How to Make Gravy

This extraordinary best-selling book had its genesis in a series of concerts first staged in 2004. Over four nights Paul Kelly performed, in alphabetical order, one hundred of his songs from the previous three decades. In between songs he told stories about them, and from those little tales grew How to Make Gravy, a memoir like no other. Each of its hundred chapters, also in alphabetical order by song title, consists of lyrics followed by a story, the nature of the latter taking its cue from the former. Some pieces are confessional, some tell Kelly's personal and family history, some take you on a road tour with the band, some form an idiosyncratic history of popular music, some are like small essays, some stand as a kind of how-to of the songwriter's art – from the point of inspiration to writing, honing, collaborating, performing, recording and reworking.

Paul Kelly is a born storyteller. Give him two verses with a chorus or 550 pages, but he won't waste a word. How to Make Gravy is a long volume that's as tight as a three-piece band. There isn't a topic this man can't turn his pen to – contemporary music and the people who play it, football, cricket, literature, opera, social issues, love, loss, poetry, the land and the history of Australia … there are even quizzes. The writing is insightful, funny, honest, compassionate, intelligent, playful, erudite, warm, thought-provoking. Paul Kelly is a star with zero pretensions, an everyman who is also a renaissance man. He thinks and loves and travels and reads widely, and his musical memoir is destined to become a classic – it doesn't have a bum note on it.

About The Author

Paul Kelly is recognised as one of the most significant singer/songwriters in the country. As well as issuing an enduring body of work both solo and with his bands, including The Dots, The Coloured Girls and The Messengers, Kelly has written film scores (Lantana and Jindabyne), and produced albums for and written songs with some of Australia and New Zealand's finest artists. He was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 1997 and had two songs included in the Australasian Performing Rights Association's (APRA) 2001 list of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time -- 'To Her Door' and 'Treaty' (written with Yothu Yindi). His hits also include 'Dumb Things' and the classic 'From Little Things Big Things Grow' (with Kev Carmody). His most recent album was Stolen Apples.

In 2011 Paul Kelly received the Ted Albert Award For Outstanding Services to Australian Music at the APRA Music Awards.

Paul Kelly lives in St Kilda, Melbourne.