Ellis Paul

One of the more visible figures to arise from the Boston school of songwriting, New England native Ellis Paul built an extended and highly productive path as a leading folk narrator. Hailing originally from Maine, he advanced through the city's folk scene during the early 1990s, reaching wider recognition via releases such as Stories in 1994 and Translucent Soul in 1998 before placing tracks in motion pictures including Me, Myself & Irene and Shallow Hal. His emotionally direct and richly observed compositions reflect the lasting impact of enduring influence Woody Guthrie, an artist Paul has paid tribute to repeatedly through performances dedicated to Guthrie's work across multiple countries as well as participation in the 2003 traveling event Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway. Over the subsequent ten years he sustained steady audience interest by working alongside fellow musicians, issuing a volume of poetry, exploring fresh sonic directions, and venturing into children's recordings that earned awards in both 2008 and 2012. Inducted into the Maine Music Award Hall of Fame and honored with multiple Boston Music Awards, Paul issued his twentieth album, The Storyteller's Suitcase, in 2019.

Raised in the modest agricultural community of Fort Kent, Maine, Paul secured a Boston College scholarship through his accomplishments as a state champion in track. Up to that stage his musical background consisted mainly of trumpet performances in the high school stage band together with exposure to commercial radio. While in Boston he encountered folk traditions and developed a strong admiration for earlier singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young. A knee injury largely concluded his athletic pursuits, prompting him to take up guitar and quickly develop a passion for songwriting. During the late 1980s he became a familiar presence on Boston's active open-mike and coffeehouse circuit, refining his initial material while forming connections with emerging peers including Patty Larkin and Vance Gilbert. Entering the early 1990s he secured his first of numerous Boston Music Awards, put out a pair of self-released cassettes on Black Wolf Records titled Urban Folk Songs and I Am Home, and progressed to performances across the New England folk network, where he supported established performer Bill Morrissey on several bills. He enlisted Morrissey to produce his debut full-length effort, 1993's Say Something, which included contributions from guitarist Duke Levine and fiddler Johnny Cunningham. Levine later produced the follow-up Stories in 1994, resulting in a Rounder Records deal that yielded the third album, A Carnival of Voices, in 1996. By then Paul had formed a deep connection with Woody Guthrie's catalog, an influence that persisted throughout his output to the extent that he had an image of the Oklahoma figure inked on his arm. After developing a friendship with Guthrie's daughter Nora, he received an invitation to appear at a Woody Guthrie tribute concert at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that also featured Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and additional performers. Two years afterward he and Bragg topped the bill at the inaugural Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Guthrie's birthplace of Okemah, Oklahoma. His profile expanded further with the fourth studio album Translucent Soul along with the first live recording, Live, issued in 2000.

A significant increase in exposure arrived when one of his songs appeared in the Jim Carrey feature Me, Myself and Irene, with a second placement following the next year in the Gwyneth Paltrow film Shallow Hal. The 2001 collection Sweet Mistakes gathered previously unreleased audience favorites, while 2002 saw both a poetry volume and the studio release Speed of Trees. His ongoing Guthrie association extended into the 2003 multi-artist tour Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway, during which he performed the Guthrie lyric adaptation "God's Promise" alongside participants such as Jimmy LaFave and Slaid Cleaves. Also that year he and Vance Gilbert issued the joint album Side of the Road. Shifting creatively, he next collaborated with Irish producer Flynn on 2005's American Jukebox Fables, a project that incorporated electronic beats and synth textures with traditional folk elements. Nearly twenty years into his work, Rounder assembled the two-disc retrospective Essentials in 2006. Following the arrival of his second daughter he entered children's music with The Dragonfly Races in 2008.

Following the crowd-funded release The Day After Everything Changed in 2010, Paul revisited the children's genre with 2012's The Hero in You, which celebrated figures including Benjamin Franklin and Rosa Parks. The project received a Gold Award from the Parents Choice Foundation and later appeared alongside a companion children's book. He also explored seasonal material on his initial holiday recording, City of Silver Dreams. In 2014 he was named among the first inductees to the Maine Music Awards Hall of Fame together with Don McLean and Howie Day. The same year brought his nineteenth album, Chasing Beauty, co-produced by Sugarland's Kristian Bush and Train's Brandon Bush. The next year another film placement occurred when "Nellie Bly" featured in the biopic 10 Days in a Madhouse. His subsequent album, The Storyteller's Suitcase, arrived in 2019.