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by Seth Rogovoy
WASHINGTON, Mass., Sept. 23, 1996 -- Ellis Paul came to the Stone Chapel Concert Series at St. Andrew's Chapel on Sunday afternoon, preceded by his reputation for intimate, dynamic solo shows featuring his expressive vocals and his carefully drawn, literate and literary portraits.
In many ways, the Boston-based singer/songwriter did not disappoint. He offered up a selection of finely etched character sketches, of a cross-country traveler here, of a woman of unshakable faith there, even of a handgun. He deftly introduced many of his tunes with stories that helped bring them to life while seeming to establish a rapport with the intimate crowd. He knew how to sing quietly for effect and when to unleash a big sound on guitar and vocals for equally dramatic effect.
Paul balanced songs of social and political import with more personal tunes about the struggles of love and relationships. Backed on guitar and vocals by the warmup act, Don Conoscenti, he played some of his more upbeat, jaunty tunes off his recently released CD, "A Carnival of Voices" (Philo/Rounder). He recited a few of his poems, and in one tune he even rhymed "scenario" with "portfolio," possibly a first in popular music of any genre.
Paul is perhaps the most critically-acclaimed, up-and-coming songwriter of his generation. He has numerous awards to his credit, a very active fan base, numerous web pages and even an online discussion group dedicated to enumerating the myriad aspects of his work. The night before his show here, he marked the release of his new CD in a large, packed theater in Boston in a program that had some of the top national artists in the new-folk genre on hand to help Paul celebrate the latest step in a career that seems destined to succeed.
Yet like his recordings, Paul's show on Sunday left this listener largely unmoved. There is a transparency to much of Paul's work, which is too enamored of its own craft and not infused with the sort of passion or inspiration needed to boost it to a level where it would transcend mere words into something greater.
Paul is much touted for his literariness, and indeed he is an ambitious writer, experimenting with different points of view, dialogue and illustration in song far beyond the ability of many journeymen songwriters. But much of what he creates comes across as the result of mere exercises. And it would take a composer of far greater talent than Paul to make songs out of lines like "She's trying to define her faith like it's some role that she's playing," or "We were drunk fools in Paris, stumbling on the sidewalk that runs along the Seine, and on the Cathedral all the gargoyles watched us laughing." They may read fine on the page as poetry, but try singing them.
What is ultimately most disappointing about Paul's work is that for all of the care and effort he puts into crafting his songs and putting them to his audience, a listener is left with no real sense of who this person is or what he feels is so important to communicate. His first album was called "Say Something." In the end, I wish he would.
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