Paul Kelly

About

One of Australia’s most revered artists, Paul Kelly is set to perform his largest ever headline shows to date this August/September – proudly presented by Frontier Touring and Triple M.

Awarded the Order of Australia in 2017 and with 17 ARIAs and five APRAs, few songwriters find ways to keep that creative fever burning for as long and as brightly as Kelly. The country of his birth, its emotional interior and geographical landscape, its heroes and villains, our hopes and failings, have all been a constant in Kelly’s long list of Australian-set songs: ‘To Her Door’, ‘Leaps and Bounds’, ‘From St Kilda To King’s Cross’, ‘How To Make Gravy’, ‘When I First Met Your Ma’, ‘Dumb Things’, ‘Before Too Long’… the list is endless. He has written about the country’s greatest cricketer, ‘Bradman’, and its most infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly, in ‘Our Sunshine’. ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’, co-written with Kev Carmody, has taught more Australians about the history of the battle for land rights than newspaper headlines ever could.  

Joining Kelly as special guest one of America’s most celebrated songwriters – three-time GRAMMY winner Lucinda Williams and her band. Known for her raw, poetic songwriting, Williams will bring her internationally acclaimed catalogue along with her esteemed band to stages nationwide, opening for Kelly across all Australian dates.

A pioneering artist with more than 40 years in music and 15 studio albums, Williams has received 17 GRAMMY nominations and was named Songwriter of the Year by Time Magazine in 2001. In 2024, she was ranked #8 on American Songwriter’s list of the 10 Greatest Female Songwriters of All Time. She is among the most nominated artists in the history of the Americana Music Honors & Awards. Her 2023 memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, was named Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and Rolling Stone. Her latest release is Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road – Vol. 7 in her Lu’s Jukebox series, where she reinterprets classics by artists such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Tom Petty.

Joining both Kelly and Williams and opening all shows across Australia is two-time ARIA and nine-time CMAA Golden Guitar winner Fanny Lumsden.