While he may be best known for the Doublemint gum jingle and compositions for Marlboro, Ford, McDonald's, Kellogg's, KFC & Chicken of the Sea, his jazz work in "The Cry of Jazz" is preserved in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry and his Hal Leonard arrangements of Dixieland titles are played by people worldwide.
[2] Severson, a 1946 graduate of Fargo Central High School, settled in Chicago after obtaining a master's degree in music from Northwestern University.
Severson also performed with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz[4] as well as created film scores for director Madeline Tourtelot (The Poet's Return & Two Cats- One Chick 1962).
[5] Through the 1980s and 1990s Paul Severson was head of the Minnesota State University of Moorhead's music industry program .
[2] Severson was a moderator and lay minister of two Unitarian Universalist fellowships in Grand Junction and in Fargo, North Dakota.