September 28, 2023 4:23 am
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Paul Kelly Writes 568-Page Liner Notes for Career-Spanning Box Set By Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone (30 March 2012) With his beetle brow, bald crown, big ears and gaunt cheekbones, Paul Kelly could play the heavy in a British gangster film, especially when he wears a shiny suit (on the first night of his current U.S. tour, in Austin, Texas it was maroon). Instead – someone notify the Guinness Book of Records – the Australian singer-songwriter’s current claim to fame might... View Article
September 28, 2023 4:18 am
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By Robert Forster, The Monthly It can seem futile trying to chase down biographical material on Paul Kelly because, just as he’s ducked the glare of mainstream pop stardom, his self-effacement and unease with his past have left the songs to sketch the details, a situation he probably feels comfortable with. The bones of the story are: he is born into a large Adelaide family in 1955; his father dies when Kelly is 13; he begins playing the guitar at... View Article
September 28, 2023 4:17 am
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By Michael Dwyer, The Age THIS eight-CD box, recorded live over six years, solo or with spare accompaniment by Dan Kelly and occasionally Sian Prior, is a wonder of many layers. The first is the genius of its conception. Here, 105 alphabetically selected titles spanning decades are equals, liberated from currency, popularity and other fleeting concerns that would deem one more viable than another on any other setlist or compilation. The second is how consistently compelling that are. Old or... View Article
September 28, 2023 4:05 am
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The Courier-Mail Article by Noel Mengel ABOUT half-way through Volume 2, when one of the most heartbreaking songs of regret you could ever hear (If I Could Start Today Again) meets a sweetly sighing pop song (The Oldest Story In The Book), and then a feel-good rocker (Won’t You Come Around), and then a 1960s surf-rock instrumental (Gunnamatta) . . . Then it hits home what we have here. A best-of Volume 2 that’s just as rich and profound, and... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:54 am
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By Jeff Apter Paul Kelly obviously likes the look of the road less travelled. Who else would consider fusing the poetry of lower-case American ee cummings with an earthy, rootsy rock growl rarely heard this side of Sun Studios, circa 1955, or writing a post 9/11 meditation from a terrorist’s viewpoint? But it’s just another day in the office for the legendary Oz singer / strummer, the voice behind such homegrown classics as ‘Before Too Long’, ‘To Her Door’, ‘Dumb... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:47 am
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Press Release, May 2005 Six years after recording his first Bluegrass album, Smoke, with Melbourne-based Uncle Bill, Paul Kelly has returned to the genre. This time round, instead of using a ready-made band, he chose his pickers from Australia’s finest – Ian Simpson (banjo) from the West, Trevor Warner (mandolin) from Adelaide and Mick Albeck (violin), James Gillard (bass) and Rod McCormack, the guitar-playing co-producer, all from New South Wales – then gathered at Rod’s studio in Terrigal on the... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:45 am
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Some of us who should know better pronounce “love songs” with a silent “silly” – as if there were a higher kind. Paul Kelly’s new collection, Ways and Means, containing nineteen unruly examples of the species (plus two breezy instrumentals), shows the prejudice for what it is. The album, Paul’s ninth collection of new songs since Post in 1985, takes a single subject, Love and its Many Splendours, and finds abundance: a gushing fountainhead of ruthless tunes, limpet riffs and... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:43 am
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Paul Kelly is Australia’s pop poet laureate. Over the past two decades he’s had a string of literate pop hits that have combined strong storytelling with melodic, folk driven hooks. A short time ago Kelly released his first LP in three years. Ways & Means is an epic double album with 21 tracks spread over two discs full of Aboriginal myths, angels, summer songs, ménage a trois, and love refrains to red haired girls. The highlights include the hard driving... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:38 am
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By Geoffrey Himes Paul Kelly’s “Deeper Water” begins with a folkish, nostalgic arpeggio on an electric guitar, setting up a vocal that evokes a childhood memory of being carried in his father’s arms above the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean. To this point, as the verse gives way to the hymn-like chorus, “Deeper water, deeper water, calling him on,” the song has the well crafted, country-folk feel of a John Hiatt family number. But then it falls apart. The... View Article
September 28, 2023 3:35 am
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For classic depictions of the Australian summer, you can’t beat the songs of Paul Kelly By Vin Maskell HERE are many great images of the Australian summer. Call them cliches or call them icons, they are images that have become part of the national consciousness. Max Dupain’s photographs of swimmers at Newport and Bondi beaches are etched in our memories, coming to life every time we go to the beach. The best known is his 1937 photograph, Sunbaker. Russell Drysdale’s... View Article
