page_title: Ellis Paul
section_title: Rising success: 1990–2000
hierarchical_section_title: Ellis Paul / Rising success: 1990–2000
caption_attribution_description: English: Ellis Paul and Vance Gilbert at the Mucky Duck in Houston, TX.
context_page_description: Ellis Paul 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. 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.
  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.
  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.
context_section_description: Winning the Boston Acoustic Underground Award in 1991  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 Kaffeehouse 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."
  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.
  Paul became a follower of the music of Woody Guthrie during the early 1990s.  In a 1998 Boston Globe article, Paul refers to a tattoo of Woody Guthrie on his right shoulder saying that Woody's image was the only thing he could put on his body that would be "like a badge of who he was." Paul's tattoo of Woody Guthrie resulted in a chance meeting with Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie's daughter, at a Folk Alliance Conference when Nora asked to see Paul's tattoo.  That chance meeting resulted in Paul being invited to perform at a Woody Guthrie tribute show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  The 10-day celebration, held in September 1996, included other notable musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, The Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco.  DiFranco's record label, Righteous Babe, released a compilation of the event, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em, in 2000.
  Jerry Marotta, a drummer who had worked with Peter Gabriel, produced Paul's third CD release A Carnival of Voices which was released on Rounder in 1996.  Marotta brought in bassist Tony Levin, guitarist Bill Dillon, and once again Duke Levine.  Paul stated that A Carnival of Voices comprised character sketches of different people in different towns tied to "the carnival mentality of traveling." A Carnival of Voices hit #3 on The CMJ New Music Report Triple chart and World Cafe voted it the #1 album of the year. By 1997 Paul's mailing list passed 7,000 names as his fan-base continued to grow.
  As Paul's reputation and popularity grew, he was asked to return to folk venues and festivals around the country including the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Newport Folk Festival. The number of shows he performed annually increased to more than 200.  Although Paul performed mostly self-penned songs, he would often include a Woody Guthrie song into his set.  Woody's "Hard Travelin'" was always a crowd pleaser, especially in Oklahoma, Woody'
caption: Paul (left) with good friend and fellow musician Vance Gilbert in Houston, Texas. (November 8, 2003) Paul's title track from Translucent Soul speaks of their friendship and deals with the issue of racism.
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