Paul Sanchez

Sanchez was born on the River Road along the levee of the Mississippi River, and grew up in New Orleans' blue-collar Irish Channel neighborhood, historic home to stevedores and river pilots. Never one to be categorized or stay in the lines he has a career as varied as New Orleans itself. Sanchez is a songwriter, musician, singer, producer, writer and actor. In January 2010 Off Beat Magazine gave Paul three Best of the Beat Awards. Songwriter of The Year, Best Song of the Year, Best Folk/Rock Album for Stew Called New Orleans, his duet record with friend and collaborator John Boutte. In April of that same year Gambit Weekly awarded him Best Roots Rock Performer at The Big Easy Awards.

His first musical endeavor was in the New Orleans band The Backbeats, along with Vance DeGeneres, Steve Walters and a drummer he was to encounter again in his career named Fred LeBlanc.

He refined his art in the flourishing Anti-folk scene during a stint in New York in the late eighties where he befriended artists Brenda Kahn, John S. Hall and Roger Manning.

He has released 11 CDS as a solo artist. Also releasing 11 CDs as a founding member of the New Orleans rock band Cowboy Mouth. He left the "Mouth" after 15 years in 2006 just after the flood had upended his home and the city of New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the gulf, Sanchez was on tour with The Mouth. Attempting to process the extent of the losses, he stayed on tour and wrote a post-Katrina tribute, "Home", which was featured in the Starz documentary New Orleans Music in Exile. When being interviewed by Ellen DeGeneres 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..."

2008 also saw the re-release of a rewritten version of the title cut of Sanchez's first solo release Jet Black & Jealous. The Eli Young Band 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. He published a book of essays in 2009 entitled Pieces Of Me which deals with his sense of life, loss and rebuilding after the flood.

Primarily a songwriter Paul has written songs with and for John Boutte, Shamarr Allen, Darius Rucker of Hootie and The Blowfish, Galactic, Glen David Andrews, Irma Thomas, Matt Perrine, Tony Award Winning actor Michael Cerveris, Vance DeGeneres, Susan Cowsill, Debbie Davis, Arsene DeLay, John Thomas Griffith, John Rankin, Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, The Eli Young Band, Caleb Guillotte of Dead-Eye Dick and many more.

For the last few years Sanchez has been writing, recording and performing a musical adaptation of New York Times Best Seller Nine Lives. Nine Lives has been performed in New York City at Symphony Space, Washington DC at Sixth & I, Los Angeles at Fais Do-Do and New Orleans at Le Petite Theater, The CAC, The Ellis Marsalis Center and Tulane University's Dixon Hall.

He has appeared on the HBO series Treme as himself.

Paul resides in the Tremé and still lives, sings and breathes New Orleans.

• Paul Sanchez official website

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