'Australia's best music writer examines the life of the Australian music legend - honest, revealing and a must-have for any Paul Kelly fan.
'Until now, no one has written the definitive biography of Australia's best-loved singer, song writer and poet. Taking us from Paul Kelly's family life as the sixth of eight children in Adelaide, Stuart Coupe, with Paul's blessing and access to friends, family and band mates, shows us the evolution from a young man who only really picked up a guitar in his late teens, to an Australian music icon. As Paul's music career took off he had to juggle the demands of rock'n'roll with real life and it wasn't always pretty. As Paul's manager for a time, Stuart Coupe has seen or heard it all - the good and the bad (like Paul being told by an audience member that his was the worst band ever!).
'The book will look at Paul Kelly's personal relationships and the impact they have had on Paul's career and his storytelling. It will also highlight his generosity to other artists, like Archie Roach. In 2017 Paul Kelly received an Order of Australia acknowledging his distinguished service to the performing arts and the promotion of the national identity through his contributions as singer, songwriter and musician. At the foundation of it all is his storytelling. PAUL KELLY: The man, the music and the life in-between will give us an unfiltered examination of it all.' (Publication summary)
'The voice on the car radio was not immediately recognisable, nor was the song familiar to me. There was just a smoky laid-back piano and someone singing a song that sounded as though it was from the 1940s: ‘Young lovers, young lovers …’ I thought the voice, whomever it belonged to, had a real musicality in it, a precision of pitch and phrasing in tandem with a kind of liquid sweetness.' (Introduction)
'Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly has a personal and judgmental view of his own career, writes Andrew McMillen The vast majority of Paul Kelly’s fans will die before they ever get a chance to hear his first two albums in full. The singer-songwriter’s 1981 debut Talk and its 1982 follow-up Manila — each recorded with his band The Dots — are long out of print in CD and vinyl form and are not available on any streaming service.' (Introduction)
'Stuart Coupe’s new biography of Paul Kelly takes many known elements of Kelly’s story and rouses them again. Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between reads the way a Paul Kelly cover version sounds: familiar, but also a bit disorienting.'
'Stuart Coupe’s new biography of Paul Kelly takes many known elements of Kelly’s story and rouses them again. Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between reads the way a Paul Kelly cover version sounds: familiar, but also a bit disorienting.'
'Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly has a personal and judgmental view of his own career, writes Andrew McMillen The vast majority of Paul Kelly’s fans will die before they ever get a chance to hear his first two albums in full. The singer-songwriter’s 1981 debut Talk and its 1982 follow-up Manila — each recorded with his band The Dots — are long out of print in CD and vinyl form and are not available on any streaming service.' (Introduction)
'The voice on the car radio was not immediately recognisable, nor was the song familiar to me. There was just a smoky laid-back piano and someone singing a song that sounded as though it was from the 1940s: ‘Young lovers, young lovers …’ I thought the voice, whomever it belonged to, had a real musicality in it, a precision of pitch and phrasing in tandem with a kind of liquid sweetness.' (Introduction)
