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The Merri Soul Sessions

album by Paul Kelly

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 21, 2021
Entity authorityQ19875611
Source-derived summary

The Merri Soul Sessions or Paul Kelly Presents: The Merri Soul Sessions is the twentieth studio album by Australian musician, Paul Kelly, which was issued on 12 December 2014 on his own label, Gawdaggie Records, and distributed by Universal Music Australia. Kelly provided lead vocals on two of its eleven tracks, the rest featured vocals by either Clairy Browne, sisters Vika and Linda Bull, Kira Puru, or Dan Sultan. The album debuted at No. 17 on the ARIA Albums Chart.

Background

The Merri Soul Sessions is the twentieth studio album by Australian musician, Paul Kelly, which was issued on 12 December 2014 on his own label, Gawdaggie Records, and distributed by Universal Music Australia. Kelly had developed the concept after hearing Vika Bull sing lead vocals on her live version of his song, "Sweet Guy" – originally released as a single in June 1989 – during touring as a backing singer in his group. For the album Kelly provided lead vocals on two tracks and invited various vocalists to sing lead on the other nine of eleven tracks. Tracks feature lead vocals by Vika Bull, Linda Bull (Vika's sister), Clairy Browne, Kira Puru or Dan Sultan.

The album was recorded live-in-the-studio in Northcote, with Kelly co-producing with Steve Schram (Clairy Browne & The Bangin' Rackettes), alongside the Merri Creek, which gave the album its name. Kelly explained his concept to Australian Musician's junocreative, "I started to imagine a soul revue type record performed live in the studio with a variety of singers and the one band."

Prior to the album's appearance Kelly released four double A-sided 7" vinyl singles, "The Merri Soul Singles, Volume 1" (July 2014), "The Merri Soul Singles, Volume 2" (August), "The Merri Soul Singles, Volume 3" (October) and "The Merri Soul Singles, Volume 4" (November).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Merri Soul Sessions” as album by Paul Kelly. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 1989—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2014. The account is most persuasive where Merri, Soul and Sessions can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Paul Kelly. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2021. The linked authority identifier is Q19875611. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 1989.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Merri Soul Sessions”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Merri Soul Sessions primary sources, The Merri Soul Sessions archive and Merri research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Merri Soul Sessions”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Merri Soul Sessions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.