Ellis Paul

Ellis Paul has been traversing lands and discovering their riches since 1965. Born in the potato farming country of upstate Maine, he struck out for Boston after excelling as a middle and long-distance runner in high school on the strength of results good enough to earn an athletics scholarship to Boston College. It was there that he turned to guitar and songwriting after fate intervened to sideline his athletics career in the form of a knee injury.

Open mic stages and New England coffee houses were the incubator that set him on the fast track to honing his craft as a singer-songwriter-guitarist in the early 1990s. Before long, he had emerged as one of the brightest lights in the galaxy of prodigiously talented stars working the Boston-area folk scene at the time, a cohort that included Patty Griffin, Patty Larkin, Vance Gilbert, Dar Williams, and Martin Sexton, among others. Paul's distinguished discography, released on the Rounder, Black Wolf, and his own Rosella labels, was also launching at around this time. Stories (1994) and A Carnival of Voices (1995) stand out as particularly impressive examples of his precocious command of folk song forms and growing confidence as a lyricist. The 1990s and early 2000s saw him accumulate a cabinet full of music awards, maintain heavy annual touring schedules, and steadily build a nation-wide audience of loyal fans, an audience that continues to grow with the release of each new album.

Several critics have noted that Ellis Paul embodies a distinctively Boston school of songwriting, characterized by observational economy, vividly drawn characters, and a "show don't tell" philosophy of lyric writing. And indeed, he does exemplify all of these traits in his extensive catalog, brilliantly and abundantly.

But to focus on him as a master of songwriting alone is to miss the bigger picture, for he is and does so much more. An original American renaissance man, he is also an illustrator, poet, children's book author, producer, music tour leader, collaborator, innovator, educator, commencement speaker, honorary doctorate recipient, respected spokesperson among his peer group of leading folk artists, and esteemed mentor to newer songwriters such as Rebecca Loebe, Antje Duvekot, and Seth Glier. Then there are his forays into other media, such as song placements in successful movies, covers by Grammy nominated artists, his Parent's Choice Foundation award for two children's albums, and his headlining roles as a performer at Woody Guthrie festivals and tribute concerts. The achievements and accolades go on and on.

More recently, his 22nd and latest album, 55 (2023), culminates a string of outstanding recent releases stretching back at least as far as Chasing Beauty (2014) and The Storyteller's Suitcase (2019), each of which has continued to set the bar ever higher on his oeuvre. From the emotionally charged, sophisticated Americana of "Plastic Soldiers" and "Kick Out the Lights (Johnny Cash)" from Chasing Beauty, to the abject pathos of "I Ain't No Jesus", the metaphysical heartbreak of "The Innocence and the Afterlife" and the hilariously unreliable narration of "4th of July", all from The Storyteller's Suitcase, Paul turns his attention to midlife reflections on 55.

In this latest suite of songs he examines who and where he is, checking the pulse f an exhausted, post-COVID nation in the process, and further refines his storytelling craft. A case in point is "Holy", a devastating masterpiece that discloses only just enough for us to paint our own picture of the tragedy of the doomed dreams of a young Irishman. Allowing space for his listeners to add their own individual and shared layers of meaning is something Ellis Paul creates with consummate ease. That's why legions of fans each have their own favorite Ellis Paul stories, encounters, shows, and, of course, songs. Like all great artists, he is able to communicate with us all, but in languages that are unique to each of us.

But while he may seem to have made all this sound easy, it wasn't. The making of 55 coincided not only with the COVID years, but also with his ongoing struggles to manage Dupuytren's contracture, a debilitating condition that afflicted both of his hands with potentially career-ending consequences for playing guitar and piano. Fortunately, potato farming and distance running teach endurance and resilience!

The storyteller closes his suitcase, but the worlds within it keep changing, the traveler keeps moving on, and brand new vistas keep opening up with each twist and turn in the road. From Main to Big Sur, Okemah to Homer, Alaska, from hardscrabble rustbelt towns to peachy Georgia, from the plains of Texas to the snows of Alberta, these lands are our lands. This land is his land.

"Born in Okemah shoes, with the Dust Bowl blues, a friend of the working man," was how Willis Alan Ramsey described Woody Guthrie, a description that doubles to perfectly situate Ellis Paul's exploration of the fractured, kaleidoscopic landscape of America's soul. Ellis Paul shares his land with us. And, in sharing it with us, the truth he reveals is that it is also ours.