About This:

Looking back at my forty-year love of folk music and my involvement with Club 47 and Club Passim in Cambridge, I have been the witness to an incredible world of talent, experiencing artists whose music said eloquently what the rest of us could not. People like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Rush, Muddy Waters, Doc Watson, Geoff and Maria Muldaur all passed through the doors of the club in its early days. Ellis Paul is a leading part of the new generation that continues the traditions created by those artists; he has given us songs that reflect the world as we experience it. He has the ability to touch a wide variety of people by being poignant, engaging and real - and nothing separates him from the music he is presenting. In a town bursting with musical talent, Ellis is at the creative center of the Boston folk scene.

In just a few years of friendship, I have witnessed a variety of Ellis' performances: from the unbearably sweet intimate gift of "Conversation with a Ghost" sung to Rae Anne Donlin (former Passim owner) at a small members-only event at Passim - no mike, standing so close - the song for her a personal memory; to experiencing, with breathtaking surprise, the dark strength of "Maria's Beautiful Mess" at a packed and wildly enthusiastic sold-out concert at the Somerville Theater; to the sensuous chorus of "Mrs. Jones" which transported many on a delicious summer night in a European Garden at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. During a drenching downpour at this year's Newport Folk Festival, Ellis sensed the audience's miserably wet state, looked out on a gray sea of faces and instinctively knew how to change his set to work the audience in that moment and bring them in musically out of the rain. He created an energy and rhythm to the set, engaging a capacity Fort Adams Park crowd to move past being wet to being delighted. As with the best performers, his ease as an artist engages and enraptures all ages, regardless of the venue... rain or shine. These moments have been magic.

To listen and to know Ellis and his music is a gift, and a way to feel connected - good songwriting makes us grow, teaches, leaves us richer and wiser. This live album does all of these things. It is close and breathing - alive and so near that there is no recognizable distance - weighty with intimacy.

Betsy Siggins Executive Director Club Passim Cambridge, MA

In Harvard Square in 1990, Ellis Paul won a competition the Nameless Coffeehouse was sponsoring for "Most Promising Newcomer." In the ensuing decade, he has lived up to that promise with a vengeance, releasing four studio albums, winning the Kerrville (TX) Folk Festival's prestigious New Folk award and numerous Boston Music Awards (in such a competitive music scene, comparable to winning the New Hampshire primary), and criss-crossing the country on endless tours.

He's covered an awful lot of ground, both literally and figuratively. It hasn't always been easy; there was his car flipping over in the middle of the night on a California highway, and being caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting in Chicago, while playing thousands of shows from church basements to Carnegie Hall, from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. But through it all, Ellis has kept writing, going deeper and deeper within himself as his life experiences have accumulated and been distilled.

Even ten years ago, Ellis had developed his trademark sound of floating, edge-of-falsetto vocals over ringing, open-tuned guitar chords, and his distinctive Beat-influenced writing style of stark, detailed images set to deceptively casual rhythms. Over time he has also become a commanding performer, letting the audience into his world while at the same time riding their energy, letting himself be lifted to new heights. Ellis' debut mainstage set at Kerrville, the first glimpse for most Texans of this intense young man from northern Maine, earned him both a standing ovation and a loyal following which grows with each appearance.

Paul's studio albums have showcased his growth as an artist, beginning with 1992's Say Something (Black Wolf Records), produced by veteran songwriter Bill Morrissey. It's the most acoustic sounding of Ellis' CDs, from the stark, chamber-music mood of "Conversation with a Ghost" (included here twice, in equally compelling versions, one featuring vocal harmony by Patty Griffin) to the freight-train harmonica of "Look at the Wind Blow" (sung here with guest Chris Trapper of The Push Stars). On Ellis' second album, Stories (Philo 1181), producer and guitarist extraordinaire Duke Levine added classic rock elements to the mix (snare drum backbeat, Hammond organ, crackling lead guitar), pushing Ellis to new heights. Like in Bob Dylan's first electric recordings, Ellis challenged his audience to grow with him. (Ellis reclaims acoustic intimacy here, with a solo version of the exquisite "Here She Is," with its wonderful first lines, "If you could paint her, she'd be a Picasso; she's got a few things out of place...") Ellis quickly learned to focus the power a studio band offered him (A Carnival of Voices, Philo 1191) and finally to refine it to a laser's edge (Translucent Soul, Philo 1200, both produced by Jerry Marotta, best known for his work with Peter Gabriel, Suzanne Vega and The Indigo Girls). The albums are richly textured, yet, like Oriental painting, wisely leave space so that each detail, each image can be absorbed and appreciated. (Carnival's "Weightless," as apt a description of Paul's fine tenor as of the song's main character, closes this album, and Translucent Soul's "Angel in Manhattan" is lifted here by Don Conoscenti's ethereal guitar.)

For most live albums the story would end here, a recap of the artist's career so far. But Ellis is a prolific writer, and the idea of waiting yet another year for his new songs to see the light of day was intolerable. So Live includes seven new compositions, almost a full album's worth, and they are some of the best songs of his career. "Martyr's Lounge," a surreal portrait of a bar in heaven with images John Lennon could have written ("sunflowers are growing inside our brain"), is the funkiest Paul song I've heard, with Christopher Williams' conga and Conoscenti's wah-wah pedal recalling early '70s Motown. "Maria's Beautiful Mess," a classic Ellis portrait of love amidst the lofts of New York, starts ever so delicately and builds to a strong, hooky refrain. "Did Galileo Pray," about holding onto truth despite persecution, is already a fan favorite with its lively rhythm and sing-along chorus. "Changing Your Name" is a dart to the heart of an ex-lover, a balance of regret and barely concealed bitterness. "Mrs. Jones," a portrait of illicit, almost anonymous, love, is Paul's most sensuous song ("Cover me with rose petals, smother me with rare perfume..."). These songs alone make this an essential album.

Aside from songs, old and new, Live also gives the listener a taste of Ellis the poet, including three spoken word pieces, "Tornado Girl," "Love's Too Familiar a Word" and "Harmony," which serves as introduction for guest singer Patty Griffin. Included as well are a couple of stories which, aside from being funny in their own right, allow us to get a glimpse of Ellis Paul the person. Since so much of Ellis' work is serious, whether commentary on society, relationships, or our own interior, it's easy to forget that Paul is also an engaging human being with a keen sense of humor.

Ellis could have recorded his live album anywhere, such has his reputation grown, but he wisely chose to do it at the Somerville Theater, a grand old vaudeville house just a mile away from the Nameless and Club Passim, in front of the hometown crowd that's watched him grow from being an avid fan of Bob Dylan to a legitimate peer. A single CD was clearly not enough space to document all the moods and music of this performer, so instead of picking and choosing, Paul generously decided on a 2-disc set, filling out the Somerville tracks with some live-in-the-studio cuts. The result is an album that not only shows us where he's been, but points to where he's going.

-Terry Kitchen

The majority of these songs were taken from three sold-out Somerville Theater shows: on February 21st, 1998, Patty Griffin and I shared a bill, then a headlining album release show there for Translucent Soul on December 5th, 1998, and finally Vance Gilbert and I shared a night at this great theater on May 7th, 1999. The Burlington Coffeehouse show was recorded on November 22nd, 1998, with a room mike in front of 70 people. This album marks a crossroads in my career, a chance to assemble the acoustic versions of some of my favorite songs, and in doing so, giving them a resting place so I can move on to whatever comes next. Some songs from my catalogue are missing because the performances didn't make the cut, or they appear on other live compilations that can be tracked on the website - but, "Did Galileo Pray?," "Mrs. Jones," "Martyr's Lounge" and "Seize the Day" finally have a home... I put two versions of "Conversation with a Ghost" on the discs because I wanted to maintain the continuity of the performance in the first four songs of disc 1, and could not cut it, or Patty Griffin's beautiful harmony, from disc 2...call me selfish...you can interact with the sequencing here by putting as much space between the two cds as you choose... It was also nice to have some humor on one of my recordings... The friends on stage with me had little rehearsal time. They are all performing songwriters and professionals who flew in for the gigs and played and sang in the moment - and I love the feel of the record because of this... I hope you enjoy it, too. See you at whatever show comes next for you... Ellis

The Guests: the "band" tracks... Don Conoscenti... electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, appears courtesy of Cogtone Records Christopher Williams... percussion, backing vocals, appears courtesy of Big Red Van Music Patty Griffin appears courtesy of A & M Records Vance Gilbert... (the wailing background on "3,000 miles") appears courtesy of Philo/Rounder Records Chris Trapper (from The Push Stars) appears courtesy of Capitol Records Rachel McCartney... backing vocals on "Mrs. Jones."

Produced by Ellis Paul. These songs were culled from shows recorded live at The Somerville Theater (Somerville, MA), The Burlington Coffeehouse (Burlington, VT), or at Thomas Eaton's Studio (Newburyport, MA), by Thomas Eaton with Rob Laurens assisting. Mixed by Thomas Eaton at Thomas Eaton Recording, Newburyport, MA. Mastered by Jonathan Wyner at M Works, Cambridge, MA. Cover photography by Greg Wostrel. Trio photograph by Janet Caliri. Ellis portrait photograph by Liz Linder. Notes by Betsy Siggins and Terry Kitchen.