Paul Messinger

Paul Messinger is a poet, songwriter, vocalist, and multi instrumentalist, originally from New York, now based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is known as one of the early proponents of the Howard Levy (The Flecktones) approach to playing diatonic harmonica chromatically, and writes nuanced, character driven songs in different styles, explaining, “Different stories require different musical styles in order to fully tell them”. His abiding passions include history and people, as well as challenging the notion of ‘otherness’, and his artistic lens is focused on telling the stories of the people(s) he encounters in the world around us.

Messinger's 2019 release, "The Reckoning", is a song cycle constructed to challenge the growing notion of 'otherness'. Recorded live, in the studio with great players, such as Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five), with blazing vocals, and trademark original harmonica seamlessly woven within the textures of sound throughout, this is music heard as it was played, with songs written to provoke, as well as to dance, and even rejoice, in our shared humanness. He writes, "We are ALL heading, toward a reckoning".....