Biography:
The current story...
On September 8th 2009 Sig's third CD "Totem Pole" was released. In February 2009 Sig was a finalist in the Portland Songwriters Association "Best Performing Songwriter Competition". At the Gig Harbor Folk Festival Songwriting Competition, September 2006 Sig took second place with his song “If The Castle Burns” written for his wife Michele. That same month he was a finalist in the Portland Songwriters Association “Best Performing Songwriter of 2006 Competition”. In July 2005, he completed his second solo album. Co-produced by Don “Fuzzy” Purcell, “Tangled In My Roots” featured some of the best musicians in the Pacific N.W., including Patrick Lamb, Orvil Ivie, Dan Wetzel, and Kristen Grainger of True North , “Tangled In My Roots” has received international attention & sales. Sig was also a finalist in the Mary Hill Winery Songwriter’s Competition 2004. In the summer of 2003, he was headlining the Dasani acoustic stage at the Boise Riverfest in Boise Idaho. In 2002, Sig teamed with producer Julian Snow to release “Movies & Magazines”. Though produced & mixed with a more “edgy” sound there was no disguising its “Hippiebilly” roots & it set Sig firmly on the Americana path.
Songwriting Accolades and Licensing...
Independent television and film producer Pat Sevigny chose three of Sig’s songs to grace his movie “The Memorial Councelor” in which Sig also had a small role as a Russian Priest. Pat and Sig have also collaborated on three thirty minute television shows for Pat’s “Oregon Jam” series featuring Sig in the studio, in concert and participating in a “songwriter’s in the round” session. Tom May, host of WFMT’s “River City Folk” chose Sig as one of his featured performers in 2006 and at the end of the year honored Sig by including him in his “Best of River City Folk” program. Sig’s song “Everybody Wants To Drive My Car” was chosen through Sonicbids to be included on a “Skytrax” compilation CD to be distributed at airports nationwide. Ray Nelson Jr., president of “Flying Rhino”, a children’s educational corporation hired Sig three times to write material for their educational books and packages which were distributed nation wide. Sig was selected for an article in Performer Magazine; the nation's largest trade publication for musicians in June of 2007, “Karnal Film and T.V. Promotions” chose Sig’s song “Givin’ ‘Em Hell” to include in their distribution library.
A Tour Dogs Life In Music...
Born in San Jose California in 1952, Sig listened to the radio a lot in an old panel truck while his dad estimated floor-covering jobs or drank with the boys after work. He grew up on country music in the fifties & sixties listening to people like Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, & Hank Williams. The old time honky-tonk hillbilly rockers were imbedded in his memory, and along with the country-rockers of the early seventies like The Flying Burrito Brothers, John Prine and Jerry Jeff Walker are the inspiration and foundation of his writing today. He calls his music “Hippiebilly”, a form of original Americana. He picked up the guitar at age 10, started writing songs at 13, & taught himself to play harmonica. He joined a Jug Band in high school that played local Coffee Houses. In 1976, he moved to Wisconsin & started playing professionally. He joined the “Tingler Band” which traveled the mid-west playing country rock music. “We traveled eight states, lived the road life, and made a good living. I was really proud of that band.” However, like Wild Bill Hickok 100 years before, the band met its demise in Deadwood South Dakota, and Sig headed back to the West Coast. In 1980, Sig formed “Sig & the Sahibs”, an R&B band playing originals & soul and Motown hits. Later he would replace Canned Heat’s original lead guitarist Henry Vestine in “James T. & the Tough” out of Eugene. When James & Henry left to tour with Canned Heat Sig began performing solo regularly, incorporating more and more original material into his shows. Since then the focus has been on writing good songs in the style he loved to listen to back in that old panel truck. Please visit www.sigpaulson.com … To purchase CDs on line try CDbaby.com.