Paul Kelly (musician) - Personal Life

Personal Life

Paul Kelly's first marriage (1980–1984) was to Hilary Brown, which produced a son, Declan Kelly. Declan later worked in a record store and as a radio presenter on 3RRR's Against the Arctic from 2006. As of 2007, he was a DJ around Melbourne and played the drums. Kelly's second marriage (1993–2001) was to Australian actress Kaarin Fairfax. He met Fairfax in 1988 when she appeared in the Australian production of Sam Shepard's play A Lie of the Mind. The couple have two daughters, Madeleine (born 1991) and Memphis (born 1993). From 1989 to 1992, Fairfax supplied backing vocals on tracks by Paul Kelly and the Messengers. In 1990, as a country music artist, Mary-Jo Starr, she released three singles and an album, Too Many Movies, using the Messengers and Kelly as session musicians. Michael Armiger, Connolly, and Frawley were in her backing band, The Drive-in Motel. Memphis starred alongside her parents in Rachel Perkins's 2001 short film One Night the Moon, for which Kelly composed the score. After the couple separated in 2001, Madeleine and Memphis stayed with Fairfax, but Kelly has maintained contact with his daughters.

Kelly was in a relationship with Sian Prior from 2002 to 2011. She is a journalist, university lecturer and opera singer. They met when Kelly was interviewed on her Sunday Arts ABC radio program. Kelly wrote "You're 39, You're Beautiful and You're Mine" for Prior who was already 40 by the time he finished. Prior has played clarinet and provided backing vocals on some of Kelly's songs, as well as with the Stardust Five. She has performed live with Kelly on several occasions including clarinet on six tracks of his A – Z Recordings boxed set. In his memoir, Kelly credited Prior with inspiring him to give up his long-term heroin addiction, "I got lucky, I met a woman who said: 'It's me or it'. She gave me the number of a counsellor ... I thought about 'it' every day for a long time. Less now".

Kelly's brother, Martin, is the father of Dan Kelly, who is a singer-guitarist in his own right. Dan has performed with his uncle on several of Kelly's albums, including Ways and Means, as a member of Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions, and on Stolen Apples; Dan and Paul were both members of Stardust Five, which released Stardust Five. Dan has released three albums, two of which received ARIA Award nominations. Kelly's younger sister, Mary Jo Kelly is a Melbourne-based pianist who performed with him on the track "South of Germany" for Paul Kelly Live at the Athenaeum, May 1992 (1992). She has performed in Latin bands and worked as a music teacher at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School. Mary Jo provided piano on Archie Roach's album Charcoal Lane (1990), which was produced by Kelly and Connolly.