Paul Sanchez
Encyclopedia
Paul Sanchez is a New Orleans-born and based American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 and a singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

. Sanchez is best known as one of New Orleans' finest song writers and was also founding member of the New Orleans band Cowboy Mouth
Cowboy Mouth
Cowboy Mouth is a rock band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Their name usually means "One with a loud and raucous voice". The nucleus of the band formed in the 1990s, and they have become a powerhouse live act whose performances have been likened to "a religious experience."Some of their most...

. Sanchez was a guitarist and one of the primary singers and songwriters for the band from 1990 to 2006. Sanchez's songs have appeared in films and on television and have been performed by various artists such as Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber...

, Irma Thomas, Michael Cerveris, Susan Cowsill
Susan Cowsill
Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

, Kevin Griffin
Kevin Griffin
Kevin Griffin is an American guitarist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter.Griffin formed the alternative rock band Better Than Ezra in 1988. The band had great success in the 1990s with hits such as "Good", "In the Blood", and "Desperately Wanting", and has continued in the 2000s with hits such...

 and The Eli Young Band
Eli Young Band
Eli Young Band is an American country music band based in Denton, Texas. The band is composed of Mike Eli , James Young , Jon Jones , and Chris Thompson . They released their self-titled debut album in 2002, followed by the Carnival records release Level in 2005...

, Hootie and the Blowfish, John Boutté
John Boutté
John Boutté is an American jazz singer based in New Orleans, Louisiana, who has been active since the mid 1990s. He is known for diverse music style that goes beyond jazz to R&B, gospel, Latin, and blues. He is the younger brother of the jazz and gospel singer Lillian Boutté.-Biography:Boutté was...

, Shamarr Allen, Glen Andrews and Kim Carson.

Biography

Paul Sanchez was born literally across the street from the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 and grew up in New Orleans, in the Irish Channel
Irish Channel, New Orleans
Irish Channel is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Magazine Street to the north, 1st Street to the east, the Mississippi River to the south and Toledano to the...

 section, a working-class Roman Catholic neighborhood where his mother Sylvia grew up. His father, Joseph Sanchez, was Isleño from Delacroix Island in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, who came to New Orleans as a boy after the flood of '27. He met Sylvia, fathered eleven children and worked as a longshoreman until his death at 45. Paul was raised by his widowed mother along with ten brothers and sisters.

His first musical endeavor was in the New Orleans band The Backbeats, along with Vance DeGeneres
Vance DeGeneres
Vance Elliott DeGeneres is an American actor, musician, film producer and screenwriter, known for his work in television...

, Steve Walters and a drummer he was to encounter again in his career named Fred LeBlanc
Fred LeBlanc
Fred LeBlanc is currently the lead singer/drummer for the New Orleans based rock band Cowboy Mouth, as well as a freelance songwriter, record producer, short story author, and acoustic performer...

.
He refined his art in the flourishing “anti-folk” scene during a stint in New York in the late eighties where he befriended artists Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked is the stage name of Michelle Karen Johnston, an American singer-songwriter.-History:Shocked received her first international exposure in Europe, particularly Britain, with her debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes .Her first U.S...

, Brenda Kahn
Brenda Kahn
Brenda Kahn is a NYC-based singer-songwriter known for her poetic lyrics. Her career began in 1990, when her first album, Goldfish Don't Talk Back, was released to critical acclaim. Her punk-tinged folk music led to a major label deal with the Chaos label at Columbia Records, and in 1992, Kahn...

, John S. Hall
John S. Hall
John S. Hall is an American poet, author, singer and lawyer perhaps best known for his work with King Missile, an avant-garde band that he co-founded in 1986 and has since led in various disparate incarnations....

 and Roger Manning
Roger Manning
Roger Manning is a New York City based singer-songwriter who plays an aggressive acoustic style of music.He was also host of the short-lived syndicated radio program "Soho Natural Sessions" ....

. He signed a deal as a solo acoustic performer with CBS records, but the record company underwent management changes and his agreement expired without producing any releases. Sanchez temporarily left the music business and worked as a production assistant on films.

Sanchez returned to New Orleans in 1990 and helped form Cowboy Mouth along with John Thomas Griffith
John Thomas Griffith
John Thomas Griffith is an American singer-songwriter best known as a guitarist and vocalist for the band Cowboy Mouth. John Thomas Griffith first established himself on the American music scene in the early 1980s as lead singer and guitarist for the Red Rockers, co-writing their 1983 MTV hit...

 (Red Rockers
Red Rockers
Red Rockers were a musical band from New Orleans, Louisiana, active from 1979 to 1985. They are best known for their 1983 hit single "China".-Origins:...

), Paul Clement (Woodenhead
Woodenhead
Woodenhead is the name of a 2003 New Zealand film directed by Florian Habicht.The film is a dark fairy tale in the style of the Brothers Grimm, and is based around the life of a dump-hand called Gert and a mute princess called Plum. The two wander into the forest with a donkey and mysterious things...

), and his former drummer from The Backbeats, Fred LeBlanc. The Mouth's popularity and ambitious touring schedule kept him on the road for most of 16 years. Though he contributed to the band’s catalogue, Sanchez was left unsatisfied. His desire to make music that was closer to his heart and better demonstrated his talent as a singer-songwriter led to a solo career that paralleled his day job as he recorded seven solo albums while performing his duties in the band.

When Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 ravaged the gulf, Sanchez was on tour with The Mouth. Attempting to process the extent of the losses, he stayed on tour and wrote along with Leblanc and Griffith a post-Katrina tribute, “Home”, which was featured in the Starz documentary New Orleans Music in Exile
New Orleans Music in Exile
New Orleans Music in Exile is a documentary/ music film that was made in 2006 and released on DVD on August 7, 2007. It was directed by Robert Mugge.-Summary:...

and has since become a staple of his live shows. The song was released on the final album he recorded with Cowboy Mouth called Voodoo Shoppe
Voodoo Shoppe
Voodoo Shoppe is the tenth release and the seventh studio release of Cowboy Mouth.Cowboy Mouth has associated themselves quite strongly with the city of New Orleans and the music scene in that city. Voodoo Shoppe was the first album produced by the band after Hurricane Katrina, and generated a fair...

.

When being interviewed by Ellen De Generes on her talk show that year, Sanchez was asked by Ellen what he loved about New Orleans and he replied, "well, I'm pretty sure we invented a good time so if you ever had one..."

Sanchez's songs have appeared in The Accused, starring Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....

, Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...

, The Underneath, by Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing commercial Hollywood films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but he has also directed smaller less...

, and on CMT's Travel America series. His song "Hurricane Party
Hurricane party
A hurricane party is a social event held by people in the coastal United States who live in hurricane valley between Maine and Texas. The event is held during a hurricane just as any other party would...

" is a feature on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

 every storm season. Sanchez was also music supervisor for, and appeared in, the independent film At Last, starring Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan is an American stage and film actor. He has had a long collaboration with the director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, including Trust , Surviving Desire , Simple Men , Flirt , Amateur , and The Book of Life...

 and Kelly Lynch
Kelly Lynch
Kelly Lynch is an American actress. Once a model for the Elite modeling agency, Lynch appeared in the film Drugstore Cowboy which starred Matt Dillon, and the film Road House which starred Patrick Swayze....

. His song "At The Foot of Canal Street", co-written in 1999 with Sanchez's friend John Boutte, appears on the Shout Factory New Orleans musical history boxed set Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens, a Big Ole Box Of New Orleans.

2008 also saw the re-release of a rewritten version of the title cut of Sanchez's first solo release Jet Black & Jealous
Jet Black & Jealous
Jet Black & Jealous is an album by American country music band Eli Young Band. It was released on September 16, 2008 by Universal South. The album's first single, "When It Rains", peaked at #34 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart...

. The Eli Young Band
Eli Young Band
Eli Young Band is an American country music band based in Denton, Texas. The band is composed of Mike Eli , James Young , Jon Jones , and Chris Thompson . They released their self-titled debut album in 2002, followed by the Carnival records release Level in 2005...

 made the song the title cut of their major label debut on Universal/Republic. Jet Black & Jealous made its debut at number 5 on the Billboard Country Album Charts in September 2008.

His release Between Friends was a project that allowed him to write songs for some of his favorite singers including Susan Cowsill
Susan Cowsill
Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

, Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber...

, Kevin Griffin
Kevin Griffin
Kevin Griffin is an American guitarist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter.Griffin formed the alternative rock band Better Than Ezra in 1988. The band had great success in the 1990s with hits such as "Good", "In the Blood", and "Desperately Wanting", and has continued in the 2000s with hits such...

, Mark Mullins, Theresa Anderson and once again, long-time collaborator John Boutte'.

Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...

’s Dave Pirner
Dave Pirner
David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...

 produced his 2008 release of new material, Exit to Mystery Street (Threadhead Records). Sanchez also worked with Pirner on John Boutte’s latest album Good Neighbor (Threadhead Records), the material for which was a joint effort by Sanchez and Boutte'. Good Neighbor was selected as Best Traditional Album of 2008 by OffBeat
Offbeat
Offbeat may refer to:*Off Beat, a 2005 manga-influenced comic series by Jennifer Lee Quick*Off Beat, a 1986 comedy film*Offbeat, a 1961 film*Off Beat , a large German label for electronic underground music...

Magazine.

2008 saw Sanchez record a version of the classic song "If I Only Had A Brain
If I Only Had A Brain
"If I Only Had a Brain" is a song by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg . The song is sung in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz by the characters that meet Dorothy...

" from The Wizard Of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

for a compilation album of children's songs. The album, Funky Kidz (www.funkykidzmusic.com), also features performances by some of New Orleans finest players, including The Radiators, Ivan Neville, George Porter, Jr., Bonerama, Papa Grows Funk, and "Wolfman" Washington. Sanchez also made his first appearance on a jazz record singing "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
"Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" is a song written by Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter, which was first heard in the movie New Orleans in 1947, where it was performed by Louis Armstrong and sung by Billie Holiday....

" on Shamarr Allen's release, "Meet Me On Frenchmen Street."
When he does play with a band (Paul Sanchez and The Rolling Road Show), it is a celebration of New Orleans music and fun. Each member of the band sings and plays their own songs as well as Sanchez's.

Continuing to write with his favorite performers in New Orleans, he co-wrote "Walking Through Heaven's Gate" with Glen David Andrews. It is the title cut of a gospel album released by Andrews on Threadhead Records at the start off 2009.

Sanchez's newest release for Threadhead Records came out in March 2009. It is a duo record with his friend and collaborator John Boutte called Stew Called New Orleans. It was recorded live at Piety Street Recording in New Orleans with Leroy Jones on trumpet, Todd Duke on guitar and Peter Harris on bass.

In April 2009, he released a book, a collection of essays Sanchez wrote about life, music and love in the new New Orleans. Titled Pieces Of Me, it was published by Threadhead Records.

In October 2010, he performed at Voodoo Experience
Voodoo Experience
Voodoo Experience, also commonly referred to as Voodoo or Voodoo Fest, is a multi-day music and arts festival held in City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana. It was first held on Halloween weekend in 1999. It has since moved between the weekend before Halloween and Halloween weekend throughout the years...

 in New Orleans.

Sanchez resides in the Treme
Treme
Tremé is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are Esplanade Avenue to the north, North Rampart Street to the east, St. Louis Street to the south and North Broad Street to the west...

 section of New Orleans.

Cowboy Mouth studio albums

  • Word of Mouth · 1992
  • It Means Escape · 1994
  • Are You With Me? · 1996
  • Word of Mouth (Remix1) · 1996
  • Mercyland · 1998
  • Easy · 2000
  • Uh Oh · 2003
  • Voodoo Shoppe · 2006

Cowboy Mouth live albums and EPs

  • Mouthin' Off (Live & More) · 1993
  • Mouthin' Off (Live & More) (Remastered) · 1997
  • Cowboy Mouth LIVE! (limited edition 5-song EP issued with Mercyland) · 1998
  • Live in the X Lounge
    Live in the X Lounge
    Live in the X Lounge is a series of albums released by Birmingham, Alabama's former alternative rock radio station, WRAX.Though the station can no longer be found on the air, this series of live performances was produced while the station was known as 107.7 The X...

    "Jenny Says" · 1998
  • All You Need Is Live · 2000
  • Live in the X Lounge
    Live in the X Lounge
    Live in the X Lounge is a series of albums released by Birmingham, Alabama's former alternative rock radio station, WRAX.Though the station can no longer be found on the air, this series of live performances was produced while the station was known as 107.7 The X...

    "Easy" · 2000 & 2001
  • Uh Oh (5-song Preview EP) · 2003
  • Live at the Zoo · 2004

Solo albums

Paul Sanchez and The Rolling Road Show -- Reclamation Of The Pie-Eyed Piper
Nine Lives Volume One 2011
Red Beans and Ricely Yours 2010
  • Bridging the Gap 2010, Shamarr Allen & Paul Sanchez
  • Farewell To Storyville 2009
  • Stew Called New Orleans 2009
  • Exit to Mystery Street 2008, produced by Dave Pirner
    Dave Pirner
    David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...

    , (Soul Asylum
    Soul Asylum
    Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...

    ). Featuring guest appearances by Ivan Neville
    Ivan Neville
    Ivan Neville is a multi-instrumentalist musician, singer, and songwriter. He is the son of Aaron Neville and nephew to members of The Neville Brothers....

    , Shamarr Allen, Susan Cowsill
    Susan Cowsill
    Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

    , James Andrews, Fredy Omar, & Craig Klein
  • Washed Away 2007, a compilation of songs from his first 6 recordings, all lost in the levee failure in New Orleans
  • Between Friends 2007, featuring guest appearances by Darius Rucker
    Darius Rucker
    Darius Rucker is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber...

    , John Boutte', Theresa Anderson, Jim Sonefeld
    Jim Sonefeld
    Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, full name James Sonefeld , is an American musician and one of the founding members of Hootie & the Blowfish. In September 2008 he went solo with his solo debut album Snowman Melting on Aquarian Nation Records / The Orchard record label...

    , & Susan Cowsill
    Susan Cowsill
    Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

    .
  • Hurricane Party 2000, produced by Tim Sommer
    Tim Sommer
    Timothy Andrew Sommer is an American musician, record producer, former Atlantic Records A&R Representative, WNYU DJ, Trouser Press journalist, MTV News correspondent, and VH1 VJ. Tim is perhaps best known as a bass player in the slo-core, dreampop bellwether Hugo Largo and the creator and host of...

    . Featuring guest appearances by Susan Cowsill
    Susan Cowsill
    Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

    , Vicki Peterson
    Vicki Peterson
    Vicki Peterson is an American rock musician ....

     of The Bangles
    The Bangles
    The Bangles are an American all-female band that originated in the early 1980s, scoring several hit singles during the decade.-Formation and early years :...

    , Peter Holsapple
    Peter Holsapple
    Peter Holsapple formed, along with Chris Stamey, the singing, songwriting, and guitar-playing core of the dB's, a jangle-pop band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He became the band's principal songwriter and singer after Stamey's departure. The dB's were at the forefront of the guitar bands...

    , & John Boutte'
  • Live at Carrollton Station 1999, produced by Mike Mayeux
  • Sonoma Valley 1998, produced by Mike Mayeux. Guest appearances by Susan Cowsill
    Susan Cowsill
    Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

    , John Boutte' & John Thomas Griffith
    John Thomas Griffith
    John Thomas Griffith is an American singer-songwriter best known as a guitarist and vocalist for the band Cowboy Mouth. John Thomas Griffith first established himself on the American music scene in the early 1980s as lead singer and guitarist for the Red Rockers, co-writing their 1983 MTV hit...

  • Loose Parts 1997, produced by Peter Holsapple
    Peter Holsapple
    Peter Holsapple formed, along with Chris Stamey, the singing, songwriting, and guitar-playing core of the dB's, a jangle-pop band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He became the band's principal songwriter and singer after Stamey's departure. The dB's were at the forefront of the guitar bands...

    . Guest appearance by Susan Cowsill
    Susan Cowsill
    Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...

  • Wasted Lives & Bluegrass 1995
  • Jet Black and Jealous 1993, recorded by Roger Manning
    Roger Manning
    Roger Manning is a New York City based singer-songwriter who plays an aggressive acoustic style of music.He was also host of the short-lived syndicated radio program "Soho Natural Sessions" ....


Awards & recognition

  • Named New Orleans "songwriter of the year, 2000" by the Gambit Weekly
    Gambit Weekly
    Gambit is a New Orleans, Louisiana-based free alternative weekly newspaper that was established in 1981 as Gambit Weekly. Gambit features reporting about local politics, news, food and drink, arts, music, film, events, environmental issues and other topics, as well as listings...

    readers' poll

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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