Because of the recent tragic deaths of three area teenagers, ALMA is changing the venue for the Ellis Paul concert THIS FRIDAY, May 4, from Ortega Middle School to Milagros Coffeehouse on the corner of State and Main in Alamosa. We apologize for the inconvenience. Advance tickets are available at the Narrow Gauge Newsstand, on the opposite corner of State and Main in Alamosa.
Ellis Paul is one of the leading voices in American songwriting and he’s long had a special place in his heart for the San Luis Valley, being one of the first artists to play a concert presented by the Alamosa Live Music Association. Now ALMA presents Paul’s return, in concert at MILAGROS COFFEEHOUSE on the corner of State Ave. and Main St. in Alamosa, at the Ortega Middle School auditorium, on Victoria Ave. in Alamosa, Fri., May 4 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $13 for ALMA members, $15 for the general public, $5 for students, seniors, full-time volunteers and military.
Paul helped create a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk rock style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 90’s. Hee has won an unprecedented 14 Boston Music Awards, sung at Fenway Park for the Red Sox, the Boston Garden for the Celtics and even had the mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino, proclaim it “Ellis Paul Day in Boston” on July 9th, 2010, when Ellis celebrated his 20th year in making music. His songs are heard in various commercials, documentaries, TV shows such as “Ed” and MTV’s “Real World”; and in the soundtracks of blockbuster films, including 3 Farrelly Brothers films: “Hall Pass,”starring Owen Wilson and Alyssa Milano, “Me, Myself, & Irene,” starring Jim Carrey, and “Shallow Hal,” with Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow. Director Peter Farrelly has called Ellis Paul “a national treasure.”
For years, Paul has been among the folk circuit’s most popular and dependable headliners, with a charismatic, personally authentic performance style and a mailing list of over 20,000 fiercely loyal fans. He has released 14 CDs, and recently explored new media avenues with a documentary/concert DVD called “3,000 Miles,” and “Notes from the Road,” a critically acclaimed book of poems and stories.
Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land,” “Pastures of Plenty,” and a thousand other American anthems, and his daughter, Nora, invited Paul to to perform at a tribute show held in 1996 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The show also included performances by Bruce Springsteen, Ani DiFranco, Billy Bragg and others.
Paul grew up in a potato farming community in northern Maine. It was so remote that his exposure to music came almost entirely from the one top-40 station he could get on his radio, and his school band, where he played trumpet well enough to earn a summer scholarship to the Berklee College of Music.
As early as 1993, the Boston Globe was calling him a songwriter’s songwriter, adding that “no emerging songwriter in recent memory has been more highly touted and respected by songwriters.”
