Paul Kelly (Australian musician)

Paul Maurice Kelly AO is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter and guitarist. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. His music style has ranged from bluegrass to studio-oriented dub reggae, but his core output straddles folk, rock, and country. Kelly was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017.

About Paul Kelly (Australian musician) in brief

Summary Paul Kelly (Australian musician)Paul Maurice Kelly AO is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter and guitarist. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. 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. Kelly was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for distinguished service to the performing arts and to the promotion of the national identity through contributions as a singer, songwriter and musician. His biographical film, Paul Kelly: Stories of Me, directed by Ian Darling, was released to cinemas in October 2012. His nephew, Dan Kelly, 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 has won 14 Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards, including his induction into their Hall of Fame in 1997. He was born on 13 January 1955 in Adelaide, to John Erwin Kelly, a lawyer, and Josephine, the sixth of eight surviving children. His mother gave birth to him in a taxi outside North Adelaide’s Calvary Hospital. Although Kelly was raised as a Roman Catholic, he later described himself as a non-believer in any religion.

He is the great great grandson of Jeremiah Kelly, who emigrated from Ireland in 1852 and settled in South Australia. His paternal grandfather, Francis Kelly, established a law firm in Clare, which he joined in 1937. John Kelly died in 1968 at the age of 52, after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years earlier. His father was the kind of father that well, I missed him very much when he died, he was not well enough to play sport with me at the time he was growing into him. Kelly is married and divorced twice; he has three children and resides in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. The album Women at the Well from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute to his father,  Count Ercole Filippini, a leading Italian-speaking baritone for the La Scala Opera Company in Milan. Kelly wrote or co-wrote several songs on Indigenous Australian social issues and historical events. He provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. His Top 40 singles include \”Billy Baxter\”, \”Before Too Long\”, \”Darling It Hurts\”, \”To Her Door\” and \”Roll on Summer\”. Top-20 albums include Gossip, Under the Sun, Comedy, Songs from the South,… Nothing but a Dream, Spring and Fall, The Merri Soul Sessions, Seven Sonnets and a Song, Death’s Dateless Night, Life Is Fine – his first number-one album – and Nature.