Paul Race Music: Home Page
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Paul Race loves and plays most kinds of music, but he is especially fond of acoustic-based and traditional styles. If that makes you think of artists like Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Jim Croce, and Rich Mullins, you're on the right track. Since the 1960s, Paul has been performing original songs in just about any kind of performance situation you can imagine - coffeehouses, festivals, churches, schools, nightclubs, camps, street fairs - you name it.
If you check out Paul's online resources, you'll notice that Paul spends a lot of time these days helping other musicians make good choices and find the resources they need, especially musicians who are interested in acoustic or traditional music. For example the CreekDontRise.com acoustic instrument pages provide a lot of background on various kinds and uses of acoustic instruments. Paul's RiverboatMusic.com buyers' guides attempt to sort out the hype from the facts about acoustic instrument purchases. But Paul also keeps his hand in by continuing to write new songs, learning (and writing about) new instruments, and performing when opportunities arise.
BTW, we've gotten some questions about the little album cover thumbnail to the right of Paul's photo above. There's more information about the recordings it represents in our blog "About the song collection 'At the Heart of My Heart Was the Music'"
Thanks, and God bless,
Paul Race
CreekDontRise.com - Heartland history and music
SchoolOfTheRock.com - Jesus Music and saxophones
ClassicTrainSongs.com - Traditional songs about trains
RiverboatMusic.com - Buyers' guides for acoustic instruments.
PaulRaceMusic.com - This page, actually
Exiled Nigerian Prince to the Rescue
This is probably tasteless, but I get so many e-mail spams, scams, and phishing attempts, that I thought it would be fun to turn the tables on the spammers, scammers, and phishers, by publishing their emails and a not-so-helpful reply based on other spams, scams, and phishing attempts I get…
Will the One “Right” Way to Play the 5-String Banjo Please Stand Up?
Originally posted September 18, 2015 So, I learned 5-string banjo in the 1960s, following the example of a variety of folk artists, especially Pete Seeger, who – despite being basically a frailer – had mastered several other techniques, and didn’t feel bad about adjusting his playing style to the song.…
Memories . . .
Originally posted September 13, 2015 So, we’re cleaning up the basement after some 28 years of living in the same old house – a house we moved into in a hurry and where we have been randomly throwing stuff into the basement ever since. In the meantime, I’ve upgraded most…
More about 12-strings
Originally Posted August 31, 2015 Twelve-string guitars have the low strings doubled an octave higher. This concept had long been used by members of the mandolin family, but wasn’t apparently carried over into the guitar family until the late 19th century. The extra high strings help the guitar sound louder…
Thoughts on a 12-string
Originally posted August 28, 2015 Just got my 12-string Ovie Balladeer out of mothballs to play in a church service. I’m the guitarist they call in when the other three guitarists can’t make it. But I don’t mind, since it gives me most Sundays off but lets me keep my…
Who Owns Folk Songs?
Originally posted August 23, 2015 Folks working with traditional music often run into fake copyright notices on the sheet music they buy. One particular publisher often gets credit and even publishing royalties for recordings of songs that were written long before that company existed, only because they affixed a copyright…
Added my first YouTube Video
Originally Posted August 12, 2015 Added my first YouTube. Mostly, I’m experimenting to see if I can get all the bits and pieces of my “web presence” talking to each other. It’s showing a 5-string beginners version of “Boil That Cabbage Down,” to accompany chapter 4 of my free banjo…
Started YouTube Channel
Originally Posted August 9, 2015 I don’t have much personal stuff to post yet, but I will try to get something posted soon. In the meantime, there are a few nice videos from folks I enjoy hearing. For some reason the link software isn’t working right. You may have to…
Unfair 6-String Banjo Comparison
Originally posted August 8 Just retweaked my “electric-acoustic” Dean Backwoods 6 for the third time this season. Then I played my Deering D6 for about ten minutes. They’re barely the same instrument. I like the fact that I don’t throw my back out picking up the Dean like I do…
Hohner Special Twenties on the Bracket
Originally posted August 6 Back when I was playing harp all the time, I migrated to Hohner’ “Pro Harps” because of their volume, rich tone, and reliability. Recently, I wanted to play harp-on-a-bracket on a song I’m working up on banjo. Since I’m now going back and forth between multiple…