February 17
$20.00

Ellis Paul is one of the leading voices in America’s thriving singer-songwriter/folk circuit. He was a principal leader in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, an urbane, literate folk-pop style that helped ignite the folk revival of the 1990s. His charismatic, personally authentic performance style has influenced a generation of artists away from the artifice of pop, and closer towards the realness of folk. Though he remains among the most pop-friendly of today’s singer-songwriters — his songs regularly appear in hit movie and TV soundtracks — he has bridged the gulf between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger more successfully than perhaps any of his songwriting peers.

Yet to hear him at this crossroads moment in his career, you would think he was just getting started. For years, he has been among the folk circuit’s most popular and dependable headliners, with a mailing list of over 20,000 fiercely loyal fans. He has released 11 CDs, and recently explored new media avenues with a documentary/concert DVD called “3,000 Miles,” and “Notes from the Road,” a critically acclaimed book of poems and stories.

Almost from the beginning, Paul’s infectious melodicism, literate lyrics, and honest performing style drew attention. As early as 1993, the Boston Globe was calling him a songwriter’s songwriter, adding that “no emerging songwriter in recent memory has been more highly touted and respected by songwriters.”

“I feel like I’m more a part of a community now than just a songwriter singing about my own struggles and the struggles of the friends I see around me,” Paul says of his career today. “Maybe that’s the difference between being a singer-songwriter and being a folk musician, that transition into more of a community sense of writing.”

At the same time, Paul remains the most mainstream-friendly folk songwriter to emerge from Boston since Tom Rush. Between 1993 and 2003, he won an unprecedented 12 Boston Music Awards, and his songs were heard on hit TV shows Ed and MTV’s Real World; and in the soundtracks of several Farrelly Brothers films, including “Me, Myself, & Irene,” starring Jim Carrey, and “Shallow Hal,” with Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow. Director Peter Farrelly has called Paul “a national treasure.”

Although Paul performs to acclaim in any venue, it’s wonderful to catch him in a coffeehouse. Scott Alarik says of him: “Paul’s stage savvy is not only displayed between songs. There is an alluring theatre to his song delivery. His airy voice sounds as if it were whispering in the audience’s ears, but that whisper is a wonderfully controlled tenor, tamed to conceal its artistry. His soft song-ending sustains are feats of vocal daring, but done with such apparent effortlessness they seem no more artful than a sigh.”

Boston-area performer Antje Duvekot, who will be headlining a show at the Me&Thee next fall, has been added to this show. Originally from Heidelberg, Germany, this singer-songwriter has begun making waves in the New England area and is enjoying a fast-growing fan base in the city of Boston, regularly selling out venues such as Club Passim and Johnny D’s. Songs from her recent CD, “Boys, Flowers, Miles” have been receiving substantial airplay on Boston airwaves.

A&R rep Peter Lubin says of her: “Antje’s songs have a grace and sweep rarely witnessed in the modern-day canon. Her ability to render a tune harkens back to an earlier generation of songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and the like, whose music was not just for then or now but for always. This music deserves attention.”

Photo by Dana Farnsworth