Victor J. Paul

On August 13th, 1945, V. J. Day, Victor Jay Paul came into the world. One Sunday night, 10 years later, while watching the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey television show, a then unknown young and sinuously dangerous Elvis Presley took the stage, and Victor’s heart, by storm! The rest as they say is history. Four years later, On August 13th, 1945, V. J. Day, Victor Jay Paul came into the world. One Sunday night, 10 years later, while watching the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey television show, a then unknown young and sinuously dangerous Elvis Presley took the stage, and Victor’s heart, by storm! The rest as they say is history. Four years later, while playing electric guitar in a band during a summer gig in New York’s Catskill Mountains, his solid bodied Les Paul was stolen and promptly replaced with a Gibson SG Special, which Victor still has today. Flash forward: three years later, during the height of 1967’s infamous “Summer of Love”, Victor, believing himself to be Jim Morrison, tripped and fell headlong and full-tilt boogey into the era’s sticky web of Sex, Dope, &
Rock ‘n’ Roll.

With both feet planted firmly in mid air, 3 years and 16 shock treatments later, Victor emerged, somewhat bloodied but unbowed. Believing in his heart that if ever anyone was destined to make music his life’s work, it was he, in 1970 Victor signed on with a manager, (whose name will not be mentioned), and recorded an album of original material for R.C.A. In typical Record Business fashion, shortly after the firing of the then head of A & R, (who, as fate would have it, happened also to be the key person championing his efforts), the album quickly became a $30,000 write-off, never to see the light of day.

Having by then met his future beloved wife, Karen, Victor married her in ’75, and for the next 25 years, placed his guitar and dreams on hold, while doggedly pursuing the art, and necessity, of “chasing a buck” in order to support his family of said wife and 2 darling daughters, Ahna and Jessie. Every so often, however, usually when the urge became overwhelming, in the privacy of his home, Victor would pick up his guitar and write a song. In this fashion he amassed an eventual library of nearly 70 + tunes.

Then, on a fateful day in September of 2000, only 5 short months after celebrating his 25th Wedding Anniversary, “Renewal of Vows”, Ceremony, the first of 2 profoundly catastrophic life-challenges struck with a vengeance as Karen, while recovering from surgery, passed away quite unexpectedly. With his whole Universe in sudden upheaval, Victor then traveled, and embarked upon a succession of seemingly never-ending Self-Reinventions among which were becoming a Certified Massage Therapist and landing a series of Sales jobs. Thinking he had at last found a “home” in one of these, on August, 2007, tragedy, once again, came breaking down his door.

Saddled with the grim diagnosis of Esophageal Cancer, Victor engaged in the toughest battle of his life, as he endured the onslaught of Radiation and Chemotherapy, followed by the ordeal of undergoing life altering surgery followed by numerous and sundry complications and interventions. By January of 2008, every trace of the insidious poison was entirely gone from his body. The next 8 months were spent in recovering and in the replenishing of energy. It was during this time that Victor made a simple promise to himself:

“If I ever come through all of this, and then emerge on the other side, (in which position, through the Grace of God I find myself today) I will finally do everything I can, everything that’s at least within my own personal power to accomplish, toward realizing my life-dream of making a living through my music”!

Putting his money where his mouth is, he then went into a studio in Alpharetta, Georgia, and recorded 10 original songs. The CD, called, “For The JOY of It!”, is a true Labor of Love and features several compelling pieces in varied and diverse styles—everything from Christian Inspirational, Ballads, Country, Soft Rock, Blues, to one in which “Beach Calypso meets Mariachi”!