SPIDER LILIES AND SPOTLIGHTS—THE VOICE’S KEITH PALUSO HITS THE BIG TIME
TENNESSEE PARK RANGER KEITH PALUSO ON NBC’S THE VOICE AND LANDING A HIGH PROFILE GIG AS VOCALIST WITH THE LEGENDARY BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS
Forest ranger. Front man.
By day, Keith Paluso is in the woods, keeping tabs on minks, short-eared owls and spider lilies. By night, he’s onstage with Blood, Sweat and Tears, belting out eternal AM radio classics like “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “And When I Die” and “Spinning Wheel.”
OK, that’s not really true. These days the native Tennessean’s life is much more about the white light of the stage than the sunlight of Mousetail Landing. But he did spend over a decade in the great outdoors, doing duty as a park ranger at Mousetail and other locations.
Growing up in tiny Munford, 40 minutes north of Memphis, Paluso played music with his older brother Keegan, who remains a partner in sonic crime to this day— “I’ve always put him on a pedestal,” Paluso chuckles. But after the requisite brace of garage bands and trips to the Home of the Blues, Paluso, on graduating from the University of Tennessee at Martin, laid his guitar down and went to work for the state.
“I draw a lot of inspiration from being a huge nature nerd,” says the shaggy-bearded Paluso now. “We were so poor when we were at Mousetail. We were living off a ranger’s salary, and my wife and I were in this little ranch residence that didn’t have any heat. But we were just so happy there, because we found that you don’t need money and all that stuff. Our memories and our relationships, those are the real things. I’ve probably had more songs come out of that than I have anything else.”
The 2017 birth of Paluso’s son led to a new outlook, with the singer using the life landmark as a reason to pursue dormant dreams, eventually becoming a true contender on season 15 of NBC’s singing competition The Voice.
“Realizing that I didn’t want to be an example to him of somebody that just settled, I started playing again. Within six months, I was on The Voice, quit Tennessee State Parks, moved back to Memphis and then, within the next six months, went on tour with Blood, Sweat & Tears. We’re just now starting to feel a sense of normalcy. The past two years have been so, so wild. It’s been great. You learn a lot when things are that crazy. You kind of learn what motivates you and what your purpose is.”
Despite the insanity, the call, in May, from BS&T management, asking if he wanted to fill the big shoes of not only the legendary David Clayton-Thomas, but also American Idol runner-up Bo Bice, who held the band’s vocal chair from 2013–2018, was pretty easy for Paluso to answer.
There’s usually not a guitar in his hands when he’s leading the Grammy Award-winning brass band, but Paluso played a cedar-topped Breedlove Pursuit Concert CE throughout his Voice appearances, as well as on solo dates and work with the inspiring Wolf River Gospel project he shares with Keegan.
Pull up the track “Moonshine,” from The Linden Ave. Sessions on Spotify, and you’ll hear the distinctively Southern magic he pulls with just voice and Pursuit. His latest single, “Something Like Love,” shows off Paluso’s soulful homegrown Memphis blend developed from a youth spent with Keegan, “driving down and playing on Beale Street and Midtown and all those different scenes.”
Paluso, who knows his way around an instrument enough to have created his own “Frankenstrat,” chose a Breedlove for one simple reason—the sound.
“I always thought they sounded great. Breedlove has been my favorite brand of acoustic guitar since from the start. I’ve liked them since I was about 13 or 14. When I started playing again, I was visiting Keegan in Memphis, and he just came home one day, from his job at Guitar Center, and had bought me a Breedlove, knowing that I’d always wanted one.”
Paluso’s education and his work as a park ranger, environmental educator and wildlife rehabilitator bring a special meaning to the 30-year-old’s relationship with Breedlove. He is, not surprisingly, a big fan of the brand’s commitment to bringing greater sustainability to guitars made and designed in Bend.
“That philosophy is actually one of the main things that I’ve been talking about when people ask about Breedlove Guitars. Our natural systems are so much more delicate than you would think. Those ecological communities almost have their own language. They’re so different everywhere you go. There’s so much more going on in any one spot than you might normally think. It’s a constant struggle.”
