Paul Austin is a native of Morgantown, WV. He learned to enjoy country and gospel music as a little boy because his dad played the fiddle and his mom played the guitar and sang. During his teen-age years, he learned to play guitar from his mom, friends, and relatives—who would gather on Saturday nights for good, clean musical get-togethers. Paul also loved to draw and as a teenager he took a correspondence course from The Professional School of Cartooning. He graduated from Morgantown High School and in the early 1980s and opened up Paul Austin’s Cartoon Art Studio in Morgantown, where he and his wife Hazel did silk screening and customized artwork, signs, caricatures, etc. Paul played in several country and gospel music bands and The Utt-Most Country Band from 1991 until 2014. He teaches private guitar lessons and is now retired from 27 years of employment at West Virginia University.