Paul Kelly to collaborate with pianist Paul Grabowsky

On July 28, Paul Kelly will release a unique collaborative album with pianist Paul Grabowsky named Please Leave Your Light On.

Songsmith Paul Kelly. Picture: Cybele Malinowski

On the face of things, Paul Kelly appears to be living through an extended purple patch. Since 2018, the singer-songwriter has released five albums — two of which reached No 1 on the ARIA chart — and published a weighty collection of his favourite poems.

Even the COVID-19 lockdown couldn’t slow him. Last week, he released Forty Days, a lo-fi collection of covers by artists such as Slim Dusty, John Prine and Bill Withers that began as a series of social media posts recorded in isolation at his home in Melbourne.

Now Kelly has announced yet ­another new work: on July 28, he will issue a collaborative album with pianist and composer Paul Grabowsky named Please Leave Your Light On, wherein they ­interpret a selection of Kelly’s work stretching back decades.

If all this sounds like creative restlessness at an age when many of his peers are either settling down or coming to terms with reprising their greatest hits in concert, the 65-year-old sees it a little differently.

“It’s not like I have to be doing things all the time — I don’t feel that,” Kelly tells The Australian. “But I guess when you talk about a drive, I think it’s more to do with being open to the possibilities.”

Accordingly, the poetry book, Love is Strong as Death, began as a suggestion from his publisher, while the forthcoming album with Grabowsky came out of the pianist’s suggestion to perform a show together at the Ukaria ­Cultural Centre in the Adelaide Hills last year, followed by three days in a recording studio to capture the set for posterity.

“You have to trust a collaborator in this situation, especially someone as inventive as Paul, because he plays the songs different each time,” says Kelly.

“That’s his art. He’s always finding possibilities in the song so we have to really pay attention to each other, which I really like. That’s part of the attraction, to walk a little tightrope and be surprised by what happens.”

Besides the news of his own new work, Kelly is energised by another major musical event of this week: the Friday release of Bob Dylan’s 39th studio album. Named Rough and Rowdy Ways, it’s the 79-year-old artist’s first set of original songs in eight years.

Naturally enough, Kelly has made plans to celebrate the ­moment with a friend and fellow Dylan fan.

“We’re going to meet up, get some lunch and listen to the rec­ord together,” he says. “We’re going to make an occasion of it.”