Paul Thorn

Before establishing himself as a purveyor of muscular American roots music, Tupelo, Mississippi's Paul Thorn lived several other lives. The son of a Pentecostal preacher, he was a champion prizefighter in the 1980s who fought Roberto Duran, a professional skydiver, and a factory worker. Since releasing 1997's Hammer & Nail for A&M, Thorn has balanced blues, rock, gospel, country, and soul in a singular strain of Americana with songs that embrace the human condition with their humor, irony, pathos, tenderness, heartbreak, grief, anger, and joy. Thorn possesses a singing voice t...