Southern Maverick Returns to the Maverick Saloon

Singer-Songwriter-Raconteur Paul Thorn Kicks Off Santa Ynez Valley’s ‘Tales from the Tavern’ Series

Paul Thorn at Tales from the Tavern 2023 | Credit: Barry Sigman

When last we caught the rough-and-tumble yet ultimately warm-hearted Southerner Paul Thorn in the area, he had come down offstage and mixing it up with his “congregation,” working and testifying to the crowd at Santa Ynez’s Maverick Saloon last June. Thorn, rich with stories and songs, is an ideal candidate for the venerable singer-songwriter-and-then-some concert series known as “Tales from the Tavern.” Thorn, with band in tow, will kick off the fall series at the Maverick Saloon next Wednesday, July 24.

Proudly hailing from Tupelo, Mississippi, Thorn’s musical stamp freely blends swampy vibes, raucous notions, and inspirational messages and ingredients of Southern rock, folk, country, R&B, and gospel. His discography goes back to his 1997 album Hammer and Nail, on A&M, but most of his subsequent albums have been on his own label, Perpetual Obscurity.

Thorn has also become partly identified (and not unhappily) by his bodacious 2010 album, Pimps and Preachers. He is related and relates to the lives of both P-words, and also adds the job description of boxer prior to his successful and ongoing musical life. Humor is always at work beneath the tough-guy surfaces of his songs, including such popular numbers as “It’s a Great Day to Whup Somebody’s Ass” and “I Don’t Like Half the Folks I Love.”

But he also wears his optimism on his sleeve, as with his “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” from his 2014 album Too Blessed to Be Stressed. “The title cut came from a phrase I heard from this Black lady I went to church with, Sister Johnson,” Thorn explained to me after that album was released. “You would say, ‘How you doing, Sister Johnson?’ She’d say, ‘Oh, I’m too blessed to be stressed.’

“All these years, her phrase is a very good and positive, bumper-sticker-style philosophy in life,” he continued. “Everybody has problems in life. Everybody does. But most of the time, if you weigh it out in the balance, there is usually more good in your life than bad. That’s the message of my album.”

Paul Thorn at Tales from the Tavern 2023 | Credit: Barry Sigman

He had just signed up for a taste of the preacher lineage he got from his reverend father by registering online to be a Universal Life Church minister. “I filled out the questionnaire and sent ’em $30 and promised I would do what’s right to the best of my knowledge and ability, so now I’m a licensed minister,” said Thorn, who received a certificate of graduation. “But then I went on there yesterday and found out that, for an extra $30, I can be bumped up to not just being a minister, but a bishop. So, the next time you see me, you may have to say, ‘Hello, Bishop Thorn.’”

Next Wednesday night, we can reasonably expect Bishop Thorn to come down into the “house” and press flesh and stir up singalong solidarity.

The incoming “Tales” series is another bounty of allurement from the realms of noted singer-songwriter and Americana culture, and more. Next up, on September 11, is The Mustangs of the West, followed a week later with the September 18 booking of Jill Knight and Abby Posner. Robbie Fulks pays a return visit on October 23 and the November slate includes Jesse DeNatale (and band) on the (Nov. 6) and well-known “cowboy singer” Dave Stamey closing things out (Nov. 13).

These amount to solid reasons to consider the Maverick as a destination on autumnal Wednesday evenings out.