Paul Sanchez

Paul Sanchez (born November 6, 1959) is a New Orleans-based American guitarist and a singer-songwriter. Sanchez was a founding member of the New Orleans band Cowboy Mouth. He was a guitarist and one of the primary singers and songwriters for the band from 1990 to 2006. Sanchez's songs have appeared in films and on television and have been performed by various artists such as Darius Rucker, Irma Thomas, Michael Cerveris, Susan Cowsill, Kevin Griffin and The Eli Young Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, John Boutté, Shamarr Allen, Glen Andrews and Kim Carson.

Sanchez was born in New Orleans on the River Road along the levee of the Mississippi River. He grew up in New Orleans' blue-collar Irish Channel neighborhood, which is a historic home to stevedores and river pilots. Sanchez is a songwriter, musician, singer, producer, writer and actor. In January 2010, Off Beat Magazine gave Paul three Best of the Beat Awards; Songwriter of The Year, Best Song of the Year, and Best Folk/Rock Album for Stew Called New Orleans, which was his duet record with friend and collaborator John Boutté. In April of that same year, Gambit Weekly awarded him Best Roots Rock Performer at The Big Easy Awards.

His first musical endeavor was in the New Orleans band The Backbeats. Along with him was Vance DeGeneres, Steve Walters, and a drummer named Fred LeBlanc, who he would encounter later on.

In the late 1980s, Sanchez was playing in anti-folk genre, during his stint in New York. There he befriended artists Brenda Kahn, John S. Hall and Roger Manning.

He has released 11 CDs as a solo artist, while also releasing 11 CDs as a founding member of the New Orleans rock band Cowboy Mouth. He left the "Mouth" in 2006, just after a flood had upended the city of New Orleans. Sanchez was on tour with the Mouth when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the gulf. After that, he stayed on tour and wrote a post-Katrina tribute, "Home", which was featured in the Starz documentary New Orleans Music in Exile.

In 2008, Sanchez released the rewritten version of his first solo release Jet Black & Jealous. The Eli Young Band made the song title their major label debut on Universal/Republic. Jet Black & Jealous made its debut at number 5 on the Billboard Country Album Charts in September 2008. In 2009, he published a book of essays entitled Pieces Of Me, which deals with such things as the sense of life, loss, and rebuilding after the flood.

Primarily a songwriter, Paul has written songs with and for John Boutté, Shamarr Allen, Darius Rucker of Hootie and The Blowfish, Galactic, Glen David Andrews, Irma Thomas, Matt Perrine, Tony Award Winning actor Michael Cerveris, Vance DeGeneres, Susan Cowsill, Debbie Davis, Arsene DeLay, John Thomas Griffith, John Rankin, Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, The Eli Young Band, Caleb Guillotte of Dead-Eye Dick and many more.

For the last few years, Sanchez has been writing, recording and performing a musical adaptation of New York Times Best Seller Nine Lives. Nine Lives has been performed in New York City at Symphony Space, Washington DC at Sixth & I, Los Angeles at Fais Do-Do and New Orleans at Le Petite Theater, The CAC, The Ellis Marsalis Center, and Tulane University's Dixon Hall.

He has appeared on the HBO series Treme as himself.