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Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly is not just Australia’s greatest and most enduring songwriter.

There is something that goes even deeper than that. His songs have a way of digging into the country in a way that few artists can do, how it looks, feels, tastes, sounds. The joys and sorrows, achievements and follies. If you want to know something about Australia, how it feels to be Australian, you can find it in his songs.

He is one of those rare artists to spin a long career out of a hunger to explore new directions, from the tender songcraft of Post to the hard-edged rock’n’roll of Gossip, to country and folk, bluegrass (see Smoke, Foggy Highway), a soul revue album with guest singers including his long-time backing singers Vika and Linda Bull (Paul Kelly presents the Merri Soul Sessions). In 2014 Seven Sonnets & a Song set Shakespeare sonnets to music, released on the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. It was followed by an album with Charlie Owen of songs they had performed at funerals, Death’s Dateless Night.

Kelly’s latest album, Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds, released on August 30, brings musicians from broad-ranging backgrounds to interpret bird-inspired poems. The album is a unique marriage of electronics, acoustic instruments and the human voice and features collaborations with the Seraphim Trio, composer James Ledger and singer-songwriter Alice Keath.

Kelly gave his first live performance in 1974, released his first album in 1981, when he was 26, and last year delivered Nature, his 23rd studio set. His body of work also includes live albums (see the CD/DVD recording of an Australian tour with Neil Finn, Goin’ Your Way, and the 8-CD box set A-Z Recordings, revisiting his songs with acoustic guitar, harmonica and voice). To this add the film soundtracks, co-writes (he contributed to land rights anthem Treaty with Yothu Yindi), production work, the constant touring at home and abroad. Some of those shows were on stages where his maternal grandparents, founders of a touring opera company, performed in the ’20s. And he wrote perhaps the finest and most unflinching autobiography ever written by an Australian musician, How to Make Gravy.

Throughout Kelly’s career, the craft, the passion for getting up each day and working on the next thing, have been mostly under the surface. But there always is a next thing, creating a legacy which chronicles the full range of human experience. For that reason his work will live on, like the stories of Henry Lawson, the collected works of Slim Dusty, the poetry of Judith Wright.

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The Big Question

How many listens does it take to grok an album?

Read "How many listens does it take to grok an album?" reviewed by Doug Collette


A neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1961), “grok“ is summarized in the Oxford English Dictionary as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with)"; “also, to experience enjoyment." As a freelance writer devoted to music, the greatest of all art forms, I have the privilege of not only listening to a lot ...

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Blues Deluxe

Summer 2020

Read "Summer 2020" reviewed by Doug Collette


Blues Deluxe is a regular column comprised of pithy takes on recent blues and roots-music releases of note. It spotlights titles in those genres that might otherwise go unnoticed under the cultural radar. Paul Kelly/Paul Grabowsky Please Leave Your Light On Cooking Vinyl 2020 Less the blues in form than in feel, these twelve performances percolate with the yearning, despair, liberation and good humor (not to mention a palpable undercurrent of eroticism) ...

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Interview

Paul Kelly: Life is Fine...Really!

Read "Paul Kelly: Life is Fine...Really!" reviewed by Doug Collette


Paul Kelly has the soul of a poet, the heart of a rock and roller and the psyche of a renaissance man. How else to explain his last few records leading up to Life is Fine? There's The Merri Soul Sessions, an r&b tribute within which he was more conductor than featured performer. Goin' Your Way is the document of his live collaboration with Split Enz/Crowded House principle Neil Finn, where the two sound like no one so much as ...

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Album Review

Neil Finn & Paul Kelly: Goin' Your Way

Read "Goin' Your Way" reviewed by Doug Collette


The essays written by Neil Finn and Paul Kelly enclosed inside the booklet within this double-CD set are, like the two men's original songs, wholly and completely without affectation. These two kindred spirits instead speak frankly about the pragmatic aspects of their collaboration, such as choosing the songs and rehearsing with the band, for a concert tour that yielded this recording of their very last show. The refreshing simplicity of material such as “Four Seasons in a Day," ...

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Recording

Prolific Singer-Songwriter Paul Kelly Readies 22-Track 'Christmas Train' Collection For November 19 Via Gawd Aggie / Cooking Vinyl

Prolific Singer-Songwriter Paul Kelly Readies 22-Track 'Christmas Train' Collection For November 19 Via Gawd Aggie / Cooking Vinyl

Source: 1888 Media

As he gathered the material for his first Christmas album, Paul Kelly soon realized that a collection of 10 seasonal standards could never cover the richness he wanted to convey. He knew he wanted to make a record that drew out all the emotions and layers of the Christmas story, and in a way that reflected the holiday experience in the southern hemisphere, far removed from the snowy imagery of so many Christmas songs. The result is an extraordinary 22-song ...

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Recording

Australia's Greatest And Most Enduring Songwriter, Paul Kelly, Collaborates With Award-Winning Jazz Pianist And Composer Paul Grabowsky

Australia's Greatest And Most Enduring Songwriter,  Paul Kelly, Collaborates With Award-Winning  Jazz Pianist And Composer Paul Grabowsky

Source: 1888 Media

Please Leave Your Light On due July 31 from Gawd Aggie/Cooking Vinyl North America (digitally), August 14 on CD and vinyl Paul Grabowsky and Paul Kelly share a love of the classic collaborations between Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle (particularly In the Wee Small Hours), and Tony Bennett & Bill Evans (with whose playing Grabowsky’s has been favorably compared). “All of the songs were already part of Paul’s extensive catalogue,” says Grabowsky of the project. “I transcribed them, and adapted ...

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Recording

Iconic Australian Troubadour Paul Kelly Presents "The Merri Soul Sessions" Releasing January 27, 2015

Iconic Australian Troubadour Paul Kelly Presents "The Merri Soul Sessions" Releasing January 27, 2015

Source: 1888 Media

U.S. Release Contains Three Exclusive Bonus Tracks Special Guests Include Kira Puru, Vika & Linda Bull and Clairy Browne of The Bangin’ Rackettes Limited Edition 7” Vinyl Box Set Available Via PledgeMusic LOS ANGELES, CA. — Following the recent releases of his groundbreaking song cycles, Spring and Fall and Conversations With Ghosts, Australian troubadour Paul Kelly is pleased to announce another innovative chapter in his long-standing career. In the dawn of last year, he assembled his touring band and an ...

Performance / Tour

Paul Kelly Sets U. S. Tour Dates, April 20 - June 6, On The Heels Of His Latest Release, Spring And Fall

Paul Kelly Sets U. S. Tour Dates, April 20 - June 6, On The Heels Of His Latest Release, Spring And Fall

Source: 1888 Media

Legendary Australian singer-songwriter kicks off North American tour on April 20th in Santa Barbara, CA, following first new album in five years. Paul Kelly’s remarkable eleven-song set Spring And Fall — his 19th studio album and first collection of new material in five years — ranks with the seminal Australian singer-songwriter’s most memorable and resonant work, demonstrating why he’s virtually a national hero in his home country and one of the most celebrated songwriters on the planet. This spring, Kelly ...

Recording

Paul Kelly Springs Forward Without Falling Back

Paul Kelly Springs Forward Without Falling Back

Source: conqueroo

Legendary Australian singer-songwriter, delivers an intimate classic with his first new album in five years Spring and Fall to be released on November 6 on Gawd Aggie through CEN/RED Distribution in U.S. MELBOURNE, Australia — Paul Kelly’s remarkable new 11-song album Spring and Fall — his 19th studio album and first collection of new material in five years — ranks with the seminal Australian singer-songwriter’s most memorable and resonant work, demonstrating why he’s virtually a national hero in his home ...

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Recording

Singer Songwriter Paul Kelly Readies February 28th North American Release Of His 8-Disc Box Set, The A To Z Recordings

Singer Songwriter Paul Kelly Readies February 28th North American Release Of His 8-Disc Box Set, The A To Z Recordings

Source: 1888 Media

Australian Artist Kicks Off U.S. Tour February 28 in Austin, TX MELBOURNE, Australia—Paul Kelly's 8-disc (105 song), live box set The A to Z Recordings will be officially available in North America exclusively via Amazon on February 28. It will also available as a deluxe box-set version that bundles it with his critically acclaimed “mongrel memoir" How To Make Gravy (Penguin Int'l), available by itself and as a 9-disc audio edition (the 9th disc features guest readers that include: Russell ...

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Performance / Tour

Australian Singer-Songwriter Paul Kelly To Play "A to Z" Live Dates September 12-27 In New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver And Toronto

Australian Singer-Songwriter Paul Kelly To Play "A to Z" Live Dates September 12-27 In New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver And Toronto

Source: 1888 Media

In North America, Paul Kelly is loved by a fervent following of devoted, discerning listeners. In his native Australia, though, where his songs are lodged deeply in the country's soundtrack, Kelly is virtually a national hero. On September 6 (digital) & October 25 (physical), Gawdaggie Music/CEN, through RED Distribution, released Kelly's Songs From the South, Volumes 1 & 2 in the U.S., featuring a tour of 40 songs spanning 1985 through 2008. List price for the two-CD set is $13.98, ...

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Recording

Paul Kelly's "Greatest Hits: Songs from the South, Volumes 1 & 2" to be Released in U.S. Sept. 6

Paul Kelly's "Greatest Hits: Songs from the South, Volumes 1 & 2" to be Released in U.S. Sept. 6

Source: conqueroo

Australian artist plays “A to Z" live dates this September in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancover and Toronto. MELBOURNE, Australia—In North America, Paul Kelly is loved by a fervent following of devoted, discerning listeners. In his native Australia, though, where his songs are lodged deeply in the country's soundtrack, Kelly is virtually a national hero. On September 6, Gawdaggie Music/CEN through RED Distribution will release Kelly's Songs From the South, Volumes 1 & 2 in the U.S., featuring a ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Paul Kelly's...

Cooking Vinyl
2021

buy

Life Is Fine

Universal Music Australia
2017

buy

Goin' Your Way

Omnivore Recordings
2016

buy

True To You

From: Please Leave Your Light On
By Paul Kelly

Videos

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