Ellis Paul

Hey everyone—

I wanted to thank you all for the outpouring of love and support for my hand surgery last week. Everything went smoothly, and I can’t believe how straight my fingers are!

However, the hand looks like something out of Frankenstein. It’s stiff. It’s gruesome. This would be my best chance for an all-out gross-out on social media. You know how people love to share their hospital shots ("Check it out! Here’s my neck brace! … Here’s my appendectomy scar! … Here’s my spleen!”). I’m reserving these vomitous moments for close friends. Ping me.

Anyhoo, a couple months of rehab and I will be playing with the entire hand again. All five fingers, on all six strings. The rehab hurts, but the payoff is: A return to joy. I miss my chops. I will never again take this blessing I’ve had as a musician for granted. All we have is now.

Despite the surgery, my 29th Annual New Year’s Eve Holiday Extravaganza is HAPPENING! At Club Passim in Cambridge MA and One Longfellow Square in Portland ME. I will be singing SINATRA-STYLE while my besties Don Conoscenti, Radoslav Lorković, and Laurie MacAllister buoy me up with their voices, guitar, and piano.

Come out to these shows! See what I will do with only a microphone—for the first time in 35 years, I will have no instrument to hold my paws in place. Will I dance? Will I thump my chest like Celine Dion? Will I Joe Cocker this muthah? I just don’t know. I expect to perform the hits, and you can expect some awkwardly-rendered 7th grade dance moves. Somewhere between Mick Jagger and Björk.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE:

Thu Dec 29 @ 8 pm: https://www.passim.org/live-music/

Fri Dec 30 @ 8 pm: https://www.passim.org/live-music/

Sat Dec 31 @ 7 pm: https://www.passim.org/live-music/

Sat Dec 31 @ 10 pm: https://www.passim.org/live-music/

Sun Jan 1 @ 8 pm: https://onelongfellowsquare.com/event/ellis-paul/#tribe-tickets

I love you guys. Seriously. What a world. What would I do without you?

Thanks for your love. It keeps me soaring.

-Ellis