Paul Felton

Remorse and regret show some wisdom getting through / Turning my heart a paler blue

- A Paler Blue, Paul Felton

For some people it can seem like life is a rehearsal for a spotlight that doesn’t shine until the age when most people settle down. Paul Felton has lived that rehearsal. From playing sax in marching bands to coming out of a cocoon 55 years later as an extraordinary singer/songwriter. Within those two goalposts was majoring in music in college, trying out being a music teacher and discovering it gave him headaches, acting and directing in local theater and always wishing he’d played in a rock band, way back when, back when he thought he “wasn’t cool enough.” ALL OVER THE PLACE, after all this time, is very much cool enough.

A joyous melodic collection weaving through the smoother side of Americana with jazzy touches, the record doesn’t give in to sugary optimism where there’s no place for it.  Felton stares life in the face and sings, “these precious things we share, are they really all that rare?” in a voice that is neither put on like a suit nor too weatherbeaten, to give lyrics weight when they need it and flight when they don’t. It’s not “look here, sonny!” It’s “I’m one of you”

Ironically, Come Light Visit Me starts things on a troubled note, bereaving the world’s situations without getting topical and thus someday obsolete. The music is atmospheric, yet rooted. A bit like Dylan’s “Infidels” album. Then the title track leads us back to the yellow brick road with a jaunty jazzy Randy Newman-type swing that matches the happiness and wizened good sense of the lyrics.

Up into middle age, Felton found himself straitjacketed from years of music education – a slavery to dots on paper and the impossibility of singing and playing sax at the same time – Felton learned to do what so many schooled musicians never can - seek his own muse and break rules when need be. The breakthrough wasn’t learning to play guitar, or keyboards; it was the autoharp. He picked one up, the dam broke, and as he says, “I knew I’d connected with something in my soul that I need to do my whole life.” And then he wrote his first song. At the ripe young age of 58.

Produced by Kenny Schick at Basement3 Productions in Nashville. ALL OVER THE PLACE displays Felton’s love for Jesse Winchester without being a mimic. The influence is subtle, but it’s there. Arpeggiated acoustic guitars, tasteful and often jazzy electric guitars, keys, ethereal background soundscapes, bass and drums that are stroked instead of whacked. ALL OVER THE PLACE will sit on a record shelf comfortably next to Freedy Johnston, James Taylor, recent Nick Lowe, and Darden Smith. Schick, a multi-instrumentalist, sometimes plays everything, singing backup alongside Sabine Heusler-Schick. Schick decorates things on guitars with a taste and restraint a lot of hotshots could learn from. Chris Benelli drums on eight of the tracks, in tandem with Cazzie Olko on bass.

At the core of Felton’s work is a certain courage. The courage you can’t bottle and drink in when you’re young. The courage a man earns after seeing the world blow up a few times already. He reminds us in the dreamy rhythmic Things that Fall. “Things fall apart. Right from the start. All it takes is apathy, and we lose heart.” He lays out notions that are at once senseless and worldly wise. “Let it rain. Let it pour. That’s what the water’s for.” May Paul Felton have many, many rainy mornings to come.