New
England songwriter Ellis Paul has somehow always had a reputation as a truly unique
songwriter. Even when making the rounds of Boston's open mikes in the late 80's, from
which word spread quickly of his toughly original ballads, riveting images and hardball
honesty. With the release of his first CD, "Say Something" on Black Wolf label,
his star seems to be rising fast.
Though only 28, Paul has somehow avoided the
imitative period so many artists go through before molding their own identity. He never
had a Dylan-drawl, a James-Taylor-croon, or a Lyle Lovett-moan. Ellis Paul has always
sounded just like Ellis Paul, his high, resonant tenor soft and arresting, his guitar
pulsing for a grim urban ballad drawn from his years as a social worker, plainly
fingerpicked for his soft, endearingly shy love songs. Both musically and lyrically, the
palpable honesty of his music has always drawn respect from fans and performers alike.
Paul attended Boston College on a track
scholarship, but injured his knee. While recuperating in bed, a friend offered him a
guitar, just to pass the time. Since he knew no songs to sing, he began plucking out his
own, mostly, as he put it "horrible love-lost songs." He had no real awareness
that there were such things as singer-songwriters, no thoughts of a career. He was just
writing for himself, so it never occurred to him to try to sound like anyone but Ellis
Paul. But the more he plucked and wrote, the more he got hooked. The idea that he could
put his own life, his own feelings, loves and trials into a song was narcotic.
"When I started writing, I didn't know
much of anything about the genre, so I didn't get caught up in it. I was pretty fully
formed stylistically - had the voice I'm using, the kind of writing style I have - before
I really became knowledgeable about anyone else doing this kind of music, any of the
people who are influencing me now. Fortunately, I never heard Bob Dylan or Bill Morrissey
until I was 24 or 25, when I learned their music like the back of my hand. Otherwise, I'm
sure I'd be singing like this." And as he finishes the sentence, his voice deepens
into a vowelly growl, deliciously evoking what some earnest young Dylan/Morrissey wannabe
might sound like.
Once he found the trail he devoured it, drawn,
as he put it, to "the edge, the rawness. No synthesizers, no glossy production;
everything was simple, acoustic, right there - just sort of put the mike in the room and
let these guys go. It's been a learning process for me ever since."
At first he heard the nationally-known
songwriters of the 60s and 70s as they began to resurface on the new Adult-Oriented Rock
format. It was around then that Dylan's Biograph records came out, and they had a profound
impact on him.
"Up 'til then, he was just somebody
singing "We Are the World" really terribly, this guy everybody made fun of. I
heard his cover version of "House of the Rising Sun," which just blew me away.
If you want to see whether Dylan is a good singer, I think that's the song you need to
listen to. It's got just an amazing vocal part, he's constantly testing his range,
constantly throwing character into the voice. Just him and a guitar, it's amazing; just
floored me."
As Paul began to get out to open mics, he began finding the local talent, eventually
forming a successful songwriter's collective called End
Construction with Jim Infantino, Jon Svetky and Brian Doser. He also began devouring
the music of the new songwriters. Bill Morrissey's bluesy vocal style and succinct,
literary lyrics made a particularly profound impact ("He can sing a novel in two
minutes," Paul gushed). After being Morrissey's opening act a couple of times, they
became friends, and, when it was time to make "Say Something," Paul asked him to
produce.
"When we were recording the album, Bill kept looking over at me and saying, these are
four minute songs. We were shaving and editing and cutting things out that were
unnecessary. His writing is so right to the point, he helped me a lot."
Before a tour, Morrissey gave him a list of folk writers to listen to while driving
ranging from traditional legends like Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hurt to 60s
songwriters like John Sebastian and Tim Buckley. "He told me to pay attention to how
musicians write in the blues mode, how they don't waste words. Every single word carries
extra weight because they're just working in an 8-bar progression, the song is over in
two-and-a-half minutes. So they encapsulized these grand emotions in these simple words,
with such brevity. It's all helped focus my seriousness on what I'm doing, what I'm a part
of, too, to learn about somebody like Woody Guthrie, who gave his whole life to it. I've
read everything I can get my hands on about him."
Paul began studying performance style also; noting how Morrissey used droll, offbeat wit
to counterbalance the weight and seriousness of much of his repertoire. "A lot of the
young songwriters I meet, they want to be doing what Bill and Patty Larkin and John Gorka
and Shawn Colvin are doing, but they don't go to a concert and listen to everything. If
you want to be a performer, you have to pay attention to everything these people are
doing; how they segue, how sometimes they just go from one song to another, other times
talk; create this ebb and flow that's kind of invisible to the audience. A songwriter
who's performing needs to pick up on these little secrets they use to make a show
flow."
All this has done nothing to change the essential Ellis Paul-ness of his music. His songs
are tightly crafted, the images no less original but a bit less remote, the human feelings
being explored more dominant.His guitar work is tighter, more rhythmic, more bent toward
supporting the melody, the story.
"I used to write songs that were so me-inclusive people wouldn't understand what they
were about unless I told them. They'd come up with their own ideas, which was fine; but
now I'm making things more direct. I don't get so self absorbed that I'm not including
everyone else who's listening in.
"I feel like I'm a sponge now, just taking all this in. I feel like I'm 15 again,
just discovering this whole new musical form. I can look at things critically and know why
they're good. I take these songs apart and say God, this is good because of this and this
and this. As I learn more, I worry less about trying to impress people, because I know
that, at least through my eyes, what I'm doing is good. I'm not so much worried about the
pressure. Now I don't really care if people like it if I think it's worthy of attention.
I'll say, if I played this for Bill Morrissey, I think he'd like it. I might not hit the
bullseye like "Blowin' in the Wind." But I'm starting to throw darts on the
board."
Article is copyright of The Performing Songwriter,
January/February 1994 issue.
