Paul Kelly (Australian musician)

Paul Maurice Kelly was born on 13 January 1955 in Adelaide, to John Erwin Kelly, a lawyer, and Josephine (née Filippini), the sixth of eight surviving children. Another brother, Tony, a drug and alcohol counsellor, ran as an Australian Greens candidate in the 2001 and 2004 federal elections. Josephine Kelly moved to Brisbane, where she died in 2000 at the age of 76. Kelly attended Rostrevor College, a Christian Brothers school, where he played trumpet and studied piano, became the first XI cricket captain, played in the first XVIII football (Australian rules), and was named dux of his senior year. He 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. ==Career==

1974–1984: Early career and with the Dots , Hobart (2007), where, in mid-1974, Kelly made his first public performance—a two-song set comprising Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country" and "Streets of Forbes", a traditional Australian folk song about bushranger Ben Hall. He released another compilation album in November 2019, covering 1985–2019, Songs from the South: 1985-2019. In September 2019, he performed at the MCG in the pre-game show at the 2019 AFL Grand Final Day. On 5 February 2020, Kelly released a single titled, "Sleep, Australia, Sleep". The song addresses Australia's response to climate change. Before the release of the single, the lyrics were published by The Sydney Morning Herald, with Kelly describing the song as "a lament in the form of a lullaby. Paradoxically, it can also be heard as a wake up call - a critique of the widespread attitude amongst humans that we are the most important life form on the planet." In September 2021, Kelly released a song inspired by Australian Rules footballer Eddie Betts and his battle with racism, titled "Every Step of the Way". On 19 November 2021, Kelly released his twenty-eighth studio album, ''Paul Kelly's Christmas Train''. In July 2023, Kelly released a book and song titled, "Khawaja", inspired by Usman Khawaja. In November 2023, Kelly was inducted into the South Australian Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2024, Kelly released Fever Longing Still, his twenty-ninth studio album. The album's title is lifted from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 147. Upon announcement on 1 August 2024, Kelly said "There has been a long gap since the last album of new songs and I realise now that this record is a bit like Gossip, an album with a long gestation where the songs are all quite different to each other in style." In December 2024, a film adaptation of Kelly's song "How to Make Gravy" was released under the same name. The film expands the storyline and characters of the original song, and was produced on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Kelly made a cameo appearance in the film as a bus driver. for the character Joe, before the release of Rita Wrote a LetterIn August 2025, Kelly announced a new album titled Seventy'' and released a single from the album titled "Rita Wrote a Letter". This song continues the story of "How to Make Gravy", set many years later. He also announced a tour that will begin in the same month. Shortly before the single's release, Kelly took out a death notice for the character Joe in "How to Make Gravy". The music video for "Rita Wrote a Letter" starred Australian actress Justine Clarke as Rita and Kelly himself as the ghost of deceased Joe. ==Musical style and songwriting==

, November 2007|alt=Kelly standing at a microphone, he is shown in right profile, wearing a harmonica in a cradle and staring into the distance. Paul Kelly has been acknowledged as one of Australia's best singer-songwriters. His music style has ranged from bluegrass 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. ==Personal life==

Kelly's first marriage (1980–84) was to Hilary Brown; the couple had a son, Declan, who later worked as a radio presenter on 3RRR's Against the Arctic from 2006. Kelly was in a relationship with Sian Prior, a journalist, university lecturer and opera singer, from 2002 to 2011. , performing at Rockwood Music Hall in September 2011|alt=A man at left is playing an electric guitar, while 56-year-old Kelly plays his acoustic guitar. Both are looking down towards their own guitar, each uses a plectrum in their right hand while the left is on the fret board. In front of each is a microphone on its stand. Kelly's brother, Martin, is the father of Dan Kelly, a singer-guitarist. 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. Paul 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. ==Awards and recognition==

Paul Kelly has won several awards, including 17 ARIA Awards from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and five 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, == Bibliography ==

Studio albums • Talk (with the Dots) (1981) • Manila (with the Dots) (1982) • Post (1985) • Gossip (with the Coloured Girls) (1986) • Under the Sun (with the Coloured Girls) (1987) • So Much Water So Close to Home (with the Messengers) (1989) • Comedy (with The Messengers) (1991) • Hidden Things (with The Messengers) (1992) • Wanted Man (1994) • Deeper Water (1995) • Words and Music (1998) • Smoke (with Uncle Bill) (1999) • Professor Ratbaggy (with Professor Ratbaggy) (1999) • ...Nothing but a Dream (2001) • Ways & Means (2004) • Foggy Highway (with The Stormwater Boys) (2005) • Stardust Five (with Stardust Five) (2006) • Stolen Apples (2007) • Spring and Fall (2012) • The Merri Soul Sessions (with Vika and Linda Bull, Dan Sultan, Kira Puru and Clairy Browne) (2014) • Seven Sonnets and a Song (2016) • ''Death's Dateless Night'' (with Charlie Owen) (2016) • Life Is Fine (2017) • Nature (2018) • Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds (with James Ledger, Alice Keath, and Seraphim Trio) (2019) • Forty Days (2020) • Please Leave Your Light On (with Paul Grabowsky) (2020) • ''Paul Kelly's Christmas Train'' (2021) • Fever Longing Still (2024) • Seventy (2025) == In film ==

Paul Kelly: Stories of Me (1 October 2012) is an Australian documentary film directed by Ian Darling, by Shark Island Productions. The film is an intimate portrait of Kelly that follows his 40-year career. It won the Film Critics Circle Award in 2012 for Best Documentary, and the Australian Society of Editors Award in 2013 for Best Documentary Editing. Nominations include the ADG Award in 2013 for Best Documentary Feature and 2013 AACTA Award for Best Sound in a Documentary. The film was part of the Official Selection at the Melbourne International Film Festival 2012 and the Canberra International Film Festival in that year. ==See also==