2000–2009: Soundtracks and tribute albums
During the 2000s Paul Kelly worked as a composer for film and TV scores and soundtracks, including Lantana (also as a member of Professor Ratbaggy), Silent Partner, and One Night the Moon in 2001, Fireflies in 2004, and Jindabyne in 2006. These works have resulted in five award wins: ARIA 'Best Original Soundtrack' for Lantana (with Hadley, Haymes and O'Mara); Australian Film Institute (AFI) 'Open Craft Award', Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards 'Best Music Score', and Screen Music Award 'Best Soundtrack Album' for One Night the Moon (with Mairead Hannan, Carmody, John Romeril, Deirdre Hannan, and Alice Garner); Valladolid International Film Festival 'Best Music' award for Jindabyne; and six further nominations.
Kelly also acted in One Night the Moon alongside his then wife, Fairfax, and with their younger daughter Memphis. All three sing on the soundtrack, including together for the lullaby, "One Night the Moon". According to Romaine Moreton, Australian Screen Online curator, the "lullaby that the family sings, written by Paul Kelly, sets the tone of the film ... The song is used in this film as a vehicle to explore the characters' interior worlds, something very unusual for a film". Kelly and Fairfax separated before the film's release.
Roll on Summer was released in 2000 as a four-track EP, which peaked at No. 40 on the ARIA singles charts. Kelly issued ...Nothing but a Dream in 2001, returning to his core singer-songwriter style. It peaked at No. 7 on the albums chart, and achieved gold record status. The North American version of ...Nothing but a Dream added all four tracks from the Roll on Summer EP as bonus tracks. Murray Bramwell appraised four Kelly-related works in Adelaide Review, "each of them indicative of the rich variety of his gift". On the album ...Nothing but a Dream, he preferred the opening track, "If I Could Start Today Again", to the radio single, "Somewhere in the City", and found the album generally to be "full of familiar Kelly riffs and trademarks". On Silent Partner Kelly's songwriting with Hale provides "some splendid instrumentals" with "a delightfully airy sound". The Lantana soundtrack showed Kelly's "confidence as a composer and his strong grasp of a wide range of musical styles". Finally, One Night the Moon included Mairead Hannan's "richly melodic Irish airs" which "beautifully counterpoint Kelly's work" and Carmody's "distinctive ballads".
In March 2001 Kelly was a support act for Bob Dylan's tour of Australia. Between August and November Kelly performed a series of acoustic shows in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and France (the latter supporting Ani DiFranco). In 2002 he undertook a six-week tour of North America, which was followed by a tour of the UK and Ireland later that year. In 2002 and 2003 two tribute albums of Kelly's songs were released: Women at the Well featured songs performed by female artists, including Bic Runga, Jenny Morris, Renée Geyer, Magic Dirt, Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca's Empire), Christine Anu, and Kasey Chambers; and Stories of Me, which featured fellow songwriters James Reyne, Mia Dyson, and Jeff Lang. Chambers, a country music artist, sees Kelly as a role model: "He's the perfect example of the storyteller that I would love to be". In 2003 Kelly undertook a tour of North America, the UK, and Ireland, performing at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival and again at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Ways & Means was issued in 2004 and peaked at No. 13. Though identified as a solo record, it was more of a group effort, with a backing band, later dubbed the Boon Companions, co-writing most of the tracks. The Boon Companions consisted of Kelly's nephew Dan Kelly on guitar, Peter Luscombe on drums, his brother Dan Luscombe on guitar and keyboards, and Bill McDonald on bass guitar. Bramwell was impressed with their live performance in May: "Kelly steers and shapes not only his music, but the way he presents it. A live show is never just knocked together ... the details are always careful". In February ABC Television started broadcasting the series Fireflies, which featured a score by Kelly and Stephen Rae. The associated soundtrack CD, Fireflies: Songs of Paul Kelly, included tracks by Kelly, Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Professor Ratbaggy, and Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill. Sian Prior sang with the Boon Companions on the Fireflies track "Los Cucumbros", which later appeared on Stardust Five. Prior, an opera singer, became Kelly's girlfriend in 2002. They met when she interviewed him for Sunday Arts on ABC Radio. Prior is also a journalist and university lecturer.
In March 2004 Kelly performed across North America, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. This was followed by a more extensive series of shows between July and September throughout North America and Europe. In December, in Melbourne, Kelly performed 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over two nights. A similar set of shows were performed in a studio at Sydney Opera House in December 2006, these and similar sets became known as his A to Z shows. Foggy Highway was a second bluegrass-oriented album for Kelly, credited to Paul Kelly and the Stormwater Boys and issued in 2005. It peaked at No. 23 on the ARIA albums charts. The line-up for the majority of the tracks was Kelly, Mick Albeck (fiddle), James Gillard (bass guitar), Rod McCormack (guitar), Ian Simpson (banjo), and Trev Warner (mandolin). As with Smoke (his previous bluegrass release), Foggy Highway consisted of a mix of new compositions and rearranged Kelly classics. The Canadian edition of the release included a four-song bonus EP of out-takes.
In June 2005 Kelly put together Timor Leste – Freedom Rising, a collaboration of Australian artists donating new recordings, unreleased tracks, and b-sides to make connections between a wide range of music to raise money for environmental, health, and education projects in East Timor (Timor-Leste). Funds raised from the album went to Life, Love and Health and The Alola Foundation. On 26 March 2006 Kelly performed at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony in Melbourne, singing "Leaps and Bounds" and "Rally Around the Drum". On 8 October Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, Hoodoo Gurus, and Sime Nugent performed at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne to again raise funds for Life, Love and Health, and to help support their ongoing programs in Timor-Leste in response to the needs of the people during the humanitarian crisis.
Kelly formed Stardust Five in 2006, with the same line-up as Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions from Ways & Means. They released their self-titled debut album in March, with each member contributing by composing the music and Kelly providing lyrics. The album has backing vocals by Prior on two tracks. Kelly toured North America again in 2006, appearing together with The Waifs at clubs and festivals in several US states and the Canadian province of Alberta. In November–December Kelly undertook his A-Z tour, a series of solo acoustic performances playing 100 of his songs in alphabetical order over four nights, at the Brisbane Powerhouse, Melbourne's Spiegeltent, and at the Sydney Opera House.
In 2007 Kelly released Stolen Apples, containing songs based on religious themes; it peaked at No. 8, and achieved gold record status. Following the album's recording, Dan Luscombe left to join The Drones. He was replaced by Ashley Naylor (Even) on guitar and Cameron Bruce (The Polaroids) on keyboards. A tour in support of the album saw Kelly perform the entire album plus selected hits from his catalogue. One of the last performances, on 20 September 2007 in Toowoomba, was filmed and released on DVD as Live Apples: Stolen Apples Performed Live in its Entirety Plus 16 More Songs, in April 2008.
Kelly made his first appearance at the Big Day Out concerts across Australia in early 2008, while in March he performed at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. Kelly released Stolen Apples in Ireland and the UK in July, and followed with a tour there in August. In June The Age newspaper commemorated 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll (the anniversary of the release of Johnny O'Keefe's "Wild One") by selecting the Top 50 Australian Albums. Kelly's albums Gossip and Post rated at No. 7 and No. 30 on the list. Kelly was nominated as 'Best Male Artist' for "To Her Door (Live)" and Best Music DVD for Live Apples at the 2008 ARIA Awards. In September he announced that he had reacquired the rights to his old catalogue, including those originally released by Mushroom Records—later bought out by Warner Bros. Records.
In November, as a result of the acquisition EMI released Songs from the South – Volume 2, a collection of Kelly's songs from the last decade, following on from Songs from the South – Volume 1. The new compilation featured the first physical release of Kelly's song, "Shane Warne". Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available separately but also as a combined double album. EMI released a DVD, Paul Kelly – The Video Collection 1985–2008, a collection of Kelly's home videos made over the past 23 years. Also included are several live performances. Songs from the South – Volume 2 included one new song, "Thoughts in the Middle of the Night", which he described as "It's a band song, we all wrote it together. There's a poem by James Fenton, a British poet, called "The Mistake", which is probably an influence on the lyrics. It's a waking up in the middle of the night song, for anyone who's woken up at 3 am and not been able to get back to sleep".
In the beginning of 2009 he supported Leonard Cohen's tour of Australia – his first return in 24 years. Kelly's duet with country singer Melinda Schneider, "Still Here", won 'Vocal Collaboration of the Year' at the 2009 CMAA Country Music Awards of Australia. In February, in response to hearing about the devastation to the Yarra Valley region of Victoria in Australia, Cohen and Kelly donated $200,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal in support of those affected by the extensive Black Saturday bushfires that razed the area just weeks after their performance at the Rochford Winery for the A Day on the Green concert. Kelly performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 14 March for Sound Relief, a multi-venue rock music concert in support of victims of the bushfires. The event was held simultaneously with a concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground. All proceeds from the Melbourne concert went to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire relief. Also performing at the Melbourne concert were Augie March, Bliss n Eso with Paris Wells, Gabriella Cilmi, Hunters & Collectors, Jack Johnson, Chambers and Shane Nicholson with Troy Cassar-Daley, Kings of Leon, Jet, Midnight Oil, Liam Finn, Split Enz, and Wolfmother.
On 13 and 14 November, radio station Triple J presented a Kelly tribute concert—marking his 30th anniversary as a solo artist—at the Forum Theatre in Melbourne, and highlighted his contribution to Australian music. The line-up included Missy Higgins, John Butler, Paul Dempsey (Something for Kate), Katy Steele (Little Birdy), Bob Evans, Ozi Batla (The Herd), Dan Kelly, Clare Bowditch, Jae Laffer (The Panics), Adalita Srsen (Magic Dirt), Dan Sultan, and Megan Washington interpreting Kelly's songs, with members of Augie March as the backing band and Ashley Naylor as musical director. A recording of the concerts was released by ABC Music as a DVD and a double CD, Before Too Long, with a bonus CD featuring original songs by Kelly, on 19 February 2010. Kelly's national 'More Songs from the South' tour in December 2009 included band members Vika Bull on vocals, Peter Luscombe on drums, Bill McDonald on bass guitar and backing vocals, Naylor on guitar, and Cameron Bruce on keyboards. Kelly contributed to the national magazine, The Monthly, from 2009 to 2010.
