What's New

Home

Images

Glossary

Links

The Players

Articles

Album Reviews

Projects

Songs from Nowhere

Venues to Visit

Archives

Feature Article: POET'S PULSE: Ellis Paul

For subscription information, click here.

by Annette C. Eshleman , Dirty Linen
October/November 1998, Issue #78

POET'S PULSE: Ellis Paul

When singer/songwriter Ellis Paul first picked up a guitar and started
strumming, a career in music was the farthest thing from his mind. He was
recuperating from an injury that had taken him out of the running,
literally. It was a track scholarship to Boston College that had lured Paul
from his small-town home in northern Maine. The guitar was just a means of
passing the time.

As Paul learned to play he developed a unique style, one which was not born
of imitation or the desire to be like some other artist. Instead, his
writing evolved naturally. He set his own poetry to music and focused on
the things he knew best, the people and situations around him. Paul has a
journalistic approach to writing and a keen observation of the
ordinary.

"I'm like a reporter taking notes at an event," he explained. "I try not
to put too much judgement into the event." He prefers instead to challenge
his audience. "I just kind of leave them (open) for people to make up their
own minds."

Soon, Paul was hooked. He began performing his own songs and getting
favorable reviews at open-mike outings around Boston. His career as an
inner city social worker was short-lived, and he turned to music full time.
He now tours almost constantly, racking up more than 150 shows per year and
granting countless print and radio interviews.

Paul has become a seasoned performer in a relatively short period of time.
Near constant touring has transformed him into a confident figure on stage.
He has an easy, comfortable manner with the growing number of fans who line
up to talk with him after shows. He's even developed a sense of comedic
timing, incorporating it into each performance.

The busy life is paying off. Paul was signed to Rounder/Philo in 1995. He's
the recipient of seven Boston Music Awards as well as the prestigious
Kerrville New Folk Award. Along with critical acclaim, Paul has gained the
respect and admiration of his peers. He is often referred to as a
"songwriter's songwriter." Noted folk artist Bill Morrissey must have
agreed. He produced Paul's first album Say Something [Black Wolf]
on the condition Paul return the favor by one day producing a young
up-and-coming artist himself, thereby passing along what he's learned.

Five years later, Paul's writing has not lost the innocence and charm of
his early recordings. The title track for his new Rounder/Philo release,
Translucent Soul, is an honest, unpretentious, even humorous look at love,
friendship, and race relations. The inspiration for the song was Paul's
best friend, Vance Gilbert.

Gilbert, a supremely talented singer/songwriter in his own right, initially
expressed mixed feelings about the song, but soon changed his mind. "Once
I'd listened to it a couple of times," Gilbert remembered, "I started to
hear where he was going with it. And it's a lot less about me as it is
about... just loving someone, despite... differences, or samenesses, or
whatever."

Like much of Paul's work, Translucent Soul has a broader meaning than the
title alone would suggest. "I'm in it," asserted Gilbert, "but it's not all
about me."

Translucent Soul will mark Paul's fourth album release. The record was held
up for nearly a year due, in part, to his recent divorce. As the album
evolved, Paul's journalistic writing style turned inward. "This record is
about me -- the isolation, the loneliness, being apart, feeling kind of
alone in the world," he reflected.

Much of the album deals with the traumatic events that have shaped Paul's
personal life over the past year and the maturity that has resulted. "It's
the chapter in my life, probably, where the crossroads were met. And I
think the next few records will be how I take what I've learned and put it
into songs." he said. "It was very therapeutic writing it, but it's also
getting in the way too much." Paul said, slightly uncomfortable at the
thought of revealing too much of himself. He clearly seems ready to move
forward.

"I don't want to be singing a lot of these songs five years from now," he
declared. "But it's going to be one of those records where if you're going
through what I went through, it'll be the first record you grab."

The recording of Translucent Soul saw much the same lineup as Paul's
previous album, A Carnival of Voices. Longtime producer and drummer Jerry
Marotta was joined in the studio by bassist Tony Levin and guitarists Bill
Dillon and Duke Levine. Dar Williams also contributes a guest vocal.

Unlike Carnival, which was written in one month and recorded the next, the
new album was given much more space. "We really spent a lot of time on this
record. So the songs, I think, are more developed, the arrangements are
more developed, and it's a better recording," he said with confidence.

Paul was recently asked to participate in a celebration honoring American
folk legend Woody Guthrie, who has long been an idol of his. He was
scheduled to team up with British folk singer Billy Bragg to headline
festivities on Guthrie's birthday (July 14) to be held in Okemah, Oklahoma,
Guthrie's hometown. The concert was slated to be filmed by the BBC and PBS.


Ellis Paul is quickly becoming one of the most sought after and recognized
voices in folk music. He is a modern American poet who writes uncommon
songs about the commonplace. Whether looking inward or looking outward,
Paul's songs have a pulse. They move and breathe with life.

A Select Discography

Say Something
Black Wolf BW 9653-2 (1993)
Stories
Black Wolf BW 9654-2 (1994)
(reissued by Rounder/Philo in 1995)
A Carnival of Voices
Philo CD PH 1191 (1996)
Translucent Soul
Philo 11671-1200 (1998)

Black Wolf Records c/o Eastern Front Records 7 Curve Street/ Medfield, MA
02052; EastFront1@aol.com; www.easternfront.com

Philo/Rounder Records One Camp Street/ Cambridge, MA 02140;
www.rounder.com

Copyright © Dirty Linen: Folk, Electric Folk, Traditional and World Music.