Life Is Just A Vapor Paul Thorn

• 1 Tough Times Don't Last 03:31
• 2 Courage My Love 03:50
• 3 She Will 04:06
• 4 Chicken Wing 03:11
• 5 Life Is Just A Vapor 04:26
• 6 Geraldine & Ricky 04:06
• 7 I'm Just Waiting 04:04
• 8 I Knew 03:48
• 9 Wait 04:08
• 10 I Love You Like A Cigarette 04:05
• 11 Old Melodies 04:18
• Total Runtime 43:33

Info for Life Is Just A Vapor

Der aus dem Süden stammende Singer-Songwriter Paul Thorn hat angekündigt, dass sein neues Album „Life Is Just A Vapor“ am 21. Februar über Thirty Tigers veröffentlicht wird. Das Album ist ein offener Bericht über die Lebenslektionen, die Thorn im Laufe seiner einzigartigen und umfangreichen Karriere erfahren hat, und eine Reflexion seiner sechs Jahrzehnte auf diesem Planeten. Zusammen mit der Ankündigung teilte Thorn auch die Lead-Single und den Album-Opener „Tough Times Don’t Last“, ein bluesiger, widerstandsfähiger Track, der Worte der Unterstützung und Ermutigung bietet, die den Zuhörer aufmuntern sollen, insbesondere in schwierigen Zeiten.

„’Tough Times Don’t Last‘ ist ein Lied, mit dem sich jeder identifizieren kann, da wir alle irgendwann einmal mit etwas konfrontiert sind, das schwer zu ertragen ist“, erklärt Thorn. „Es gibt zwei Arten von Menschen auf der Welt. Es gibt Menschen, die sich bei Schwierigkeiten hinlegen und weinen, und es gibt Menschen, die verstehen, dass man sich manchmal wieder hochkämpfen muss. Es kann besser werden, aber man muss stark bleiben, um es zu ertragen, und darum geht es in diesem Lied.“

Beim Songwriting ist weniger mehr und Einfachheit ist Stärke. Fragen Sie einfach Paul Thorn, der seit drei Jahrzehnten gefühlvolle Grooves und kleine Silben in Songs verwandelt, die es in sich haben. Vielleicht hat er die Kraft des Minimalismus in seinen Jahren als Profiboxer gelernt, vielleicht kommt es ihm einfach so über die Lippen. Aber ob er nun Köpfe, Herzen, Hüften oder den gelegentlichen Humor anspricht, er schafft es irgendwie, große Nuggets der Weisheit in kleine, prägnante Mantras zu verdichten, die Art von Stickereien, die auf Kissen gestickt wurden, bevor es Internet-Memes gab.

Ob er Liebe ausdrückt, die neue Eroberung eines Ex-Partners vor den Gefahren warnt, den Wert des Aufschubs von Sex preist oder die Zutaten für eine funktionierende Ehe aufzählt – Thorn vermittelt seine Botschaften mit vollendeter Geschicklichkeit und punktgenauer Präzision. In einem Moment erzählt er eine haarsträubende Geschichte voller verrückter Charaktere (oft begleitet von seinen eigenen cartoonartigen Illustrationen), im nächsten rührt er mit Liebes-, Verlust- oder Traumbeichten zu Tränen und balanciert dabei Witz und Pathos mit einer Leichtigkeit, die nur die besten Geschichtenerzähler beherrschen. Einer von Thorns Favoriten war sein Freund und Mentor John Prine, der ihn zu seinem Titelsong inspirierte. „Ich versuche einfach, ein gutes Werk zu schaffen, das in Erinnerung bleibt, wie Johns Musik“, gibt Thorn zu. ‚Ich versuche, seine Tradition fortzusetzen, sie am Leben zu erhalten.“

Thorn hat im Laufe seiner Karriere viel Anerkennung wie vom Rolling Stone erhalten, die sagten: „Thorn knows a thing or two about shaking it onstage. Much like Elvis Presley, Thorn has distinguished himself early on in his career with a live-performance energy that has enraptured audiences.“ NPR bezeichnete Thorn als “a natural-born Southern storyteller with humble stage banter and musical delivery that’s gritty and gruff”, während Guitar World erklärte, dass seine Erzählkunst “sometimes heartbreaking, other times exuberant, at all times universal.” sei.

„Ich möchte, dass die Menschen von der Musik berührt werden und etwas daraus mitnehmen, etwas, das sie den ganzen Tag über begleiten kann“, sagt Thorn. “Jedes Lied auf diesem Album enthält eine Botschaft, die in irgendeiner Weise zeigt, wie man sein Leben leben kann.“

Paul Thorn

Paul Thorn
"In the past, I've told stories that were mostly inspired by my own life," the former prizefighter and literal son of a preacher man offers. "This time, I've written 10 songs that express more universal truths, and I've done it with a purpose: to make people feel good."

Which explains numbers like the acoustic-electric charmer Don't Let Nobody Rob You Of Your Joy, where Thorn's warm peaches-and-molasses singing dispenses advice on avoiding the pitfalls of life. The title track borrows its tag from a familiar saying among the members of the African-American Baptist churches Thorn frequented in his childhood. "I'd ask, 'How you doin', sister?' And what I'd often hear back was, 'I'm too blessed to be stressed.'" In the hands of Thorn and his faithful band, who've been together 20 years, the tune applies its own funky balm, interlacing a percolating drum and keyboard rhythm with the slinky guitar lines beneath his playful banter.

Thorn's trademark humor is abundant throughout the album. I Backslide On Friday is a warm-spirited poke at personal foibles. "I promised myself not to write about me, but I did on 'Backslide,' " Thorn relates. The chipper pop tune is a confession about procrastination, sweetened by Bill Hinds' slide guitar and Thorn's gently arching melody. "But," Thorn protests, "I know I'm not the only one who says he's gonna diet and just eat Blue Bell vanilla ice cream on Sundays, and then ends up eating it every day!"

Mediocrity Is King takes a wider swipe, aiming at our culture's hyper-drive addiction to celebrity artifice and rampant consumerism. But likeEverything Is Gonna Be All Right, a rocking celebration of the simple joys of life, it's done with Thorn's unflagging belief in the inherent goodness of the human heart.

"I don't think I could have written anthemic songs like this if I hadn't made my last album," Thorn says of 2012's What the Hell is Goin' On?. Like 2010's autobiographical Pimps & Preachers, it was among its year's most played CDs on Americana radio and contributed to Thorn's rapidly growing fan base. And Thorn followed that airplay success with his current AAA-radio hit version of Doctor My Eyes from April 2014's Looking Into You: A Tribute To Jackson Browne. The latter also features Grammy winners Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, the Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, Keb' Mo', Ben Harper and Don Henley.

What the Hell is Goin' On? was also Thorn's first set of songs written by other artists, borrowed from the catalogs of Allen Toussaint, Buddy and Julie Miller, and Rick Danko, among others.

"I lived with those songs and studied them before I recorded that album, and that changed me and made me grow as a songwriter," Thorn relates. "Lindsey Buckingham's Don't Let Me Down Again especially got me thinking. It was a rock anthem with a sing-along hook, and I fell in love with it and the idea of big vocal hooks. So every song on Too Blessed To Be Stressedhas a big vocal hook in it. And it works! We've been playing these songs in concert, and by the time the chorus comes along for the second time people are singing along. I've never seen that happen with my unreleased songs before, and I love it."

It helps that those big vocal hooks on Too Blessed To Be Stressed are being reinforced by the sound of Thorn's flexible and dynamic band, as they have been doing for years in concert. During their two decades in the club, theater and festival trenches, the four-piece and their frontman have garnered a reputation for shows that ricochet from humor to poignancy to knock-out rock 'n' roll. Guitarist Bill Hinds is the perfect, edgy foil for Thorn's warm, laconic salt o' the earth delivery – a veritable living library of glowing tones, sultry slide and sonic invention. Keyboardist Michael "Dr. Love" Graham displays a gift for melody that reinforces Thorn's hooks while creating his own impact, and helps expand the group's rhythmic force. Meanwhile drummer Jeffrey Perkins and bassist Ralph Friedrichsen are a force, propelling every tune with just the right amount of up-tempo power or deep-in-the-groove restraint.

"These guys really bring my songs to life," says Thorn. "A lot of albums sound like they're made by a singer with bored studio musicians. My albums sound they're played by a real blood-and-guts band because that's what we are. And when we get up on stage, people hear and see that."

Thorn's earlier catalog is cherished by his many fans thanks to his down-home perspective, vivid-yet-plainspoken language and colorful characters. It helps that Thorn is a colorful and distinctly Southern personality himself. He was raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, in the land of cotton and catfish. And churches.

"My father was a preacher, so I went with him to churches that white people attended and churches that black people attended," Thorn says. "The white people sang gospel like it was country music, and the black people sang it like it was rhythm and blues. But both black and white people attended my father's church, and that's how I learned to sing mixing those styles."

His performances were generally limited to the pews until sixth grade. "I'm dyslexic and got held back in sixth grade," Thorn relates. "I didn't have to face the embarrassment, because my family moved and I ended up in a new school. There was a talent show, and I sang Three Times a Lady by Lionel Ritchie with my acoustic guitar, and suddenly I went from being a social outcast to the most desired boy on the playground. The feeling I got from that adulation stuck with me and propelled me to where I am today."

At age 17 Thorn met songwriter Billy Maddox, who became his friend and mentor. It would take several detours – working in a furniture factory, boxing, jumping out of airplanes – until Thorn committed to the singer-songwriter's life. But through it all he and Maddox remained friends, and Maddox became Thorn's songwriting partner and co-producer.

Nonetheless, Thorn possessed the ability to charm audiences right from the start. Not only with his music, but also with the stories he tells from the stage. "Showmanship is a dying art that I learned from watching Dean Martin on TV when I was a kid," Thorn explains. "He could tell little jokes and then deliver a serious song, then make you laugh again. And he would look into the camera like he was looking right at you through the TV. That's what I want to do – make people feel like I'm talking directly to them."

That's really Thorn's mission for Too Blessed To Be Stressed, which can be heard as a running conversation about life between Thorn and listeners – a conversation leavened with gentles insights, small inspirations, and plenty of cheer. "I wrote these songs hoping they might put people in a positive mindset and encourage them to count their own blessings, like I count mine," Thorn observes. "There's no higher goal I could set for myself than to help other people find some happiness and gratitude in their lives."

This album contains no booklet.