Paul Cebar is a songwriter, singer, guitarist, and bandleader from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who has a penchant for African, Latin American and Caribbean music. He has released four albums and an EP with his band, Paul Cebar & the Milwaukeeans, which have received airplay from triple-A stations across the US, one album with his current band Paul Cebar and Tomorrow Sound, and one solo album.
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Cebar began performing in coffeehouses on the local folk scene in the mid-1970s. His repertoire consisted in large part of rhythm and blues and jump blues songs, played solo on his guitar. He attended New College in Sarasota, Florida. Afterwards, he played in New York while working with the R&B Cadets in Milwaukee.
Throughout the early 1980s, Cebar was a member of a rock and R&B combo, The R&B Cadets, along with Jon Sieger, Mike Sieger, Robyn Pluer, Bob Jennings, Juli Wood and Bob Schneider. The band played Sieger's compositions, along with obscure songs from the mid-century that Cebar had unearthed.
The R&B Cadets released an album entitled Top Happy in 1986, and a 7-inch 33⅓ entitled Get a Move On in 1981, including song titles Hook, Line, and Sinker, One Is Green, Headin' for the Poor House, and Down by the River.
During this period Paul and Claudia Schmidt released a 7-inch 45 The Outskirts Of You b/w Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Parallel to his work with the R&B Cadets, Cebar had his own group, Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans. The group played many R&B, jazz,and bebop songs, by Louis Jordan, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and others. The members were Cebar (acoustic guitar and vocals), Robin Pluer (vocals), Rip Tenor (sax), and Alan Anderson (bass). They were often joined by percussionist Guy Hoffman.
After the Cadets disbanded in 1986 Cebar reconstituted the group, which then was made up of Cebar (guitar, vocals), Pluer (vocals), Juli Wood (saxophone), Anderson (bass), Tenor (sax) and Randy Baugher (drums). The band explored African, Latin American and Caribbean sounds in a rhythm and blues context.
All of the original members other than Cebar have moved on. Some alumni are:
sax: Tony Jarvis, Greg Tardy (briefly), Paul Scher
guitar: Peter Roller, Rob Gjersoe, Terry Vittone
bass: Mike Kachou, Ethan Bender (briefly), Patrick Patterson
percussion: Michael Walls, Romero Beverly
The current lineup includes former R&B Cadet Bob Jennings (sax, keyboards), Mike Fredrickson (bass), Reggie Bordeaux (drums), and McKinley "Mac" Perkins (percussion). While earlier incarnations of the band were more pop-oriented, more recently the band is heavily into African, Latin, Caribbean, reggae, zydeco, R&B and soul styles.
The band continues to perform regularly, and tours the US.
Cebar began guesting on local musician Steve Cohen's show on WMSE radio in Milwaukee in the early 1980s. At the suggestion of another DJ there, he applied for, and received his own show, which he has hosted since 1985. The show runs Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. - noon. In the late 1980s, he also began hosting a show Sunday afternoons on WYMS in Milwaukee, which ran until the station changed its format in 2002.