The first time I became aware of Paul Kelly was when I kept seeing his band the Dots playing a few of the same places we played in Melbourne. Then he had this funny old hit called "Billy Baxter" and kept turning up on Hey Hey It's Saturday when it was a morning show. Then I would bump into him at a friend of ours, Mandy's house in Caulfield when she had regular get togethers. I really liked his early stuff. One night he even came round my place and borrowed my acoustic guitar cos it had an electric pick up. We even had the same manager for a month.
When Rod decided to leave the Murders in 1984 our first choice of a new guitarist was Steve Connelly but we were told that the Dots had split and Steve (who used to be in the Cuban Heels with our bass player Chris) was going off to Sydney with him. And although Mick Barclay (our drummer) got us a under Uncanny X-Men's management he was soon off to join Paul Kelly for the Post album. Weirdly, I then ended up with two of Paul Kelly's band in Little Murders. Tim Brosnan. (which allowed me to cover Alive and Well) and Greg Martin (from the Bushwackers) That final line up only played 3 gigs.
None of this takes away from this fine album Paul Kelly released in 1986. A double no less. I bought it from a record shop just next to South Yarra Station. A record shop I spent a lot of time in but whose name escapes me. I was hesistant to buy a double album but I knew he was a great songwriter teamed with a great band. In those days we took the chance. No Spotify to pre listen to. I wasn't disappointed. The album was exploding with great songs.
When a few of the songs came on the radio as pop songs with their accompanying video it was weird seeing Mick (promotion to first division rock star indeed) in the film clips but I went to the shows and it was all good. Kelly wrote some absolutely ripper pop songs on this and subsequent albums with the Coloured Girls. And the shows were great too.
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