Album Notes

A song arrives like a bird. He flies up unexpected as a gift from somewhere else, as beauty pre-existing, awaiting discovery, asking for care and sanctuary. She asks not to be owned but appreciated.

Even as a child I heard melodies playing in my head. During an activity or event I’d realize I was humming a tune I’d never heard before. Other times I’d sit at the piano or with a guitar and songs would just be there. Sometimes they came in dreams. Upon awakening I’d force myself to get out of bed and write down the notes.

Growing up in the city of Oshkosh Wisconsin, my parents often took the family camping to various natural areas in the U.S. and sometimes Canada. I came alive then, exhilarated, as if suddenly my body was in a place it was created to be in.

In 1982 when I was 20 I moved to northeastern Minnesota. I had planned my escape for years. Working as a cook I saved all my money and bought land on a river in the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I live there in a log cabin – a simple relaxed existence in a world that is not simple or relaxed.

As a musician I have become a bridge between the two worlds. My passion for wilderness, survival, and philosophy is inseparable from my music, as is the fact that I grew up in a society removed from those things. Thus my song lyrics often reflect some aspect of how our innate wildness touches modern human life. They take the feeling of our basic wild human nature, and our instinctive longing to recognize this part of ourselves, and make it accessible to the modern person.

As an artist it can be good to be able to live on peanuts or roadkill. My dog Tuco and I literally and happily can and have. Since 1988 music has been my sole occupation. I’ve played bars, restaurants, coffee houses, art fairs, festivals, hotel lobbys, campfires, weddings and private parties, in the Midwest and in North and South Carolina. The bulk of my gigs have been near the north shore of Lake Superior, closer to home. My job is to let something touch people, through the vehicle of me. I love what I do.

I have a knack for covering songs by artists like Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan, but my own music is my true passion. People have always requested recordings of my material. In the year 2000 I went into a professional studio for the first time and began recording the songs which had been accumulating since grade school. To date I’ve completed 4 original cd’s: “The Road”, “Callings”, “Treepreacher”, and “When the Legends Die”.

I now live part of the time in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area, focusing more on exposing my music – life’s work.
-Joe Paulik