Ancient HistoryAncient HistoryRick Paul got an early start with music, but a late start in the music business. Legend (or his mother) has it that he was singing nursery tunes at the tender age of six months. (Hey, you wouldn't doubt his mother, would you?) While Rick can't remember back that far, he does distinctly remember playing Christmas carols on the piano for his kindergarten class. He also recalls starting his first band in the sixth grade, and having one or another band going pretty much non-stop from then through the end of high school. Enroute, he picked up the clarinet and saxophone, and played Farfisa organs and Moog synthesizers in his pop groups, but his main instrument was, and remains, the piano.
During high school, Rick enjoyed the musical theater, playing roles such as Jud Fry in Oklahoma! and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. He was also an avid music fan, collecting 8-tracks and cassettes from numerous pop-oriented artists such as Elton John, Billy Joel, Jim Croce, KISS, Neil Sedaka, Gordon Lightfoot, Abba, and many more. His favorite, though, was Elton John, and Rick learned to play and sing most of Elton's material from that period. In fact, it was a pretty sure bet that if Rick wasn't playing music, he was listening to music, though he sometimes did both at the same time, playing and singing along with tapes in the basement practice room at his parents' house in Upstate New York.
Somewhere alongside all this musical immersion, Rick began writing songs. Actually he can still remember his first song in its entirety. Well, it's only three lines long ("I really like to fish/And have a little wish/I wish I'd catch a fish"), so that's no great feat. But he even remembers that he wrote it for a musical skit, which he also wrote, for his fifth grade class. And he doesn't remember writing any other songs until approximately junior high school, when he'd decided he wanted to be the next Elton John, and that he had better come up with some original tunes if he was going to have a shot at that.
By the time college came around, and he learned it was hell trying to play in a band when you're a keyboard player with no wheels, he had already written a few dozen songs. And his band-less college years afforded him plenty of opportunity to fill the time he would rather have spent playing for audiences with writing new songs. By the time he went to graduate school in Southern California, he'd begun enjoying songwriting for its own sake, and it was during his time in L.A. that he wrote the song that would, over a decade and a half later, become his first commercial release as a songwriter.
What happened in those years in between? Well, besides getting a masters degree in computer science while at USC, he also returned to the East Coast with a marriage license and a wife. They moved around the country a few times in a few years, ending up back in Southern California, then had their first of two children a little while after that. Meanwhile, Rick's "day career" was taking on a life of its own, and by the time family and job were figured into the equation, there wasn't much time, no less energy, left over for music. He was still writing songs sporadically, and playing the piano and singing regularly, albeit only in his home, but that was as far as it went.
In the mid-1990s, Rick came to the conclusion that he
had progressed less with his music in the previous decade
than he had in the span of just a few years prior to that.
On the other hand he had been spending extremely long
hours at a day job, but, though he was successful in his
computer industry career, his achievements in that area
were relatively unimportant to him in terms of his long
range goals. Recognizing that his music was going to go
nowhere on its own, he resolved that, one way or another,
he needed to focus more of his time and energy on getting
his music out to the public, and building a career with
his music.
With newfound determination, and a batch of newer, better songs, Rick set out to try and get his foot in the door of the music industry. While he was encouraged by a few established industry players, he was also frustrated by the "no unsolicited material" barriers of the traditional music industry, not to mention by the smaller number of opportunities, as compared to a decade earlier, that were open to outside songwriters. However, there was another development, which was on the verge of becoming a force for helping heretofore unknown creative artists get their material out to others who could use that material.
Rick had been a user of the Internet since the early 1980s, and had even collaborated on one song via e-mail in the early 1990s. However, he wasn't exposed to the World Wide Web until early 1996. His day job at the time forced him to become a quick study at HTML, and when he learned of an emerging technology, called RealAudio, for putting sound clips on the web, he decided it was at least worth experimenting to see if putting some of his songs on the web might help expose them to artists who could use the songs.
In July 1996, he put an initial handful of his songs, complete with lyric sheets and verse/chorus clips from his demos, on the web. While he had no illusions that major artists would be out scanning the net for material, he believed that the best opportunities for heretofore unknown songwriters were likely to come in the form of heretofore unknown artists who needed quality material to help them advance their careers in the music industry. After all, the major stars of tomorrow had to come from somewhere today, and they probably were having at least as difficult a time getting quality material from the established players as an unknown songwriter would have in getting his material to those same players. And the worldwide reach of the Internet meant that it was possible to connect with such artists with little concern for their geographical location.
Well, all that sounded nice in theory, but could it work? Let's cut to the story in progress.
As of the turn of the millenium, Rick is a full-time
songwriter. The Internet has allowed him to collaborate
with writers located all over the USA, as well as in
Canada and England. He has also attracted artists to his
material from many parts of the USA, and from as far away
as Norway and Mongolia. While he still has a ways to go
before he will consider himself successful on his own
terms, he has achieved a number of milestones, including:
As 2008 unfolds, Rick's 60's-flavored rock and roll single, Bubble Gum, is available in iTunes and several other digital download stores, as well as in CD-on-demand and ringtone formats. Other independent artist releases of Rick's songs are in progress, and Rick will soon be announcing a couple of new releases. You can also catch Rick performing at various events around Southern California from time to time. Check the Gigs page for any dates and locations.
Rick Paul is a published songwriter, and sometime
recording artist, based in Southern
California. He specializes in writing country, pop/rock,
and adult contemporary, while also writing in other
genres. Rick also
sings and plays piano and other keyboard instruments.
Rick is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Just Plain Folks. He participated in the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Song Camp 101 workshop in Spring 1997, NSAI Song Camp 201 workshop in October 1998.
Rick also writes music software reviews and other music-related articles for CakewalkNet.com.