During his decade-long tenure as head of the music section at the Canada Council for the Arts, Russ Kelley helped countless young musicians figure out how to make a record.  Now he's going down that path again himself.

 A little more than a year after retiring from his Council post, Kelley has returned to his recording and song-writing career with Crazy Shades of Blue – and it turns out the man who penned a #1 hit in 1972 with Renée Martel’s “Partir Au Soleil” (a French version of his “Elaine”) can still write circles around some of the young whipper snappers he used to mentor as an arts administrator.

Kelley’s richly varied repertoire evokes classic blues, jazz, soul, and pop, all sung with a soul-drenched raspy vocal style that recall’s Joe Cocker’s.   The sonic pallet ranges from the melodic, feel-good acoustic blues of “Sometimes it’s so Simple” and “Somewhere Later Down the Road” to the soulful rocker “Signs of Love,” the melancholy folk song “I Disappear,” the swinging title track, and Kelley’s own heartfelt  rendition of his pop hit, “Elaine.”  

The most impressive aspect of the project, though, is Kelley’s own song-writing – a fact that will come as no surprise to anyone who knows his story.             

Kelley was one of those artists who never planned to have a career in music but was good enough that the industry sought him out.  He was a psychology student at Concordia who played music for enjoyment -- coincidentally, he’d studied piano with Oscar Peterson’s sister, Daisy Sweeney -- but the anticipated psychology career went on hold when MCA Music Publishing called from New York to offer him a publishing deal.  Kelley toured the university circuit with his band, Rings and Things; played rock n’ roll on Montreal’s Crescent Street, both solo and with bands; gigged and recorded with fellow Rings and Things alumnus Sue Lothrop;  and recorded a single for RCA, “A Bit of Memory,” with his Crescent Street ensemble, Proof.  He then moved to Nova Scotia to start a family, and gigged all over the Atlantic region until vocal cord surgery at the end of the 80s forced him to stop.  That was when he began his second career as an arts administrator. 

Kelley was the founding executive director of the Nova Scotia Arts Council, the acting ED of culture for the Province, and in 2001, he became the head of the Canada Council’s music section.

Now retired from the Council, and having recovered his singing voice, Kelley is using his retirement to return to his first love:  music.  And for those who love what you might call “grown up music” -- finely-crafted songs and classic-sounding roots, pop and soul – his return is a welcome event indeed.