Many people know Paul Slavens from any music show that he hosted nearly 20 years on Dallas public radio.
Others know him as the onstage savant behind “The Random Song Generator,” where he plucks new tunes from thin air, based on titles suggested by the audience.
But the Slavens have different aspirations. He wanted to be known “first and foremost as a composer”.
“I want to make a composition that takes time,” said the keyboard-singer. “The most enjoyable thing that I think is to have other artists play my music.”
Don’t be surprised if he achieves his desire one day. His new album, Alphabet Girls Vol. II (State Fair Records), shows his dazzling songwriting talent when he jumps from Paris classical-jazz (“Naomi”) to razor-edge bebop (“Queenie”) to new-wave cabaret (“X on My Heart”).
He planned to make an all-instrumental album until Trey Johnson, founder of State Fair Records who died in January, persuaded him to add lyrics to some of the songs. In 2010’s Alphabet Girls Vol. I, Slavens wrote about women starting with the letter A (“Abigail”).
For the new album, he runs the tone ladder up to “Zelda.”
“When I add lyrics, I realize that a lot of songs are like movies in my mind,” he thinks.
“‘Ursula’ is basically the first 15 minutes of an action-romance movie, with this man out of prison, connecting with this woman, he pushes him into the desert, and the lagoon ends. But there’s a whole story that comes after that.
Other songs such as “Queenie” and “Robin” were formed after Slavens – an old Denton resident – recorded a handful of stellar musicians who attended the University of North Texas, his alma mater.
“At any given time, there are 50 kids walking around this city who can only grasp what I can play,” he said.
While Alphabet Girls Vol. II is not tied directly to his radio program, he says he is inspired by the thousands of songs that turn up on the listener-suggestion blog for The Paul Slavens Show, which airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on KXT 91.7 FM.
“All the great music I’ve listened to has deepened my own music,” he says. “It makes my ears better.”
He and his band will perform songs from Alphabet Girls Vol. II on 11. September at the Texas Theater, following their live accompaniment The Kid, the work of Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 silent film. He will also perform songs from Girls 20. October at Wild Detectives.
At age 60, the Nebraska -born Slavens has played hundreds of venues around North Texas since the early 80s, when he moved to Denton to study music theory. He later joined Ten Hands, which seemed on the cusp of a huge national breakthrough like the one achieved by fellow Deep Ellumites Edie Brickell & amp; New Bohemians.
But mass fame never came, and Ten Hands were broken recently in the mid-90s, despite reuniting in 2014 and still holding events that are occasionally now.
Slavens grew philosophical when asked what, in hindsight, he’d have done differently back when Ten Hands was hyped as the next big thing.
“I take everything seriously, such as all made-or-break,” he thinks. “Now, I would be like, ‘Man, just relax. Play music, have a good time, don’t go out, and everything will work out in the long run, you know?’
“I only goober dumb from Nebraska in a hurry to sign into a major label. If I just relaxed, it would help me have a better time.”
Thor Christensen. Thor Christensen is a pop music critic for The Dallas Morning News and The Milwaukee Journal whose work has appeared in The New York Times and several books, including Musichound: The Essential Album Guide (Visible Ink Press). He interviewed two Beatles, a pair of Rolling Stones and hundreds of musicians from Beyoncé to Bono to David Bowie. He is a Chicago native and a longtime resident of East Dallas.
