Paul Race's Music Site Home Page
Coming from a family that loved all kinds of music, Paul learned
early to appreciate the Weavers, Romberg, Gershwin, Leadbelly, Basie,
Coltrane, and Seeger. He also learned to play much of that music, on
guitar, banjo, and saxophone. Later, he learned to love and play the
music of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Buffy St. Marie, Cat Stevens, Chicago,
BS&T, Rich Mullins, Larry Norman, Second Chapter of Acts, Jim Croce,
CS&N, and many others.
To the songs Paul learned from his heros, he added songs he wrote
himself. For decades, he performed them in just about any kind of
performance situation you can imagine - coffeehouses, festivals,
churches, schools, nightclubs, camps, street fairs - you name it.
Recently, Paul has focused more on helping other folks get and
stay involved in music. But folks who remember Paul's songs occasionally
ask him where his "artist" page is. So we're updating a site that Paul
first put together when he was "gigging" regularly and HTML was in its
infancy.
We are still adding links to new resources, on this and other sites. So Stay Tuned.
In the meantime, here are some of the resources we have so far:
- About - background information about Paul and his music.
- Music - information about and samples of Paul's music.
- Blog - Paul's Blog about music he likes and music he plays and writes.
- Free Music Lessons- free music lessons and related resources.
- Memoirs - looking back over the decades.
- Other Articles - index of other articles related to music topics.
- Contact - our contact page, which also allows you to sign up for the Momma Don't 'Low newsletter.
- Paul's Music Page on Facebook -
- Paul's YouTube Channel - Just Started
Other Resources
Related music-oriented web pages include:
- Creek Don't Rise is a web site about American folk music forms and information about the history of the American Heartland, especially the National Road. The CreekDontRise.com forums provide a place for questions and answers about related music, history, and music career topics.
- Classic Train Songs is a web page about songs about trains.
- SchoolOfTheRock.com started out as a placeholder for resources for young CCM musicians and would-be worship leaders. But Paul mentioned some of his saxophones in one article, and started getting so many questions that the site is now almost half saxophone articles.
- RiverboatMusic.com started to keep the "how to shop for" articles about folk instruments from cluttering up the "how to play" articles.
- Family Christmas Music discusses traditional Christmas songs.
“How Long Do You Expect To Live, Anyway”?
When I turned 59, a company I worked for in the 1980s started trying to “buy me out” of the itty bitty pension I accumulated between 1981 and 1984. I explained to the “financial counselor” who kept calling me that I had “done the math” and the value of the…
Re-Updated Music Web Page and Paying it Forward
If you checked my music web page a year ago, you probably wondered if I ever updated it. I’ve been keeping three separate pages about traditional and Americana music updated for years, but I haven’t been nearly as diligent about promoting my own songs. In the last several months, friends…
As a Creative Person, what if the Journey IS the Destination?
This is a response to a blog by Country songwriter Shantell Ogden, listing the “hard answers” to the questions that wannabes ask her most often. Her blog is here. I’m not “Country” by nature; I grew up as a folk singer, went into “Jesus music” (before “CCM” all started sounding…
Exiled Nigerian Prince to the Rescue
This is probably tasteless, but I get so many e-mail spams, scams, and phishing attempts, that I thought it would be fun to turn the tables on the spammers, scammers, and phishers, by publishing their emails and a not-so-helpful reply based on other spams, scams, and phishing attempts I get…
Will the One “Right” Way to Play the 5-String Banjo Please Stand Up?
Originally posted September 18, 2015 So, I learned 5-string banjo in the 1960s, following the example of a variety of folk artists, especially Pete Seeger, who – despite being basically a frailer – had mastered several other techniques, and didn’t feel bad about adjusting his playing style to the song.…
Memories . . .
Originally posted September 13, 2015 So, we’re cleaning up the basement after some 28 years of living in the same old house – a house we moved into in a hurry and where we have been randomly throwing stuff into the basement ever since. In the meantime, I’ve upgraded most…
More about 12-strings
Originally Posted August 31, 2015 Twelve-string guitars have the low strings doubled an octave higher. This concept had long been used by members of the mandolin family, but wasn’t apparently carried over into the guitar family until the late 19th century. The extra high strings help the guitar sound louder…
Thoughts on a 12-string
Originally posted August 28, 2015 Just got my 12-string Ovie Balladeer out of mothballs to play in a church service. I’m the guitarist they call in when the other three guitarists can’t make it. But I don’t mind, since it gives me most Sundays off but lets me keep my…
Who Owns Folk Songs?
Originally posted August 23, 2015 Folks working with traditional music often run into fake copyright notices on the sheet music they buy. One particular publisher often gets credit and even publishing royalties for recordings of songs that were written long before that company existed, only because they affixed a copyright…
Added my first YouTube Video
Originally Posted August 12, 2015 Added my first YouTube. Mostly, I’m experimenting to see if I can get all the bits and pieces of my “web presence” talking to each other. It’s showing a 5-string beginners version of “Boil That Cabbage Down,” to accompany chapter 4 of my free banjo…