He has toured the world as a backing vocalist for Kylie Minogue and warmed up for Queen, James Brown and the Eurythmics. Yoko Ono tapped him to perform with Al Green in the John Lennon tribute concert. Gigging with 15 bands, including the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, he’s a singers’ singer, much-loved by artists across Australia.

Born in Bristol, UK, to Jamaican immigrants, Sydney-based two-time ARIA Award-winner Pat Powell (aka Patou) has lived an extraordinary life. But most of it was spent just outside the spotlight.

Filmmaker Fiona Cochrane had never crossed paths with Powell before he contributed his insights as a talking head for Strange Tenants: Ska’d for Life, her documentary about one of the only Australian ska bands he’s not a member of. “We spoke to him about the history of ska,” she says.

And it soon became apparent he had an incredible story of his own.

“Funnily enough, I didn’t know Fiona’s track record either,” Powell says. “But as we got to know each other, we discovered we have so many connections that it’s ridiculous.”

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Forging a mutual appreciation, this was the genesis of Patou: In Black and & White, which opens this year’s Melbourne Documentary Film Festival at Cinema Nova. A stirring story, it details his incredible range as a performer. “All I ever wanted [was] to be a good singer that could do anything, because to me versatility was the thing,” Powell says.

It also confronts the racism he faced as a young man growing up in ’70s Britain, and then in Australia when he moved here for love in 1981. As eldest daughter Saskia notes, the music industry wasn’t ready for him back then. “I’ve had a manager turn around and say to me, ‘We can’t promote your record on commercial radio because they have an unwritten policy where they won’t play anything by a black artist based in Australia,’ ” Powell recalls.

Patou is equally about him navigating fatherhood to four kids from different mothers, each fiercely individual. “You’re always looking for the emotional journey in there, rather than just a person’s career,” Cochrane says.