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 His music touched on Delta blues, jazz, morna, flamenco, folk, rock and roll and Tuvan throat-singing. Pena is probably best known for writing the song "Jet Airliner," a major 1977 hit for the Steve Miller Band and a staple of classic rock radio, and for appearing in the 1999 documentary film Genghis Blues.
Pena was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts. His grandparents were from the islands of Brava and Fogo in the Cape Verde islands off the western coast of Africa, and emigrated to the United States in 1919. Pena spoke Cape Verdean Creole with his family while growing up. His grandfather, Francisco Pena, and father, Joaquim "Jack" Pena, were both professional musicians, and taught Paul to play Cape Verdean music, including Morna. Pena performed professionally with his father, including a summer spent in Spain and Portugal, where he studied flamenco music.
Pena was born with congenital glaucoma. He attended the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts from the age of 5, and graduated in 1967. He then attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Pena was completely blind by the time he was 20.
In February 1969, Pena's band played for a week at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opening twice for both Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and The Grateful Dead. Pena performed in the Contemporary Composer's Workshop at the Newport Folk Festival the same year. He also played in the T-Bone Walker Blues Band during the early 1970s, including an appearance in the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1972. He played bass guitar and provided backup vocals on Bonnie Raitt's debut album.
After moving to San Francisco in 1971, Pena called the Grateful Dead office, which helped find him work. He opened for Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Keystone in Berkeley and other area clubs many times over the course of the next three years. Pena said of Keystone owner Freddie Herrera, "His idea of an audition was for me to come and open up for Garcia and Saunders. That went on for some time. Whenever he would have somebody, not knowing who would open, he would call me."
Pena's debut album was the self-titled Paul Pena, recorded with guitarist Jeff Baxter and drummer Juma Santos, and released by Capitol Records in 1972. His followup album New Train was recorded in 1973 by Bearsville Records and was produced by Ben Sidran (keyboardist for the Steve Miller Band). New Train featured Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, and The Persuasions. Albert Grossman, owner of Bearsville Records, stopped release of the record after a dispute with Pena and his then-manager, Dr. Gunther Weil. Pena remained contractually obligated to Grossman, and was unable to record for another label.
Ben Sidran gave an unreleased copy of New Train to musician Steve Miller, who recorded a song from that album called "Jet Airliner" with the Steve Miller Band for the 1977 album Book of Dreams Miller's version of "Jet Airliner" was a hit single, and went to #8 on the charts. Pena's primary source of income in his later years were royalties from that single, which was a song about Pena's airplane trip from Boston to Montreal to play the first-ever date with T-Bone Walker's band.
Pena temporarily suspended his musical career to care for his wife, Babe, who was suffering from kidney failure She died in 1991, which affected him deeply.
New Train was finally released in 2000, 27 years after it was recorded. In 2001 Pena conducted his last tour, playing a number of dates in support of the album. He opened shows for the String Cheese Incident in March of that year, and for Bob Weir's Ratdog in April. He was a presenter at the 22nd annual W. C. Handy Awards in May. He then appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on June 8, 2001, and played Jet Airliner.
"Gonna Move," a song from New Train, has been covered by a number of artists, including Susan Tedeschi on her 2002 album Wait for Me, the Derek Trucks Band on their 2004 album Live at Georgia Theatre, and by Taylor Hicks on 2006's Taylor Hicks.
In 1997 Pena was severely injured after his bedroom caught fire. He suffered smoke inhalation and was in a coma for 4 days.
Pena suffered from diabetes. He also waged a long battle with pancreatic illness, and was originally mis-diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He began chemotherapy treatments and doctors gave him six months to live. In 2000 he was properly diagnosed with pancreatitis, a life-threatening illness.
Pena died in his San Francisco, California apartment of complications from diabetes and pancreatitis on October 1, 2005
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