Ellis Paul concert

Last night we went to see Ellis Paul at the AcousticMusicSanDiego series. Antje Duvekot was the opening act, and she also joined Ellis on stage for much of the last set.

Ellis Paul is, bar none, one of the best songwriters in American music today. So naturally, the concert was excellent. You walked away feeling disappointed that so many great songs went unperformed — “Paris in a Day,” “Did Galileo Pray?” “Speed of Trees,” “Angel in Manhattan,” and so on… but so many great songs did get performed that you quickly realized there simply wasn’t enough time in one concert to do his catalog justice.

Nonetheless, outside of the singer-songwriter circuit and the occasional appearance on TV or movie soundtracks, he’s never gotten famous. The Farrelly Brothers apparently prefer highbrow music and lowbrow moviemaking: the closing credits of Me, Myself & Irene use an Ellis Paul tune; so did the final episode of the TV show Ed. In Boston, he’s very well known, winner of an amazing run of Boston Music Awards. On the radio, though, you probably have never heard him.

He’s best known for story songs — sharply observed details and character sketches. “3000 Miles” is told from the point of view of “Robert Wilson, from Eau Claire, Wisconsin,” a kid who says that “21 is as good a guess as any age that I’ll confess to.” The song is all his observations of riding acrss country on a Greyhound bus, hearing and seeing human stories unfold as he crosses the miles. “Angel in Manhattan” narrates the story of an angel who falls to Manhattan and becomes a bit of a celebrity while there, completely at odds with all the politicking, newsmaking, and upheaval around her.

She shook the mayor’s hand, and he declared
That he’d hold a press conference,
The fans and protesters blocked the stairs to city hall
“I’d like to thank you all,” he said
And when she stepped before the cameras
It felt like a trial, but she smiled as the questions were called,
“What do you say to detractors, who claim you’re just some actor?”

She said, “The question here, is ‘Do I believe in you?'”

I could quote lyrics at you for days. But there’s no point. Consider “Speed of Trees,” a song lyric so rich that it cannot be broken apart, and must just be read in its entirety as a truly lovely lyric love poem about commitment. But don’t think that this music is all introspective poetic musings — he’s got a sly sense of humor, and a rock sensibility. “Martyr’s Lounge,” about a musician’s afterlife (“Leo’s is the bar up in heaven where all the martyrs hang out… Gandhi staggers in with John Lennon. They’ll start a bar fight, no doubt.”) or “Autobiography of a Pistol” (told from the point of view of the gun: “Would you believe I’ve seen better days? I starred in westerns and won rave reviews. Now I sit on a shelf, tagged for judgment day. I’ve got to change the jury’s point of view. You see, guns don’t kill people, it’s the bullets that do.”) are ample evidence that when he wants to, he rocks out and his lyrics bite.

Best of all, the songs are hummable, memorable, singable, and invite audience participation. The crowd at this show got into it with footstomps for the rhythm section on tunes like “Black Top Train,” but didn’t get going enough to give the full sing-along effect on other songs; that may be why he didn’t do “Paris in a Day,” which works best when there’s 20-100 people softly singing along with the lilting refrain.

My impression of Antje Duvekot’s material was far more mixed; her opener was very heavy on mellow fingerpicked ballads, and as a result the songs blended into one another. They were also all earnest songs. We picked up her CD Big Dream Boulevard after the show, and on a first listen, the production does make a big difference, adding that oomph that didn’t quite seem to be there in the live show. That said, she has a really wonderful voice, and the duets with Ellis allowed it to shine; she held her own with other past singers who have done harmonies on Ellis Paul tunes, such as Patty Griffin — and if you have heard Patty Griffin sing, you know that’s no small compliment.

Essentials

As usual, we let the kids quietly play Gameboy with the volume off when they got distracted or bored (it’s al all-ages concert series). At one point, Carey Driscoll, the concert operator, stopped the show to track down the source of a persistent beeping sound; he publicly asked whether it was the Gameboys, and we cringed. But it turned out to be feedback from an elderly gentleman’s hearing aid — he was so flustered that he and his wife apparently left the concert. Ellis covered gracefully by stepping into the audience, away from the mikes, and performing a couple of songs, including “3000 Miles,” without amplification — something he did twice more during the show, including for the closing tune.

If you’ve never heard Ellis Paul before, there’s a stream of his material on his website. If you had to pick a CD, I’d start with Stories, but really, virtually every CD will have a lot of stellar stuff on it. Alternatively, wait just a couple of weeks, and buy the new compilation Essentials, which is Ellis’ own picks of his best material.