About This:

It's not so much the quantity of praise Ellis Paul that has received that signifies there is something very special about this 30-year-old Maine-bred songwriter. It is in the sorts of phrases critics use and the careful way they use them: "journalistic," "discursive," "a poet's eye," "a master storyteller," "clarity of vision," "lyrics that read like poetry." The Washington Post praised his "intimate, closely observed tales," going on to say his songs "draw you in just as surely as a whispered secret."

You peruse his clippings and suddenly realize these are writers discussing someone they consider a front-rank writer. Many of the descriptions could easily apply to a great novelist or poet. The critical acclaim (and Paul takes a back-seat to few songwriters of his generation in terms of sheer poundage of pundit-praise) becomes a bit less breathless but no less heady when talking about his lulling musical groove, hypnotically spare melodies or soft, passionate tenor. His musical style is instantly recognizable, thoroughly original.

As his craft has grown and his vision matured, that has probably struck those of us who observe the busy Boston folk scene more than anything else. He has poured influences into his work freely and happily, and the quality of his work grows at an astonishing rate. He often guilelessly gushes on stage and in interviews about the genius of mentor/friend Bill Morrissey, heroes Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, whose name he now wears tattooed on his arm. But through all this, he has learned from but never mimicked his mentors. From his teeth-cutting open-stage days some ten years ago, Ellis Paul has always sounded exactly like Ellis Paul. The honesty that makes his keenly sculpted lyrics so rivetingly believable also runs through every note of his melodies, every nuance of his emotionally articulate voice.

"I want people to feel like they're in the same room with the people that I'm writing about," he says. "That's the main thing. I don't want to be spelling things out so clearly that they don't have to think what the song is about for them."

It is probably this journalistic honesty, this passion to lay out the truth as he sees it, that explains his uncanny hold over normally aloof and cynical pundits. He cuts his stories close to the bone, letting the characters and voices speak for themselves. In "Weightless," he constructs a dialogue about faith, serenely declaring both points of view, only hinting at how he feels. In "All My Heroes Were Junkies," about the aging victim of a `60s excessive junkie lifestyle, his cold-eyed passages are all the more devastating for their lack of moralizing.

Not that he turns his honest eye to deep, dark purpose. Paul wonderfully teases his own touristy pretensions in "Paris in a Day," in which he and his lover are so giddily wide-eyed tramping around the Eternal City that even the gargoyles can tell they're Americans.

Throughout his songs, a warm, real-life romanticism pulses. Of a deeply felt New York night, he sings, "It was like holding up the world in a tablespoon/and we drank it down, every light in town." In "Trolley Car," a wintry urban landscape serves up the chill memory of lost love: "We'd drink in the waning hours/ till we polished off the moon/ Who knew the moon would fail/ above the trolley car trail?"

For all the unflinching, journalistic distance Paul brings to his songs, "Carnival of Voices" is different for him because he perceives it as his most involved and intimate work to date.

"It's different for me because I'm in the songs more," he says. "I interact with the characters, make guest appearances like Alfred Hitchcock did in his movies. These songs might be a little more detailed, have more dialogue, because I'm in there with the characters more."

A recurrent theme, he ventures after some prodding, might be that we should simply immerse ourselves in life, live fully but not wastefully. Whether doting on the adorably unpretentious lovers in "Paris in a Day," sketching urban still-lives whose bleak hues brighten only in the presence of people reaching towards one another, or reflecting his unabashed admiration for any characters, however brilliant or successful, who step up to the Big Plate for at least a swing at their dreams, Paul is unafraid to be in awe in the presence of real life, lived passionately.

But again, he stops: "I don't want to spell out too much," he says. We are drawn into Ellis Paul's carnival of voices because they are all voices we somehow know and believe, but also because, however busy with life his carnival may be, he always leaves room for one more voice. Ours.

Scott Alarik April 1996

The Players: Ellis Paul vocals, acoustic guitar, and harmonica noodlin' Bill Dillon high strung, 12 string and electric guitars, bass guitar on "Midnight Strikes Too Soon," guitarorgan, and Vox piano on "Weightless" Jerry Marotta drums and percussion, bass guitar on "Change," piano tinkler on "Ball Is Tumbling Down" and "Lay Your Wager Down," inspirational vocals on "Paris In A Day" and "Deliver Me" Tony Levin upright, fretless and fretted bass Duke Levine baritone and electric guitar on "Lay Your Wager Down," additional electric riffage on "Deliver Me" and "The Ball Is Coming Down" Harvey Jones piano on "Deliver Me" Patty Griffin background vocals and the pumpkin-mice speech Jennifer Kimball background vocals on "Weightless" Stuart Ferguson mob scene harmonies