Pena, Paul

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Paul Pena

1950–2005

Singer, guitarist

It is a tired cliché to call a comeback musician's career a rollercoaster ride. In Paul Pena's case, however, there is no better way to describe it. The talented blues singer/guitarist/songwriter sank from the brink of stardom to the depths of depression and obscurity, before re-emerging into the limelight more than two decades later as the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary detailing his unlikely mastery of a strange and beautiful musical technique practiced halfway around the world.

Paul Pena was born on January 26, 1950, in Hyannis, a town on Massachusetts' Cape Cod peninsula. He was the oldest child of Jack and Virginia Pena. Pena's grandparents were immigrants from another "Cape"—Cape Verde, an island nation about 400 miles off the coast of Senegal in Western Africa. Born with congenital glaucoma, Pena was blind from birth. At age five, he enrolled in the Perkins School for the Blind in Water-town, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Pena demonstrated enormous musical talent from a very early age. He had perfect pitch and was able to pluck out tunes easily on a baby grand piano the family had rescued from the dump. He soon began studying guitar, bass, violin, and trumpet as well. As a child, Pena enjoyed singing traditional Cape Verdean tunes and modern pop and jazz hits with his father, himself a professional jazz musician. He also sang in his school chorus.

Pena graduated from the Perkins School in 1967 and began attending Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. While at Clark, he performed at area coffeehouses, accompanying himself on guitar, the instrument on which he was most proficient. In 1969 Pena performed at the Newport Folk Festival alongside such emerging stars as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Kris Kristofferson.

Pena moved to San Francisco in 1971, and his career began to soar. As his musical prowess became known, demand for his services as a sideman grew among musicians playing in a variety of different styles. The list of legendary bluesmen with whom Pena shared the stage reads like a "Who's Who" of the genre—with John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters among them. Pena even opened concerts for the Grateful Dead. He played bass and sang backup on Bonnie Raitt's 1971 debut album, and the following year he contributed guitar and vocal parts to T-Bone Walker's Fly Walker Airlines album.

Pena released his first solo album, Paul Pena, on Capitol Records in 1973. The album did not sell particularly well, but critics praised the work; the Village Voice, for example called attention to Pena's "rolling virtuoso guitar and vocal soulfulness." After the lackluster commercial performance of his debut album, Pena signed with Bearsville Records, a label run by Albert Grossman—a folk industry insider who had managed Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and others—and recorded his follow-up album, New Train. One of the guest artists on the album was Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, who played pedal steel guitar on a couple of its tracks. Unfortunately, Pena and Grossman had a falling out over Pena's refusal to sign a management contract, and Bearsville cancelled the release of the album. Through producer Ben Sidran, however, a copy of the unreleased recording ended up in the hands of singer/guitarist Steve Miller. Miller fell in love with one of the songs, Jet Airliner, and he recorded a version with his own group, the Steve Miller Band. Jet Airliner became a monster hit for Miller in 1977, selling millions of copies and becoming a fixture on the radio. During the lean years to come for Pena, royalties from Jet Airliner would provide a much-needed lifeline.

The shelving of New Train dealt a devastating blow to Pena's career. Meanwhile, the health of his wife, Babe, who was also blind, began to deteriorate. Pena spent most of the 1980s caring for Babe, whose kidneys were failing. He withdrew from the music industry altogether, living almost entirely on his Jet Airliner income. Pena also struggled with health problems of his own, including severe depression. He endured several muggings. When not looking after Babe, Pena immersed himself in short-wave radio, through which he maintained his longstanding interest in international music and languages. One day in 1984, while searching for a Korean language program, he was startled by an amazing sound he heard on Radio Moscow. It took him several years to figure out what it was that he had heard, and that discovery changed his life.

Pena eventually learned that the sound that had captivated him was Tuvan throat-singing, or Khoomei, a unique vocal technique from the remote region of Tuva, a Central Asian republic of about 400,000 people sandwiched between Mongolia and Siberia. Tuvan throat-singers are able to create fantastic sounds, using the natural overtones of their voices to produce multiple tones at the same time. There are several different styles of Tuvan throat singing, ranging from a deep, foghorn drone to a high-pitched yodeling whistle. Through experimentation, Pena taught himself how to sing like the Tuvans, becoming especially proficient in the technique called Kargyraa. He also taught himself the basics of the Tuvan language, using the cumbersome process of translating from Tuvan to Russian, then Russian to English, assisted by an obsolete scanning device called an "opticon," which translates non-Braille text into a textured form that can be read with the fingers.

In 1993, Pena attended a San Francisco concert by Tuvan superstar Kongar-ol Ondar. After the show, Pena stunned Ondar with an impromptu throat-singing performance of his own. A bond was instantly formed between the two men. Ondar invited Pena to participate in the second international Khoomei Symposium and contest, held in the Tuvan capital of Kyzyl. Pena traveled to Kyzyl in 1995 with an entourage that included filmmaker Roko Belic. Pena was the hit of the contest, taking first place in the Kargyraa division, winning the "audience favorite" prize, and capturing the hearts of the Tuvan audience, which dubbed him Cher Shimjer, meaning "Earthquake," a tribute to his thunderous voice. Belic's film about the trip, Genghis Blues, was named best documentary at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000.

The success of Genghis Blues put Pena back in the spotlight after more than two decades of anonymity. The mayor of San Francisco proclaimed July 11, 1999 "Paul Pena Day." His long-buried second album, New Train, was finally released in 2000, to glowing reviews, on the Hybrid Recordings label. He began touring again. By this time, however, Pena's health was beginning to fail. He had been badly injured in a 1997 house fire, and he was also diagnosed with diabetes and pancreatitis (after first being misdiagnosed with pancreatic cancer and treated with chemotherapy). These conditions cut short the revival of his career as a touring musician. Pena died on October 1, 2005, of complications from diabetes and pancreatitis. Thousands of fans who had never heard of Pena during the first phase of his career more than 30 years earlier mourned the untimely loss of one of the most unique and charismatic musicians ever to become almost famous twice.

Selected discography

Albums

Paul Pena, Capitol, 1973.
New Train, Hybrid, 2000.

At a Glance …

Born on January 26, 1950, in Hyannis, MA; died on April 8, 2000; married Babe Pena (died 1991); married Sharon Grant. Education: Attended Clark University, Worcester, MA.

Career: Musician, late 1960s–2005.

Awards: Khoomei Symposium, Tuva, first place, Kargyraa division, 1995; Khoomei Symposium, Tuva, "audience favorite" award, 1995; San Francisco, CA, "Paul Pena Day," July 11, 1999.