garbo; when released as a single it peaked at No. 62. Kelly contributed songs and vocals to the soundtrack of the 1993 television series Seven Deadly Sins.
Kelly's first post-Messengers solo release was the live double CD Live, May 1992
, released in November 1992. Allmusic's Brett Hartenbach noted that Kelly's band had fleshed out his songs in the studio, but he was still able to show "his vignettes of life, love, and the underbelly of both have plenty of power on their own". Kelly had relocated to Los Angeles
and signed with Vanguard Records
to tour the US as a solo artist. While in Los Angeles he produced fellow Australian Renée Geyer
's album Difficult Woman (1994). Kelly returned to Australia in 1993 and wrote a collection of lyrics, aptly titled Lyrics, which opens with a quote from Anton Chekhov
: "I don't have what you would call a philosophy or coherent world view so I shall have to limit myself to describing how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die and speak."
His next album Wanted Man, released in 1994, reached No. 11. Kelly also composed music for the 1994 film Everynight ... Everynight
, directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos
. It is set in the notorious H division of Victoria's Pentridge Prison. Kelly's next solo releases were Deeper Water
in 1995 and Live at the Continental and the Esplanade
in 1996. Between March and May 1995 Kelly undertook a seven-week tour of North America, appearing on several dates with Liz Phair
and Joe Jackson
.
By 1996, Paul Kelly Band members included Stephen Hadley (bass, ex-Black Sorrows), Bruce Haymes (keyboards), Peter Luscombe (drums, ex-Black Sorrows), and Shane O'Mara (guitar). Spencer P. Jones (Beasts of Bourbon
) was guest guitarist on some performances. This line-up issued the CD-EP
How to Make Gravy
, with the title track earning Kelly a 'Song of the Year' nomination at the 1998 Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) Music Awards
. APRA's Debbie Kruger
noted Kelly's "attraction to the theatrical" where the same protagonist is described in "To Her Door", "Love Never Runs on Time" (from Wanted Man) and "How to Make Gravy".
In 1997, Kelly released his compilation album, Songs from the South: Paul Kelly's Greatest Hits, on Mushroom Records. The 20-track album peaked at No. 2, and has achieved quadruple platinum certification, indicating sales of over 280,000. Kelly won the ARIA Award
in 1997 for 'Best Male Artist', having been previously nominated in 1993
, 1995
, and 1996
. At the 20 September 1997 ceremony
, he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame
. Kelly won the 'Best Male Artist' award again in 1998
, and has been nominated for the same award a further seven times.
Kelly's next album, Words and Music
, appeared in 1998, which peaked at No. 17, and included three singles that did not reach the Top 40. Andrew Ford
interviewed Kelly for ABC radio's The Music Show in May. Ford found the album "very exciting, very visceral ... you can almost smell the sex". Kelly admitted that he preferred R & B music which deals with sex, love, and joy without becoming "either banal or smug". He finds such songs more difficult to write but believes he has started to do so. 1998 also saw Kelly undertaking a three-week tour of Canada and the US to promote Words and Music.
Smoke was released by Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill; the latter is a Melbourne bluegrass
band comprising Gerry Hale on guitar, dobro
, mandolin
, fiddle
, and vocals; Adam Gare on fiddle, mandolin, and vocals; Peter Somerville on banjo
and vocals; and Stuart Speed on double bass
. The album featured a mix of old and new Kelly songs treated in classic bluegrass fashion. "Our Sunshine", newly written, was a tribute to Ned Kelly
, a famous Australian outlaw (not related). Kelly had previously recorded a Slim Dusty
track with Uncle Bill, "Thanks a Lot", for the compilation Where Joy Kills Sorrow (1997). Smoke was issued on Kelly's new label, Gawdaggie, through EMI
Records in October 1999, and peaked at No. 36. It won three awards from the Victorian Country Music Association: 'Best Group (Open)', 'Best Group (Victorian)', and 'Album of the Year' in 2000. In September Kelly performed at the Spiegeltent
at the Edinburgh Festival
, as well as shows in London and Dublin.
In 1999 Kelly formed the band Professor Ratbaggy
with Hadley (bass guitar, backing vocals), Haymes (keyboards, organ, backing vocals) and Luscombe (drums). Kelly provided guitars and vocals for their debut album, Professor Ratbaggy
, on EMI Records. Songs were written jointly by all group members and their work was a more groove-oriented style compared to Kelly's usual folk or rock formula, using samples, synthesiser and percussion. Kelly's second anthology of lyrics entitled Don't Start Me Talking was first published in 1999, with subsequent songs appended in the 2004 edition. This second edition was added to the Victorian Certificate of Education
English reading list for Year 12 (final year of secondary schooling) in 2006.
During the 2000s Paul Kelly worked as a composer for film and TV scores and soundtracks, including Lantana (also as a member of Professor Ratbaggy), Silent Partner, and One Night the Moon
in 2001, Fireflies
in 2004, and Jindabyne in 2006. These works have resulted in five award wins: ARIA 'Best Original Soundtrack' for Lantana (with Hadley, Haymes and O'Mara); Australian Film Institute
(AFI) 'Open Craft Award', Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards 'Best Music Score', and Screen Music Award 'Best Soundtrack Album' for One Night the Moon (with Mairead Hannan, Carmody, John Romeril
, Deirdre Hannan, and Alice Garner
); Valladolid International Film Festival
'Best Music' award for Jindabyne; and six further nominations.
Kelly also acted in One Night the Moon alongside his then wife, Fairfax, and with their younger daughter Memphis. All three sing on the soundtrack, including together for the lullaby, "One Night the Moon" (see pictured). According to Romaine Moreton, Australian Screen Online
curator, the "lullaby that the family sings, written by Paul Kelly, sets the tone of the film ... The song is used in this film as a vehicle to explore the characters' interior worlds, something very unusual for a film". Kelly and Fairfax separated before the film's release.
Roll on Summer
was released in 2000 as a four-track EP, which peaked at No. 40 on the ARIA singles charts. Kelly issued ...Nothing but a Dream in 2001, returning to his core singer-songwriter style. It peaked at No. 7 on the albums chart, and achieved gold record status. The North American version of ...Nothing but a Dream added all four tracks from the Roll on Summer EP as bonus tracks. Murray Bramwell appraised four Kelly-related works in Adelaide Review
, "each of them indicative of the rich variety of his gift". On the album ...Nothing but a Dream, he preferred the opening track, "If I Could Start Today Again", to the radio single, "Somewhere in the City", and found the album generally to be "full of familiar Kelly riffs and trademarks". On Silent Partner Kelly's songwriting with Hale provides "some splendid instrumentals" with "a delightfully airy sound". The Lantana soundtrack showed Kelly's "confidence as a composer and his strong grasp of a wide range of musical styles". Finally, One Night the Moon included Mairead Hannan's "richly melodic Irish airs" which "beautifully counterpoint Kelly’s work" and Carmody's "distinctive ballads".
In March 2001 Kelly was a support act for Bob Dylan's tour of Australia. Between August and November Kelly performed a series of acoustic shows in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and France (the latter supporting Ani DiFranco
). In 2002 he undertook a six-week tour of North America, which was followed by a tour of the UK and Ireland later that year. In 2002 and 2003 two tribute albums of Kelly's songs were released: Women at the Well featured songs performed by female artists, including Bic Runga
, Jenny Morris, Renée Geyer, Magic Dirt
, Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca's Empire
), Christine Anu
, and Kasey Chambers
; and Stories of Me, which featured fellow songwriters James Reyne
, Mia Dyson
, and Jeff Lang
. Chambers, a country music artist, sees Kelly as a role model: "He's the perfect example of the storyteller that I would love to be". In 2003 Kelly undertook a tour of North America, the UK, and Ireland, performing at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival
and again at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Ways & Means was issued in 2004 and peaked at No. 13. Though identified as a solo record, it was more of a group effort, with a backing band, later dubbed the Boon Companions, co-writing most of the tracks. The Boon Companions consisted of Kelly's nephew Dan Kelly
on guitar, Peter Luscombe on drums, his brother Dan Luscombe on guitar and keyboards, and Bill McDonald on bass guitar. Bramwell was impressed with their live performance in May: "Kelly steers and shapes not only his music, but the way he presents it. A live show is never just knocked together ... the details are always careful". In February ABC Television
started broadcasting the series Fireflies
, which featured a score by Kelly and Stephen Rae. The associated soundtrack CD, Fireflies: Songs of Paul Kelly, included tracks by Kelly, Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Professor Ratbaggy, and Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill. Sian Prior sang with the Boon Companions on the Fireflies track "Los Cucumbros", which later appeared on Stardust Five
. Prior, a former opera singer, has been Kelly's girlfriend since 2001. They met when she interviewed him for Sunday Arts on ABC radio. Prior is also a journalist and university lecturer.
In March 2004 Kelly performed across North America, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. This was followed by a more extensive series of shows between July and September throughout North America and Europe. In December, in Melbourne, Kelly performed 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over two nights. A similar set of shows were performed in a studio at Sydney Opera House
in December 2006, these and similar sets became known as his A to Z shows. Foggy Highway
was a second bluegrass-oriented album for Kelly, credited to Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys and issued in 2005. It peaked at No. 23 on the ARIA albums charts. The line-up for the majority of the tracks was Kelly, Mick Albeck (fiddle), James Gillard (bass guitar), Rod McCormack (guitar), Ian Simpson (banjo), and Trev Warner (mandolin). As with Smoke (his previous bluegrass release), Foggy Highway consisted of a mix of new compositions and rearranged Kelly classics. The Canadian edition of the release included a four-song bonus EP of out-takes.
In June 2005 Kelly put together Timor Leste – Freedom Rising, a collaboration of Australian artists donating new recordings, unreleased tracks, and b-sides to make connections between a wide range of music to raise money for environmental, health, and education projects in East Timor
(Timor-Leste). Funds raised from the album went to Life, Love and Health and The Alola Foundation. On 26 March 2006 Kelly performed at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony
in Melbourne, singing "Leaps and Bounds" and "Rally Around the Drum". On 8 October Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Hoodoo Gurus
, and Sime Nugent performed at the Athenaeum Theatre
in Melbourne to again raise funds for Life, Love and Health, and to help support their ongoing programs in Timor-Leste in response to the needs of the people during the humanitarian crisis.
Kelly formed Stardust Five
in 2006, with the same line-up as Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions from Ways & Means. They released their self-titled debut album in March, with each member contributing by composing the music and Kelly providing lyrics. The album has backing vocals by Prior on two tracks, including "Los Cucumbros". Kelly toured North America again in 2006, appearing together with The Waifs
at clubs and festivals in several US states and the Canadian province of Alberta
. In November–December Kelly undertook his A-Z tour, a series of solo acoustic performances playing 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over four nights, at the Brisbane Powerhouse, Melbourne's Spiegeltent, and at the Sydney Opera House.
In 2007 Kelly released Stolen Apples
, containing songs based on religious themes; it peaked at No. 8, and achieved gold record status. Following the album's recording, Dan Luscombe left to join The Drones
. He was replaced by Ashley Naylor
(Even
) on guitar and Cameron Bruce (The Polaroids) on keyboards. A tour in support of the album saw Kelly perform the entire album plus selected hits from his catalogue. One of the last performances, on 20 September 2007 in Toowoomba, Queensland
, was filmed and released on DVD as Live Apples: Stolen Apples Performed Live in its Entirety Plus 16 More Songs, in April 2008.
Kelly made his first appearance at the Big Day Out
concerts across Australia in early 2008, while in March he performed at the South by Southwest
music festival in Austin, Texas
. Kelly released Stolen Apples in Ireland and the UK in July, and followed with a tour there in August. In June The Age
newspaper commemorated 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll (the anniversary of the release of Johnny O'Keefe
's "Wild One
") by selecting the Top 50 Australian Albums. Kelly's albums Gossip and Post rated at No. 7 and No. 30 on the list. Kelly was nominated as 'Best Male Artist' for "To Her Door (Live)" and 'Best Music DVD' for Live Apples at the 2008 ARIA Awards
. In September he announced that he had reacquired the rights to his old catalogue, including those originally released by Mushroom Records—later bought out by Warner Bros. Records
.
In November, as a result of the acquisition EMI released Songs from the South – Volume 2, a collection of Kelly's songs from the last decade, following on from Songs from the South – Volume 1. The new compilation featured the first physical release of Kelly's song, "Shane Warne
". Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available separately but also as a combined double album. EMI released a DVD, Paul Kelly – The Video Collection 1985–2008, a collection of Kelly's home video
s made over the past 23 years. Also included are several live performances. Songs from the South – Volume 2 included one new song, "Thoughts in the Middle of the Night", which he described as "It's a band song, we all wrote it together. There's a poem by James Fenton
, a British poet, called "The Mistake", which is probably an influence on the lyrics. It's a waking up in the middle of the night song, for anyone who's woken up at 3 am and not been able to get back to sleep".
In the beginning of 2009 he supported Leonard Cohen
's tour of Australia – his first return in 24 years. Kelly's duet with country yodeller Melinda Schneider
, "Still Here", won 'Vocal Collaboration of the Year' at the 2009 CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia. In February, in response to hearing about the devastation to the Yarra Valley region of Victoria in Australia, Cohen and Kelly donated $200,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal in support of those affected by the extensive Black Saturday bushfires that razed the area just weeks after their performance at the Rochford Winery for the A Day on the Green concert. Kelly performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
on 14 March for Sound Relief
, a multi-venue rock music concert in support of victims of the bushfires. The event was held simultaneously with a concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground
. All proceeds from the Melbourne concert went to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire relief. Also performing at the Melbourne concert were Augie March
, Bliss n Eso
with Paris Wells
, Gabriella Cilmi
, Hunters & Collectors
, Jack Johnson
, Chambers and Shane Nicholson
with Troy Cassar-Daley
, Kings of Leon
, Jet
, Midnight Oil
, Liam Finn
, Split Enz
, and Wolfmother
.
On 13 and 14 November, radio station Triple J
presented a Kelly tribute concert—marking his 30th anniversary as a solo artist—at the Forum Theatre
in Melbourne, and highlighted his contribution to Australian music. The line-up included Missy Higgins
, John Butler
, Paul Dempsey
(Something for Kate
), Katy Steele
(Little Birdy
), Bob Evans
, Ozi Batla (The Herd), Dan Kelly, Clare Bowditch
, Jae Laffer (The Panics
), Adalita Srsen
(Magic Dirt
), Dan Sultan
, and Megan Washington
interpreting Kelly's songs, with members of Augie March as the backing band and Ashley Naylor as musical director. A recording of the concerts was released by ABC Music
as a DVD and a double CD, Before Too Long, with a bonus CD featuring original songs by Kelly, on 19 February 2010. Kelly's national 'More Songs from the South' tour in December 2009 included band members Vika Bull
on vocals, Peter Luscombe on drums, Bill McDonald on bass guitar and backing vocals, Naylor on guitar, and Cameron Bruce on keyboards.
Kelly contributed to the national magazine, The Monthly
, from 2009 to 2010. He has written a memoir, How to Make Gravy, which was published by Penguin Books (Australia)
on 22 September 2010. "It's a mongrel memoir. It's a bit hard to describe at the moment. It's not traditional; it's writing around the A-Z theme – I tell stories around the song lyrics in alphabetical order. It's slow, so it will be a while coming, but I'll get there". As a companion to his memoir, he issued an 8×CD box set, A – Z Recordings, with live performances from his A – Z Tours from 2004 to 2010. The 105 tracks are listed alphabetically, and were typically performed over four nights. The set includes a booklet of photographs.
Maurice Frawley, a guitarist for Kelly in various groups who co-wrote "Look So Fine, Feel So Low" (1987), died of cancer in May 2009. Kelly worked with Charlie Owen
and others to create a 3×CD tribute album, Long Gone Whistle – The Songs of Maurice Frawley, which was released in August 2010. In July that year, Kelly performed at Splendour in the Grass
. On 15 December he was inducted into The Age EG Awards Hall of Fame. In April 2011 Kelly performed at the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival
(Bluesfest), which was followed by appearances as a special guest on Dylan's concerts in Sydney and Melbourne. Later that month, Kelly co-headlined a show with Neil Finn
at Red Hill
Auditorium in Perth; it was the first music concert at the new venue. In May his memoir, How to Make Gravy, was short-listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Award in the non-fiction category; while in July it was co-winner of 'Biography of the Year' at the Australian Book Industry Awards – with Ahn Do's The Happiest Refugee.
to studio-oriented dub
reggae
, but his core output comfortably straddles folk
, rock
, and country
. His lyrics capture Australia's vastness both in culture and landscape; he has chronicled life about him for over 30 years and is described as the poet laureate
of Australia. According to music writer Glenn A. Baker
, his Australian-ness may be a reason Kelly has not achieved international success. David Fricke
from Rolling Stone
calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise."
Fellow songwriter Neil Finn (Crowded House) has said, "There is something unique and powerful about the way Kelly mixes up everyday detail with the big issues of life, death, love and struggle – not a trace of pretence or fakery in there". Ross Clelland, writing for Rolling Stone, described Kelly: "[W]hile he was (rightly) lauded for his ability to sing of injustice without ranting, or deal with the darker sides of human nature non-judgementally, often overlooked was the fact he could write a damn fine melodic hook to go with those words". Tim Freedman (The Whitlams
) acknowledges Kelly, Peter Garrett
(Midnight Oil), and John Schumann
(Redgum
) as inspiring him by "[furnishing] our suburbs with our own myths and social history". However, Kelly has been quoted as saying "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don’t feel like I have got it nailed yet". In 2007 Kelly donated his 'Lee Oskar' harmonica to the Sydney Powerhouse Museum
. The museum's statement of significance cites Kelly's talent as a songwriter, his distinctive voice, and his harmonica playing, particularly on Live, May 1992.
Kelly described his songwriting as "a scavenging art, a desperate act. For me it's a bit from here, a bit from there, fumbling around, never quite knowing what you're doing ... Song writing is like a way of feeling connected to mystery." He has resisted the label of 'storyteller' and insists that his songs are not strictly autobiographical; "they come from imagining someone in a particular situation. Sometimes a sequence of events happens which makes it more a story, but other times it's just that situation". Sometimes the same character is found in different songs, such as in "To Her Door", "Love Never Runs on Time", and "How to Make Gravy".
Kelly has also provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. Women at the Well (2002) had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute. According to Kelly, he adapted his song "Foggy Highway" for Renée Geyer because "I admired her deep soul singing, ferocious and vulnerable ... When I heard the finished version ... the hairs rose up on the back of my neck." Kelly and The Stormwater Boys recorded it in a bluegrass
style as the title track for the 2005 album Foggy Highway. Divinyls
' lead singer Christina Amphlett
recorded "Before Too Long"—she was attracted by the lyrics—she interpreted the song's narrator as being a stalker, and provided a female perspective in a darkly menacing manner à-la Fatal Attraction
.
Kelly has written songs with and for numerous artists, including Mick Thomas
, Geyer, Kate Ceberano
, Vika and Linda Bull, Nick Cave
, Nick Barker
, Kasey Chambers, Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach, Gyan
, Monique Brumby
, Kelly Willis
, Missy Higgins, and Troy Cassar-Daley. He has described how some songs he writes are suited to other vocal ranges. "Quite often, I'm trying to write a certain kind of song and it's more ambitious than what my voice will get to. That's how I started writing songs with other people in mind". Kelly and Carmody's "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was analysed by Sydney University's Linguistics professor James R Martin. "[They] render the story as a narrative ... with the familiar Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Resolution and Coda staging". Martin finds that Kelly and Carmody made the point that when people exert their rights with support from friends, they may defeat those with prestige.
Kelly understands that co-writing with other songwriters lends power to his songs. "You often write songs with collaborators that you would never write by yourself. It’s a way of dragging a song out of you that you wouldn’t have come up with". One of his collaborators, Linda Bull, described Kelly's process: they would start with a simple chat. "We'd just chuck ideas around and he'd pick the best bits. He'd take all the bluntness and crudeness out of it and make it beautiful; that's his magic ... It's conversations that you have ". Forster summarised his 2009 review of Kelly's compilation, Songs from the South, with "[his songs] sound easy and approachable ... Then you think: If the songs are so simple and the ideas behind them so clear, why aren't more people writing like Paul Kelly and sounding as good as he does?" In 2010 Carmody and Kelly's "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive
's Sounds of Australia Registry.
's Against the Arctic from 2006. As of 2007, he was a DJ around Melbourne and played the drums. Kelly's second marriage (1993–2001) was to Australian actress Kaarin Fairfax
. He met Fairfax in 1988 when she appeared in the Australian production of Sam Shepard
's play A Lie of the Mind
. The couple have two daughters, Madeleine (born 1991) and Memphis (born 1993). From 1989 to 1992, Fairfax supplied backing vocals on tracks by Paul Kelly and the Messengers. In 1990, as a country music artist, Mary-Jo Starr, she released three singles and an album, Too Many Movies, using the Messengers and Kelly as session musicians. Michael Armiger, Connolly, and Frawley were in her backing band, The Drive-in Motel. Memphis starred alongside her parents in Rachel Perkins
's 2001 short film One Night the Moon
, for which Kelly composed the score. After the couple separated in 2001, Madeleine and Memphis stayed with Fairfax, but Kelly has maintained contact with his daughters.
Since 2008 Kelly has lived in St Kilda with Sian Prior, his girlfriend (2001–present), a journalist, university lecturer and former opera singer. They met when Kelly was interviewed on her Sunday Arts ABC radio program. Kelly wrote "You're 39, You're Beautiful and You're Mine" for Prior who was already 40 by the time he finished. Prior has played clarinet and provided backing vocals on some of Kelly's songs, as well as with The Stardust Five. She has performed live with Kelly on several occasions.
Kelly's brother, Martin, is the father of Dan Kelly
, who is a singer-guitarist in his own right. Dan has performed with his uncle on several of Kelly's albums, including Ways and Means, as a member of Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, and on Stolen Apples; Dan and Paul were both members of Stardust Five, which released Stardust Five. Dan has released two albums, both of which received ARIA Award nominations. Kelly's younger sister, Mary Jo Kelly is a Melbourne-based pianist who performed with him on the track "South of Germany" for Paul Kelly Live at the Athenaeum, May 1992 (1992). She has performed in Latin bands and worked as a music teacher at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School
. Mary Jo provided piano on Archie Roach's album Charcoal Lane (1990), which was produced by Kelly and Connolly.
(ARIA), and three APRA Awards
from either the Australasian Performing Right Association
(APRA) alone or together with the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. APRA named "To Her Door", solely written by Kelly, and "Treaty", written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi, in their Top 30 best Australian songs
of all time in 2001. Kelly was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame
in 1997, alongside The Bee Gees and Graeme Bell
. He has won six Country Music Awards
from the Country Music Association of Australia
, and four Mo Awards
(Australian entertainment industry).
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor Ratbaggy
Professor Ratbaggy
Professor Ratbaggy is a sometime four-piece band based in Melbourne, Australia. Sometimes thought of as a side-project of iconic Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, the band is in fact its own entity: Kelly is one of the four members .The band's name is derived from the 1960s Australian TV...
and Stardust Five
Stardust Five
Stardust Five is five-piece surf rock/pop band based in Melbourne, Australia. The members of the band Dan Kelly, Paul Kelly, Dan Luscombe, Peter Luscombe and Bill MacDonald have played, in other bands including The Last Gasp, Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, Max Q, The Blackeyed Susans and Michelle...
. Kelly's music style has ranged from bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
to studio-oriented dub
Dub music
Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, but his core output straddles folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, rock, and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. His lyrics capture the vastness of the culture and landscape of Australia by chronicling life about him for over 30 years. David Fricke
David Fricke
David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where he writes predominantly on rock music. In the 1990s, he was managing editor before stepping down.-Background:David Fricke is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
from Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...
calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise." Kelly has said, "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don’t feel like I have got it nailed yet".
After growing up in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Kelly travelled around Australia before settling in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in 1976. He became involved in the pub rock
Pub rock (Australia)
Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still influencing contemporary Australian music today....
scene and drug culture, and recorded two albums with Paul Kelly and the Dots. Kelly moved to Sydney by 1985, where he formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. The band was renamed Paul Kelly and the Messengers, initially only for international releases, to avoid possible racist interpretations. At the end of the 1980s, Kelly returned to Melbourne, and in 1991 he disbanded the Messengers. Kelly has been married and divorced twice; he has three children and resides in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, with his girlfriend, Sian Prior. Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly (musician)
Daniel "Dan" Kelly is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the second oldest of six children and the nephew of Paul Kelly. He grew up in Queensland and learnt the guitar at thirteen, studying Environmental Science at University, in Brisbane, in 1990...
, his nephew, is a singer and guitarist in his own right. Dan performed with Kelly on Ways and Means and Stolen Apples. Both were members of Stardust Five, which released a self-titled album
Stardust Five (album)
Stardust Five is the self-titled debut album by Stardust Five which was released in 2006. The album was mixed and produced by Tchad Blake .It was released on EMI Music in Australia and Capitol Records in the United States...
in 2006.
Kelly's Top 40 singles include "Billy Baxter", "Before Too Long
Before Too Long
"Before Too Long" was the first single released by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls from their debut double album, Gossip. The single was released in June 1986 on the original White Label Records, a subsidiary of Mushroom Records. It reached No. 15 on the Australian Kent...
", "Darling It Hurts
Darling It Hurts
"Darling It Hurts" was the second single by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls released in September 1986 from their debut double album, Gossip. The song, written by Kelly with lead guitarist, Steve Connolly, reached No. 25 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart...
", "To Her Door
To Her Door
"To Her Door" was the first single released by Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls ahead of their second album, Under the Sun...
" (his highest-charting local hit in 1987), "Dumb Things" (appeared on United States charts in 1988), and "Roll on Summer
Roll on Summer
Roll On Summer is an EP by Australian artist Paul Kelly and originally released in October, 2000. It was released on EMI in Australia. "Every Fucking City" was recorded live at The Continental, November 25, 1999...
". Top-20 albums include Gossip
Gossip (album)
Gossip is the double LP debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Produced by Alan Thorne and Paul Kelly, it was released on Mushroom Records in September 1986, which peaked at No. 15 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and achieved gold record status...
, Under the Sun, Comedy, Songs from the South (1997 compilation
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
, his best-charting album), ...Nothing but a Dream, and Stolen Apples
Stolen Apples (album)
Stolen Apples is the twenty fifth album by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was released in July 2007 on EMI Music. The album is Kelly's first solo album since Ways & Means in 2004, and features religious themes throughout....
. Kelly has won eight Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
(ARIA) Music Awards, including his induction into their Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2001 the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) listed the Top 30 Australian songs
APRA Top 30 Australian songs
APRA's Top 30 Australian songs between 1926 and 2001 was a list created by the Australasian Performing Right Association to celebrate its 75th anniversary...
of all time, including Kelly's "To Her Door", and "Treaty
Treaty (song)
"Treaty" is a song by Australian indigenous music band Yothu Yindi, which is made up of Aboriginal and balanda members. Released in June 1991, "Treaty" peaked at No. 11 on the ARIA Singles Chart in September...
", written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...
. Aside from "Treaty", Kelly has written or co-written several songs on Indigenous Australian social issues and historical events. He has provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. The album Women at the Well from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute.
Early life
Paul Maurice Kelly was born on 13 January 1955 in Adelaide, South Australia, to John Erwin Kelly, a lawyer, and Josephine Kelly (née Filippini), as the sixth of nine children (including Josephine, who died young). According to Rip It UpRip It Up (magazine)
Rip It Up is a bi-monthly New Zealand music magazine. Started in June 1977 as a free monthly giveaway, it grew rapidly, with its monthly print run reaching 30,000 copies by the mid 1980s...
magazine, "legend has it" that Kelly's mother gave birth to him "in a taxi outside North Adelaide's Calvary Hospital". In the lyrics for his Comedy (1991) album track, "It's All Downhill from Here" Kelly wrote:
Although Kelly was raised as a Roman Catholic, he later described himself as not believing in any god. He is the great great grandson of Jeremiah Kelly, who fled Ireland in 1852 and settled in Clare, South Australia
Clare, South Australia
The town of Clare is located in South Australia in the Mid North region, 136 km north of Adelaide. It gives its name to the Clare Valley wine and tourist region.-History:One of the first settlers in the area was John Horrocks, in 1839...
. His paternal grandfather, Francis Kelly, established a law firm in 1917, which his father, John, joined in 1937. John died in 1968 at the age of 52, after being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
three years earlier. Kelly was 13 years old. Kelly described his father: "I have good memories, he was the kind of father that, well, I missed him when he died very much. The older children were growing into him at the time he died. He was not well enough to play sport with me". In his song, "Adelaide", from Post
Post (Paul Kelly album)
Post is the first solo album by Australian singer-songwriter rock musician, Paul Kelly. Kelly had moved to Sydney by January 1985, after leaving his Melbourne-based Paul Kelly Band and the breakup of his marriage to Hilary Brown....
(1985), he wrote:
Kelly's maternal grandfather was an Argentine-born, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
-speaking opera singer, Count Ercole Filippini, a leading baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
for the La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
Opera Company in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Filippini was touring Australia in 1914 with a Spanish opera company when World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out; Filippini stayed and later married Anne McPharland, one of his students. As Countessa Anne Filippini, she was Australia's first female symphony orchestra conductor. She sang the role of Marguerite in Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
(ABC) Radio Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
's performance of Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
in 1928. Kelly's grandparents started the Italo-Australian Opera Company, which toured the country in the 1920s.
Josephine raised the younger children alone after John's death, but found time to assist others in need. Kelly's oldest sister, Anne, became a nun and went on to write hymns, while younger sister, Mary-Jo, plays piano in Latin bands and teaches music. Kelly's older brother, Martin, works for the Christian Brothers
Congregation of Christian Brothers
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...
' volunteer organisation Edmund Rice International, with another brother, Tony, a drug and alcohol counsellor, who ran as an Australian Greens
Australian Greens
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is an Australian green political party.The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia and the formation of the United Tasmania Group , the first Green party in the world, which...
candidate in the 2001 and 2004 federal elections. Kelly's mother moved to Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, where she died in 2000, aged 76.
Kelly attended Rostrevor College
Rostrevor College
Rostrevor College is a Roman Catholic, day and boarding school for boys', located in Woodforde, a suburb 15 minutes from the CBD of Adelaide, South Australia....
, a Christian Brothers school, where he played trumpet and studied piano. He was a cricket captain, and became dux of his senior year. Kelly studied arts at Flinders University
Flinders University
Flinders University, , is a public university in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of navigator Matthew Flinders, who explored and surveyed the South Australian coastline in the early 19th century.The university has established a reputation as a leading research...
in 1973, but left after a term, disillusioned with academic life. He began writing prose and started a magazine with some friends. Kelly spent several years working odd jobs, travelling around the country and learning guitar before he moved to Melbourne in 1976.
1974–1984: Early career and with the Dots
While travelling around Australia, Paul Kelly made his first public performance in 1974 in Hobart. He later recalled:His first published song, "It's the Falling Apart that Makes You", was written after listening to Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
's Astral Weeks
Astral Weeks
Astral Weeks is the second solo album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in November 1968 on Warner Bros. Records. It was Morrison's first album after Warner Bros. had been able to free him from his contract with Bang Records...
at the age of 19, although in an interview with Drum Media he recalled writing his first unpublished song: "It was an open-tuning and had four lines about catching trains. I have got a recording of it somewhere. It was called 'Catching a Train'. I wrote a lot of songs about trains early on, trains and fires, and then I moved on to water". In 1976 Kelly appeared on Debutantes, a compilation album featuring various Melbourne-based artists, and joined pub-rockers
Pub rock (Australia)
Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still influencing contemporary Australian music today....
The High Rise Bombers from 1977 to 1978.
The High Rise Bombers included Kelly (vocals, guitar, songwriter), Martin Armiger
Martin Armiger
John Martin Armiger is an Australian musician, record producer and film/TV composer. He was singer-songwriter and guitarist with Melbourne-based rock band, The Sports during 1978–1981, which had Top 30 hits on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart with, "Don't Throw Stones" , "Strangers on a...
(guitar, vocals, songwriter), Lee Cass (bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
), Chris Dyson (guitar), Sally Ford (saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, songwriter), John Lloyd (drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), and Keith Shadwick (saxophone). Chris Langman (guitar, vocals) replaced Dyson in early 1978. In August, after Armiger left for The Sports
The Sports
The Sports were a popular Australian rock group that performed and recorded between 1976 and 1981.Based in Melbourne, Victoria, the group released a number of successful singles and albums. Their sound fitted well with both 1970s British pub rock bands and British New Wave...
and Ford for The Kevins, Kelly formed Paul Kelly and the Dots with Langman and Lloyd. The High Rise Bombers recorded two tracks, "She's Got It" and "Domestic Criminal", which appeared on The Melbourne Club, a 1981 compilation by various artists on Missing Link Records
Missing Link Records
Missing Link Records is a record store in Melbourne, Australia. The shop first opened in 1971, but was then called Archie and Jughead's, named after the comic. The shop's co-founders, David Pepperell and Keith Glass, established the shop as a much-needed rock record shop...
.
Kelly had already established himself as a respected songwriter—other Melbourne musicians would go to see him on their nights off. He was introduced to Hilary Brown at one of the Dots' gigs and they later married – the relationship is described in "When I First Met Your Ma" (1992). Brown's father supplied Kelly with a gravy recipe – used on "How to Make Gravy
How to Make Gravy
How to Make Gravy is a four-track EP by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was originally released in 1996 on White Label Records in Australia....
" (1996). Their son, Declan, was born in 1980.
The Dots included various line-ups from 1978 to 1982. The band released their debut single "Recognition" in 1979, which did not reach the Australian Kent Music Report
Kent Music Report
The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998...
Singles Chart top 50. Paul Kelly and the Dots signed to Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records is an Australian recoJrd company formed by Michael Gudinski and Ray Evans in Melbourne in 1972. After its sale in 1998, it merged into Festival Mushroom Records. From 2005 to 2009, it is one of the record labels operated by Warner Bros...
and issued "Billy Baxter" in November 1980, which peaked at No. 38. Rock music historian, Ian McFarlane described it as a "delightful, ska-tinged" track. Kelly's first television performance was "Billy Baxter" on the national pop show Countdown. Their debut album, Talk
Talk (Paul Kelly album)
Talk is the debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Dots and was originally released on 30 March 1981 by Mushroom Records and re-released in 1990. Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons leader Joe Camilleri produced seven of the eleven tracks with the rest produced by either Martin Armiger or...
, followed in March 1981, which reached No. 44 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart. Late in 1981 Paul Kelly and the Dots recorded their second album, Manila
Manila (album)
-Chart positions and releases:-Track listing:All tracks written by Paul Kelly, except where noted.# "Forbidden Street" – 7:30# "Clean this House" – 4:46# "Alive and Well" – 3:10# "Skidding Hearts" – 3:32...
, in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
' capital
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
. It was issued in August 1982, but had no chart success. Release was delayed by line-up changes and because Kelly was assaulted in Melbourne – he had his jaw broken.
In an October 1982 interview with Australian Women's Weekly
Australian Women's Weekly
The Australian Women's Weekly is an Australian monthly women's magazine published by ACP Magazines, a division of PBL Media based in Sydney. Audited circulation in 2009 exceeded 500,000 copies monthly, making it the largest magazine in Australia.-History:...
, Kelly indicated he was more pleased with Manila than Talk as "It has more unity ... with this one we didn't have people dropping into the studio to play." Years later Kelly disavowed both Dots albums: "I wish I could grab the other two and put 'em in a big hole". The 1982 film, Starstruck
Starstruck (1982 film)
Starstruck is a 1982 Australian comedy-drama musical film starring Jo Kennedy, Ross O'Donovan and Margo Lee about two teenagers trying to make their break into the music industry. The film was shot on location in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, was directed by Gillian Armstrong
Gillian Armstrong
Gillian May Armstrong is an award-winning Australian director of feature films and documentaries.- Career :Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Gillian Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. She graduated from Swinburne Technical College in 1968 where she studied theatrical costume design and...
and starred Jo Kennedy. Paul Kelly and the Dots supplied "Rocking Institution" for its soundtrack and Kelly added to the score. Kennedy released "Body and Soul", a cover of Split Enz
Split Enz
Split Enz were a New Zealand band of the 1970s and early 1980s featuring Phil Judd and brothers Tim Finn and Neil Finn. They achieved chart success in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada during the early 1980s ‒ most notably with the single "I Got You", and built a cult following elsewhere...
' "She Got Body, She Got Soul" as a shared single
Split album
A split album is a music album which includes tracks by two or more separate artists. There have been singles and EPs released in the same nature, which can be referred to as split singles and split EPs respectively...
with "Rocking Institution". Acting in a minor role in Starstruck was Kaarin Fairfax
Kaarin Fairfax
Kaarin Fairfax is an Australian actress who played the role of 'Dolour Darcy' in two TV miniseries The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange based on books of the same names by Ruth Park. She has also acted in other Australian television series throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and...
, who later became Kelly's second wife. Kelly was without a recording contract after the Dots folded in 1982.
Paul Kelly Band was formed in 1983 with Michael Armiger (Martin Armiger's younger brother, bass guitar), Chris Coyne (saxophone), Maurice Frawley
Maurice Frawley
Maurice Gerard Frawley was an Australian rock and country blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Biography:Maurice Gerard Frawley was born on 5 May 1954, the son of Gerard Patrick and Eileen Marie Frawley, he grew up with three siblings, Brendan, Mary and Leo on the family farm near Elmore in...
(guitar) and Greg Martin (drums). By 1984 Michael Barclay replaced Martin on drums and Graham Lee
Graham Lee (Australian musician)
Graham Lee is an Australian rock musician and record producer, best known as the steel guitar player of the 1980s band The Triffids, where he was nicknamed 'Evil Graham Lee'....
(guitar, pedal steel guitar
Pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"...
) joined. Kelly's involvement in the Melbourne drug culture—he described his heroin addiction as "a long period of occasional use"—resulted in erratic performances. Problems with his marriage and drug use disrupted his career, and by 1984 the marriage had broken up. Hilary had moved to Sydney, leaving their young son with Kelly. He disbanded the group three months later and relocated to Sydney so he could share parenting responsibilities with Hilary while Declan grew up.
1985–1991: Coloured Girls to Messengers
Don Walker (musician)
Don Walker is an Australian musician and songwriter known for writing many of the hits for Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel. He played piano and keyboard with the band from 1973 to 1983, when they disbanded. He has since continued to record and tour, both solo and with Tex, Don and Charlie,...
(Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel is a rock band that originated in Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge sales that continue to this day, although its success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to...
) in Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
– Walker had lived with Hilary's sister – and wrote new songs on Walker's piano. Kelly then moved into a flat with Paul Hewson (Dragon
Dragon (band)
Dragon is a popular New Zealand rock band, they were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in January 1972 and relocated to Sydney, Australia in May 1975. They were previously led by singer Marc Hunter and are currently led by his brother bass player Todd Hunter...
) in Elizabeth Bay
Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales
Elizabeth Bay is a harbourside suburb in eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Elizabeth Bay is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney....
. Both Walker and Hewson encouraged Kelly to continue with his song-writing. By January 1985, he recorded the self-funded album—at a cost of $3,500—Post
Post (Paul Kelly album)
Post is the first solo album by Australian singer-songwriter rock musician, Paul Kelly. Kelly had moved to Sydney by January 1985, after leaving his Melbourne-based Paul Kelly Band and the breakup of his marriage to Hilary Brown....
. Session musicians included Michael Barclay (Weddings, Parties, Anything) on harmonies, guitarist Steve Connolly (The Zimmermen), and bass guitarist Ian Rilen
Ian Rilen
Ian William Rilen was an Australian musician, he was bass guitarist and songwriter with Rock N' Roll band Rose Tattoo and led punk rock group X also providing lead guitar, rhythm guitar and vocals...
(Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo is an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, that was formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life"...
, X
X (Australian band)
X is an Australian punk rock band, formed in Sydney in 1977 and led by the late Ian Rilen. The band has split and reformed several times.Although X has had several members, its sound has been defined by two distinctive elements: Rilen's basslines and Steve Lucas's guitar...
). They spent two weeks recording at Clive Shakespeare
Clive Shakespeare
Clive Richard Shakespeare is an English-born Australian guitarist and producer and he is a co-founder of Sherbet which had commercial success in the 1970s including their number one singles, "Summer Love" in 1975 and "Howzat" in 1976.-Biography:Clive Shakespeare was born in England in 1949 and his...
's studio. Shakespeare engineered the album and co-produced with Kelly. It was released in May 1985 on the independent label White Records, and licensed to Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records is an Australian recoJrd company formed by Michael Gudinski and Ray Evans in Melbourne in 1972. After its sale in 1998, it merged into Festival Mushroom Records. From 2005 to 2009, it is one of the record labels operated by Warner Bros...
.
Kelly dedicated Post to his former flatmate, Hewson, who had died of a heroin overdose in January. According to McFarlane: "[it] a stark, highly personalised collection of acoustic songs that showcased the extraordinary breadth of Kelly's songwriting skills." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...
(Australia) hailed Post as the best record of 1985. Allmusic's Mike DeGagne felt "While he focuses on life's daily tragedies and tribulations, there is a missing element in the music, as it lacks any vigor or flash". A single, "From St. Kilda to King's Cross", was released from the album, but did not chart. Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
, during his first trip to the US, visited the tourist venue of Death Valley and used Post to refocus himself: "[his] concise insights and acerbic wisdom are exactly the music for strolling the bottom of ancient oceans, both literal and metaphoric". After recording Post, Kelly established a full-time band, which included Armiger, Barclay, and Connolly, bass guitarist Jon Schofield, and keyboardist
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
Peter Bull.
Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls were named through a joke based on Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
's song "Walk on the Wild Side". Armiger soon left, and the Coloured Girls line-up stabilised in late 1985 as Barclay, Bull, Connolly, and Schofield. Stuart Coupe, Kelly's manager, advised him to sign with Regular Records due to difficulty re-signing with Mushroom's Michael Gudinski
Michael Gudinski
Michael Solomon Gudinski, AM is an Australian entrepreneur and businessman currently based in Melbourne who is a leading figure in the Australian music industry...
. Michelle Higgins, Mushroom's public relations officer, was a Kelly supporter and locked herself into a Sebel Townhouse Hotel
Sebel Townhouse Hotel
The Sebel Townhouse Hotel was a hotel in Elizabeth Bay, Australia. It was constructed in 1963 by furniture salesman Harry Sebel. It began as a small European styled family hotel and formed part of the tourist precinct in and around Kings Cross....
room—at Mushroom's expense—for nearly a week in mid-1986, and refused to leave until Gudinski had signed Kelly to a two-album recording contract. Kelly performed for The Rock Party, a charity project initiated by The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, which included other Australasian musicians. The Rock Party released a 12" single, "Everything to Live For", which was produced by Joe Wissert, Phil Rigger, and Phil Beazley.
In September, Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls released a 24-track double LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, Gossip
Gossip (album)
Gossip is the double LP debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Produced by Alan Thorne and Paul Kelly, it was released on Mushroom Records in September 1986, which peaked at No. 15 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and achieved gold record status...
. The album included remakes of four songs from Post, and also featured "Maralinga (Rainy Land)", a song about the effects of British nuclear tests
British nuclear tests at Maralinga
British nuclear tests at Maralinga occurred between 1955 and 1963 at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area, in South Australia. A total of seven major nuclear tests were performed, with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotons of TNT equivalent...
on the Maralinga Tjarutja
Maralinga Tjarutja
The Maralinga Tjarutja are the Indigenous Australian people who traditionally inhabit the remote western areas of South Australia. They are a Southern Pitjantjatjara people.The lands of the Maralinga Tjarutja bear their own name...
(indigenous people of Maralinga
Maralinga, South Australia
Maralinga, South Australia in the remote western areas of South Australia was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. Maralinga was the site of the secret British nuclear tests in the 1950s. The site measures about 3,300 km² in area...
, South Australia). Gossip peaked at No. 15, with singles chart success for "Before Too Long
Before Too Long
"Before Too Long" was the first single released by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls from their debut double album, Gossip. The single was released in June 1986 on the original White Label Records, a subsidiary of Mushroom Records. It reached No. 15 on the Australian Kent...
" which peaked at No. 15, and "Darling It Hurts" which reached No. 25. A single LP version of Gossip featuring 15 songs was issued in the United States by A&M Records
A&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...
in July 1987. DeGagne noted that "[it] bursts at the seams with blustery, distinguished tunes captivating both the somberness and the intrigue thrown forward from this fine Australian storyteller".
Gossip was co-produced by Kelly and Alan Thorne (Hoodoo Gurus
Hoodoo Gurus
Hoodoo Gurus are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1981, by the mainstay Dave Faulkner and later joined by Richard Grossman , Mark Kingsmill , and Brad Shepherd...
, The Stems
The Stems
The Stems were an alternative rock band formed in Perth, Western Australia in 1983 and were heavily influenced by 1960s garage rock and 1970s power pop. They broke up in 1987, reformed in 2003 and released a new album in 2007.-Formation:...
) who, according to music journalist Robert Forster
Robert Forster (musician)
Robert Forster is an Australian singer-songwriter, best known for his work with songwriting partner Grant McLennan, with whom he co-founded The Go-Betweens.Forster grew up in Brisbane, Australia attending Brisbane Grammar School...
(former The Go-Betweens
The Go-Betweens
The Go-Betweens were an indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Australia in 1977 by singer-songwriters and guitarists, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. They were later joined by Lindy Morrison on drums, Robert Vickers on bass guitar and Amanda Brown on violin, oboe, guitar, and backing vocals,...
singer-songwriter), helped the band create "a sound that will not only influence future roots-rock bands but, through its directness, sparkle and dedication to the song, will also come to be seen as particularly Australian. Ultimately, it means the records these people made together are timeless". Due to possible racist connotations, the band changed its name for international releases to Paul Kelly and the Messengers. They made a US tour, initially supporting Crowded House
Crowded House
Crowded House are a rock band, formed in Melbourne, Australia and led by New Zealand singer-songwriter Neil Finn. Finn is the primary songwriter and creative director of the band, having led it through several incarnations, drawing members from New Zealand , Australia and the United States...
and then headlining, travelling across the US by bus. "Darling It Hurts" peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Mainstream Rock chart
Mainstream Rock Tracks
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks is a ranking in Billboard magazine of the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations, a category that includes stations that play primarily rock music. Modern rock tracks are counted in the Alternative Songs chart.This chart began with the March 21, 1981, issue...
in 1987. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
rock critic Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
wrote "Mr. Kelly sang one smart, catchy three-minute song after another – dozens of them – as the band played with no-frills directness" following the band's performance at the Bottom Line Club in New York.
Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls' second album, Under the Sun, was released in late 1987 in Australia and New Zealand, and in early 1988 in North America and Europe (under the name Paul Kelly and the Messengers). On the Kent Music Report Albums Chart, it reached No. 19. The lead single "To Her Door
To Her Door
"To Her Door" was the first single released by Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls ahead of their second album, Under the Sun...
", written by Kelly, peaked at No. 14 on the related singles chart. Forster indicated that the song demonstrated one of Kelly's finest qualities as a songwriter which is his unforced empathy. DeGagne observed a style similar to Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
and Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert
Steve Forbert is an American pop music singer-songwriter. He is best known for his song "Romeo's Tune", which reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1980....
, and said the album provided "acoustically bright story songs and character-based tales with unlimited substance".
Another single, "Dumb Things", was released in early 1989 and attained No. 36 on the Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
(ARIA) Singles Chart
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
. In the US, it reached No. 16 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
. The song was included on the soundtrack for the 1988 Yahoo Serious
Yahoo Serious
Yahoo Serious , born Greg Pead , is an Australian film actor, director and score composer. He is best known for his 1988 comedy Young Einstein. He also created Reckless Kelly in 1993 and Mr. Accident in 2000...
film Young Einstein
Young Einstein
Young Einstein is an Australian comedy film directed by and starring Yahoo Serious, released in 1988.-Plot:Albert Einstein, the son of an apple farmer in Tasmania in the early 1900s, splits a beer atom with a chisel in order to add bubbles to beer, discovers the theory of relativity and travels to...
. The video, directed by Claudia Castle, won an ARIA Award
ARIA Music Awards of 1988
The Second Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards was held on 29 March 1988 at the Sheraton Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. Cliff Richard was the host, with Bryan Ferry, Feargal Sharkey and Ian "Molly" Meldrum included as presenters of the 21 awards...
for 'Best Video'. Kelly met Kaarin Fairfax, his second wife, in 1988 and they married in 1993. From 1989 to 1992 Fairfax supplied backing vocals on tracks by Paul Kelly and the Messengers. In 1990, as country music artist Mary-Jo Starr, she released three singles and an album, Too Many Movies, using the Messengers and Kelly as session musicians. Michael Armiger, Connolly, and Frawley were in her backing tour band, The Drive-in Motel. Fairfax and Kelly's two children are Madeleine (born 1991) and Memphis (born 1993).
So Much Water So Close to Home
So Much Water So Close to Home
So Much Water, So Close to Home is an album by Australian rock band Paul Kelly and the Messengers and was originally released in August 1989. The title comes from a short story of the same name by author Raymond Carver. Carver had died in August 1988, Kelly would go on to co-write the score for the...
was released in 1989 by Paul Kelly and the Messengers in all markets. It peaked at No. 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart, but none of its singles reached the ARIA Top 40 Singles Chart. Forster stated that, with "Everything's Turning to White", Kelly shows mastery in condensing a Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
tale of fishermen who discover a dead woman's body but continue to fish before reporting their find. The same short story was used for the 2006 film, Jindabyne
Jindabyne (film)
Jindabyne is a 2006 Australian drama film by director Ray Lawrence and starring an ensemble cast including Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Deborra-Lee Furness and John Howard. Jindabyne was filmed entirely on location in and around the town of the same name: Jindabyne, New South Wales, situated next...
, for which Kelly composed the soundtrack. DeGagne preferred "Everything's Turning to White" and "Sweet Guy" to the other album tracks, which "seem a little weak in the content department". Kelly relocated back to Melbourne after having lived in Sydney for six years. Another US tour was undertaken, but there was no further chart success for albums or singles released in the US market.
In 1991 the band released Comedy, which peaked at No. 12 on the ARIA Albums Chart. DeGagne noticed "a folk-filled tinge to each song, but the occasional quickened pace balances out these tunes rather nicely". "From Little Things Big Things Grow
From Little Things Big Things Grow
"From Little Things Big Things Grow" is a rock protest song recorded by Australian artists Paul Kelly & The Messengers on their 1991 album Comedy, and by Kev Carmody on his 1993 album Bloodlines. It was released as a CD single by Carmody and Kelly in 1993 but failed to chart...
", a seven-minute track from the album, was co-written by Kelly and Kev Carmody
Kev Carmody
Kevin Daniel "Kev" Carmody is an Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter. His song "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was recorded with co-writer Paul Kelly for their 1993 single; it was covered by the Get Up Mob in 2008 and peaked at #4 on the Australian Recording Industry Association singles...
. It highlights The Gurindji Strike
The Gurindji Strike
The Gurindji Strike refers to the walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families in August 1966 at Wave Hill cattle station in Australia's Northern Territory....
and Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiarri, AM , was an Aboriginal rights activist who was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the Aboriginal people. Lingiarri was a member of the Gurindji people. In Vincent's earlier life he worked as a stockman at Wave Hill Cattle Station. He also played...
as part of the Indigenous Australian struggle for land rights and reconciliation. Forster indicates it has Dylanesque influences, and shows Kelly "honing the skills of a fine balladeer and storyteller". A cover version that was released in May 2008 by The GetUp Mob, part of the GetUp! advocacy group, peaked at No. 4 on the ARIA singles charts. This version included samples from speeches by Prime Ministers
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
Paul Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
in 1992 and Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
in 2008. It featured vocals by Carmody and Kelly, as well as other Australian artists. Kelly collaborated with members of indigenous band Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...
to write "Treaty
Treaty (song)
"Treaty" is a song by Australian indigenous music band Yothu Yindi, which is made up of Aboriginal and balanda members. Released in June 1991, "Treaty" peaked at No. 11 on the ARIA Singles Chart in September...
", which peaked at No. 11 in September 1991.
"To Her Door" and "Treaty" were voted into the APRA Top 30 Australian songs
APRA Top 30 Australian songs
APRA's Top 30 Australian songs between 1926 and 2001 was a list created by the Australasian Performing Right Association to celebrate its 75th anniversary...
of all time in 2001. Paul Kelly and the Messengers gave their last performance in August 1991, with Kelly set to pursue a solo career. He justified his decision: "We forged a style together. But I felt if we had kept going it would have got formulaic and that's why I broke it up. I wanted to try and start moving into other areas, start mixing things up". Paul Kelly and the Messengers' final album, Hidden Things
Hidden Things
Hidden Things is an album by Paul Kelly & The Messengers and was released in 1992 on Mushroom Records in Australia.The album is a collection of songs that were recorded by Paul Kelly and both his backup bands, the Coloured Girls and The Messengers, from 1986 to 1991, but weren't put on to any...
, was a collection of previously released B-sides, stray non-LP tracks, radio sessions, and other rarities. It was released in May 1992, and reached No. 29. One track, "Rally Around the Drum", written with Archie Roach
Archie Roach
Archie Roach is an Australian musician. A singer, songwriter and guitarist, he survived a turbulent upbringing to develop into a powerful voice for Indigenous Australians, a storyteller in the tradition of his ancestors, and a nationally popular and respected artist.- Biography :In his own words,...
, was about an indigenous tent boxing
Tent boxing
Tent boxing, an amusement commonly seen at agricultural shows throughout Australia between the 1920s and the 1960s is an old Australian tradition that is barely kept alive today...
man.
1992–1999: Solo career and with others
Since 1992 Paul Kelly has had a solo career, fronted the Paul Kelly Band, and worked in occasional collaborations with other songwriters and performers. In 1992 he was asked to compose songs for Funerals and Circuses, a Roger BennettRoger Bennett
Roger Bennett was an Arrernte man from Central Australia, an actor, and a playwright. His best known works are Up the Ladder and Funerals and Circuses....
play about racial tensions in small-town Australia. Kelly took the role of a petrol attendant when the play premiered at the Adelaide Fringe Festival
Adelaide Fringe Festival
The Adelaide Fringe Festival is an arts festival held annually in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. The event is the Southern Hemisphere's largest arts event and the second-largest fringe festival in the world, second in size only to the Edinburgh Fringe...
that year and was directed by his wife, Fairfax. Kelly co-wrote "Hey Boys" with Mark Seymour
Mark Seymour
Mark Seymour is an Australian musician and vocalist best known for his work as the frontman and songwriter of rock band Hunters & Collectors...
(Hunters & Collectors
Hunters & Collectors
Hunters & Collectors were an Australian rock music band formed in Melbourne in 1981, fronted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Seymour, they developed a blend of pub rock and art-funk...
) for the soundtrack of the 1992 Australian film, Garbo; when released as a single it peaked at No. 62. Kelly contributed songs and vocals to the soundtrack of the 1993 television series Seven Deadly Sins.
Kelly's first post-Messengers solo release was the live double CD Live, May 1992
Live, May 1992
Live, May 1992 is a solo live double album by Paul Kelly and was originally released in 1992.It was released on Mushroom Records in Australia and marked Kelly's solo departure from his band The Messengers. It was recorded at performances in Melbourne and Perth in May 1992...
, released in November 1992. Allmusic's Brett Hartenbach noted that Kelly's band had fleshed out his songs in the studio, but he was still able to show "his vignettes of life, love, and the underbelly of both have plenty of power on their own". Kelly had relocated to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and signed with Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
to tour the US as a solo artist. While in Los Angeles he produced fellow Australian Renée Geyer
Renée Geyer
Renée Rebecca Geyer is an Australian singer who has long been regarded as one of the finest exponents of jazz, soul and R&B idioms. She had commercial success as a solo artist in Australia, with "It's a Man's Man's World", "Heading in the Right Direction" and "Stares and Whispers" in the 1970s and...
's album Difficult Woman (1994). Kelly returned to Australia in 1993 and wrote a collection of lyrics, aptly titled Lyrics, which opens with a quote from Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
: "I don't have what you would call a philosophy or coherent world view so I shall have to limit myself to describing how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die and speak."
His next album Wanted Man, released in 1994, reached No. 11. Kelly also composed music for the 1994 film Everynight ... Everynight
Everynight ... Everynight
Everynight ... Everynight is an Australian drama film directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos and released in 1994. Based on a play of the same name, written by Ray Mooney, the film details the early life of contract killer Christopher Dale Flannery and is set inside Melbourne's HM Prison Pentridge's...
, directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos
Alkinos Tsilimidos
Alkinos Tsilimidos is an Australian film director. Raised in comfortable circumstances in middle-class Doncaster, Tsilimidos won the Montréal First Film Prize at the Montréal World Film Festival for his 1994 film Everynight ... Everynight...
. It is set in the notorious H division of Victoria's Pentridge Prison. Kelly's next solo releases were Deeper Water
Deeper Water
Deeper Water is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and was released in September, 1995 on Mushroom Records in Australia.The album peaked at #40 on the Australian album charts and resulted in a second consecutive nomination for 'Best Male Artist' at the 1995 ARIA Awards.-Track listing:All songs written...
in 1995 and Live at the Continental and the Esplanade
Live At The Continental And The Esplanade
Live At The Continental And The Esplanade is a live album by Paul Kelly and was originally released in 1996.It was released on Mushroom Records in Australia, and recorded at the Continental in Prahran and the Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda, both in Melbourne...
in 1996. Between March and May 1995 Kelly undertook a seven-week tour of North America, appearing on several dates with Liz Phair
Liz Phair
Phair's entry into the music industry began when she met guitarist Chris Brokaw, a member of the band Come. Brokaw and Phair moved to San Francisco together, and Phair tried to become an artist there...
and Joe Jackson
Joe Jackson (musician)
Joe Jackson is an English musician and singer-songwriter now living in Berlin, whose five Grammy Award nominations span from 1979 to 2001...
.
By 1996, Paul Kelly Band members included Stephen Hadley (bass, ex-Black Sorrows), Bruce Haymes (keyboards), Peter Luscombe (drums, ex-Black Sorrows), and Shane O'Mara (guitar). Spencer P. Jones (Beasts of Bourbon
Beasts of Bourbon
Beasts of Bourbon was an Australian alternative rock band formed in 1983, with a line-up that has changed as the band splintered and reformed several times - Beginnings :...
) was guest guitarist on some performances. This line-up issued the CD-EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
How to Make Gravy
How to Make Gravy
How to Make Gravy is a four-track EP by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was originally released in 1996 on White Label Records in Australia....
, with the title track earning Kelly a 'Song of the Year' nomination at the 1998 Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) Music Awards
APRA Awards
The APRA Music Awards are several award ceremonies run in Australia and New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually....
. APRA's Debbie Kruger
Debbie Kruger
Debbie Kruger is an Australian music journalist and pop-culture writer, she wrote Songwriters Speak in August 2005, which contains interviews with 45 Australian and New Zealand songwriters about their craft...
noted Kelly's "attraction to the theatrical" where the same protagonist is described in "To Her Door", "Love Never Runs on Time" (from Wanted Man) and "How to Make Gravy".
In 1997, Kelly released his compilation album, Songs from the South: Paul Kelly's Greatest Hits, on Mushroom Records. The 20-track album peaked at No. 2, and has achieved quadruple platinum certification, indicating sales of over 280,000. Kelly won the ARIA Award
ARIA Music Awards
The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...
in 1997 for 'Best Male Artist', having been previously nominated in 1993
ARIA Music Awards of 1993
The Seventh Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards was held on 14 April 1993 at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney. Host, Richard Wilkins, was assisted by presenters, James Reyne, Elle Macpherson, Billy Birmingham, Tim Finn, Neil Finn and Daryl Somers to distribute 24 awards...
, 1995
ARIA Music Awards of 1995
The Ninth Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards was held on 20 October 1995 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. There had been a 19-month gap since the previous award ceremony which was moved to be "closer to the business end of the music industry's year"...
, and 1996
ARIA Music Awards of 1996
The 10th Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards was held on 30 September 1996 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre...
. At the 20 September 1997 ceremony
ARIA Music Awards of 1997
The eleventh Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards were held on 22 September 1997 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney. The event was hosted by Australian actor–comedian Paul McDermott, with presenters Elle McFeast, Kylie Minogue, Ben Folds and The Presidents of the United...
, he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame
ARIA Hall of Fame
Since 1988 the Australian Recording Industry Association has inducted artists into its ARIA Hall of Fame. While most have been recognised at the annual ARIA Music Awards, in 2005 ARIA sought to create a separate standalone "ARIA Icons: Hall of Fame" event as only one or two acts could be inducted...
. Kelly won the 'Best Male Artist' award again in 1998
ARIA Music Awards of 1998
The 12th Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards was held on 20 October 1998 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre...
, and has been nominated for the same award a further seven times.
Kelly's next album, Words and Music
Words and Music (Paul Kelly album)
Words And Music is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and originally released in 1998. It was released on Mushroom Records in Australia and Vanguard Records in the United States...
, appeared in 1998, which peaked at No. 17, and included three singles that did not reach the Top 40. Andrew Ford
Andrew Ford
Andrew Ford is an English and Australian composer, writer and radio presenter.He was Composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra , held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council...
interviewed Kelly for ABC radio's The Music Show in May. Ford found the album "very exciting, very visceral ... you can almost smell the sex". Kelly admitted that he preferred R & B music which deals with sex, love, and joy without becoming "either banal or smug". He finds such songs more difficult to write but believes he has started to do so. 1998 also saw Kelly undertaking a three-week tour of Canada and the US to promote Words and Music.
Smoke was released by Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill; the latter is a Melbourne bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
band comprising Gerry Hale on guitar, dobro
Dobro
Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, fiddle
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, and vocals; Adam Gare on fiddle, mandolin, and vocals; Peter Somerville on banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
and vocals; and Stuart Speed on double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. The album featured a mix of old and new Kelly songs treated in classic bluegrass fashion. "Our Sunshine", newly written, was a tribute to Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...
, a famous Australian outlaw (not related). Kelly had previously recorded a Slim Dusty
Slim Dusty
David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...
track with Uncle Bill, "Thanks a Lot", for the compilation Where Joy Kills Sorrow (1997). Smoke was issued on Kelly's new label, Gawdaggie, through EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
Records in October 1999, and peaked at No. 36. It won three awards from the Victorian Country Music Association: 'Best Group (Open)', 'Best Group (Victorian)', and 'Album of the Year' in 2000. In September Kelly performed at the Spiegeltent
Spiegeltent
A Spiegeltent is a large travelling tent, constructed in wood and canvas and decorated with mirrors and stained glass, intended as an entertainment venue...
at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
, as well as shows in London and Dublin.
In 1999 Kelly formed the band Professor Ratbaggy
Professor Ratbaggy
Professor Ratbaggy is a sometime four-piece band based in Melbourne, Australia. Sometimes thought of as a side-project of iconic Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, the band is in fact its own entity: Kelly is one of the four members .The band's name is derived from the 1960s Australian TV...
with Hadley (bass guitar, backing vocals), Haymes (keyboards, organ, backing vocals) and Luscombe (drums). Kelly provided guitars and vocals for their debut album, Professor Ratbaggy
Professor Ratbaggy (album)
Professor Ratbaggy is the debut eponymous album by Australian rock/pop band Professor Ratbaggy and originally released on EMI Records in 1999...
, on EMI Records. Songs were written jointly by all group members and their work was a more groove-oriented style compared to Kelly's usual folk or rock formula, using samples, synthesiser and percussion. Kelly's second anthology of lyrics entitled Don't Start Me Talking was first published in 1999, with subsequent songs appended in the 2004 edition. This second edition was added to the Victorian Certificate of Education
Victorian Certificate of Education
The Victorian Certificate of Education or VCE is the credential awarded to secondary school students who successfully complete high school level studies in the state of Victoria, Australia. Study for the VCE is usually completed over two years, but it can be spread over a longer period in some cases...
English reading list for Year 12 (final year of secondary schooling) in 2006.
2000–current
One Night the Moon
One Night the Moon is a 2001 Australian musical non-feature film starring husband and wife team Paul Kelly, a singer-songwriter, and Kaarin Fairfax, a film and television actress, and their daughter Memphis Kelly. Directed by Rachel Perkins and written by Perkins with John Romeril, it was filmed on...
in 2001, Fireflies
Fireflies (TV series)
Fireflies is an Australian television show which aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and RTÉ One in Ireland. It debuted on 7 February 2004 and screened as 22 episodes. The series was set in the fictional country town of Lost River, population 487...
in 2004, and Jindabyne in 2006. These works have resulted in five award wins: ARIA 'Best Original Soundtrack' for Lantana (with Hadley, Haymes and O'Mara); Australian Film Institute
Australian Film Institute
The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...
(AFI) 'Open Craft Award', Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards 'Best Music Score', and Screen Music Award 'Best Soundtrack Album' for One Night the Moon (with Mairead Hannan, Carmody, John Romeril
John Romeril
John Henry Romeril is a contemporary Australian playwright.John Romeril was born and grew up in Melbourne where he attended Monash University. His first plays, I Don't Know Who To Feel Sorry For and Chicago, Chicago were written while he was still a student...
, Deirdre Hannan, and Alice Garner
Alice Garner
Alice Garner is an Australian actress, musician and historian.She is the daughter of Australian writer Helen Garner and writer and actor Bill Garner.-Acting life and career:...
); Valladolid International Film Festival
Seminci
Valladolid International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in Valladolid, Spain since 1956....
'Best Music' award for Jindabyne; and six further nominations.
Kelly also acted in One Night the Moon alongside his then wife, Fairfax, and with their younger daughter Memphis. All three sing on the soundtrack, including together for the lullaby, "One Night the Moon" (see pictured). According to Romaine Moreton, Australian Screen Online
Screen Australia
Screen Australia is the Federal Government’s key funding body for the Australian screen production industry. Its functions are to support and promote the development of a highly creative, innovative and commercially sustainable industry....
curator, the "lullaby that the family sings, written by Paul Kelly, sets the tone of the film ... The song is used in this film as a vehicle to explore the characters' interior worlds, something very unusual for a film". Kelly and Fairfax separated before the film's release.
Roll on Summer
Roll on Summer
Roll On Summer is an EP by Australian artist Paul Kelly and originally released in October, 2000. It was released on EMI in Australia. "Every Fucking City" was recorded live at The Continental, November 25, 1999...
was released in 2000 as a four-track EP, which peaked at No. 40 on the ARIA singles charts. Kelly issued ...Nothing but a Dream in 2001, returning to his core singer-songwriter style. It peaked at No. 7 on the albums chart, and achieved gold record status. The North American version of ...Nothing but a Dream added all four tracks from the Roll on Summer EP as bonus tracks. Murray Bramwell appraised four Kelly-related works in Adelaide Review
Adelaide Review
In its current form, The Adelaide Review is a free newspaper published approximately monthly in Adelaide, South Australia since mid 2009. In the period 2004-2007, it was usually published fortnightly....
, "each of them indicative of the rich variety of his gift". On the album ...Nothing but a Dream, he preferred the opening track, "If I Could Start Today Again", to the radio single, "Somewhere in the City", and found the album generally to be "full of familiar Kelly riffs and trademarks". On Silent Partner Kelly's songwriting with Hale provides "some splendid instrumentals" with "a delightfully airy sound". The Lantana soundtrack showed Kelly's "confidence as a composer and his strong grasp of a wide range of musical styles". Finally, One Night the Moon included Mairead Hannan's "richly melodic Irish airs" which "beautifully counterpoint Kelly’s work" and Carmody's "distinctive ballads".
In March 2001 Kelly was a support act for Bob Dylan's tour of Australia. Between August and November Kelly performed a series of acoustic shows in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and France (the latter supporting Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
). In 2002 he undertook a six-week tour of North America, which was followed by a tour of the UK and Ireland later that year. In 2002 and 2003 two tribute albums of Kelly's songs were released: Women at the Well featured songs performed by female artists, including Bic Runga
Bic Runga
Briolette Kah Bic Runga MNZM is a New Zealand pop recording artist whose first solo album, Drive, debuted at number one on the New Zealand RIANZ charts. She has since become one of the highest-selling New Zealand artists in recent history...
, Jenny Morris, Renée Geyer, Magic Dirt
Magic Dirt
Magic Dirt are an Australian rock band, which formed in 1991 in Geelong, Victoria, with Daniel Herring on guitar, Adam Robertson on drums, Adalita Srsen on vocals and guitar, and Dean Turner on bass guitar. Initially known as Deer Bubbles and then The Jim Jims, they were renamed as Magic Dirt in...
, Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca's Empire
Rebecca's Empire
Rebecca's Empire were an indie pop-rock band from Melbourne, Australia. They released two full-length albums and two EPs in a six-year career lasting from 1994 to 2000.-History:...
), Christine Anu
Christine Anu
-Early life:Anu was born in Cairns, Queensland to a Torres Strait Islander mother from Saibai and Mabuiag Islands.-Career:Anu began performing as a dancer and later went on to sing back-up vocals for The Rainmakers, which included Neil Murray of the Warumpi Band. Her first recording was in 1993...
, and Kasey Chambers
Kasey Chambers
Kasey Chambers is an Australian country singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers, and the sister of musician and producer Nash Chambers.-Solo success:...
; and Stories of Me, which featured fellow songwriters James Reyne
James Reyne
James Reyne is an Australian rock musician and singer/songwriter both as a member of the iconic 1980s band Australian Crawl and solo work.. He is a successful singer/ songwriter and prolific artist...
, Mia Dyson
Mia Dyson
Mia Dyson is an Australian singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She shot to fame with her 2003 album Cold Water and her subsequent follow-up album, Parking Lots, which won "Best Blues & Roots album" at the 2005 ARIA Awards....
, and Jeff Lang
Jeff Lang
Jeff Lang is an Australian songwriter, singer and slide guitarist. A leading performer in the Australian roots music scene and purveyer of his self-described "disturbed folk" style, which incorporates primarily folk, blues and rock...
. Chambers, a country music artist, sees Kelly as a role model: "He's the perfect example of the storyteller that I would love to be". In 2003 Kelly undertook a tour of North America, the UK, and Ireland, performing at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival
Edmonton International Fringe Festival
The Edmonton International Fringe Festival produced by the Fringe Theatre Adventures is an annual event held every August in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada....
and again at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Ways & Means was issued in 2004 and peaked at No. 13. Though identified as a solo record, it was more of a group effort, with a backing band, later dubbed the Boon Companions, co-writing most of the tracks. The Boon Companions consisted of Kelly's nephew Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly (musician)
Daniel "Dan" Kelly is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the second oldest of six children and the nephew of Paul Kelly. He grew up in Queensland and learnt the guitar at thirteen, studying Environmental Science at University, in Brisbane, in 1990...
on guitar, Peter Luscombe on drums, his brother Dan Luscombe on guitar and keyboards, and Bill McDonald on bass guitar. Bramwell was impressed with their live performance in May: "Kelly steers and shapes not only his music, but the way he presents it. A live show is never just knocked together ... the details are always careful". In February ABC Television
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
started broadcasting the series Fireflies
Fireflies (TV series)
Fireflies is an Australian television show which aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia and RTÉ One in Ireland. It debuted on 7 February 2004 and screened as 22 episodes. The series was set in the fictional country town of Lost River, population 487...
, which featured a score by Kelly and Stephen Rae. The associated soundtrack CD, Fireflies: Songs of Paul Kelly, included tracks by Kelly, Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Professor Ratbaggy, and Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill. Sian Prior sang with the Boon Companions on the Fireflies track "Los Cucumbros", which later appeared on Stardust Five
Stardust Five (album)
Stardust Five is the self-titled debut album by Stardust Five which was released in 2006. The album was mixed and produced by Tchad Blake .It was released on EMI Music in Australia and Capitol Records in the United States...
. Prior, a former opera singer, has been Kelly's girlfriend since 2001. They met when she interviewed him for Sunday Arts on ABC radio. Prior is also a journalist and university lecturer.
In March 2004 Kelly performed across North America, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. This was followed by a more extensive series of shows between July and September throughout North America and Europe. In December, in Melbourne, Kelly performed 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over two nights. A similar set of shows were performed in a studio at Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
in December 2006, these and similar sets became known as his A to Z shows. Foggy Highway
Foggy Highway
Foggy Highway is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys and originally released in May 2005 on EMI in Australia and Capitol Records in the US. It peaked at #6 on the Australian Recording Industry Association End of Year - 2005 Country chart. On 18 October 2005 it was re-released...
was a second bluegrass-oriented album for Kelly, credited to Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys and issued in 2005. It peaked at No. 23 on the ARIA albums charts. The line-up for the majority of the tracks was Kelly, Mick Albeck (fiddle), James Gillard (bass guitar), Rod McCormack (guitar), Ian Simpson (banjo), and Trev Warner (mandolin). As with Smoke (his previous bluegrass release), Foggy Highway consisted of a mix of new compositions and rearranged Kelly classics. The Canadian edition of the release included a four-song bonus EP of out-takes.
In June 2005 Kelly put together Timor Leste – Freedom Rising, a collaboration of Australian artists donating new recordings, unreleased tracks, and b-sides to make connections between a wide range of music to raise money for environmental, health, and education projects in East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
(Timor-Leste). Funds raised from the album went to Life, Love and Health and The Alola Foundation. On 26 March 2006 Kelly performed at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony
2006 Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony
The Closing Ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 26 March 2006 to mark the closing of the 18th Commonwealth Games.-Performances:The ceremony began with a fireworks show...
in Melbourne, singing "Leaps and Bounds" and "Rally Around the Drum". On 8 October Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Hoodoo Gurus
Hoodoo Gurus
Hoodoo Gurus are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1981, by the mainstay Dave Faulkner and later joined by Richard Grossman , Mark Kingsmill , and Brad Shepherd...
, and Sime Nugent performed at the Athenaeum Theatre
Athenaeum, Melbourne
The Athenaeum or Melbourne Athenaeum is one of the oldest public institutions in Victoria, Australia, founded in 1839. The first President was Captain William Lonsdale, the first Patron was the Superintendent of Port Philip, Charles La Trobe and the first books were donated by Vice-President Henry...
in Melbourne to again raise funds for Life, Love and Health, and to help support their ongoing programs in Timor-Leste in response to the needs of the people during the humanitarian crisis.
Kelly formed Stardust Five
Stardust Five
Stardust Five is five-piece surf rock/pop band based in Melbourne, Australia. The members of the band Dan Kelly, Paul Kelly, Dan Luscombe, Peter Luscombe and Bill MacDonald have played, in other bands including The Last Gasp, Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, Max Q, The Blackeyed Susans and Michelle...
in 2006, with the same line-up as Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions from Ways & Means. They released their self-titled debut album in March, with each member contributing by composing the music and Kelly providing lyrics. The album has backing vocals by Prior on two tracks, including "Los Cucumbros". Kelly toured North America again in 2006, appearing together with The Waifs
The Waifs
The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 by Josh Cunningham , and sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson...
at clubs and festivals in several US states and the Canadian province of Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
. In November–December Kelly undertook his A-Z tour, a series of solo acoustic performances playing 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over four nights, at the Brisbane Powerhouse, Melbourne's Spiegeltent, and at the Sydney Opera House.
In 2007 Kelly released Stolen Apples
Stolen Apples (album)
Stolen Apples is the twenty fifth album by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was released in July 2007 on EMI Music. The album is Kelly's first solo album since Ways & Means in 2004, and features religious themes throughout....
, containing songs based on religious themes; it peaked at No. 8, and achieved gold record status. Following the album's recording, Dan Luscombe left to join The Drones
The Drones
The Drones are an Australian rock group who rose to prominence during the early 2000s. They are influenced by a variety of bands and soloists including Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, Bad Brains, Suicide, Green on Red, The Birthday Party, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone.- The Sound...
. He was replaced by Ashley Naylor
Ashley Naylor
Ashley Naylor is an Australian musician, best known for his guitar and vocals in Melbourne-based band Even.In 1987 at the age seventeen, Naylor fronted an indie rock band called The Swarm. He occasionally played guitar with Melbourne band Pray TV on studio recordings and also live...
(Even
Even (band)
Even are an Australian indie rock three-piece fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Ashley Naylor, with Matthew Cotter on drums and Wally Kempton on bass and backing vocals...
) on guitar and Cameron Bruce (The Polaroids) on keyboards. A tour in support of the album saw Kelly perform the entire album plus selected hits from his catalogue. One of the last performances, on 20 September 2007 in Toowoomba, Queensland
Toowoomba, Queensland
Toowoomba is a city in Southern Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital city, Brisbane. With an estimated district population of 128,600, Toowoomba is Australia's second largest inland city and its largest non-capital inland city...
, was filmed and released on DVD as Live Apples: Stolen Apples Performed Live in its Entirety Plus 16 More Songs, in April 2008.
Kelly made his first appearance at the Big Day Out
Big Day Out
The Big Day Out is an annual music festival held in several cities in Australia and New Zealand in late January. It started in Sydney in 1992, spread to Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth by 1993, with the Gold Coast and Auckland joining in 1994...
concerts across Australia in early 2008, while in March he performed at the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
music festival in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
. Kelly released Stolen Apples in Ireland and the UK in July, and followed with a tour there in August. In June The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
newspaper commemorated 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll (the anniversary of the release of Johnny O'Keefe
Johnny O'Keefe
John Michael O'Keefe, known as Johnny O'Keefe was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include "Wild One" , "Shout!" and "She's My Baby"...
's "Wild One
Wild One (Johnny O'Keefe song)
"Wild One" or "Real Wild Child" is an Australian rock and roll song written by Johnny Greenan, Johnny O'Keefe, and Dave Owens. Sydney disc jockey Tony Withers was credited with helping to get radio airplay for the song but writer credits on subsequent versions often omit Withers, who later worked...
") by selecting the Top 50 Australian Albums. Kelly's albums Gossip and Post rated at No. 7 and No. 30 on the list. Kelly was nominated as 'Best Male Artist' for "To Her Door (Live)" and 'Best Music DVD' for Live Apples at the 2008 ARIA Awards
ARIA Music Awards of 2008
The 22nd Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards took place on 19 October 2008...
. In September he announced that he had reacquired the rights to his old catalogue, including those originally released by Mushroom Records—later bought out by Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
.
In November, as a result of the acquisition EMI released Songs from the South – Volume 2, a collection of Kelly's songs from the last decade, following on from Songs from the South – Volume 1. The new compilation featured the first physical release of Kelly's song, "Shane Warne
Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...
". Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available separately but also as a combined double album. EMI released a DVD, Paul Kelly – The Video Collection 1985–2008, a collection of Kelly's home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
s made over the past 23 years. Also included are several live performances. Songs from the South – Volume 2 included one new song, "Thoughts in the Middle of the Night", which he described as "It's a band song, we all wrote it together. There's a poem by James Fenton
James Fenton
James Martin Fenton is an English poet, journalist and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry.-Life and career:...
, a British poet, called "The Mistake", which is probably an influence on the lyrics. It's a waking up in the middle of the night song, for anyone who's woken up at 3 am and not been able to get back to sleep".
In the beginning of 2009 he supported Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
's tour of Australia – his first return in 24 years. Kelly's duet with country yodeller Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider is an Australian country music performer and the daughter of yodeler Mary Schneider. Schneider performed with her mother on the album The Magic of Yodeling at the age of eight. She studied dance as a child and made her acting debut on the popular Australian drama A Country...
, "Still Here", won 'Vocal Collaboration of the Year' at the 2009 CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia. In February, in response to hearing about the devastation to the Yarra Valley region of Victoria in Australia, Cohen and Kelly donated $200,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal in support of those affected by the extensive Black Saturday bushfires that razed the area just weeks after their performance at the Rochford Winery for the A Day on the Green concert. Kelly performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
on 14 March for Sound Relief
Sound Relief
Sound Relief was a multi-venue rock music concert held on 14 March 2009, which was announced by the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby on 24 February 2009...
, a multi-venue rock music concert in support of victims of the bushfires. The event was held simultaneously with a concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground
Sydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
. All proceeds from the Melbourne concert went to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire relief. Also performing at the Melbourne concert were Augie March
Augie March
Augie March are an Australian indie/pop rock band. Formed in 1996 in Shepparton, Victoria, the band currently consists of vocalist and rhythm guitarist Glenn Richards, lead guitarist Adam Donovan, bassist Edmondo Ammendola, drummer David Williams, and keyboardist Kiernan Box...
, Bliss n Eso
Bliss n Eso
Bliss n Eso are an ARIA Award-winning Australian hip hop band based in Sydney, and were originally known as Bliss N' Esoterikizm for their debut EP The Arrival...
with Paris Wells
Paris Wells
Paris Wells is an Australian singer songwriter based in Melbourne. She has released two albums and one EP. Wells has played at festivals such as Falls Festival, Big Day Out, Meredith and Sydney Music Festival...
, Gabriella Cilmi
Gabriella Cilmi
Gabriella Lucia Cilmi is an Australian singer-songwriter. In 2008, Cilmi was awarded six ARIA awards including Single of the Year and Best Female Artist....
, Hunters & Collectors
Hunters & Collectors
Hunters & Collectors were an Australian rock music band formed in Melbourne in 1981, fronted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Seymour, they developed a blend of pub rock and art-funk...
, Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson (musician)
Jack Johnson was born May 18, 1975 is an American folk rock singer-songwriter, surfer and musician known for his work in the soft rock and acoustic genres. In 2001, he achieved commercial success after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales. He has since released four more albums, a...
, Chambers and Shane Nicholson
Shane Nicholson (singer)
Shane Nicholson is an Australian singer-songwriter from Brisbane in Queensland. He currently lives on the Central Coast in New South Wales with wife Kasey Chambers, with whom he has a son, Arlo Ray, born in July 2007....
with Troy Cassar-Daley
Troy Cassar-Daley
Troy Cassar-Daley is a multi-award-winning country musician from New South Wales, Australia.He released his first EP, "Dream Out Loud", in 1994 and was nominated for his first Golden Guitar for Best Male Vocalist the same year...
, Kings of Leon
Kings of Leon
Kings of Leon is an American rock band that originated in Albion, Oklahoma but formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1999. The band is composed of brothers Anthony Caleb Followill , Ivan Nathan Followill and Michael Jared Followill Kings of Leon is an American rock band that originated in Albion,...
, Jet
Jet (band)
Jet are an Australian rock band formed in 2001 while attending St Bede's College Mentone in Melbourne, . The band consists of lead guitarist Cameron Muncey, bassist Mark Wilson, and brothers Nic and Chris Cester on vocals/rhythm guitar and drums respectively...
, Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil , were an Australian rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie...
, Liam Finn
Liam Finn
Liam Mullane Finn is a New Zealand musician and songwriter. Born in Australia, he moved to New Zealand as a child...
, Split Enz
Split Enz
Split Enz were a New Zealand band of the 1970s and early 1980s featuring Phil Judd and brothers Tim Finn and Neil Finn. They achieved chart success in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada during the early 1980s ‒ most notably with the single "I Got You", and built a cult following elsewhere...
, and Wolfmother
Wolfmother
Wolfmother is an Australian rock band from Erskineville, Sydney. Formed in 2000, the group was originally a trio composed of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bassist and keyboardist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett. Wolfmother released their self-titled debut album in October 2005,...
.
On 13 and 14 November, radio station Triple J
Triple J
triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
presented a Kelly tribute concert—marking his 30th anniversary as a solo artist—at the Forum Theatre
Forum Theatre
The Forum Theatre is a theatre located on the corner of Flinders Street and Russell Street in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. The building was designed by American architect John Eberson, who has designed many theatres across the globe, along with a local architectural firm...
in Melbourne, and highlighted his contribution to Australian music. The line-up included Missy Higgins
Missy Higgins
Melissa "Missy" Morrison Higgins is an Australian pop singer-songwriter, musician and actor. Her No. 1 albums in Australia are The Sound of White and On a Clear Night , and her Top Ten singles are "Scar", "The Special Two", "Steer" and "Where I Stood". From a musical family in...
, John Butler
John Butler (musician)
John Charles Wiltshire-Butler or John Charles Butler is an Australian musician, songwriter, record label owner and producer...
, Paul Dempsey
Paul Dempsey
Paul Dempsey is the lead singer, guitarist and principal songwriter of Australian rock group Something for Kate. Paul was a founding member of the band, and in August 2009 released his first solo album, Everything Is True whilst continuing his work with Something for Kate...
(Something for Kate
Something for Kate
Something for Kate are a rock band from Melbourne, Australia. Members include songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Paul Dempsey, drummer Clint Hyndman and bassist Stephanie Ashworth...
), Katy Steele
Katy Steele
Katy Steele is the vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of four piece rock band Little Birdy.-Biography:Katy Steele was born Kate Elizabeth Steele in Perth, Western Australia on 9 September 1983, and has a fraternal twin brother, Jake. She and her brother are the youngest in the family...
(Little Birdy
Little Birdy
Little Birdy are an Australian indie rock band formed in Perth, Western Australia in 2002 by singer and guitarist Katy Steele, drummer Matt Chequer, guitarist and keyboardist Simon Leach, and bass guitarist Scott O'Donoghue...
), Bob Evans
Kevin Mitchell (musician)
Kevin Edward Mitchell , is an Australian musician, known for his role as the vocalist and guitarist of the alternative rock band Jebediah and also his solo work under the stage name of Bob Evans....
, Ozi Batla (The Herd), Dan Kelly, Clare Bowditch
Clare Bowditch
Clare Bowditch is an Australian musician from Melbourne, Victoria. She released her fourth album Modern Day Addiction via Island Records on 13 August 2010. It became both 3RRR Album of the Week and ABC Radio National's Album of the Week. MDA is the first of Bowditch's album's to enter the Top Ten...
, Jae Laffer (The Panics
The Panics
The Panics are an ARIA Award–winning indie rock band originally from Perth, Western Australia, and currently based in Melbourne, Victoria.-History:...
), Adalita Srsen
Adalita Srsen
Adalita Srsen is an Australian rock musician, known best as a founding member of rock band Magic Dirt.-Early life and childhood:Adalita was born in Geelong, Australia on 25 February 1971. She told Rolling Stone magazine in 2003 that her father, a Croatian cabaret performer, named her after a...
(Magic Dirt
Magic Dirt
Magic Dirt are an Australian rock band, which formed in 1991 in Geelong, Victoria, with Daniel Herring on guitar, Adam Robertson on drums, Adalita Srsen on vocals and guitar, and Dean Turner on bass guitar. Initially known as Deer Bubbles and then The Jim Jims, they were renamed as Magic Dirt in...
), Dan Sultan
Dan Sultan
Dan Sultan is an Australian singer and songwriter. Sultan plays what he calls country soul rock ‘n’ roll.-Biography:Daniel Leo Sultan was born in 1983 and grew up in Williamstown, Melbourne. His father was Irish and his mother, Roslyn Sultan, was Aboriginal from the Arrernte and Gurindji people...
, and Megan Washington
Megan Washington
-Studio albums:-Extended plays:-Singles:-External links:* *...
interpreting Kelly's songs, with members of Augie March as the backing band and Ashley Naylor as musical director. A recording of the concerts was released by ABC Music
ABC Music
ABC Music: The Radio 1 Sessions, released in October 2002, is a compilation by post-rock band Stereolab of BBC Radio 1 sessions recorded from July 1991 to August 2001...
as a DVD and a double CD, Before Too Long, with a bonus CD featuring original songs by Kelly, on 19 February 2010. Kelly's national 'More Songs from the South' tour in December 2009 included band members Vika Bull
Vika and Linda
Vika and Linda Bull are a sister vocal duo who came to prominence after being asked to sing backing vocals in Joe Camilleri's band The Black Sorrows.-Biography:...
on vocals, Peter Luscombe on drums, Bill McDonald on bass guitar and backing vocals, Naylor on guitar, and Cameron Bruce on keyboards.
Kelly contributed to the national magazine, The Monthly
The Monthly
The Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
, from 2009 to 2010. He has written a memoir, How to Make Gravy, which was published by Penguin Books (Australia)
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
on 22 September 2010. "It's a mongrel memoir. It's a bit hard to describe at the moment. It's not traditional; it's writing around the A-Z theme – I tell stories around the song lyrics in alphabetical order. It's slow, so it will be a while coming, but I'll get there". As a companion to his memoir, he issued an 8×CD box set, A – Z Recordings, with live performances from his A – Z Tours from 2004 to 2010. The 105 tracks are listed alphabetically, and were typically performed over four nights. The set includes a booklet of photographs.
Maurice Frawley, a guitarist for Kelly in various groups who co-wrote "Look So Fine, Feel So Low" (1987), died of cancer in May 2009. Kelly worked with Charlie Owen
Charlie Owen (musician)
Charlie Owen is an Australian guitar player who lives in St Kilda Melbourne Australia. He is a member of Tex, Don and Charlie, The Beasts of Bourbon, Tex Perkins and The Dark Horses, Large Number 12s, Maurice Frawley and The Working Class Ringos, Tendrils, the Divinyls and Tex Perkins and his...
and others to create a 3×CD tribute album, Long Gone Whistle – The Songs of Maurice Frawley, which was released in August 2010. In July that year, Kelly performed at Splendour in the Grass
Splendour in the Grass
Splendour in the Grass is an annual Australian music festival held in July at Woodford, Queensland, and previously held at Belongil Fields, outside Byron Bay...
. On 15 December he was inducted into The Age EG Awards Hall of Fame. In April 2011 Kelly performed at the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival
East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival
The East Coast International Blues & Roots Music Festival, also known as Byron Bay Bluesfest, is an annual music festival held for five days over the Easter long weekend at Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia...
(Bluesfest), which was followed by appearances as a special guest on Dylan's concerts in Sydney and Melbourne. Later that month, Kelly co-headlined a show with Neil Finn
Neil Finn
Neil Mullane Finn, OBE is a New Zealand Pop recording artist. Along with his brother Tim Finn, he was the co-frontman for Split Enz and is now frontman for Crowded House...
at Red Hill
Red Hill, Western Australia
Red Hill is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. It has Toodyay Road pass through it on the way up the Darling Scarp. It is in the City of Swan local government area....
Auditorium in Perth; it was the first music concert at the new venue. In May his memoir, How to Make Gravy, was short-listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Award in the non-fiction category; while in July it was co-winner of 'Biography of the Year' at the Australian Book Industry Awards – with Ahn Do's The Happiest Refugee.
Musical style and song writing
Paul Kelly has been acknowledged as one of Australia's best singer-songwriters. His music style has ranged from bluegrassBluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
to studio-oriented dub
Dub music
Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, but his core output comfortably straddles folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. His lyrics capture Australia's vastness both in culture and landscape; he has chronicled life about him for over 30 years and is described as the poet laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
of Australia. According to music writer Glenn A. Baker
Glenn A. Baker
Glenn A. Baker is an Australian journalist, commentator, and broadcaster well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed celebrities, managed bands such as Ol' 55 and promoted tours of international stars...
, his Australian-ness may be a reason Kelly has not achieved international success. David Fricke
David Fricke
David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where he writes predominantly on rock music. In the 1990s, he was managing editor before stepping down.-Background:David Fricke is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
from Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...
calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise."
Fellow songwriter Neil Finn (Crowded House) has said, "There is something unique and powerful about the way Kelly mixes up everyday detail with the big issues of life, death, love and struggle – not a trace of pretence or fakery in there". Ross Clelland, writing for Rolling Stone, described Kelly: "[W]hile he was (rightly) lauded for his ability to sing of injustice without ranting, or deal with the darker sides of human nature non-judgementally, often overlooked was the fact he could write a damn fine melodic hook to go with those words". Tim Freedman (The Whitlams
The Whitlams
The discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
) acknowledges Kelly, Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett
Peter Robert Garrett, AM, MP , is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and politician.Garrett was lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 until its disbanding in 2002...
(Midnight Oil), and John Schumann
John Schumann
John Lewis Schumann is an Australian singer, songwriter and guitarist from Adelaide. He is best known as the lead singer for the folk group Redgum, with their chart-topping hit "I Was Only 19 ", a song exploring the psychological and medical side-effects of serving in the Australian forces during...
(Redgum
Redgum
Redgum were an Australian folk and political music group formed in Adelaide in 1975 by singer-songwriter John Schumann, Michael Atkinson on guitars/vocals and Verity Truman on flute/vocals; they were soon joined by Chris Timms on violin. All four had been students at Flinders University and...
) as inspiring him by "[furnishing] our suburbs with our own myths and social history". However, Kelly has been quoted as saying "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don’t feel like I have got it nailed yet". In 2007 Kelly donated his 'Lee Oskar' harmonica to the Sydney Powerhouse Museum
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory...
. The museum's statement of significance cites Kelly's talent as a songwriter, his distinctive voice, and his harmonica playing, particularly on Live, May 1992.
Kelly described his songwriting as "a scavenging art, a desperate act. For me it's a bit from here, a bit from there, fumbling around, never quite knowing what you're doing ... Song writing is like a way of feeling connected to mystery." He has resisted the label of 'storyteller' and insists that his songs are not strictly autobiographical; "they come from imagining someone in a particular situation. Sometimes a sequence of events happens which makes it more a story, but other times it's just that situation". Sometimes the same character is found in different songs, such as in "To Her Door", "Love Never Runs on Time", and "How to Make Gravy".
Kelly has also provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. Women at the Well (2002) had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute. According to Kelly, he adapted his song "Foggy Highway" for Renée Geyer because "I admired her deep soul singing, ferocious and vulnerable ... When I heard the finished version ... the hairs rose up on the back of my neck." Kelly and The Stormwater Boys recorded it in a bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
style as the title track for the 2005 album Foggy Highway. Divinyls
Divinyls
Divinyls were an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980 and featuring vocalist Christina Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. As the focal point, Amphlett performed on stage wearing a school uniform and fishnet stockings, often using an illuminated neon tube as a prop and displaying...
' lead singer Christina Amphlett
Christina Amphlett
Christine Joy Amphlett was the lead singer of Australian rock band Divinyls. She is also known as Chrissy Amphlett.She grew up in Geelong as a singer and dancer...
recorded "Before Too Long"—she was attracted by the lyrics—she interpreted the song's narrator as being a stalker, and provided a female perspective in a darkly menacing manner à-la Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction is a 1987 American thriller blended with horror, directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. The film centers around a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end, resulting in emotional blackmail, stalking...
.
Kelly has written songs with and for numerous artists, including Mick Thomas
Mick Thomas
Michael James Thomas is an Australian singer-songwriter.Mick Thomas was born in Yallourn, 7 February 1960, the middle child of three. His father, Brian Thomas, was an electrical engineer with the old State Electricity Commission. His father's family were from Tasmania and his mother, Margaret, was...
, Geyer, Kate Ceberano
Kate Ceberano
Kate Ceberano is an Australian singer. She achieved success in the soul, jazz and pop genres as well as in her brief forays into musicals with Jesus Christ Superstar and film...
, Vika and Linda Bull, Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Nick Barker
Nick Barker
Nicholas "Nick" Paul Barker is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who formed a Melbourne-based rock, power pop band Nick Barker & the Reptiles in March 1988. Their cover version of Cockney Rebel's "Make Me Smile " reached the top 30 on the Australian Recording Industry Association ...
, Kasey Chambers, Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach, Gyan
Gyan Evans
Gyan Evans is an ARIA Award-winning singer-songwriter from Australia who performs professionally as Gyan . Originally from Geelong, Gyan began her musical career in the Sydney band Haiku before winning the Grand Final in the Australian version of the TV show Star Search...
, Monique Brumby
Monique Brumby
Monique Brumby is an Australian Indie pop/rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. Her debut single, "Fool for You", peaked into the top 40 in the Australian Recording Industry Association ARIA Singles Charts, and provided an ARIA Award for 'Best New Talent' in 1996...
, Kelly Willis
Kelly Willis
Kelly Willis is an American country music singer-songwriter, whose music has been described as contemporary country, alternative country and new traditionalist.-Early life:...
, Missy Higgins, and Troy Cassar-Daley. He has described how some songs he writes are suited to other vocal ranges. "Quite often, I'm trying to write a certain kind of song and it's more ambitious than what my voice will get to. That's how I started writing songs with other people in mind". Kelly and Carmody's "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was analysed by Sydney University's Linguistics professor James R Martin. "[They] render the story as a narrative ... with the familiar Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Resolution and Coda staging". Martin finds that Kelly and Carmody made the point that when people exert their rights with support from friends, they may defeat those with prestige.
Kelly understands that co-writing with other songwriters lends power to his songs. "You often write songs with collaborators that you would never write by yourself. It’s a way of dragging a song out of you that you wouldn’t have come up with". One of his collaborators, Linda Bull, described Kelly's process: they would start with a simple chat. "We'd just chuck ideas around and he'd pick the best bits. He'd take all the bluntness and crudeness out of it and make it beautiful; that's his magic ... It's conversations that you have ". Forster summarised his 2009 review of Kelly's compilation, Songs from the South, with "[his songs] sound easy and approachable ... Then you think: If the songs are so simple and the ideas behind them so clear, why aren't more people writing like Paul Kelly and sounding as good as he does?" In 2010 Carmody and Kelly's "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive
National Film and Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...
's Sounds of Australia Registry.
Personal life
Paul Kelly's first marriage (1980–1984) was to Hilary Brown, which produced a son, Declan Kelly. Declan later worked in a record store and as a radio presenter on 3RRR3RRR
3RRR is a popular Australian community radio station, based in Melbourne. It is the largest per capita subscribed radio station in the world....
's Against the Arctic from 2006. As of 2007, he was a DJ around Melbourne and played the drums. Kelly's second marriage (1993–2001) was to Australian actress Kaarin Fairfax
Kaarin Fairfax
Kaarin Fairfax is an Australian actress who played the role of 'Dolour Darcy' in two TV miniseries The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange based on books of the same names by Ruth Park. She has also acted in other Australian television series throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and...
. He met Fairfax in 1988 when she appeared in the Australian production of Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
's play A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike...
. The couple have two daughters, Madeleine (born 1991) and Memphis (born 1993). From 1989 to 1992, Fairfax supplied backing vocals on tracks by Paul Kelly and the Messengers. In 1990, as a country music artist, Mary-Jo Starr, she released three singles and an album, Too Many Movies, using the Messengers and Kelly as session musicians. Michael Armiger, Connolly, and Frawley were in her backing band, The Drive-in Motel. Memphis starred alongside her parents in Rachel Perkins
Rachel Perkins
Rachel Perkins is a film and television director, film and television producer and a writer. She is known for her films Bran Nue Dae, Radiance and One Night the Moon. Perkins is an Arrernte woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by parents Eileen and Charles Perkins...
's 2001 short film One Night the Moon
One Night the Moon
One Night the Moon is a 2001 Australian musical non-feature film starring husband and wife team Paul Kelly, a singer-songwriter, and Kaarin Fairfax, a film and television actress, and their daughter Memphis Kelly. Directed by Rachel Perkins and written by Perkins with John Romeril, it was filmed on...
, for which Kelly composed the score. After the couple separated in 2001, Madeleine and Memphis stayed with Fairfax, but Kelly has maintained contact with his daughters.
Since 2008 Kelly has lived in St Kilda with Sian Prior, his girlfriend (2001–present), a journalist, university lecturer and former opera singer. They met when Kelly was interviewed on her Sunday Arts ABC radio program. Kelly wrote "You're 39, You're Beautiful and You're Mine" for Prior who was already 40 by the time he finished. Prior has played clarinet and provided backing vocals on some of Kelly's songs, as well as with The Stardust Five. She has performed live with Kelly on several occasions.
Kelly's brother, Martin, is the father of Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly (musician)
Daniel "Dan" Kelly is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the second oldest of six children and the nephew of Paul Kelly. He grew up in Queensland and learnt the guitar at thirteen, studying Environmental Science at University, in Brisbane, in 1990...
, who is a singer-guitarist in his own right. Dan has performed with his uncle on several of Kelly's albums, including Ways and Means, as a member of Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, and on Stolen Apples; Dan and Paul were both members of Stardust Five, which released Stardust Five. Dan has released two albums, both of which received ARIA Award nominations. Kelly's younger sister, Mary Jo Kelly is a Melbourne-based pianist who performed with him on the track "South of Germany" for Paul Kelly Live at the Athenaeum, May 1992 (1992). She has performed in Latin bands and worked as a music teacher at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School
Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School
Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School , is a state government selective school in Victoria, Australia; a leading school and trainer of talented young dancers and musicians. Located in Southbank, within the Melbourne Arts Precinct, VCASS teaches students from Year 7 to 12...
. Mary Jo provided piano on Archie Roach's album Charcoal Lane (1990), which was produced by Kelly and Connolly.
Awards
Paul Kelly has won several awards, including eight ARIA Awards from the Australian Recording Industry AssociationAustralian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
(ARIA), and three APRA Awards
APRA Awards
The APRA Music Awards are several award ceremonies run in Australia and New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually....
from either the Australasian Performing Right Association
Australasian Performing Right Association
The Australasian Performing Right Association is a copyright collective representing New Zealand and Australian composers, lyricists and music publishers. The association's head offices located in Sydney Australia, and it has branch offices in Auckland, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth...
(APRA) alone or together with the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. APRA named "To Her Door", solely written by Kelly, and "Treaty", written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi, in their Top 30 best Australian songs
APRA Top 30 Australian songs
APRA's Top 30 Australian songs between 1926 and 2001 was a list created by the Australasian Performing Right Association to celebrate its 75th anniversary...
of all time in 2001. Kelly was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame
ARIA Hall of Fame
Since 1988 the Australian Recording Industry Association has inducted artists into its ARIA Hall of Fame. While most have been recognised at the annual ARIA Music Awards, in 2005 ARIA sought to create a separate standalone "ARIA Icons: Hall of Fame" event as only one or two acts could be inducted...
in 1997, alongside The Bee Gees and Graeme Bell
Graeme Bell
Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
. He has won six Country Music Awards
Country Music Awards of Australia
The CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia is an annual awards night held in January during the Tamworth Country Music Festival, in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia celebrating recording excellence in the Australian country music industry. They are wholly owned and staged by the Country Music...
from the Country Music Association of Australia
Country Music Association of Australia
The Country Music Association of Australia is an association formed in 1992 that promotes and represents the Australian country music industry...
, and four Mo Awards
Mo Awards
The Mo Awards are long running annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia....
(Australian entertainment industry).
Discography
Studio albums- TalkTalk (Paul Kelly album)Talk is the debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Dots and was originally released on 30 March 1981 by Mushroom Records and re-released in 1990. Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons leader Joe Camilleri produced seven of the eleven tracks with the rest produced by either Martin Armiger or...
(1981) - ManilaManila (album)-Chart positions and releases:-Track listing:All tracks written by Paul Kelly, except where noted.# "Forbidden Street" – 7:30# "Clean this House" – 4:46# "Alive and Well" – 3:10# "Skidding Hearts" – 3:32...
(1982) - PostPost (Paul Kelly album)Post is the first solo album by Australian singer-songwriter rock musician, Paul Kelly. Kelly had moved to Sydney by January 1985, after leaving his Melbourne-based Paul Kelly Band and the breakup of his marriage to Hilary Brown....
(1985) - GossipGossip (album)Gossip is the double LP debut album by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Produced by Alan Thorne and Paul Kelly, it was released on Mushroom Records in September 1986, which peaked at No. 15 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart, and achieved gold record status...
(1986) - Under The Sun (1987)
- So Much Water So Close to HomeSo Much Water So Close to HomeSo Much Water, So Close to Home is an album by Australian rock band Paul Kelly and the Messengers and was originally released in August 1989. The title comes from a short story of the same name by author Raymond Carver. Carver had died in August 1988, Kelly would go on to co-write the score for the...
(1989) - Comedy (1991)
- Hidden ThingsHidden ThingsHidden Things is an album by Paul Kelly & The Messengers and was released in 1992 on Mushroom Records in Australia.The album is a collection of songs that were recorded by Paul Kelly and both his backup bands, the Coloured Girls and The Messengers, from 1986 to 1991, but weren't put on to any...
(1992) - Wanted Man (1994)
- Deeper WaterDeeper WaterDeeper Water is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and was released in September, 1995 on Mushroom Records in Australia.The album peaked at #40 on the Australian album charts and resulted in a second consecutive nomination for 'Best Male Artist' at the 1995 ARIA Awards.-Track listing:All songs written...
(1995) - Words and MusicWords and Music (Paul Kelly album)Words And Music is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and originally released in 1998. It was released on Mushroom Records in Australia and Vanguard Records in the United States...
(1998) - Smoke (1999)
- Professor RatbaggyProfessor Ratbaggy (album)Professor Ratbaggy is the debut eponymous album by Australian rock/pop band Professor Ratbaggy and originally released on EMI Records in 1999...
(1999) - ...Nothing but a Dream (2001)
- Ways & Means (2004)
- Foggy HighwayFoggy HighwayFoggy Highway is an album recorded by Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys and originally released in May 2005 on EMI in Australia and Capitol Records in the US. It peaked at #6 on the Australian Recording Industry Association End of Year - 2005 Country chart. On 18 October 2005 it was re-released...
(2005) - Stardust FiveStardust Five (album)Stardust Five is the self-titled debut album by Stardust Five which was released in 2006. The album was mixed and produced by Tchad Blake .It was released on EMI Music in Australia and Capitol Records in the United States...
(2006) - Stolen ApplesStolen Apples (album)Stolen Apples is the twenty fifth album by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was released in July 2007 on EMI Music. The album is Kelly's first solo album since Ways & Means in 2004, and features religious themes throughout....
(2007)
See also
External links
- "From Little Things Big Things Grow" audio sample and description at AustralianScreen Online