Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill - Smoke
(EMI)
***
Professor Ratbaggy - Professor Ratbaggy
(EMI)
****
Review: Russell Baillie
Australia's favourite man of words and music Paul Kelly has been on the straight and narrow during the second decade of his career - an album delivered at regular intervals, a long-awaited big-selling best-of a few years
back.
Now, it seems, it's time for not one but two left turns. Both albums, released simultaneously, take on the roots route, but in different directions - one's a dusty road to the bush, the other's headed into town for a night on the tiles.
Smoke, which Kelly recorded with Melbourne bluegrass outfit Uncle Bill, is the back-of-beyond album. On the 13 drum-free, banjo-heavy tracks - possibly influenced by Steve Earle's recent bluegrass forays - Kelly indulges his Slim Dusty tendencies with a collection mixing a few new yarn-spinners (the Ned Kelly-inspired Our Sunshine) and some gumtree gospel (Until Death Do Them Apart, Shy Before You Lord). But the bulk are old Kelly numbers given the sprightly twang treatment (including You Can't Take It With You, I Can't Believe We Were Married, I Don't Remember a Thing).
If dynamically limited and backwards-looking, it's certainly harmonious and enjoyably toe-tapping without inducing visions of bobbing corks on hat brims.
From Hank to skank ... on Professor Ratbaggy Kelly joins regular backers drummer Peter Luscombe, bassist Steve Hadley and keyboardist Bruce Haymes - who play as a trio when not touring with the singer-songwriter - for a set of groove-fired tracks which swerve through dub, funk and r'n'b.
Even with Kelly's voice sometimes unrecognisable and often incidental to this rhythm-based set, it neatly engages both head and hips with dead-on delivery.
It has a nice sense of homage (whether the Meters shuffle behind Can't Fake It or the old school dub and reggae feels to Please Myself and See The Birdie Fly Up). But it sweats hard, too, on the funk excursions of White Trash and Blowfly, while the track Coma manages to make something good out of the potentially disastrous - the Oz rock/drum'n'bass crossover.
On Smoke Paul Kelly plays the polite country cousin, but on Professor Ratbaggy he's one funky uncle.
