Ellis Paul (born Paul Plissey; January 14, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Presque Isle, Aroostook County, Maine, Paul is a key figure in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, a literate, provocative, and urbanely romantic folk-pop style that helped ignite the folk revival of the 1990s.Alarik, Scott. Sound choice. Boston Globe, April 24, 1998. His pop music songs have appeared in movies and on television, bridging the gap between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.EllisPaul.com. Ellis Paul biography. Retrieved January 10, 2007.
Paul grew up in a small Maine town. He attended Boston College on a track scholarship, majoring in English. Injured during his junior year, Paul began playing guitar to help fill his free time and soon began writing songs. After graduating college Paul played at open mic nights in the Boston area while working with inner-city school children. He won a Boston Acoustic Underground songwriter competition and gained national exposure on a Windham Hill Records compilation which helped him choose music as a career.Wood, Arthur. "Maine native Paul now a national name in Folk music". FolkWax E-zine. Retrieved February 17, 2007. (Free with registration.)
Paul had released 19 albums by the end of 2014 and received 14 Boston Music Awards, considered the pinnacle of contemporary acoustic music success by some.Hughes, Troy. A Conversation with Ellis Paul for Writer's Write, June 2000. Retrieved January 13, 2007. He has published a book of original lyrics, poems, and drawings and released a DVD that includes a live performance, guitar instruction, and a road-trip documentary. In 2014, his children's CD Hero in You was published as a book by Albert Whitman & Company. Paul plays almost 200 live shows a year.Healy, Benjamin. "For a song: Ellis Paul's six-step program." Boston College Magazine, Summer, 2004, p. 3–4. Retrieved February 10, 2007.
Early life
Ellis Paul was born in Fort Kent, Maine, a small, rural potato-farming town near the Canada–US border. Paul's family had strong connections to the potato industry – his father, Ed Plissey, was Executive Director of the Maine Potato Commission and his grandfather owned a potato farm. Schools in the area closed for three weeks each year so that school children could help with the potato harvest. Paul spent many hours working on his grandfather's farm.Wood, Arthur. Ellis Paul. Kerrville Kronikle, No. 21. 1996. Paul's mother, the former Marilyn Bonney of Buckfield, Maine, is a University of Maine graduate and was an extension agent for northern Aroostook County. She and her husband often worked together on special projects for the service. In the 1960s, Mrs. Plissey produced her own television show "The Aroostook Homemaker" which aired every third week on Presque Isle television station WAGM-TV.Sunday Telegram staff. "Families of Maine's Outstanding Young Men", Portland, Maine Sunday Telegram, January 19, 1964.
While attending high school in Presque Isle, Maine, Paul listened to Top-40 radio and participated in track. He played trumpet in the school's stage band where he was introduced to the big band jazz music of Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson. He excelled in track, becoming the Maine State champion in five-kilometer distance running, a feat that garnered several scholarship offers, including an offer from Boston College. Having graduated high school with the class of 1983, Paul relocated to Boston, leaving small-town rural life behind. In an interview with Daniel Gewertz of the Boston Herald Paul stated, "It wasn't until I went to Boston College on a track scholarship that I first heard folk."Gewertz, Daniel. Passim hosts balladeer. The Boston Herald, Friday, February 19, 1993. Paul was particularly moved when he heard Bob Dylan singing "The House of the Rising Sun". It was then that he began to take folk music seriously.Stambler, Irwin and Stambler, Lyndon. Folk and Blues: The Encyclopedia. St. Martin's Press, 2001. .
Paul was inducted into the Presque Isle High School Athletic Hall of Fame (under his birth name, Paul Plissey) on January 11, 2013.Clark, Ernie. Presque Isle High School hall of fame to induct 4. Bangor Daily News, September 25, 2012.
Career Early career: 1987–1990 Paul majored in English at Boston College where he continued to participate in track. His best time in the 10,000 meters (30:18:50) remains the fourth best men's outdoor record in Boston College history.Boston College Track & Field. Boston College Men's Outdoor Track & Field Top Performances. Retrieved April 21, 2008. When a knee injury in his junior year sidelined him from athletics, Paul picked up an acoustic guitar to pass the time. He taught himself to play guitar with the help of a Hits of the 70s songbook, and began to write songs. Boston radio included a classic hits station that played the music of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and James Taylor; artists who were mostly unfamiliar to Paul. Within a few years they became major influences. Having a career in music was the furthest thing from Paul's mind at that point, but as his playing and writing improved it became a bigger focus in his life. In an interview with FolkWax journalist Arthur Wood, Paul stated:
"I started playing and learned a few songs by other writers to begin with. I started writing originals within a few months. My songs were pretty horrendous to begin with. They kept getting better and better. When I graduated, I started playing at open mics in bars in Boston. Eventually discovered that there were folk clubs where people were actually listening, and not drinking and carousing while you played. I got involved in that circuit. I think that's why I've become so lyric conscious — because of those listening rooms, where you really have to rely on words in those situations."
The open mic circuit in the Boston area included The Nameless Coffeehouse in Cambridge, Westborough's Old Vienna Kaffeehaus and the Naked City Coffeehouse in Allston. Paul became a regular face at those clubs along with other young folk musicians such as Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, Dar Williams and Vance Gilbert. In 1989 he won the Nameless Coffeehouse's New Songwriter Award. Paul played Cambridge's Club Passim, a venue that would become his "home" venue, for the first time when he opened for John Gorka in October 1989. Less than four years later he performed his first shows at Passim as a headliner. The three consecutive nights of shows took place on February 19–21, 1993.
It was at the Old Vienna that Paul met Jon Svetkey, Brian Doser and Jim Infantino, all struggling young local musicians. In 1989 the four young men formed a collective called "End Construction" and in 1990 released a compilation of songs titled Resume Speed: New Artist Compilation on the End Construction Productions label. The four songwriters each performed four of his own original songs on the CD release. The Resume Speed liner notes stated that End Construction Productions was a small independent production, promotion and recording company run by songwriters and musicians "hellbent on getting the good music out there." In the interview with Wood, Paul stated that the four songwriters started doing group shows together and collaborated on each other's material. Although he goes on to say that the collaboration "was a good thing" and that the four musicians learned a lot from each other, eventually the foursome "burned out on the competitiveness". The collaboration lasted three years.
Following his graduation from Boston College in 1987, Paul worked a day-job at the COMPASS school as a teacher and social worker with inner city school children performing at open mics three or four nights a week. It was not until the fall of 1992 that he quit his day-job to pursue music as a full-time career. During this period Paul met his manager, Ralph Jaccodine, and together they founded Black Wolf Records. In 1989 the label released Paul's first two albums of original material: Am I Home and Urban Folksongs and Paul began touring outside the Boston area.Barber, Mary. "Getting good mileage out of music: Ellis Paul's tour includes stop in Fort Atkinson". The Janesville Gazette (Wisconsin), April 8, 1993, p. 1C. Although originally released on cassette, the two albums were re-released on CD in 2001.
Rising success: 1990–2000 Winning the Boston Acoustic Underground Award in 1991rec.music.folk Vance Gilbert, Barbara Kessler, Ellis Paul and Kathy Phipps to Perform Concert to Benefit Homeless. May 22, 1992. Retrieved January 23, 2009. resulted in Paul playing to the largest crowd of his career to that point – 300. He continued to play in and around the New England area. Around this time, Windham Hill Records, which had previously released the Legacy songwriter compilation, put a call out to the music industry asking for songwriter submissions to be considered for the follow-up Legacy II compilation. After the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus sent one of Paul's tapes to Windham Hill, Paul's "Ashes to Dust" from Urban Folksongs was chosen to be on the compilation. In the interview with Wood, Paul stated that he felt very excited to be on the Windham Hill release because it served as a calling card that every DJ and folk promoter in the country would recognize. Legacy II was released in 1992 and included songs performed by Patty Larkin, Patty Griffin, Greg Brown, Cheryl Wheeler and several others. Legacy II was Paul's first national exposure.
After Paul opened for Bill Morrissey several times, Morrissey became one of Paul's earliest mentors. Morrissey introduced Paul to the traditional songwriting of Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as songwriters of the 60s, such as Randy Newman. In a 2001 interview with Scott Alarik, Morrissey said that Paul jumped into listening to traditional songwriters "bigtime" and as a result is a much better writer and performer.
Paul asked Morrissey to produce his first album Say Something, which was released in 1993 on Black Wolf records. Fiddler Johnny Cunningham and guitarist Duke Levine, both friends of Morrissey's, can be heard on the recording along with the background vocals of Patty Griffin. Scott Alarik wrote: "As his lovely, demanding and brilliant debut album Say Something attests, there is a precocious credibility and emotional truth to his real-life ballads."Alarik, Scott. Young songwriter knows his voice. Boston Globe, January 28, 1993.
Levine would co-produce Paul's follow-up release Stories, which was released on Black Wolf in 1994 and re-released on Rounder Records the following year. It was also in 1994 that Paul was first invited to play the Kerrville Folk Festival, winning the Kerrville New Folk award.Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Finalist History brought to you by Happenstance and Doug Coppock. Retrieved February 8, 2007.