Our new playlist of the best new Americana we’ve heard over the last month is out later today for AUK supporters, which includes a bonus exclusive subscribers playlist “The Best Americana I’ve Heard All Year – 2021” where all our writers have distilled their favourite album of the year down to one essential track. We have about 2,000 years experience between us, basically akin to Jesus.
For our giveaway this month, one lucky supporter will be receiving a copy of the new Paul Kelly Christmas album ‘Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train’. Paul Kelly’s first Christmas album is an extraordinary 22-song double collection that travels across the centuries, from a Latin hymn to well-known carols, from a traditional Irish folk ballad to new Kelly music written for Christmas poems. There are songs with an unmistakable local flavour like ‘Three Drovers’ and ‘Swing Around the Sun’, and a sparkling new version of one of the greatest Australian Christmas songs of them all, Kelly’s own ‘How to Make Gravy’ which never mind about Australia, it is one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time full stop.
The album is delivered by Kelly and his band with a big cast of Christmas helpers, including vocalists Vika and Linda Bull, Marlon Williams, Kasey Chambers, Alice Keath, Emily Lubitz, Lior and Emma Donovan, with contributions from the Kelly clan. The Australian writer, radio and TV presenter Waleed Aly also makes an appearance, reading verses from The Qur’an that tell the story of Mary and Jesus.
Kelly says: “I’ve chosen songs I love, which led me often to wander off the well-worn path, then chosen singers I thought best suited to them.”
You can order the new album here. And we interviewed Paul earlier this week and asked him about his songwriting process. You can read that here.
You can sign up as one of our supporters for just £2 a month here. Glad tidings to you and all men if you do.
