Paul Kelly's colourful award-winning singing and writing grounded in Adelaide; inducted into state hall of fame, 2023

Song writer and singer Paul Kelly was born and raised in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood.

Paul Kelly was inducted into the South Australia Music Hall of Fame at Woodvile Town Hall in 2023 achknowledge Adelaide's formative effect of shaping his young musical outlook.

“All my earliest musical memories are from Adelaide,”  Kelly, 68, told the local media after performing at the 2023 Harvest Rock festival in Adelaide: “Piano lessons as a child, then trumpet in high school. My older siblings bringing new records onto the house, Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, and so on. Learning to play guitar from a rag tag group of friends I’d met at Flinders Uni."

Kelly recalled writing his first song in a flat in North Adelaide and "my first band The Debutantes playing our first show at The Wellington Hotel, and so on. A lot of good memories". Kelly attended Adelaide's Rostrevor College before moving to Melbourne in 1976,

Kelly became involved in pub rock and drug culture, and recorded albums as Paul Kelly and the Dots. He moved to Sydney in 1985, where he formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls (later Paul Kelly and the Messengers). At the end of the 1980s, Kelly returned to Melbourne, and in 1991 he disbanded the Messengers.

Nephew Dan performed with Kelly on Ways and Means and Stolen Apples. Both belonged to Stardust Five, with a self-titeld album in 2006.

In 2010, Kelly released his memoir, How to Make Gravy. Despite once singing that “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t drag me back again to Adelaide”, Kelly returned to Adelaide for concerts. He also continued to follow the Adelaide Crows football team just as he has followed the Norwood side in his early days in Adelaide.

Kelly, as singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player, rose to having his “To her door” and “Treaty” (written with members of Yothu Yindi) included in the Australasian Performing Right Association’s list of Top 30 Australian songs of all time.

Kelly's Top 40 singles include “Billy Baxter”, “Darling, it hurts”, “Before too long”, “To her door” (highest-charting local hit in 1987), “Dumb things” (on the United States in 1988) and “Roll on summer”. Top-20 albums include Gossip, Under the Sun, Songs from the South (1997 best-charting album), Nothing but a dream and Stolen apples.

Kelly won 10 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) music awards and was inducted into its hall of fame in 1997. He also secured aive APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) awards from his 28 studio albums, film and television scores and soundtracks. He was honoured with an Order of Australia Medal in 2017.

Aside from “Treaty”, Kelly wrote or co wrote several songs on Indigenous issues and historical events. He tailored songs for many other artists. The album Women at the Well from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute.

Kelly's style ranged from bluegrass to reggae but his core output covered folk, rock and country.