The Beatles "I'm So Tired"

Week Six.

The boy, despite being as good as you could ask a newborn to be, is taking his toll on the SS Finn Family.

The nights are cruel. We have barely slept an hour before he is awake and ready to eat.

Feed, change, rock, sleep.

And like a record hiccuping over a scratch, we are shaken out of the groove of sleep and back into feed, change, rock, sleep until the sun comes up.

That's why I always liked this song. It captures the boozy, woozy feel of wandering the darkened halls of the house at an hour you can't quite pinpoint.

And I find that my low functioning brain keeps retaining lyrics, endlessly repeating a single phrase stuck in there. Last week it was Ellis Paul's "Annalee." Two weeks ago it was "I Wanna Be Like You" from Jungle Book.

No surprise that, with the accumulating debt I owe my sleep bank, this Beatles track should be on the brain, endlessly repeating, like a warped, skipping record.

Ellis Paul "World Ain't Slowing Down"

I heard an industry term I'd never run across, when I saw Ellis Paul this winter.

I've been in broadcasting for close to 20 years at this point, but every day I am reminded that (whatever your expertise is) there is always something you don't know.

As an introduction to his tune "World Ain't Slowing Down," Ellis mentioned that "this song is 'On Hold' for Tim McGraw."

I'd never heard the expression "On Hold" but I know what it means.

If you are a songwriter, shopping around your track to Big Name artists, and a Big Name artist is seriously considering recording a particular song, they will ask that you put it "On Hold," meaning that you should no longer shop the song around, so the Big Name artist can be the first to have a Big Hit with your song. It's "On Hold" until they decided to record and release it; a limbo state.

And if you listen to this song, yeah, I can hear Tim McGraw turning this into a Big Hit. And if THAT were to happen, well, Ellis' next album probably wouldn't have to be Fan Funded. I could be Royalty Check Funded.

Ellis has a Fan Funded record out called "The Day After Everything Changed," and mvyradio is giving it away as a Monday Free CD today. Listen to the station for your chance to win.

Hear "World Ain't Slowing Down" and clips from Ellis' new record:

Ellis Paul “Jukebox On My Grave”

One cold February night, last year, my wife said, “Let’s make a list of our 20 favorite songs, and compare them.” She’s always doing stuff like that. She likes lists.

Unsuspecting soul that I am, I was completely unaware that she was looking for birthday ideas for me. Barbara Dacey had asked my wife to put together some songs suggestions. And at my surprise party in March, Barbara got up on stage with Johnny Hoy And The Bluefish, and sang 3 of my favorite songs.

Later in the year, my sister Amy, who’d been fighting cancer for nearly a decade, passed away. And my wife and I put together a slide show for the wake, with music behind it. Not having any guidance from Amy on the subject, we picked what songs we thought were appropriate.

But it did get me thinking . . . when I go, there are probably some songs I’d like played at my wake or my funeral. I’d better start compiling my list.

So I’m starting here, with Ellis Paul, since it seems to pretty much speak to my challenge. And from time to time, I’ll write here about songs that the executors of my will (and vast fortune) should know about.

Ellis Paul “Annalee”

It’s nice to be reminded about why you like an artist.

My friend Scott took me to see Ellis Paul this weekend at The Narrows.

Ellis’ previous records have been on the Rounder/Philo label, but his new album “The Day Everything Changed” was funded thanks to over $100,000 in donations from his fans.

It’s always good to catch an artist in concert right around the time of a record release. The new songs are fresh, but not so perfect they become airless, and there is a loose, exciting vibe, as the artist plays around with the new material.

I’ve seen Ellis perform before, and if you had asked me before Saturday night, what makes him special, I would have said “He’s a really great songwriter, with a clear, beautiful voice.”

Seeing him this weekend brought those thoughts into sharper focus for me.

Ellis Paul has a clear, beautiful voice, that never gets in the way of what a great songwriter he is.

I started thinking about some of Ellis’ contemporaries, whose voices are The Show. With incredible range and control, their performance is about their voice. Which I’m not putting down. I love hearing an incredible voice, put to the challenge.

But in all of his performance on Saturday, never once did Ellis use his voice in anything but of service to his songs. There were no “Hey Mom, Look What My Voice Can Do!” octave jumps or vocal runs. Even though his voice has the range and the beauty, there were no theatrics.

And the new songs sounded strong. As a thank you to all who supported the making of this new record, he’s made the first single available for free download at Amazon. You’ll have to sign in to Amazon, and download their player (it only takes a minute), but it’s otherwise free.



And check this link some time after January 18th. mvyradio will post the concert in our Narrows archives, so you can stream it for free.

And here's a really funny video about the making of the album cover:

Watch through to the end, to get another free song.