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When the world was shut down by Covid-19 in 2020, Ellis Paul, like many musicians, turned to the internet as a safety net to catch the fall of his tumbling livelihood. He set up microphones and lights in a spare bedroom and started performing livestream shows, hosting songwriter sessions, and playing one-on-one concerts for fans. He relied on the good will of a devoted audience that he had built over three decades. He was able to cobble together enough to keep his family fed, and he did it all from his home.
He also began to write. Before the pandemic, he’d never had the luxury of so much time at home. Songs and recordings had often been created on the fly, on open calendar dates during intense stretches of over two hundred nights per year on the road. Rushing to studios, rushing to shows, writing on airplanes. But now Ellis was home, with time on his hands.
He was turning 55, and not struggling with the idea of the age, but the consequences of it. Dupuytren’s contracture, a disease that tightly closes the fingers into a fist, had settled into both of his hands. He was wondering how long he had left as a guitarist and a pianist before it rendered playing and writing almost impossible. It eventually would.
So he just began. Song by song. While he had the time and still had the use of his fingers. Eventually, his journals had over 40 new songs etched into them.
He wrote about turning 55 during a pandemic, about the catharsis of outliving the things he’d grown up with—milkmen delivering to the door, 8-track tapes, fax machines—while at the same time losing his hero John Prine to Covid-19.
From the song “55”:
I can’t remember where I got the call
Might’ve been St. Louis, might’ve been St. Paul
They’ve canceled every show through fall
“Turn the bus ‘round, boys, it’s over"
This virus don’t care if you’ve got mouths to feed
Or about songs you’re singing while the whole world’s bleeding
But you get to stay and John Prine’s leaving
Who’s in charge of the order?
He also wrote with an uplifting voice of gratitude and awe for the life he’s been given—a life of following his musical calling—in the simple prayer of “Cosmos”:
I used my hands
’Til they turned to sand
I tasted sweet wine
I heard all the songs
And I played along
’Til the last words were sung by me
He recalls the love of old friends in “The Gift”, telling the story about the day songwriter Patty Griffin handed him a present—random items in a shoebox—to help him during a rough patch in Nashville:
She put a ribbon ‘round an old shoebox
Inside I heard the tick of a pocket watch
She said, “All the time you need’s in your hands”
There was a matchbox
“To burn away all of the ghosts
And sage for the ones that haunt you the most
And a cocktail umbrella for a rainy day
And a bluebird’s feather if you need to fly away”
The isolation of the pandemic—writing alone, recording at home, producing himself—all came with a restless madness. But Ellis found inspiration in Peter Jackson’s brilliant Beatles’ documentary “Get Back”. He’d repeatedly watch the show for hours until he felt a unique electric inspiration, and then he’d run downstairs to his studio to record into the wee hours of the morning.
You can still hear the wake of the British Invasion 60 years later in these songs. The Easter eggs are everywhere: the George Harrison-style guitar and backing vocals on “The Gift”, the lyrics in “Everyone Knows it Now”, the ringmaster and circus crowd noise in “Tattoo Lady”, and of course, the harmonies. He brought in Laurie MacAllister and Abbie Gardner of the beloved Americana trio Red Molly, alongside Grammy-nominated Seth Glier for background vocals. And though many of the instruments were played by Ellis at home, he traveled up to the Woodstock, NY studio of engineer Mark Dann, enlisting the talents of studio veterans Eric Parker on drums (Bonnie Raitt, Orleans, John Hall), Radoslav Lorković on piano (Odetta, Jimmy LaFave), and Mark Dann himself on extra electric guitars and bass.
Ellis took inspiration from closer to home, with a father’s song to his daughters in “Be the Fire”. Co-written with Nashville hitmakers Jon Mabe and Kristian Bush, the song is a plea for putting forth your best effort in the difficult things life throws at you. It was a hard couple of years on his kids. The cloud of the virus seemed to only magnify the intensity of the country’s other challenging issues. Three times during 2021, his daughters’ high school was shut down by threats of gun violence. Then there was Uvalde. Ellis wrote “When Angel’s Fall” in the aftermath, and the demo version became the #1 song on folk radio in July 2022. It’s here on the album, in full studio form.
I’ve got a gun, I’ve got a message
I’ll let the bullets speak for me
And when I’m done, I’ll leave you the wreckage
You’ll put my face up on TV
Ellis also adds to his long history of poignant love songs, with soaring melodies in an ode to his partner, Red Molly vocalist Laurie MacAllister, in “Everyone Knows It Now”, and to a love long past, in “A Song to Say Goodbye”.
And, there are songs of escape—to his favorite places that the shutdown wouldn’t allow him to go. Listeners are gently dropped on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean in “Gold in California” and on a steam train racing through Ireland, for passage across the ocean on the Titanic, in the historical fiction of “Holy”. There’s also a contemplative walk of solitude, in the empty desert of “Who You Are”.
The album is reflective, adult, and joyous.
In December 2022, when he could play guitar and piano no longer, Ellis underwent successful surgery to free the fingers of his left hand. He could form chords again. His right hand remains affected, but less so. He’s soldiering on, performing shows with the newfound thrill of being able to play again. He plans on surgery for the right hand in 2024.
Both the world and Ellis’ hands are opening up now, and he’s packing for a year full of shows, celebrating his 30th anniversary as a touring musician. What better way than with a release of a new album? With “55”, his 23rd recording, the award-winning songwriter will be connecting with his fans around the country, in person, at last.