ABOUT
Brenda Lee Kelly
Brenda has performed in various bands where her songs have been recorded and performed live including a female bluegrass band and a rockabilly folk band. However, in 2021 after finishing 14 months treatment for breast cancer one of her goals was to record an album from home of her original songs. Together with her partner Damir, they recorded and mixed the songs and Brenda produced the album from their home studio. Before the album was completed, Brenda was offered the opportunity to perform her original songs at a music festival so she asked friends to join her to perform as the name of the album “Waiting for Brenda”. As the songs and live performance was well received the “Waiting for Brenda” band continued performing Brenda’s songs within a bigger community including festivals (Neurum Creek, Laura Street, Festuri, Nimbin Roots) and local music venues (The Triffid residencies, The Cave Inn, It’s Still A Secret, Can You Keep A Secret?, All Inn Brewing, Banshees and recently Sydney venue “The Gasoline Pony”.
Brenda has facilitated songwriting workshops for the past four years on behalf of the Tamworth Songwriters Association (TSA) and has been a finalist for several songwriting competitions. Brenda is continually writing new songs and hopes to release some of these new songs by the end of 2026. In 2025 she received a professional development grant to attend a Songwriting Retreat in New South Wales at the renowned “The Dag” songwriting retreat. This was supported by The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) which is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Moreton Bay Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
With her band “Waiting for Brenda” Brenda’s songs have been voted by community for the annual 4ZZZ Hot 100 for the past three years.
The Dag Songwriting Retreat
Nundle, NSW
BRENDA LEE KELLY, THE DAG SHEEP STATION SONGWRITING RETREAT, NUNDLE,NSW (NOVEMBER, 2025).
MENTORS: Kevin Bennett, Kelly Cork, Ashleigh Dallas, Luke O'Shea & Felicity Urqhuart
I left Brisbane on Thursday, 13th November to attend a 3 days/4 nights songwriting retreat at "The Dag" sheep station in Nundle, NSW about 50 mins from Tamworth Airport. I was picked up from the airport by fellow songwriter and Tamworth local Paul Owen which was organised by John Krsulja from The Dag. I was very grateful for the transport and conversation from Paul, though my guitar didn't make the journey and when I asked at the airport, where it was, they said "it hasn't left Brisbane yet" (luckily it arrived later that night and they arranged transport for my travelling buddy my little Mini Maton Number 26 - one of the first ones made) so was thankful when it arrived (it did make the subject of the first song I wrote at The Dag on Day 1 , so all's well that ends well as young Mr Shakespeare would say.
I had been to smaller songwriting workshop weekends before but not one with over 20 other songwriters and I wondered whether I would get to chat to each person over the course of the weekend. Also, this retreat was focused on co-writing or using the opportunity to get yourself away from everything, switch off/turn off and tune in to your surroundings. Fortunately, I did get to chat to everyone there and met some really amazing songwriters. It was truly inspiring, listening to the songwriters & mentors each night, most of them having just written or co-written a song that very same day. I was really interested in the co-writing aspect of the retreat as it isn't something I have done a lot of and I was very interested to find out what makes a co-write be a good co-write. I wanted to learn more about the process and chat to other songwriters about their experiences of what is a good co-write and what isn't. I felt like I learnt a lot, it was a safe space to share emotions, songs for the first time, make mistakes and be blown away every single time someone got up on stage to share their song.
There was first time visitors to "The DAG", some just dipping their toes into the world of songwriting, some who had been writing for years and even quite a few Golden Guitar Award winning songwriters. Mentors were Kevin Bennett, Kelly Cork, Ashleigh Dallas, Luke O'Shea & Felicity Urqhuart. The mentors were generous in sharing their time, stories and songs. Each songwriter gets to do a co-write with one of the mentors. I got the opportunity to write a song with Luke O’Shea and find inspiration to see how his magic works. As it is all is really like magic. Luke asked what I wanted to write about and I said that I was interested in chatting about being in the moment. We discussed what that meant and brain-stormed various ideas & lyrics and finished with a song called “The Breath”. I also co-wrote another two songs and wrote two songs by myself as well. So 5 new songs after a couple of days away I was pretty happy with.
At the beginning of each day, we woke not knowing what songs were to be written and stories to be told, but somehow they all came together and each night we shared a meal and performed and listened to those magical songs. As a songwriter, it was a wonderful opportunity to intently listen each night to vulnerabilities and emotions which included songs and stories of humour too with people on a similar pathway that "get" what you do and connect with them. You don't have to go to a retreat or a workshop to be a songwriter but it's so great to get out and connect rather than online groups etc which are also good but a few days in the country at "The Dag" definitely gets you feeling ready to create more magic.
Thankful to Moreton Bay Regional Council & Queensland Government. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and City of Moreton Bay to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland
TAMWORTH SONGWRITERS JUNK BAR
FACILITATED A SONGWRITING WORKSHOP
Lovely piece in the TSA recent newsletter about the workshop I facilitated at the beautiful Junk Bar in Ashgrove (Now New Farm)
