“If you really have it in you to be an artist, you dont have a choice.” For Rockwall musician Paul Harrington this fact has guided him from the day he picked up his first harmonica as a young boy, and set him on an amazing musical path that continues today. The journey has led him to play with some of the world’s greatest blues artists and his work has been featured on a chart-topping hit record. And yet, most people don’t know his name. Unless you’re a local musician or a music producer, that is.

Looking for a harmonica player for a Chevy Trucks commercial jingle? Call Paul. Need a track for the harmonica-playing bear at Chuck E. Cheese? Paul again. What if you’re a multi-platinum hip-hop recording artist and you need a smoking harmonica riff to make your next best selling single pop? Yup, you guessed it.

If you’ve heard the Pitbull hit “Timber,” you can’t miss the harmonica riff coursing throughout the song. That’s Paul. As he explains, “One of the producers I work with called me in for a session a couple of years ago. What he needed was a sped-up version of Lee Oskar’s riff from the song San Francisco Bay from the 70s. I came in and played just like any of my other jobs and promptly forgot about it. I got about a thousand bucks for the session, which was quite a bit higher than usual, but I didn’t know who Pitbull was, and didn’t give it a second thought.”

“Timber” went on to become a huge hit. One day, a bass player in one of the bands Paul plays for, who happens to be an entertainment lawyer, told him there might be more money coming to him. “He asked if I minded if he looked into it. I said knock yourself out. Next thing I knew I had a nice check in hand and I get paid every time Pitbull performs it in concert or it gets played at a sports event.” You can check out “Timber” on Youtube, where Paul’s harmonica is a dominating presence.

As the Grateful Dead once sang, “What a long strange trip it’s been.” Paul’s began in central Illinois when he was nine years old. “I had played piano since I was five. Dad would sit reading the paper while I practiced scales. Dad didn’t like it. When I was nine my godfather gave me a harmonica. I immediately took it outside. I was OK at piano, but didn’t like dad grumbling because piano distracted from reading his paper. I could take the harmonica down to the railroad tracks and practice and not bother anyone. I took it everywhere. It got to the point where every Christmas and birthday, I’d get another harmonica.”

The tools of the trade

From Illinois Paul moved to Phoenix to study court reporting. “I still didn’t believe I had any talent, and started looking for someone to teach me to play better. I started working with a band, and that was the beginning of the end of my court reporting career. Telling my parents I was quitting to play the blues for 60 bucks a week did not go over well. But I just had to do it.”

Paul moved on to Aspen, Colorado, where gigs were plentiful. “We’d play from about 2:30 to 5:30 after the skiers would come in for drinks, go home and come back that evening an play another gig. We did that 7 days a week, with a third gig on Saturday. That’s how you made a living.” There he met and played with a number of celebrities like John Denver and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

After a number of years, now with a wife and a small daughter, it was time to settle down. “After the parties and all-nighters, I realized this was no way to raise a family. I was having a great time, but my wife wasn’t. We came to Dallas on vacation, and I found myself attracted to the Texas music scene. And after the crazy life in Aspen, things seemed so normal here. That’s what we needed.”

Rockwall’s Paul Harrington recreates his track from Pitbull’s “Timber”
At the time, Dallas was a great place for a musician to make a living; Los Angeles was the only city in the country with more recording studios. “I moved here to be in the music industry. I had friends trying to get me to Austin, but I wasn’t trying to get a record deal. I was here to be a working man doing jingles, and Dallas was the jingle capital of the world. I could make $6,000 over the course of a year on a single commercial jingle if it got played a lot. That may not sound like much until you figure that’s for one hours work in a studio. I could play live gigs for a year and not make much more than that.”

If Paul has any regrets, it’s that he didn’t start singing earlier. “I didn’t start singing until I was 50. Big mistake. You should not be a harmonica player who’s too snotty to do anything else. When I needed a singer, I’d hire one. My whole career would have been more successful if I had been a singer. Singers control bands.”

Demonstrating equipment at his “day job” at Pool Stop

Today you can find Paul behind the counter at Pool Stop in Rockwall, where he has worked for over ten years, testing pool water, repairing equipment and generally managing the shop. “It’s good, steady work, the guys are great to work with, and they are really flexible about giving me time off for my sessions and gigs.”

“I’ve spent my life doing this. I’m now 63 and there’s still plenty of room to improve. I just try to keep a roof over my head and keep playing.”

“If I didn’t make a dime at this, I’d still play.”

Story by Bob Lewis ~ Top photo by Lightninghorse Photography