Month: April 2023

PREMIERES TWO PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS

“QUARANTINE” AND “SONNET 147”

FOR HIS LATEST RETROSPECTIVE MIXTAPE, ‘POETRY’

It has been commonplace for musicians to do an album of cover tunes. Paul Kelly, however, is no ordinary musician. Over the past decade, the esteemed Australian singer/songwriter has turned to a diverse selection of literary titans to act as his “collaborative” lyricist. On Poetry, the fifth in his series of themed “mixtapes,” Kelly has collected two dozen tracks where he created music for words penned by legendary writers such as William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Langston Hughes, William Butler Yeats, Thomas Hardy, and Dylan Thomas. Poetry will be available on all digital platforms on April 28, 2023 via EMI Music Australia.

Poetry debuts two previously unreleased Kelly recordings: “Quarantine” and “Sonnet 147.” Written by the late Irish poet Eavan Boland, “Quarantine” is based on a tragic true story of a couple who died during Ireland’s great famine in the 1800s, and Kelly believes that it is “one of the greatest love poems ever written.”

Kelly opens the album with a spare but stirring rendition of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 147,” a work that previously inspired his lyrics for “Keep On Coming Back For More.” Poetry also provides the digital debut of “Eurydice and the Tawny Frogmouth,” (written by the highly regarded Australian poet Robert Adamson), which has only been available on the vinyl version of 2019’s Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds.

While Paul Kelly has earned worldwide acclaim for his incisive, insightful lyrics, he readily admits that “writing words is the slowest and hardest part of songwriting.” For the first 35 years of his storied career, Kelly always began songs with a musical idea with the words trailing afterward. “I had the idea that starting with a complete set of words would somehow constrain the music, make it run on too rigid a rail.” A turning point arrived in 2012 when Kelly and composer James Ledger were asked to write a song-cycle for students at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). Because of time constraints, the two wound up adapting poems.

Working with poems, Kelly reveals, “gave me a key to new rooms. A key I’ve been using ever since.”

The ANAM project resulted in the album Conversations With Ghosts, and Poetry contains two Ghost tracks, “Sailing To Byzantium” and “Once In A Lifetime Snow.” Kelly subsequently adapted seven Shakespeare works for his 2016 release Seven Sonnets and A Song. His late 2010s albums, Nature and Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds, feature interpretations of poems by Dylan Thomas (“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”); Walt Whitman (“With Animals”); Sylvia Plath (“Mushrooms”); Thomas Hardy (“The Darkling Thrush”); Philip Larkin (“The Trees”) and Gerald Manley Hopkins (“God’s Grandeur” and “The Windhover”) – all of which appear on Poetry too.

The music on Poetry presents a subtle, sophisticated range of styles. “Life Is Fine” (based on the Langston Hughes poem) suggests Kelly in his singer/songwriter mode. A little Christmas twang flavors Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen” (from Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train), while Kelly’s love for bluegrass surfaces in “Surely God Is A Lover” (from Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys’ Foggy Highway). A particularly imaginative pairing of words and music is the stark jazz piano arrangement for Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 138.”

It is no accident that sonnets are the basis for several tracks on Poetry. Kelly views sonnets’ structure of 14 lines with regular rhyming patterns as well-suited to adapting into songs. Additionally, according to Kelly, the 9th-12th lines in a sonnet operate “like a bridge in a pop song, and the last two lines, a rhyming couplet, act as a kind of summing up.”

Using poems for lyrics has brought a sea change to Kelly’s songwriting. “Writers tend to fall into habits and often struggle to break them, so it was exciting for me to find a new way to write songs,” he explains. “It was like finding another arrow in the quiver, a new tool in the toolkit.”

All the songs on Poetry feature poems included in Love Is Strong As Death, an anthology of Paul Kelly’s 300 favorite poems that he published in 2019.

Today, iconic Australian musician and vocalist Ian Moss announced the release of his 8th studio, his forthcoming album, Rivers Run Dry, and the forthcoming Rivers Run Dry Tour in August through Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.

Co-produced by Ian and Brent Clark, who also engineered the album, it was recorded with the core band of Zoe Hauptman – Bass (Neil Finn, Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins), Clayton Doley – Keys (Joe Bonamassa, Jimmy Barnes) and Kerry Jacobson – Drums (Dragon, Mondo Rock) with special guests Julian Moss sharing vocals on the Stevie Wonder classic Blame it On the Sun, and multiple award-winning songwriter and recording artist, Kasey Chambers, on the roots inspired Bury Me.

Containing 12 songs and largely recorded over ten days at Rancom St Studios in Sydney , Rivers Run Dry is a musical feast once more displaying Mossy’s well-documented guitar-playing genius and a voice that floats like a butterfly and yet can pack the punch of a Mallee bull. Either way, it is unforgettable.

The new album Rivers Run Dry is available to pre-order now on Vinyl, CD, Digital and bundles from here.

The first single, the album title track Rivers Run Dry, is available everywhere today. Watch the video here.

From the beginning of the project, Ian’s manager was adamant he step up and take the producer role. “Yeah, I just needed a bit of a shove, and I’m pleased I did, but it really was a collaborative experience from everyone involved in the studio especially Brent, and that created a brilliant environment. Every day it felt like we were creating something special.

“Brent has wonderful humility, patience, incredible drive and focus and a shit-ton of empathy. Being very meticulous, he was the perfect co-producer as he wouldn’t let anything remotely sub-standard go through and really kept me on course.”

But with every great album, it starts with songs and the process of selection was very deliberate and needed to reach, if not surpass, the high benchmark that had been set.

Ian added, “The song selection for Rivers Run Dry was focused on simply finding good songs, regardless of the style or genre they may have initially presented, and the result is an album that covers straight-ahead rock, Latin, funk, country, blues & unapologetic pop and yet we still ended up with an album that sounds very cohesive. I don’t think any of us feel we have any “What the fuck is that song doing on this album?” moments.”

But some songs nearly didn’t make it. The ball tearing Nullarbor Plain co-written with Troy Cassar-Daley being one. “I was a little resistant mainly because I never imagined it was a song for me, but it was a song that my manager (Chris O’Hearn) was insistent that I record, and he never once gave up on it, and I’m grateful he didn’t. Sometimes you need to open your perspective to what others might see and hear and know they only have your best interests in mind.”

On the Stevie Wonder classic that Julian Moss makes his debut on, Blame It on The Sun, “It’s a song I’ve loved forever, and we sang it together at a few shows back in 2021 at The Factory in Sydney and recording it was the next natural step. I absolutely loved doing this with my lad and, the band nailed it”.

The Rivers Run Dry Tour in August will cover Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth and feature songs from the new album and the songs that have made Mossy one of the most captivating musicians on the planet.

The Rivers Run Dry Tour band will feature Zoe Hauptmann on bass (Neil Finn, Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins), Freyja Garbett on keys (Montaigne, Stella Donnelly), Ollie Thorpe on guitars (Matt Corby, Meg Mac ), Juanita Tippins on backing vocals (Cold Chisel, Joe Bonamassa) and Kerry Jacobson on drums (Dragon, Mondo Rock).

John Mellencamp’s forthcoming new album Orpheus Descending is set for release June 2 via Republic Records. In anticipation of upcoming record, Mellencamp is sharing the album track “Hey God.” Listen/share HERE, watch/share the official video HERE and pre-order the album HERE.

His twenty fifth album produced by Mellencamp and recorded as his own Belmont Mall Studio. One of his most personal records to date, standout tracks “Hey God” and “The Eyes of Portland” focus on social issues Mellencamp continues to passionately advocate for.

Mellencamp is currently in the midst of his massive Live and In Person 2023 North American tour, with dates running through June 27 including stops in New York City, Nashville, Philadelphia, Boston and more. A complete list of remaining dates is below and tickets where available for purchase HERE.

He’s currently performing songs from the new LP during his live set. The Chicago Tribune says “Awash in death, “Hey God” functioned as a plea for deliverance from senseless gun violence. Preceded by a story about his encounter with a 20-something homeless woman, the solo acoustic “The Eyes of Portland” took aim at the empty “thoughts and prayers” condolences offered as a solution to major tragedies and dilemmas.” LA Weekly describes the performances as “authentic, grounded and painfully honest.”

His critically acclaimed studio LP, Strictly A One-Eyed Jack, was released early last year to praise from The New York Times, NPR Music, Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and more.

Praise for Mellencamp and Strictly A One-Eyed Jack:

“Mellencamp is a poet of ennui, making him an apt mouthpiece for our moment.”
-The New Yorker

“Mellencamp is absolutely uncompromising and unyielding as an artist.”-Forbes

“Longtime fans of Mellencamp will find much to like on this new offering from the artist. Time spent listening will certainly not be wasted time.”-Associated Press

“It’s a vintage-style blues stop with slide guitar and fiddle flanking his voice, and though he proclaims his bitter solitude, he has a crowd shouting alongside him by the end.”
-The New York Times

“a collection of songs steeped in folk and blues, told from the perspective of a man looking back over his life”-The Wall Street Journal

“Mellencamp has made an urgent-feeling, musically rich record, one of his most memorable
in a while. Whether life has much left to give him is his call to make, but he still has plenty
to offer us.” -Rolling Stone

Mellencamp also recently released a deluxe edition reissue of his beloved seminal album, Scarecrow, which features a massive collection of bonus tracks, rarities and more never previously shared before. Listen HERE.

Mellencamp is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Grammy winner, a recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, ASCAP Foundation’s Champion Award, The Woody Guthrie Award and Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and more recently, the Founders Award, the top honor assigned by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Mellencamp has continued to focus on another facet of his artistic expression: painting. Last year, he released a self-curated book of his work, John Mellencamp: Paintings and Assemblages, which is out now on Rizzoli New York.