Enda Kenny is an Irish-born Australian folk-singer and songwriter.
Kenny was born in Dublin, and migrated to Melbourne in 1987. [1] He released his debut album, Twelve Songs, in 1994. Though self-recorded and self-released, the album received generally solid reviews, and was described by the Sydney Morning Herald as "the best folk album to be released in this country since Eric Bogle's "Scraps of Paper". [2] It was followed by Baker's Dozen in 1996, which received similarly positive reviews. [3] [4] [5]
A song from that album, Rabin, about assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, won the Lawson Paterson Award for Songwriting at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. [6] This was followed with a third album, Six of One in 1998, which featured a number of covers, and was less well reviewed. [7] Kenny's song The Language of the Land from Twelve Songs was covered by English folk singer Roy Bailey in the same year. [8]
After a brief hiatus, Kenny released his fourth album, Cloud Lining , in 2001, again receiving positive reviews. [9] [10] He released his most recent album, Here and There in 2005. In his review of Here and There, Sydney Morning Herald music reviewer Bruce Elder described Kenny as "the best folk singer-songwriter working in Australia." [11]
He has regularly performed at a number of music festivals around the country, including the National Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival and Illawarra Folk Festival.
Paul Maurice Kelly is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter and guitarist. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor Ratbaggy and Stardust Five. Kelly's music style has ranged from bluegrass to studio-oriented dub reggae, but his core output straddles folk, rock and country. His lyrics capture the vastness of the culture and landscape of Australia by chronicling life about him for over 30 years. David Fricke from Rolling Stone calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise". Kelly has said, "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don't feel like I have got it nailed yet."
Jennifer Patricia Morris is a New Zealand-Australian singer-songwriter. Her first success came with New Zealand band the Crocodiles, who had a top 20 hit single with "Tears". Re-locating to Sydney in February 1981, she was a backing vocalist for various groups and formed a trio, QED, in 1983.
Trevor Charles Rabin is a South African musician, songwriter, and film composer. Born into a musical family and raised in Johannesburg, Rabin took up the piano and guitar at an early age and became a session musician, playing and producing with a variety of artists. In 1972, he joined the rock band Rabbitt, which enjoyed considerable success in South Africa, and released his first solo album, Beginnings. In 1978, Rabin moved to London to further his career, working as a solo artist and a producer for various artists including Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 by sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson as well as Josh Cunningham. Their tour and recording band includes Ben Franz (bass), David Ross Macdonald (drums) and Tony Bourke.
Deeper Water, the tenth studio album by Paul Kelly, was released on 12 September 1995 on White Label Records in Australia and on Vanguard Records in North America. It peaked at No. 40 on the ARIA Albums Chart and provided his second consecutive nomination as Best Male Artist at the ARIA Music Awards of 1996. In New Zealand Deeper Water reached No. 30 on the Official New Zealand Music Chart. Kelly issued its lead single, "Give in to My Love", in October 1995 and followed with "Deeper Water" later that year.
Linda McRae is a Canadian folk-roots-Americana musician. A multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter, she is a former member of Spirit of the West. She has released five albums, Flying Jenny, Cryin’ Out Loud,Carve It to the Heart,Rough Edges and Ragged Hearts and her most recent release, a career retrospective entitled 50 Shades of Red.
Jodi Christine Phillis is an Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist and founding member of the band The Clouds. Phillis is best known for her vocal ability in many of her songs, such as "Hieronymus", "Souleater" and "Ghost of Love Returned".
Archibald William Roach was an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. Often referred to as "Uncle Archie", Roach was a Gunditjmara and Bundjalung elder who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. His wife and musical partner was the singer Ruby Hunter (1955–2010).
Jeff Lang is an Australian guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and music producer. Lang plays various types of guitar, both slide and standard, as well as banjo, mandolin, cümbüş and drums.
Lior Attar, better known simply as Lior, is an independent Australian singer-songwriter based in Melbourne. He is best known for his 2005 debut studio album Autumn Flow and for the song "Hoot's Lullaby".
Bruce Morrisby Watson is an Australian singer-songwriter, satirist, and children's entertainer. Watson's satires are often political in nature. His style is generally contemporary folk music, he also writes and performs children's songs, conventional folk–country music and political songs. He has issued seven solo albums Politics, Religion and Sex (1990), Real World: Songs of Life, Love & Laughter (1994), Out My Window (1999), Are We There Yet? (2004), A Moving Feast (2004), Balance (2010) and Mosaic (2017).
Jodi Miranda Martin is an Australian singer-songwriter. Her professional music career began in mid-1996 while she was still a student, when she was the opening act for Arlo Guthrie's first Australian tour. Brisbane Times called her "one of Australia's most up and coming singer songwriters." She has been influenced by Joni Mitchell and compared to Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega.
Anne Monica McCue is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, music-recording producer, video director, and radio host from Australia, more recently based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Elana Stone is an Australian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. Her debut solo album, In the Garden of Wild Things, was released in 2005 on the Jazzgroove label. Its follow-up, Your Anniversary, was released in 2009, and her third Kintsugi was released independently in 2015. She is also a member of the ARIA award–winning folk quartet All Our Exes Live in Texas, in which she provides vocals and accordion.
Janette Geri was an Australian singer-songwriter.
The Stiff Gins are an Indigenous Australian band from Sydney. They call their music "acoustic with harmonies" and are regularly compared to Tiddas. The band was formed by Emma Donovan, Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs in 1999, after meeting at the Eora Centre while studying music. The band's name uses the word gin with the word stiff to become strong black woman, a name which caused debate about use of the word gin.
Red Rice is a double album by English folk musician Eliza Carthy, released in 1998. It was a nominee for the 1998 Mercury Music Prize.
Matt Walker is an ARIA Award-winning Australian blues musician.
Jane Saunders is an Australian country music singer. Her album Strangers to Your Heart was nominated for a 1995 ARIA Award for Best Country Album.
Fiona Sheree Kernaghan is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist. She has released three solo albums, Cypress Grove (1995), Shadow Wine and Truth Lilies (2007) and The Art of Being (2017). Cypress Grove was nominated for Best New Talent at the ARIA Music Awards of 1996. Kernaghan is the daughter of country musician, Ray Kernaghan, and the sister of Lee and Tania Kernaghan.