Perry Keyes – CD Launch

Perry Keyes’ fourth album ‘Sunnyholt’ is both the largely untold, widescreen story of Sydney’s western suburbs diaspora and, more importantly, the personal tale of a family disintegrating under social and economic pressures. With a full band comprising musicians who played on Perry’s previous album ‘Johnny Ray’s Downtown’ and new album ‘Sunnyholt’, Keyes takes his audience into the eye of the storm in a show reminiscent in its muscular theatricality of a Tom Waits or Lou Reed concert. With special guests: BROADS.

In the 60s and 70s over 150,000 people were moved to western Sydney – to Green Valley near Liverpool and the satellite suburbs surrounding Blacktown and Campbelltown – Shalvey, Bidwill, St Marys, Blackett; Minto, Claymore, Airds and Macquarie Fields.

They were poor then – lacking in infrastructure and government support.
They are poor now – populations of young families surviving on the city’s fringe.
Many initially came from the inner city suburbs of Redfern, Glebe, Alexandria and Waterloo as the “slums” were cleared for high rise and medium density housing.

Among those moved west were members of Keyes’ extended family – aunts, uncles and cousins. Many were promised jobs that never eventuated. Being on the dole became
a way to survive. Generational welfare became a way of life.

The consequences of that way of life have often proved brutal and unforgiving.

Sunnyholt is about songs delivered in a passionate manner from a compassionate perspective. They are songs that are telling without ever being didactic; heartbreaking without ever being sentimental.

Where Keyes’ second album, The Last Ghost Train Home left off, Sunnyholt continues, telling the journey of many, while focusing on a single family who fell through the cracks.

It is uncompromising, bruising and tender. And won’t be forgotten any time soon.

“Perry is the real deal. Songs from the heart, from the Aussie street. He is a rare talent” – Peter Garrett

“Perry Keyes is a Sydney romantic who can see the battered beauty beneath the gloss” Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.perrykeyes.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Perry-Keyes-Music-News