Ellis Paul will perform two shows at McCabes, 3101 Pico Boulevard. He will perform a show for adults at 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 28 and a show for kids/family at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, September 29 as part of McCabes Sunday Morning Kids Concert Series.
Celebrating 30 years as a touring musician, Ellis Paul has released 18 adult albums and two children’s albums, published two children’s books and has garnered many awards from the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Award (1994) to 14 Boston Music Awards – including Folk Act of the Year. In 2015, he founded the New England Songwriters’ Retreat (NESR), an annual 4-day weekend retreat held in early September at The Guest House in Chester, CT. In 2018 he launched his own channel on TrueFire.com where he provides instruction on songwriting and guitar playing.
“Despite his success and sense of history, Mr. Paul remains an artist with his eye on the future and an interest in discovering the transformative potential in his music.” – The New York Times
Paul’s 20th album, The Storyteller’s Suitcase, was released in May 2019 and was in the top 5 albums for both June and July on the Folk DJs Chart. His music catalogue has been inspired in large part by being on the road as a touring musician for thirty years. The highway brought the kind of dedicated following normally reserved for radio stars. For this most recent album a thousand fans donated more than $100,000 to birth The Storyteller’s Suitcase. This is Paul’s first self-produced album and the first on his own label, Rosella Records, named for his two young daughters. Having reached his 50th birthday, he decided to write about things that are important to him as he reflected on his life and 30 years as a touring musician. He wasn’t chasing after a hook or a line for commercial purposes or trying to land a soundtrack, but rather, he was documenting personal memories of love and family and more broadly the importance of community and country, sometimes touching on controversial topics. He came up with the concept of “a storyteller’s suitcase” as a catch-all, one which sparked the title track, but also conveyed the very essence of the album. “It’s adventure, the audience, and the loves you discover along the way,” says Paul. “My favorite line on the album is ‘A song is just a skeleton key that can open any palace door.’” Paul will be performing many of the songs from this latest release at the show for adults on Saturday, September 28.
His family show on Sunday September 29 will feature songs from his award-winning children’s album Hero in You which was released in 2012 and received a Gold Medallion from the Parents’ Choice Foundation. On the album, Paul pays tribute to a wide array of American heroes, crafting catchy melodies that paint vivid musical profiles of men and women whose words, actions, inventions and art made a profound impact on us all. Heroes include Benjamin Franklin, Georgia O’Keefe, Rosa Parks, Woody Guthrie, Chief Joseph, Jackie Robinson and more. A book based on the album was published by the prestigious Albert Whitman Company and was ranked #1 on the Scholastic Magazine’s instructor “Must Read” list for winter 2015.
For ticket and other information regarding the two shows show, please visit the venue website www.mccabes.com or visit www.ellispaul.com. $10.
Submitted by Karen Zundel
