Paul Sanchez

French Quarter Fest has become a kind of monster, far outstripping its modest beginnings, and several prominent local musicians expressed outrage at the festival's insistence that performers generate their own sponsors in order to get paid. But once this year's event started it was hard to dwell on any negatives. Hundreds of thousands of music fans basked on the banks of the Mississippi in glorious weather and crowded around the more intimate stages on Bourbon and Royal streets to hear hundreds of local musicians play their hearts out in the 25th annual renewal of this festival. This massive free concert performed by Louisiana musicians was a joyous event that lived up to the festival's reputation as Jazzfest without the outside players. There were plenty of visitors, though,...

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival may have come and gone, but to an ever-growing number of diehards known as the Threadheads, the last day of Fest, (which is always the first Sunday of May) is really just the first day of planning for the following year. The Threadheads can be found chatting and planning on the official Jazz Fest website. It is here where, in late 2002, this community began to spread the love for all things New Orleans. The topics of conversation found in this forum aren't always about the Festival exclusively. If you want to know how Aaron Neville is dealing with his asthma, or what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is up to, or if a new restaurant has opened in the French Quarter, there's a good chance the Threadheads will have the scoop before anyone else.

In...

A cool cat, Paul Sanchez is pure breed N'Awlins, decked out in a Fedora style Stetson and voodoo beads slung low, his rootsy originals preach fun-loving good times.

With a thirty year musical career, Paul, alias "Sanchmo", shares heartfelt advice on life's ups and downs in his myspace blogs signing off with "red beans and ricely yours". his rich songwriting and equally poignant personal stories are like diving into a steamy plate of beignets.

At the age of 14, guitar in hand, Paul took lessons from his older brother Andrew, "racing past the chords straight to the song".

Dan, his sister's husband, taught him rock n' roll with the Elvis moan and the Buddy Holly hiccup.

Paul began his musical career in New Orleans with The Backbeats, followed by a move under the guiding powers of...

In 2006, Paul Sanchez walked away from the rock group Cowboy Mouth, a band he helped form 16 years ago. He had lost his house to Katrina's floodwaters, and once he was off the road, he started the process of dealing with the storm--something touring helped stave off. He later developed a seizure disorder that makes it difficult for him to tour.


Some would have called it a career, but Sanchez shows no signs of slowing down. He currently resides in the Marigny and performs regularly at Frenchmen Street clubs such as d.b.a. He will also soon release two projects, a brand new solo record, Exit to Mystery Street, and John Boutte’s new album, Good Neighbor which he co-produced.

Sanchez jokes that Boutte and himself are the “Creole Rat Pack,” or the “black and white New Orleans.” They met at...

At a crawfish boil during last years New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I asked songwriter Paul Sanchez which New Orleans musician he thought was most deserving of attention outside the Crescent City. "John Boutté," he said without a moment's hesitation. "He's the best singer in town." I didn't get a chance to hear Boutté until this year's Jazz Fest, where, backed by a jazz group, he sang tunes like Stevie Wonder's "You Haven't Done Nothin'" to a big crowd. I was highly impressed, and looked forward to hearing him in a smaller room. 

I was overwhelmed Friday night in Central Park's outdoor Delacorte Theater in front of an audience thinned by an earlier shower, accompanied only by a guitarist and occasionally banging a tambourine, John Boutté sang a devastating set of tunes...

NEW ORLEANS — In a crowded bar in the French Quarter, locals are passing a tip bucket while singer John Boutte whoops and hollers, crooning tales of regret and rage over the havoc wreaked by that witch Katrina. Adding his own spin to an old Randy Newman song, "Louisiana 1927":

Michael Williamson
WASHINGTON POST

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'People tell me I should get ... out,' says New Orleans musician John Boutte. 'Hell, no. Why should I leave? This is my home. My ancestors' bones are here.'

Michael Williamson 
WASHINGTON POST

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Singer-songwriter Paul Sanchez, below, says, 'We all lost more than we can ever articulate.'

President Bush said, "Great job, good job!

"What the levees have done to this poor Creole's land . ..."

Backstage, the Virgin Mary gazes...

Not that its New Orleans-based members weren’t capable of spare and emotionally direct work.Leave it to Paul Sanchez, then the band’s rhythm guitarist, to expose a tenderness that dwelled just beneath the surface of leader Fred LeBlanc, who had for so long cultivated a sweaty college-hangout, drum-lord persona.

As the Canal Street ferry churned across the Mississippi on a recent afternoon, Paul Sanchez and jazz singer John Boutte stood at the rail, watching St. Louis Cathedral recede.

Boutte, a committed French Quarter-ite, relished the Algiers-bound perspective. "Sometimes it's good," he said, "to see things from the other side."

Sanchez smiled. "That's what I'm doing. But I'm taking it to the extreme."

In November, Sanchez left Cowboy Mouth, his primary musical outlet for 16 years. He and his wife, Shelly, still have no permanent home, after Hurricane Katrina's breached levees poured 9 feet of water into their Gentilly house. It has since been razed.

And so, at 47, Sanchez finds himself looking at life from the other side.

"We were so indecisive after Katrina," he said. "It got worse and worse....

Having spent 17 seasons as the part of the suave, six-string support squad for N’awlins’ party band, Cowboy Mouth,Paul Sanchez once again steps out of the shadows to offer his own take on music….Sort of. Though he has penned every one of these diverse tracks, Sanchez has again deferred performance rites to his musical friends (hence the title).

But what friends they are! From The Cowsill’s Susan Cowsill to Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin to Hootie-man Darius Rucker, Sanchez knows how to pick ‘em- both in terms of songs and singers.

Drawing on both his familial and personal homelands, Sanchez presents the mournful cowboy song “Mexico,” the Latin-tinged anti-war warning “Wake Up” (delivered affectingly by Crescent City gem John Boutte) and the Cajun-esque rouser “Wake-y-up-o,” which,...

 The concept of Paul Sanchez' new album is that others - his friends - sing his songs.  His friends include include members of Hootie and the Blowfish, Mark Mullins, Theresa Andersson, John Boutte and more, and they all turn in strong performances that are right for the songs.  When Susan Cowsill sings one of Sanchez’ kid songs, she hits the right tone—playful, but not cutesy.  When Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin sings “Someone Again,” the natural ache in his voice serves Sanchez’ song about dealing with the tension between the personal and public life of a musician.The CD is a tribute to Sanchez the songwriter. He has written songs others will gladly be a part of, find connections to, and over and over he turns phrases artfully. He should be proud to see his work treated so...

In early June, John Boutte was at his studio workspace in the French Quarter, the “Boutte Bat Cave,” as he calls it. When asked about the storm, he quickly demurs.

New Orleans native Paul Sanchez and his band Cowboy Mouth were recording new album Voodoo Shoppe in Atlanta when Katrina hit. As Sanchez sits on the front porch of a Creole cottage in the French Quarter on a beautiful spring day, a mule-drawn carriage ambles by lazily and friends stop along the street to chat. It’s hard to believe that only two blocks away devastation stretches for miles without end, but the tears Sanchez cannot hold back as he speaks of his hometown tell the story. Like so many other newly homeless New Orleans musicians, he lost everything in the flooding following Katrina, including the Gentilly home he and his wife Shelly owned, his music equipment and all his solo back catalog and merchandise.

“We were in shock,” he recalls. “My wife and I were online at a site...