Paul KellyPrint Page 
The lane commemorates musician and songwriter Paul Kelly.
Paul Kelly has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups. His music style has ranged from bluegrass to studio-oriented dub reggae, but his core output straddles folk, rock and country.
After growing up in Adelaide, Kelly travelled around Australia before settling in Melbourne in 1976. He became involved in the pub rock scene and recorded two albums with the Dots. Kelly moved to Sydney by 1985, where he formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. The band was renamed Paul Kelly and the Messengers, initially only for international releases, to avoid possible racial interpretations of the word "coloured". At the end of the 1980s, Kelly returned to Melbourne, and in 1991 he disbanded the Messengers.
In 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) listed the Top 30 Australian songs of all time, which included Kelly's `To Her Door`, and `Treaty`, written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi. Aside from Treaty, Kelly wrote or co-wrote several songs on Indigenous Australian social issues and historical events. He provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. The album `Women at the Well` from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute.
Kelly was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for distinguished service to the performing arts and to the promotion of the national identity through contributions as a singer, songwriter and musician.
Location
| Address: | Flinders Street & Paul Kelly Lane, Adelaide, 5000 |
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| State: | SA |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -34.926983 Long: 138.600801 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Roadway |
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| Monument Theme: | People |
| Sub-Theme: | Arts |
| Artist: | Heidi Kenyon |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Thursday 4th August, 2022 |
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Plaque :
City of Music Laneways
Paul Kelly Lane
Heidi Kenyon, 2022
This artwork is part of the City of Music Laneway Project to celebrate Paul Kelly Lane.
Love is an oft-travelled theme in songwriting, but Paul Kelly`s honesty and vulnerability keeps me coming back for more. Love in all its guises ; the yearning, kinship, sadness, exquisite beauty, addiction and complication. The solace and quiet understanding from a partner, an old friend, in coming home.
My artwork features lyrics from Paul Kelly songs that can be made complete by the world love, and employs the moon as a metaphor for its shape shifting form. It responds to the rich character of the laneway, and asks passers-by to look up and bring their own stories to these heavenly bodies - riffing off the song Beautiful Promise (2010) with the lyrics "love don't shine steady, it waxes and wanes".
Plaque :
City of Music Laneways
Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for distinguished service to the performing arts and for the promotion of the national identity through contributions as a singer, songwriter and musician.
Born and raised in Adelaide, Paul Kelly played at various Adelaide venues including The Tivoli and Governor Hindmarsh in earlier years, and Her Majesty`s Theatre and the Adelaide Town Hall in more recent years. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1997, has won ten ARIA Awards, three APRA Awards and has had three ARIA # 1 albums : `Life Is Fine`, `Nature` and `Songs From The South : 1985 - 2019`.
Hits include `To Her Door`, `Dumb Things`, `Darling It Hurts`, `How To Make Gravy`, `From Little Things Big Things Grow` (co-writer Kev Carmody) and `Treaty` (co-writers Yothu Yindi).
Paul Kelly Lane was formerly known as Pilgrim Lane
