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Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill
For those of you who don’t know – which is probably 99.99% of the American population – Paul Kelly is an Australian singer/songwriter who is huge down under, but can’t get himself arrested in our hemisphere. If you lived on that continent, you’d probably consider him as some type of indigenous Springsteen/Dylan type, and own a batch of his CD’s. Your life would be better for it, too…then again, who’d want to live in Australia? Well, Paul Kelly’s music makes a pretty good argument for the cause.
This release teams Kelly with an Australian bluegrass group (Uncle Bill is a group, not a guy), which makes this disk more American sounding than 99.9% of the music that we make ourselves. Kelly is a superb songwriter, capable of conveying emotion and painting entire vistas with only a few lines. That’s why the Aussie’s love him, and that’s why I do, too. Hearing his songs in a bluegrass context is a pleasure, since his down to earth style is well suited to the genre. The problem here, though, is that American-made bluegrass music hardly sells, so imported bluegrass doesn’t even register on the radar. Perhaps with the attention garnered by the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, this will change, but it’s doubtful. If you’re adventurous, though, and want to be the first one on your block to find something different that is genuinely good, you could do a lot worse. If you like good bluegrass and you like good songwriting, pick it up. You might be able to find it on the large Internet music sites, but I bought mine straight from Australia’s HMV music – not a bad idea, either, since the exchange rate is favorable.
One caveat – when shopping for Paul Kelly’s music, take note that there also happens to be an American R&B artist by the same name (who also happens to be good). A- Tom Ryan
Grade: 
 
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