Reports about Boeing’s Dreamliner jet airplanes reminded me of the Steve Miller Band song “Jet Airliner,” and the author of the song, Paul Pena, who died on October 1 in 2005. Pena had one of the most unique music careers in the last fifty years. If you do not recognize his name, it is because of his bad luck in the music industry. But if you know of him, that was the result of chance too.
Paul Pena and His Unreleased Record
Pena was born on January 26, 1950 with congenital glaucoma and was completely blind by the time he was twenty. He started a music career in the late 1960s. After opening for Jerry Garcia and other musicians, he recorded a self-titled
The latter album’s style ranged from R&B to folk to Jimi Hendrix-style blues, and it included a future hit song. But the album was not released. The owner of the record company refused to release the album after a dispute with Pena and his manager. Due to contractual obligations, Pena could not record elsewhere either, so his career stalled.
Steve Miller, however, heard the unreleased New Train and with the Steve Miller Band recorded a hit version of Pena’s song “Jet Airliner” on 1977’s Book of Dreams. The royalties from the Steve Miller Band recording helped Pena, who later suspended his music career to care for his wife, who was suffering from kidney failure.
New Train Is Finally Released
New Train sat in the vaults for almost three decades until it was finally released in 2000. Although not a top-40 hit, the album garnered Pena some attention.
I first heard of Pena when an alternative rock station played songs from the “new” album around this time. Pena toured a bit to support the album, even appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien to play his version of “Jet Airliner.”
The first Pena recording I heard was another song from New Train, “Gonna Move.” I loved the song immediately, as did a number of artists.
Several musicians recorded cover versions of “Gonna Move,” including Susan Tedeschi and the Derek Trucks Band. Here is Tedeschi’s excellent version of the song, live here with Derek Trucks.
Pena’s Discovery of Tuvan Throat Singing
In the time between the recording of New Train in the 1970s and the album’s release in 2000, though, Pena was not idle. In the 1980s, while listening to shortwave radio, he accidentally discovered Tuvan throat singing, which is a unique vibrating style of singing used by the Tuva people in southern Siberia.
Fascinated by the discovery, Pena began to study the language and the singing style, eventually traveling to Tuva to perform there. Filmmakers covered Pena’s new singing style and his trip to Tuva in the 1999 documentary Genghis Blues.
The movie was nominated for an Oscar at the 2000 Academy Awards and won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. The soundtrack to the film features more music from Pena. Below is the trailer for the movie.
Rediscovery and Death
So in 2000, with the Genghis Blues Oscar nomination and the long-awaited release of New Train, one might think that the story leads to a successful and happy career for Pena. But around this time, Pena was diagnosed with pancreatitis, and he died on October 1, 2005.
His death was a sad ending to a story that waited so long for a happy resolution. It reminded one of the lyrics to “Jet Airliner”: “You know you got to go through hell / Before you get to heaven.”
But few artists get the chance to leave us with such great songs as “Gonna Move” and “Jet Airliner.” On top of that, he also introduced us to another culture’s music legacy.
It is sometimes frustrating and funny how fate works. But it was his work on Tuvan throat singing which led to the 1999 documentary. And that led to the reason why New Train was finally released in 2000.
The release of New Train, then, was the only reason I and many others were introduced to Pena’s music. And all of that came about because of a strange accident.
One night in 1984, a blind man who had a lot of bad luck thought his career was over. After searching for a Korean language lesson on shortwave radio, he accidentally found a new music that intrigued him on Radio Moscow. Had Pena done something else that night or turned the radio dial another way, his life and legacy might have turned out differently. There would have been no Tuvan throat singing, and then no movie. And then New Train might never have been released.
That all would have been a real tragedy.
I found out, not too long,
Their rules wouldn’t let me sing my song;
I knew in order to be a man,
I had to pull up roots once again and move on in this land.
I’m gonna move away from here,
You can find me if you want to go there;
I’m gonna move away from here,
You can find me if you want to go there.
— Paul Pena, “Gonna Move”
What do you think of Paul Pena’s music? Leave a comment.
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