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 Paul
Kahn was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1949. While
an infant, Paul's family moved to New Jersey, where he grew
up listening to radio of the 1950's, including Elvis Presley,
The Everly Brothers, and The Coasters. Paul's father was a poet,
painter, multi-media artist, and a jazz and folk music buff.
An outing to see folk-blues singer Josh White in concert made
a strong impression. His mother loved the theater and frequented
New York's theater district, exposing Paul to great musicals
like West Side Story, Damn Yankees, and Oliver!.
In high school in the 1960's, Paul started playing guitar. The
Greenwich Village folk scene was in full bloom, and he was influenced
by Mississippi John Hurt, Patrick Sky, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs,
Dave Van Ronk, and Simon and Garfunkel. Upon graduating from
high school, Paul moved to the Midwest, attending the University
of Wisconsin in Madison. He performed in a variety of string
bands while becoming immersed in Chicago blues, bluegrass, country
music, as well as the burgeoning rock and counter culture scene.
He witnessed some memorable concerts, including Muddy Waters,
Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing in small clubs;
while also catching performances by J.B. Hutto and The Hawks,
Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys (with Ricky Skaggs
and Keith Whitley), and Ernest Tubb and The Texas Troubadours.
He hitched rides, heading south for bluegrass and fiddle festivals.
Paul worked a variety of jobs before resolving to pursue music
full-time. Finding bands in need of bass players more than guitarists,
Paul took up string bass, spending several years touring, recording,
and writing songs. In the mid-1970's, he worked with Bela Fleck
(playing bass on Bela's recording debut), Pat Enright (currently
of Nashville Bluegrass Band), Stacy Phillips, and Jack Tottle
in the bluegrass band Tasty Licks, which recorded one of Paul's
songs as the title track on their 2nd Rounder LP, Anchored
To The Shore. Paul appeared as bassist on finger style
guitarist Eric Schoenberg's Rounder LP, Acoustic Guitar.
In 1979, Paul started Concerted Efforts, an agency which books
and manages roots music artists, his career for the past two
decades. He later founded Foggy Day Music, a music publishing
company, rekindling a long-standing interest in songs and songwriting.
Under the pen name Paul Bernard, he has co-written songs recorded
by zydeco artist C.J. Chenier
and bluesman Eddy Clearwater.
Paul Kahn's original songs on These Ears and Eyes are
unique and endearing. Word play, multiple meanings, and intriguing
characters and settings abound. As relationships unfold, depression,
inspiration, unfaithfulness, faith, parental overbearing, and
sexual politics are treated with wit and wisdom. An unusual
ballad, "The Wayward Daughter," originally recorded
by cowboy singer Carl T. Sprague in 1929 for Victor, in which
a judge pleads the case of a young woman accused of moral impropriety,
is the album's lone cover (still relevant a half century later).
These Ears and Eyes, Paul Kahn’s debut CD, reveals
a songster who has absorbed and distilled songwriting and musical
influences as diverse as American music into a blend of gourmet
Americana. Some of Chicago's finest musicians, including producer/violinist
Stuart Rosenberg, drummer Morris Jennings, and string wizard
Donald Stiernberg, provide inspired accompaniment. You’ll
be both bemused and charmed by Paul's approach.
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