Album Review: Paul Kelly Presents: The Merri Soul Sessions

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? A Pledge campaign, a series of collectable 7” singles, guest vocalists aplenty – Aussie music icon Paul Kelly is thinking outside the box with requisitely strong results.

Named for Merri Creek, which runs past the Northcote studio that housed these fruitful recordings, The Merri Soul Sessions stem humbly from Kelly’s desire to record a version of Vika Bull singing his 1989 single, Sweet Guy, long a live highlight, for posterity. From there things quickly snowballed, the mandate soon becoming to record a “soul revue type record” using one band but numerous vocalists. Largely penned by Kelly (with a couple of co-writes), the batch of songs tap directly into rampant emotions in that finest soul tradition, dissecting relationship travails with an eye for the minutiae of the heart that makes the best such songs ring so true. Yet it’s the soaring, sincere vocals that make this collection so special, whether it be Linda and Vika Bull together (the heartfelt Down On The Jetty) or separately (Vika’s insistent, building What You Want), Clairy Browne (the sultry Keep On Coming Back For More) or Dan Sultan (the gently swaying Don’t Let A Good Thing Go).

Kelly himself offers the piano-laced Thank You and the chugging Righteous Woman, but while we don’t get a lot of his voice here we get plenty of his essence. A delightful foray.