PAUL KELLY
On the road with ‘More Songs From The South'
To celebrate the recent release of ‘Songs From The South - Volume II', Paul Kelly and his band will embark on a national tour in late April and throughout May, visiting regional centres and capital cities across the country.
It has been almost two years since Paul Kelly conducted such a vast tour of the nation. And how better to embrace the flavour of Australia and its people, than with the live music of one of the world's great songwriters, the man who has chronicled our country's beauty and scars and desires as well as the personal insights ...
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PAUL KELLY
On the road with ‘More Songs From The South'
To celebrate the recent release of ‘Songs From The South - Volume II', Paul Kelly and his band will embark on a national tour in late April and throughout May, visiting regional centres and capital cities across the country.
It has been almost two years since Paul Kelly conducted such a vast tour of the nation. And how better to embrace the flavour of Australia and its people, than with the live music of one of the world's great songwriters, the man who has chronicled our country's beauty and scars and desires as well as the personal insights which know no borders in an extraordinary song writing career that now spans more than 30 years.
Joined by his long time collaborators - Pete Luscombe on drums and vocals, Bill Mc Donald on bass and vocals, Ash Naylor on guitar and vocals and Cameron Bruce, on keys and vocals - the ‘More Songs From The South' Tour dips in to the last ten years of Kelly's life. Remarkably for a songwriter going from his early 40s to his early 50s, this period has been just as creative and even more adventurous than the first.
Picking up from 1998's ‘Words & Music' and carrying on through to last year's ‘Stolen Apples', it is a period defined by countless collaborations, different bands, genre hopping, eight official studio albums, some 102 new songs, plus another half-dozen-or-so soundtracks, musicals, plays, live recordings and tribute records.
Which is not to say that the set will not include select gems from Kelly's 7 times platinum 1997 release of ‘Songs from the South - Volume I', a dazzling collection, assembling songs that are already lodged deep in the Australian soundtrack, from ‘Before Too Long' and ‘From St Kilda to Kings Cross' to ‘When I First Met Your Ma', ‘To Her Door' and ‘How to Make Gravy'.
Joining him on the road is Charlie Parr from Duluth, Minnesota, whose style bears the influence of hours spent listening to country blues records and Smithsonian/Folkways field recordings. Charlie's finger picking, freewheeling tune, ‘1922 Blues' is the soundtrack to the recent, hugely successful Vodafone TV campaign. Charlie plays original and traditional folk tunes, plus blues covers by the likes of Mississippi John Hurt and Charley Patton, favouring National resonator guitars, 12-string guitar and banjo in his performance.
His self-taught mix of slide, finger-picking and quasi-frailing technique come together with a voice that's low on drama and high on impact. Dignity, and the struggle to keep it, are central themes in Parr's songs. The gamblers, the union workers, the criminals and the sinners that wander around his songs come straight from real life observation. The stories he tells get into some dark spots; that place where regret and remorse part company.
‘Songs from The South - Volumes I & II' is available as a specially priced double CD set, each volume featuring 20 classic Paul Kelly songs.
A super deluxe version is also available from paulkelly.com.au
The DVD ‘Paul Kelly - The Video Collection 1985 - 2008' is also available and a must for any avid fan.
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