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Paul Siebel wrote this song, and many other gems. He had a short career as a singer songwriter and recorded two albums in 1970 and 1971 and then disappeared. In addition to Leo, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kate Wolf, Mary McCaslin, Emmylou Harris and Waylon Jennings have recorded Paul’s songs.

What happened to Paul is that he had a bout with depression and tried to self medicate in various ways. Eventually, though Paul was rescued by the mysterious one armed folk music fan, Steve Wilson, and brought down to Maryland where Steve gave Paul a place to live and helped him to get back on his feet.

I just ran across a mention of Steve Wilson in Suze Rotolo’s memoir “A Freewheelin’ Time.” Suze is best known for appearing in the photo on the cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album, with Bob, in the show, on the street in Greenwich Village. She was his girlfriend for four of his formative years in the early 190s. Here’s what Suze says about Steve.

Back in Charlottsville Paul Clayton threw a party for Bob’s twenty-first birthday. We had a real good time listening to music and making music at Steve Wilson’s house. Steve was an old buddy of Paul’s and he friendship opened to include us. When Steve Moved up to New York City at some point we saw a lot of each other and he became a close friend of Van Ronk’s. I think Steve played a dobro, although I’m not sure how because he had only one arm.

Paul Siebel now works at a day job here in Maryland and very infrequently goes on stage to sing his songs. I had a small part in persuading him to take part in the Greenwich Village Folk Festival a number of years ago, his performance was recorded and one song “The Ballad of Hones Sam” appears on a CD released by Gadfly Records in 1996.

One night, my friend, Johnson, and I sang “Louise” at an open mic, with Paul Siebel sitting in the back of the room to critique our performance. He kindly said that he really liked one of the other songs we did.

There don’t seem to be any videos of Paul Siebel performing on the net, so here is Leo Kottke’s version of “Louise.”

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