Mikel Paul

Mikel Paul was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. His mom, always playing music on their 50's-60's Hi-Fi, bought him a piano when he was 6. Taking classical lessons til he was eight, he liked Chopin, but he also liked Jerry Lee Lewis. His teacher didn't, so he quit. A disgruntled 8 year old, but not for long. Soon, he picked up an electric bass because of James Brown and the Beatles. His mom got him into the San Francisco Boys Chorus because he wanted to sing. Antonio Carlos Jobim was always on at home, so a nylon guitar was next.

Everywhere, Mikel heard music. Felt it. He had to play.

Mikel's stepdad would scold him at meals for his constant humming and tapping of his hands on his legs.

A couple local music store owners let him hang out constantly, playing in their backrooms, answering his questions. They gave mikel permission to play what he heard, a key ingredient in Mikels future of teaching and supporting the desires of anyone who "heard music" in themselves.

From college through his mid thirties he did nothing but play and write with others, mostly older than he. He would absorb anything and everything. Through the music of the bands Bittersweet, Skin, Frisconickel, Streetheart and Poorboy, he learned to express his passion for the music he heard and felt, loving so much "playing live" and how a song could affect not only himself but others. And how songs had a life of their own, their changing with each playing.

He recorded records, wrote and co-wrote songs with many others, developing along the way his own "inside" style, always intimate and personal.

He was asked to play bass in Santa Esmeralda, a successful late 70's early 80's disco rock band, touring and co-writing songs with the group. It led even more to his passion to do his own music.

Through the 80's, his "inside" style of writing really started showing up in his music. In 1992-93, he wrote 24 songs that came in a language he had always felt but never heard. His own. He heard "his" soul. All his influences were there, but now finally, it was his music. His words. His humor. His hurt. His joy.

He switched gears. He began teaching and running a music store, married the woman he would love forever, had two boys, and embarked on expressing the feelings he had discovered in the opening of his own heart.

With his wife's nudging, he opened a music shoppe in Northern California, Lake of the Pines Music. Then a nonprofit 501(c)3, Planet Earth Music, both of them open for kids that like he, "heard and felt" music somewhere "inside". His desire to give back took over. Lessons, performance, composition and recording were all in the mix.

In 2011, his desire to "give back" doing well, he found himself starving inside, having silenced his own music during his efforts to hand out permission slips to any and all.

Over this past year, Mikel has returned to his soul and with the help of his family and friends, his music is again pouring out.

The songs here are Mikel music, the stuff Mikel feels. His voice, raspy and honest. His words, his stories. Unedited. And, he loves sharing it with anyone and everyone.

Believing we get nothing unless we first give it, Mikel has again received his own permission slip.

The music we hear in each of us is the music in and for us all.