Product Code Database
Kevin Daniel Carmody (born 1946), better known by his stage name Kev Carmody, is an Aboriginal Australian singer-songwriter and musician, a Murri people man from northern Queensland. He is best known for the song "From Little Things Big Things Grow", which was recorded with co-writer Paul Kelly for their 1993 single. It was cover version by the Get Up Mob (including guest vocals by both Carmody and Kelly) in 2008 and peaked at number four on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) singles charts.
Carmody has won many awards, and in 2009 was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame as well as being a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards. In 2019, Carmody was recipient of the JC Williamson Award at the Helpmann Awards. He is also known for his activism for Aboriginal rights.
Kevin's younger brother, Laurie, was born three and a half years later. His family moved to southern Queensland in early 1950, and he grew up on a cattle station near Goranba (and Tara) west of Dalby in the Darling Downs area of south eastern Queensland. They lived in a hut with a dirt floor, and his parents worked as drovers, moving cattle along stock routes. The boys had to be hidden from authorities for fear of being taken from their parents.
At ten years of age, Carmody and his brother were taken from their parents under the assimilation policy as part of the Stolen Generations and sent to a Catholic school in Toowoomba, after Jack and Bonny were given the choice of sending the boys to school, or Bonny and the boys being sent permanently to live on Great Palm Island. The school was housed in an old army barracks on about and run by nuns. Carmody said that the boys did not do much schoolwork, but spent their time feeding chickens, collecting eggs, "hauling in coal for the kitchen stoves and buttering bread for the nuns". They were allowed to visit their parents twice a year. He did not learn to read until he was 11 years old.
After schooling, he returned to his rural roots and worked for 17 years as a country labourer, including droving, sheep shearer, bag lumping, wool pressing and welder. The family all pooled their earnings into the same bank account, and lived mostly off the land.
In 1967, he married Helen, with whom he has three sons; they later divorced but remain "good mates".
Due to his limited schooling, Carmody's reading and writing skills were not up to required university standard. Undeterred, he suggested to the history tutor that until his writing was suitable he would present his research in a musical format accompanied by guitar. While this was a novel approach at university, it was in line with the far older Indigenous tradition of oral tradition. Although Carmody had extensive historical knowledge, learnt by oral traditions, much of it could not be found in library history books and was attributed to "unpublished works". Carmody completed his Bachelor of Arts degree, then postgraduate studies and a Diploma of Education at the University of Queensland, followed by commencing a PhD in History, on the Darling Downs 1830–1860.
At university, Carmody had used music as a means of implementing oral tradition in tutorials, which led to his later career.
Early in 1991 Carmody co-wrote a song, "From Little Things Big Things Grow", with Paul Kelly; it was an historical account of the Gurindji tribe drovers' walkout led by Vincent Lingiari at Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory during the 1960s, the incident which sparked off the indigenous land rights movement. It was first recorded by Paul Kelly & the Messengers on Comedy in May and included Steve Connolly as of the Messengers.
Carmody's 1992 EP Street Beat was nominated for a 1993 ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release.
Also in 1993 Carmody was the subject of a musical documentary, Blood Brothers - From Little Things Big Things Grow, by Rachel Perkins and directed by Trevor Graham, which explored Carmody's life, using music clips and historical footage.
After the release of his fourth album, Images And Illusions, in September 1995, produced by Steve Kilbey of The Church, The album was nominated for a 1996 ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release. Carmody re-evaluated his life and career, reducing the demands placed on him by the mainstream recording industry. He continued performing, as a musician and public speaker, to audiences as diverse as the National Press Club and Aboriginal Australians in prison.
After a break of nearly ten years Carmody released his fifth studio album in 2004. The album, Mirrors, was completely self-financed and distributed. It was recorded at a friend's property "down the road" and was his first album recorded with computer technology. The songs on Mirrors cover a range of contemporary issues including refugee treatment and his thoughts on United States President George W. Bush, accompanied by the captured real life sounds of the Australian bush.
On 31 October, Carmody was a special guest at the TV music channel MAX's "The Max Sessions: Powderfinger, Concert for the Cure" singing alongside front man Bernard Fanning to the controversial "Black Tears" and also joined in with the encore of "These Days". The concert was a fundraiser and thank you to the "unsung heroes" of breast cancer with an invitation-only audience made up of a special group of people – those who have suffered and survived breast cancer and their support networks. The concert closed Breast Cancer Awareness Month and was the brainchild of 20-year-old Nick Vindin, who had lost his mother Kate to the disease a few years earlier.
In the aftermath of the Australian Labor Government's 2008 apology to indigenous Australians, Carmody and Kelly reprised their song "From Little Things Big Things Grow" by incorporating samples from speeches by Prime Ministers Paul Keating in 1992 and Kevin Rudd in 2008. Released under the name The Get Up Mob, part of the GetUp! advocacy group, the song peaked at #4 on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) singles charts. This version featured vocals by Carmody and Kelly, as well as other prominent Australian artists (including Urthboy, Missy Higgins, Mia Dyson, Radical Son, Jane Tyrrell, Dan Sultan, Joel Wenitong and Ozi Batla).
On 22 October 2008, a DVD from two Sydney performances by Carmody and various artists was released as Cannot Buy My Soul: Kev Carmody.
On 27 August 2009, Carmody was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside The Dingoes, Little Pattie, Mental As Anything and John Paul Young, Carmody's first reaction was to laugh and reply "I must be getting into the Hall of Fame with the lowest record sales in history". At the ceremony, Missy Higgins inducted Carmody, who accepted the induction,
Carmody was joined onstage by Paul Kelly, Dan Kelly, Missy Higgins and John Butler to perform "From Little Things Big Things Grow". As of 2007 he lived with his partner Beryl on a bush block in south-east Queensland.
In 2020, Cannot Buy My Soul: The Songs of Kev Carmody was re-released featuring updated cover versions of Carmody's songs. To promote the album, Electric Fields were joined virtually by Jessica Mauboy, Missy Higgins and John Butler for a performance of "From Little Things Big Things Grow", recorded at the Adelaide Botanic Garden conservatory and broadcast for the season finale of ABC Television's 6-part pandemic series, The Sound, on 23 August 2020. The cover features on Cannot Buy My Soul: The Songs of Kev Carmody, released on 21 August 2020, which includes covers of other Carmody songs by artists such as Jimmy Barnes, Courtney Barnett, and Kate Miller-Heidke. Carmody has reduced his musical activities due to the effects of arthritis.
|- | 1989 || Pillars of Society || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 1992 || Eulogy (For a Black Person) || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 1993 || Street Beat || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 1994 || Bloodlines || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 1995 || "On The Wire" || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 1996 || Images & Illusions || Best Indigenous Release || |- | 2009 || Kev Carmody || ARIA Hall of Fame|| |- | 2016 || Recollections... Reflections... (A Journey) || Best Blues & Roots Album ||
|- | 1993 | "From Little Things, Big Things Grow" | Heritage Award | |- | 2012 | "Children of the Gurindji" by Sara Storer & Kev Carmody | Video of the Year |
|- | 2005 | himself | Lifetime Achievement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music | |-
|- | 2019 || Kev Carmody || JC Williamson Award || |-
(wins only)
|-
| 1993
| Kev Carmody
| Folk Performer of the Year
|
|-
|- | 2021 | Kev Carmody | Hall of Fame | |-
(wins only)
|-
| 2007
| himself
| Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award
|
|-
|
|
