Gossip (album) - Background

Background

After relocating from Melbourne to Sydney in 1985, Paul Kelly had recorded and released a solo album Post. Kelly then began to play and record with a full-time band, which included Michael Armiger on bass guitar, Michael Barclay on drums, Steve Connolly on guitar, eventually bassist Jon Schofield, and keyboardist Peter Bull joined. Through a joke based on Lou Reed's song "Walk on the Wild Side", the band became known as Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Their first release was "From St Kilda to Kings Cross" but it did not chart. The line-up of the Coloured Girls changed rapidly with some stability late in 1985 as Barclay, Bull, Connolly and Schofield. Stuart Coupe, Kelly's manager, advised him to sign with Regular Records due to difficulty re-signing with Mushroom's Michael Gudinski. Michelle Higgins, Mushroom's Public relations officer, was a Kelly supporter and locked herself into a Sebel Townhouse Hotel room for nearly a week in mid-1986, refusing to leave until Gudinski had signed Kelly to a two-album recording contract.

In September 1986 Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls released the 24-track double LP Gossip. The album included remakes of songs from Post and also featured "Maralinga (Rainy Land)", a song about the effects of British atomic testing on the Maralinga Tjarutja – indigenous people of Maralinga, South Australia. Gossip peaked at No. 15 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Charts, with singles chart success for "Before Too Long" which peaked at No. 15 and "Darling It Hurts" reaching No. 25. A single LP version of Gossip featuring 15 tracks was released in North America and Europe by A&M Records in July, 1987. Due to possible racist connotations the band changed its name, for international releases, to Paul Kelly and the Messengers. They made an American tour, initially supporting Crowded House and then head-lining, travelling across the United States by bus. "Darling It Hurts" peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in 1987. The New York Times rock critic, John Pareles wrote "Mr. Kelly sang one smart, catchy three-minute song after another - dozens of them - as the band played with no-frills directness." following the band's performance at the Bottom Line Club in New York.