The Kelly Family is a European-American music group consisting of a multi-generational family, usually nine siblings who were joined occasionally on stage in their earlier years by their parents. They play a repertoire of rock, pop, and folk music, and sing in English, Spanish, German, and Basque. The group had chart and concert success around the world, predominantly in continental Europe - mainly in Germany, the Benelux countries, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal - and some in Ireland. They have sold over 20 million albums since the early 1980s and were ranked as the 6th most popular music act in Germany in the 1990s.[1] Despite their American origins, the group is virtually unknown in the United States.[2]
For many years, the group presented a ragamuffin image and a vagabonding lifestyle, travelling around Europe in a double-decker bus and houseboat. Their image was enhanced by their eclectic and often homemade clothing, and the very long hair worn by both male and female members of the band. The Kelly Family began to break up in 2000 and afterwards they performed mostly as individuals or sub-sets of the whole group and took on a more mainstream look.
The Kelly Kids
The patriarch of the family, Daniel Kelly Sr., has been described as a "grizzled, ageing druid aesthetic", but according to his daughter Kathy he was in earlier days "a clean-cut, intense conservative Catholic" who studied for the priesthood. He married his first wife, Joanne, in 1957, and the couple left their native America in 1965 with their children Daniel Jr., Caroline, Kathleen and Paul, and settled in Spain, where Daniel opened an antiques shop.[citation needed]
Daniel Kelly and Joanne separated, and Joanne returned to America with Daniel Jr., who had a disability.[citation needed] In 1970, Kelly married Barbara Ann Suokko (1946–1982), who was from Fitchburg, Massachusetts and of Finnish and Austrian heritage.[3] Daniel and Barbara had eight children, with the eldest, John, born in 1967, and the youngest, Angelo[de], in 1981. The children were homeschooled and given lessons in music and dance.
In 1974, the older children, Caroline, Daniel, Kathy and Paul, formed the Kelly Kids, at first busking, then performing at parties and local events. They became well-known enough that they appeared on Spanish television in 1975.[4] The band was joined by the younger members of the family as they grew up and learned to play musical instruments. The band's popularity increased in Spain, with several performances on television and in circuses. In 1976, they went on tour as The Kelly Family, in Italy, West Germany and the Netherlands. Their money was stolen during the tour and, penniless, they had to busk on the streets to earn enough for the return trip home.[2]
The family moved to Ireland, living at a campground and touring there in 1977. Then, in 1978, they toured again in their double-decker bus.[citation needed] (They later lived on a large houseboat.)[2] Daniel and Barbara Kelly joined their children for performances, Barbara often performing with a newborn in her arms.
In 1977, they secured a record contract in West Germany. Their first major chart hit came in 1980, with the song "Who'll Come With Me (David's Song)",[5] with John Kelly, aged 12, singing the solo. The song, with a Gaelic sounding melody by Vladimir Cosma, was the theme to a West German television production The Adventures of David Balfour, based on Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. The song hit #1 in the Netherlands and Belgium, and it reached the top 20 in West Germany.
Fame
The Kelly Family in 2002
The Kelly Family covered hit songs such as "We are the World" and "The Rose", but wrote most of their own music based on family and personal experience, their Catholic faith, and their worldview. Songs include "Santa Maria"; "Why, Why, Why"; "An Angel", the video of which popularized a younger family member Paddy; "Break Free", sung by Barby Kelly; the haunting "Mama", in which Barbara Kelly is remembered by her children; and "The Pee Pee Song", in which the common childhood issue of bedwetting is portrayed by the raucous, flaxen haired baby-of-the-family Angelo.
In the 1990s, the group enjoyed their biggest success. Their 1994 album Over the Hump sold more than 2.25 million copies in Germany alone, and 4.5 million copies throughout Europe. In 1995, to promote the album, they played a concert to a Vienna audience of 250,000. In the same year they filled the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, nine times in a row, a feat no other musician has since accomplished. In 1996 they headlined their first Stadium Tour, filling some of Europe's largest venues. They played in Beijing, China in front of 20,000 people. In 1998 they bought a castle, Schloss Gymnich, on the Erft near Cologne, Germany. About the same time, Adam Kelly, son of Papa Kelly’s younger brother Henry, started performing with his cousins in The Kelly Family.[citation needed] Success continued until they started to disagree on a professional basis at the beginning of the year 2000. In 2002 Papa Kelly died from yet another stroke. That same year the family competed in the German Eurovision Song Contest pre-selections with the song of Maite Kelly "I wanna be loved" and placed fourth.
In 2002, Barby's ongoing illness forced her retirement from the band and, to the disappointment of her fans, Paddy cut his long hair and joined a religious order in France. Members of the family continued to perform as soloists or together, or in combination with their partners, as both Jimmy and John married singers. Fan interest prompted a comeback with gigs in Germany in 2007.
In 2011, the 12 Kelly siblings were reported as living in Ireland, Germany, the United States, Spain, and Belgium.[6]
Controversies and issues
The Kelly Family has faced criticism and problems. Although singing predominantly in English, the group had little success in the English-speaking world and aroused the derision of critics. Der Spiegel called them a "singing second-hand clothes collection" and Die Zeit called them a cult.[2][7]
The father, Daniel Kelly, was described, allegedly by his children, as having a "tyrannical, controlling streak".[citation needed] The most outspoken sibling, Jimmy, has criticized his father for not giving his children a formal education and imposing on them a "Huckleberry Finn" lifestyle. Moreover, he explained that as The Kelly Family group began to dissolve, there was almost nothing left of the millions of dollars the family had earned.[citation needed] The oldest daughter, Kathy, who managed most of the finances of the family, said that Daniel was more "free spirit than tyrant" but that "we got too big too fast, we should have cut things down some or handed over to professional management."[2]
Dan Kelly taught his children to "always keep independent of the structures of the modern entertainment industry."[7] He formed his own record label and "the Kellys kept everything in the family, from copyright and bookings to promotion and money matters."[7]
The Kellys ran into tax issues in Germany, the "Dan Kelly Foundation" was discovered not to be a registered charity, and they were criticized for their lack of transparency in accounting for money raised for an AIDS charity.[7]
In 2021, Angelo was fined €3,000 by German authorities after his son William performed briefly with him on-stage at an evening concert, in contravention of German labour laws which prohibit children aged under 7 from performing outside the hours of 08:00 to 17:00.[8]
He joined the Saint-John community where he was a monk, and took the name John Paul Mary. He later quit the monastery and by late 2011 had returned to music-making. On 13 April 2013 Paddy married Joelle Vereet at Ballintubber Abbey in Ireland.[11]
Married to Kira (née Harms, b. 7 October 1979), has three sons and two daughters: Gabriel Jerome, Helen Josephine, Emma Maria, Joseph Ewan Gregory Walter and William Emanuel[12] Left in 2020 to concentrate on his family band, Angelo Kelly & Family
The Cardigans are a Swedish rock band formed in Jönköping, Sweden, in 1992 by guitarist Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Sveningsson, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and lead singer Nina Persson. Post-hiatus shows since 2012 have been with Oskar Humlebo on guitar instead of Svensson.
The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-year career, but the group's success was centred on lead singers Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew. The band garnered international success with their lively Irish folk songs, traditional street ballads and instrumentals. The band were regulars on the folk scenes in both Dublin and London in the early 1960s. They were signed to the Major Minor label in 1965 after backing from Dominic Behan who was paid by the label to work with the group and help them to build a better act fit for larger concert hall venues. The Dubliners worked with Behan regularly between 1965 and 1966; Behan wrote numerous songs for this act including the song McAlpine's Fusiliers created specifically to showcase Ronnie Drew's gravel voice. They went on to receive extensive airplay on Radio Caroline, which was part-owned by Phil Solomon CEO of Major Minor, and eventually appeared on Top of the Pops in 1967 with hits "Seven Drunken Nights" and "The Black Velvet Band". Often performing political songs considered controversial at the time, they drew criticism from some folk purists. Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ placed an unofficial ban on their music from 1967 to 1971. During this time the band's popularity began to spread across mainland Europe and they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States. The group's success remained steady right through the 1970s and a number of collaborations with The Pogues in 1987 saw them enter the UK Singles Chart on another two occasions.
The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.
Luke Kelly was an Irish singer, folk musician and actor from Dublin, Ireland. Born into a working-class household in Dublin city, Kelly moved to England in his late teens and by his early 20s had become involved in the folk music revival there. Returning to Dublin in the 1960s, he became a founding member of the band The Dubliners in 1962. The Irish Post and other commentators regard Kelly, known for his distinctive singing style and sometimes political messages, as one of Ireland's greatest folk singers.
Daniel Richard Powter is a Canadian musician. He is best known for his self-penned hit song "Bad Day" (2005), which was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks.
Gossip is an American indie rock band from Searcy, Arkansas, formed in 1999. For most of their career, the band has consisted of singer Beth Ditto, multi-instrumentalist Nathan "Brace Paine" Howdeshell, and drummer Hannah Blilie. After releasing several recordings, the band broke through with their 2006 studio album, Standing in the Way of Control. A follow-up, Music for Men, was released in 2009. The band played a mix of post-punk revival, indie rock, and dance-rock. Their fifth album, A Joyful Noise, was released in May 2012. They disbanded in 2016 but reformed to embark on an anniversary tour for Music for Men in 2019 and released the album Real Power in 2024.
"An Angel" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family. It was produced by Kathy Kelly and Hartmut Pfannmüller for their eighth regular studio album Over the Hump (1994) and features lead vocals by Angelo and Paddy Kelly. Paddy wrote the song for his mother, Barbara Kelly, who died in 1982 from breast cancer. He wrote it on the family's boat, Santa Barbara. In 2017, The Kelly Family re-recorded the song for their We Got Love.
Tommy Sands is a Northern Irish folk singer, songwriter, radio broadcaster, and political activist. He performs with his three siblings as the Sands Family; solo as Tommy Sands; and with his son and daughter as Tommy Sands with Moya and Fionán Sands. Tommy was the prime songwriter for the Sands Family, one of Ireland's most influential folk groups of the 1960s and 1970s.
Kathleen Ann Kelly is a singer, songwriter, and producer. Born in Leominster, Massachusetts, she is the third child of The Kelly Family, a multi-generational pop group that achieved success in Europe in the 1990s.
Wonderful World! is a 1981 album by The Kelly Family. The album includes traditional Virginia melodies such as the "New Britain" melody to "Amazing Grace", published in the 1831 collection Virginia Harmony.
"Every Baby" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family. It was produced by Kathy Kelly and Paddy Kelly for their ninth studio album Almost Heaven (1996) and features lead vocals by Maite Kelly. Released as the album's second single, the ballad reached the top five of the Swiss Singles Chart.
"I Can't Help Myself" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family. Written by Angelo Kelly, it was produced by Kathy Kelly and Paddy Kelly for their ninth studio album Almost Heaven (1996) and features lead vocals by Paddy and Angelo Kelly. The song was released as the album's lead single and became the band's second number one hit after "An Angel" (1994), reaching the top in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.
"Because It's Love" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family. It was produced by Kathy and Paddy Kelly as the lead single for their eleventh studio album Growin' Up (1997) and features lead vocals by Angelo and Paddy. The CD single contains an inedit version of "Sweetest Angel" sung by Barby Kelly, which was also featured on The Kelly Family's next album, From their Hearts (1998).
"One more song" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family and was written by Paddy Kelly. It was produced by Kathy and Paddy Kelly for their eleventh studio album Growin' Up (1997) and features lead vocals by Paddy Kelly. The song served as the second album's single. The single includes two bonus tracks. First the song "Say That You Love Me", written and sung by Maite Kelly. The song was released later on the album The Bonus-Tracks Album in 1999. And second the song "Leave It to the Spirits", written and sung by Barby and Jimmy Kelly.
"I Will Be Your Bride" is a song by European-American pop group The Kelly Family and was written by Angelo Kelly. It was produced by Kathy, Paddy and Angelo Kelly as the lead single for their twelfth studio album From Their Hearts and features lead vocals by Angelo Kelly.
The Kelly Family is the third studio album by Euro-American folk band The Kelly Family, released on March 5, 1979 through Polydor.
Maite Star Kelly is a German-born Irish-American singer and actress. The second youngest child of The Kelly Family, she is the only one born in Germany. When she was younger, Kelly worked singing with her family. Later she started a solo career.
↑ The song was at first issued in the Netherlands as "David's Song (Who'll Come With Me)". In the UK and Ireland the song was issued as "Who'll Come With Me (David's Song)" instead, in contrast to its issue elsewhere. Source: https://www.discogs.com/master/96691-Kelly-Family-Davids-Song.
↑ "Bio Angelo". ~ Always The Kelly Family ~. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
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