Sept. 27, 2024

Paul deLay retrospective with Grant Dermody, Ross Garren and Pete Dammann

Paul deLay retrospective with Grant Dermody, Ross Garren and Pete Dammann

Grant Dermody, Ross Garren and Pete Dammann join me on episode 120 for a retrospective on Paul DeLay. Paul is a harmonica player who may go under the radar for some but his unique approach to both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica, as well as his powerful vocals and his insightful and humorous songwriting have placed him firmly in the hearts of harmonica and music fans in the know. Paul was from Portland, Oregon in the north west United States where his first outfit was the Brown Sugar Blu...

Grant Dermody, Ross Garren and Pete Dammann join me on episode 120 for a retrospective on Paul DeLay.
Paul is a harmonica player who may go under the radar for some but his unique approach to both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica, as well as his powerful vocals and his insightful and humorous songwriting have placed him firmly in the hearts of harmonica and music fans in the know.
Paul was from Portland, Oregon in the north west United States where his first outfit was the Brown Sugar Blues band. He formed The Paul deLay Blues band in the early 1980s releasing four albums before a period of incarceration in the early 1990s saw him breakout with his highly original blues based material, all laced with harmonica playing quite unlike any other. His passing in 2007 has left a Paul deLay shaped hole which has never been filled.

Links:
Paul deLay website:
http://www.pauldelay.com/

Grant Dermody interview:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com/grant-dermody-interview/

Pete Dammann LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-dammann-4777b916/

Videos:

Brown Sugar Blues Band - I Know My Baby Been Cheating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IdB1HuB9so

Burnin’ album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGa0DQNJ2ao

Fourteen Dollars In The Bank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzqF1jNhO-Y

deLay Does Chicago album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaI0T2rhQQM

Ocean of Tears album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE1u-RBPfmI



Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com


Support the show

01:33 - Grant Dermody joins the podcast again, from his last appearance in 2020

01:50 - Ross Garren is a harmonica player, composer and Paul deLay superman

02:22 - Pete Dammann completes the guests. Pete was band manager and guitarist in The Paul deLay band for twenty-five years

03:16 - Pete was a journalist who was writing about the North West US blues scene and interviewed Paul’s band before joining up as their guitarist

04:36 - Robert Cray was also based in the North West of the US and Paul was reporting on the blues scene in the area

04:57 - Pete was blown away when he first heard The Paul deLay Blues band

05:35 - Grant met Paul when he took a couple of lessons from him

06:14 - Grant grew to appreciate his phrasing and his unique approach to the harmonica, vocals and songwriter

07:36 - Ross saw Paul play on a few occasions in the late 1990s, early 2000s

08:49 - Ross gave Paul a demo tape and was amazed when Paul gave him some feedback some months later

09:24 - Had a unique style of playing harmonica, and where he developed this

10:03 - Grant talks of how Paul was such a songwriter and the best singer he ever heard, putting his heart and soul out through his harmonica

10:38 - His songwriting probably dictated his unique approach to playing the harmonica

10:45 - Paul didn’t start writing songs until around 1990, after being busted and cleaned-up from substance abuse

11:18 - Pete describes how Paul was an interesting intellectual guy and had eclectic tastes that fed into his aesthetic

12:15 - Paul always pushed to be original and expected Pete’s guitar playing to be the same

12:55 - Although blues based, he brought a jazzy edge that some of the purist blues fans resisted

13:40 - His first band was the Brown Sugar Blues band, but he always came back to the blues playing after he ventured off into more jazzy territory in many of his recordings

14:34 - He pushed in his eccentric directions from the get go during his Brown Sugar days

15:10 - Louis Pane brought the jazz organ sound to the band

15:53 - Paul’s music just clicked with Ross as soon as he heard it and he identified with him as a person he could access

17:45 - Ross saw Paul as the complete package

18:31 - Paul offers something unique and every song and pushed the harmonica in new directions

19:03 - Ross thinks he’s heard Paul play on unusual harmonicas

19:37 - Paul had his own sound, like all the greats do

21:27 - Great songwriter with some very funny lyrics

22:30 - Paul spent 41 months in jail and his prolific songwriting period around this time

23:34 - Sense of urgency from impending jail time spurned him into action

23:52 - Two great albums: The Other One and Paulzilla albums were put out in this time, with all original songs

24:42 - First album Pete played with the band was Burnin’ in 1988

25:17 - The song arrangements were made in a collaborative way with the band, except for the lyrics which were all Paul

26:36 - Paul was born in 1952, played with the Brown Sugar band through the 1970s and then formed The Paul deLay band in 1982

26:56 - Made great use of the chromatic and had a unique approach to that too

28:07 - Someone advised Paul to pick up the chromatic and how he developed his sound on it

29:09 - Played chromatic on the first Paul deLay band album in 1982, Teasin’

29:38 - Released Ocean Of Tears album in 1996

29:45 - Nice and Strong had the song Fourteen Dollars In The Bank, nominated for a WC Handy Award for Best Song

31:48 - Not all Paul’s albums are not easily available, such as on streaming services, something which will hopefully improve

33:21 - Some good compilation albums, including Last Of The Best, released following Paul’s death in 2007

34:20 - Later in his life Paul returned more to playing traditional blues, partly down to line-up of band

34:55 - Live at Notodden ’97 was released ten years after Paul’s passing and how the live recordings were uncovered years later

36:47 - Discussion on the sorts of harmonicas Paul played to get some of the unusual sounds he did

38:48 - Grant discusses how Paul was always original, his use of space and how he always‘served the song’

41:02 - Fan songs of Pauls from the panel, starting with Ross, whose favourite album is deLay Does Chicago

45:42 - Grant’s favourite albums are The Other One and Paulzilla, and two favourite songs off each of those albums

46:43 - Pete’s favourite song is The Other One from the album of the same name and the time pressure which made this such a creative period for Paul

50:00 - Paul died after a short illness on March 7th, 2007, from leukaemia, and Pete’s memories from his last show

54:42 - There were some memorial concerts following his death attended by the north west blues players

55:16 - Paul’s departure left a hole which has never been filled in Pete’s eyes

56:07 - Gear Paul used, helped by a great entry on harp-l by Drori Hammer

56:34 - Played Hohner Big River harps

57:19 - Chromatics probably played Hohner Chromonica, and certainly used 16 holes at times

58:37 - Used a ‘space case’: a briefcase with pedals he would change over and plug into the PA

01:00:55 - Mainly played through a PA but did use a Fender Tremolux amp earlier on

01:01:29 - Mainly used a vocal mic, but used a JT30 for more traditional blues songs

01:02:23 - Ross asks how the band recorded the excellent albums they did

01:04:43 - There was a story from the early days that Paul recorded 125 takes of one solo, and used the first or second take in the end, but he was much more focused later in career

01:05:54 - The deLay Does Chicago recording

01:08:27 - Paul didn’t play much, if any, as a sideman, although he did often sit in with other people

01:11:27 - He had amazing ears and was there in the moment and really came alive on stage

01:12:44 - Grant’s final words on Paul including the words of advice: ‘beware the gratuitous vibrato’

01:13:35 - He was super musical despite not knowing much musical theory

01:15:24 - Ross’s final words on Paul include his view that Paul was a genius and architect of his own harmonica style

01:16:11 - Ross compare Paul to Thelonious Monk, turning the idiom of blues on it’s head, and it still works

01:18:20 - The wide variety of emotions that Paul expresses and the different tones he produces

01:20:27 - Pete’s final words on Paul include that he was full of surprises and he drew on all sorts of influences for his music

01:22:02 - Takes an enormous artistic talent to paint outside the lines, especially in blues music

WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.267
Grant Dermody, Ross Garron and Pete DeMann join me on episode 120 for a retrospective on Paul DeLay.

00:00:06.967 --> 00:00:22.464
Paul is a harmonica player who may go under the radar for some, but his unique approach to both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica, as well as his powerful vocals and his insightful and humorous songwriting, have placed him firmly in the hearts of harmonica and blues fans in the know.

00:00:24.065 --> 00:00:30.033
Paul was from Portland, Oregon in the northwest United States, where his first outfit was the Brown Sugar Blues Band.

00:00:30.975 --> 00:00:46.356
He formed the Paul DeLay Blues Band in the early 1980s, releasing four albums before a period of incarceration in the early 1990s, saw him break out with his highly original blues-based material, all laced with harmonica playing quite unlike any other.

00:00:46.377 --> 00:00:52.445
His passing in 2007 has left a Paul DeLay-shaped hole which has never been filled.

00:00:53.026 --> 00:00:55.573
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:55.973 --> 00:01:05.338
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:25.858 --> 00:01:33.186
Hello and welcome to the poll delay retrospective episode and today I've got three guests to talk us through Paul's career.

00:01:33.227 --> 00:01:38.072
I've got Grant Dermody who's been on the podcast before in 2020.

00:01:49.986 --> 00:01:53.338
And we also have Ross Garron, first time you're on.

00:01:53.379 --> 00:01:57.534
So Ross, you're a harmonica player and composer, done loads of session work.

00:02:07.394 --> 00:02:10.718
and you're a Pole Delay super fan I

00:02:10.758 --> 00:02:21.855
sure am yeah thanks for having me man I've really enjoyed your podcast and it's so cool all the people you've been interviewing and I'm very appreciative for the opportunity to be a part of it

00:02:22.937 --> 00:02:33.693
and then you also got I'm very pleased to say we got Pete DeMamm so Pete you were the band manager and guitarist in the Pole Delay band for 25 years yep

00:02:33.858 --> 00:02:34.300
That's right.

00:02:34.884 --> 00:02:35.831
I was with him a long time.

00:02:49.506 --> 00:02:50.187
Yes, superb.

00:02:50.206 --> 00:02:57.979
So you worked with Paul day to day, toured with him, so I'm sure you'll be able to give us a great lowdown of what he was like and playing with him all those years.

00:02:58.060 --> 00:03:00.745
He was a one of a kind.

00:03:00.925 --> 00:03:02.287
He was a one of a kind.

00:03:02.927 --> 00:03:08.937
Maybe start by just sort of a bit of description about how you knew Paul or you knew his music.

00:03:09.038 --> 00:03:13.406
Obviously, Pete, let's start with you carrying on with, you know, how you got...

00:03:13.665 --> 00:03:15.691
together with his band and that type of thing?

00:03:16.151 --> 00:03:18.617
I was a journalist in Portland.

00:03:18.758 --> 00:03:21.966
I had grown up in Chicago playing in blues bands.

00:03:22.647 --> 00:04:00.608
I'd come out to Portland to work for a researching a piece on the northwest blues scene right about at the time that robert cray was about to win his first grammy and the gist of the article was how did a blues scene happen in the northwest uh so far from you know the roots of the music and i was going around interviewing different bands and i was interviewing the paul delay band they were having auditions at this gig for a guitar play So I did the interview on the break.

00:04:00.927 --> 00:04:04.372
After the interview, I said, I grew up in Chicago playing this kind of stuff.

00:04:04.611 --> 00:04:06.873
I'm going to go home and get my guitar and audition for the gig.

00:04:06.894 --> 00:04:12.841
And they were like, they were horrified to hear that the journalist was going to be auditioning for the gig.

00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:14.443
But anyway, I auditioned for the gig.

00:04:14.462 --> 00:04:15.804
I got the gig.

00:04:15.924 --> 00:04:19.767
And that was kind of really the beginning of the end of my journalism career.

00:04:20.369 --> 00:04:36.266
That wasn't my intent, but I went on the road with the band and eventually ended up the full-time guitar player what year was this it was like an 88 probably 1988 80 maybe 87 still kind of long time ago so

00:04:36.305 --> 00:04:36.745
you mentioned

00:04:36.786 --> 00:05:33.980
robert cray there yeah when i first came out to portland to do this newspaper job my first thought was oh i'm never going to see another blues band i'm moving to the northwest they're not doing this kind of music there the first week i was in portland i went out to a club to hear the robert cray band that it still had curtis salgado in it at that point and the next day I went out to hear Paul DeLay and his band and I was like so blown away because I had grown up you know I saw Muddy Waters a bunch of times and Howlin' Wolf a bunch of times and Otis Rush and Coco Taylor played our high school dances so I thought I knew this music pretty well and I just didn't expect to hear anything like it out here in the northwest and I was shocked and surprised and elated actually to hear that there was such amazing artists out here in the Northwest.

00:05:35.170 --> 00:05:37.512
So, yeah, so let's bring Grant in now.

00:05:37.572 --> 00:05:38.915
So how did you know Paul?

00:05:39.035 --> 00:05:46.384
So, yeah, I grew up in Seattle and I went up to Alaska in 1976 and I picked up the harmonica, started learning how to play.

00:05:46.444 --> 00:05:52.831
And when I came back to Seattle in 82, I started looking around for, you know, the best players around that I could learn from.

00:05:52.872 --> 00:05:55.175
So I studied with Kim Field for a long time.

00:05:55.214 --> 00:05:57.497
And then I heard Paul a lot.

00:05:57.778 --> 00:06:03.125
And, you know, with Pete on guitar, I think every time I heard Paul, I heard you as well, Pete.

00:06:03.778 --> 00:06:06.399
And I was just knocked out by Paul's singing.

00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:13.586
When I first heard him, I wasn't experienced enough to really appreciate what it was that I was actually hearing.

00:06:14.187 --> 00:06:27.658
But as I got stronger on the instrument, I was able to just really appreciate his phrasing, the fact that he was just a completely unique harmonica player, both on the chromatic and the diatonic, and vocalist and songwriter.

00:06:28.119 --> 00:06:32.723
You could tell in his playing that he'd really listened to the older players that we all love.

00:06:33.744 --> 00:06:35.004
completely went his own way.

00:06:35.024 --> 00:06:43.233
And so I hit him up for a lesson and I think he gave me like two lessons and said, man, he always called me Bubba.

00:06:43.274 --> 00:06:44.855
He just said, Bubba, you don't need lessons.

00:06:45.276 --> 00:06:46.216
You just need to play more.

00:06:46.918 --> 00:06:48.360
And we started and we became friends.

00:06:48.379 --> 00:06:49.901
We played a lot of pool.

00:06:50.641 --> 00:07:01.033
Later when he ran into legal trouble and was trying to clean up, I'd been in recovery for a long time so I was able to lend my experience with that.

00:07:01.052 --> 00:07:10.021
I wrote him a letter to try to help him get a lighter sentence and And we wrote letters when he was in prison and when he came back out.

00:07:11.322 --> 00:07:14.264
I always heard him every time, whenever I could.

00:07:14.305 --> 00:07:17.468
And we hung out when he would come to Seattle.

00:07:17.807 --> 00:07:21.451
And we always enjoyed seeing each other, even though it wasn't that often.

00:07:21.891 --> 00:07:22.372
Yeah, great.

00:07:22.391 --> 00:07:24.574
Sounds like you were good friends and supportive to him.

00:07:24.634 --> 00:07:26.915
So Ross, we'll bring you in now.

00:07:26.995 --> 00:07:29.617
So you are based in the West Coast yourself, aren't you?

00:07:29.658 --> 00:07:32.420
So we described you as a super fan.

00:07:32.461 --> 00:07:35.723
So did you ever see Paul play or has it all been from recordings?

00:07:35.983 --> 00:07:39.767
Yeah, I saw Paul play a handful of times.

00:07:40.309 --> 00:07:44.934
I grew up in Maryland until I was the age of 11.

00:07:45.033 --> 00:07:47.937
But then my folks moved to Monterey, California.

00:07:48.076 --> 00:08:01.331
So in my middle school years, kind of high school, middle school, late 90s, early 2000s, that's when I encountered Paul and I was, you know, early teenager, that kind of era.

00:08:01.610 --> 00:08:09.019
Yeah, Paul would come down either with the band, or as part of of Mark Hummel's blowouts just by himself.

00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:22.613
He would come down to the general area that I was in and I did get to see him a handful of times playing Sly McFlies or I think it was the Catalyst, I forget, in Santa Cruz.

00:08:22.653 --> 00:08:24.716
I probably saw him about three or four times.

00:08:24.755 --> 00:08:33.745
I remember one time he was scheduled to play a park performance and it was the day after September 11th or the weekend after September 11th.

00:08:33.765 --> 00:09:12.846
So I think the last time I could have seen him was a a rare canceled event you know when sort of everything got got canceled and that was going to be uh yeah in Monterey so yeah that that's I did get to see him he was really nice got to talk to him a few times I even gave him you know a little amateurish recording I made at that time and maybe wow it was it really blew me away something like four or five six months later I get a call on the phone from him I'm probably a freshman or sophomore in high school and and he uh lets me know what he thinks, and that I always found really touching, you know, that he took the time out to give me a call.

00:09:13.106 --> 00:09:27.302
I think Paul DeLay, you know, lots of people have heard of him, but he's probably a little bit under the radar to some extent, you know, in the real harmonica greats, but I think a lot of people who know him really love his stuff, and like you said, Grant, he's got a really unique way of playing.

00:09:27.341 --> 00:09:29.323
I think lots of things are read about him.

00:09:29.364 --> 00:09:31.686
He tried to avoid clichés like the plague.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:09:38.370 --> 00:09:43.282
Thank you.

00:09:48.481 --> 00:09:50.244
So, you know, that's a big part of his playing.

00:09:50.264 --> 00:09:52.044
Do you know how he developed?

00:09:52.085 --> 00:10:00.972
You know, you mentioned, Grant, that he definitely listened to all the greats, but how did he push himself away from, you know, sort of playing the usual blues sort of licks and things?

00:10:01.352 --> 00:10:03.554
You know, we never really talked about that.

00:10:03.754 --> 00:10:10.240
He was such a great songwriter, and he was such a great singer, and I'm far and away, I think, the best singer I've ever heard.

00:10:10.280 --> 00:10:24.585
Hair, silky skin But all of that beauty is mighty thin Now I've opened my eyes I think it's perfectly Be clear, you're gonna look like hell in another ten years While I'm a-walkin'

00:10:24.745 --> 00:10:29.804
right out The only one else that would really come close would be Salgado, I think.

00:10:30.485 --> 00:10:37.672
But in terms of being able to really put your heart and soul out through your voice and your harmonica, he was the best at that.

00:10:37.991 --> 00:10:42.696
I'm guessing that his songwriting dictated how his phrasing evolved.

00:10:43.157 --> 00:10:43.476
I don't know.

00:10:43.496 --> 00:10:44.597
What do you think about that, Pete?

00:10:44.878 --> 00:10:53.926
Well, he didn't really start writing, at least not writing complete songs until after he got busted and cleaned up.

00:10:54.245 --> 00:11:03.067
He had this folder full of scripts But we really didn't work on original material with him until after the big bust.

00:11:03.730 --> 00:11:05.895
And that was a revelation to all of us.

00:11:05.975 --> 00:11:10.187
It's like, oh my God, what has this guy been sitting on all this time?

00:11:10.977 --> 00:11:14.941
It's like the lights in the house came on when he cleaned up.

00:11:15.081 --> 00:11:17.283
It was really, really amazing.

00:11:17.943 --> 00:11:24.649
His aesthetic, I mean, he was a really interesting intellectual sort of guy.

00:11:24.690 --> 00:11:29.673
I mean, his grandfather, I think, was like the editor at the Oregonian.

00:11:29.714 --> 00:11:40.803
His dad was the staff photographer for the local newspaper for years and had taken photos of the Beatles and Princess Grace.

00:11:40.943 --> 00:12:08.369
and you know you know his family listened to a lot of opera music and he was just always uh listening to weird stuff going to see odd movies all of that's fed into his aesthetic when i joined the band you know i i had grown up in chicago heard otis rush up close when i was a kid That's what I was aspiring to do, is kind of replicate some of that.

00:12:08.948 --> 00:12:13.517
And he was obviously really attracted to that in my playing when I joined the band.

00:12:13.917 --> 00:12:18.224
But right off the bat, I remember I played some kind of, you know, B.B.

00:12:18.303 --> 00:12:20.788
King-like riffs that I thought were really cool.

00:12:21.168 --> 00:12:25.635
And he just kind of, he got this, he was, don't play B.B.

00:12:25.735 --> 00:12:26.336
King riffs.

00:12:26.817 --> 00:13:27.509
don't do just don't do that i don't want to hear that i'd rather hear you screw something up and figure out what to do with that then hear a really nice bb king riff with a lot of conviction behind it always prefer the weird unexpected turn than the kind of nice concise statement so that's just the way he was and then when we finally did start writing material i mean very little of the stuff we put out on evidence would fall into a straight ahead blues uh format a lot of the purists really kind of like were shocked and kind of disowned him for a while because um you know oh that's not blues which was ridiculous seemed just seemed ridiculous to me but he really um was always pushing uh harmonically and lyrically away from the cliches he really Because that just wasn't what he was about.

00:13:27.529 --> 00:13:29.315
He was not a cliche himself.

00:13:29.875 --> 00:13:34.047
He was a really eccentric, interesting dude.

00:13:34.528 --> 00:13:40.000
And that played out in his songwriting and his singing and his phrasing.

00:13:40.673 --> 00:13:43.581
Like you said, though, he's quite a jazz influence.

00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:45.826
There's lots of swing in a lot of the songs.

00:13:45.846 --> 00:13:48.573
Did that come later when you were in the band?

00:13:49.495 --> 00:13:56.573
So, you know, his first band was in the Brown Sugar Blues band.

00:14:09.761 --> 00:14:17.464
bit more of a straight ahead blues and he started to move away from that and again was that with you or earlier he started to get away from just being blues?

00:14:18.177 --> 00:14:19.899
He always kind of went back to

00:14:19.940 --> 00:14:22.023
that traditional stuff.

00:14:22.202 --> 00:14:28.210
I mean, he loved that material and kind of the original, the pioneers of that genre.

00:14:28.811 --> 00:14:33.517
But I think he was always kind of pushing in these other directions.

00:14:33.697 --> 00:14:41.726
Even in the Brown Sugar era, he was really young when some of that was recorded.

00:14:41.767 --> 00:14:44.610
I mean, they're just little snippets that you can find here and there.

00:14:44.711 --> 00:14:46.894
But, you know, when I hear that stuff...

00:14:47.490 --> 00:14:53.905
I'm amazed at how fully realized he was right out of the gates.

00:14:54.126 --> 00:15:00.196
I mean, his phrasing even back then was eccentric and innovative.

00:15:00.995 --> 00:15:27.164
And as he grew and as he, you know, as he got a band around him who was interested in pushing out in those directions, you know, like when we added Louis Payne on organ, Louis had moved up from the San Francisco area and played with a lot of jazz organ gigs for a long time and had played in R&B and funk bands so that he brought harmonically and rhythmically that whole bag into the mix.

00:15:41.761 --> 00:15:45.465
So, Ross, what about his unorthodox approach to playing harmonica?

00:15:45.485 --> 00:15:49.708
I mean, is that something you picked up and tried to, you know, influence your own playing?

00:15:49.729 --> 00:15:52.711
You know, what drew you to that and what did you take from it?

00:15:53.131 --> 00:15:57.034
My thought is that, you know, music is such a subjective field, right?

00:15:57.215 --> 00:16:01.339
And art and some people hear something, it really moves them.

00:16:01.418 --> 00:16:03.961
The next person thinks it's terrible or, you know.

00:16:04.341 --> 00:16:07.504
And when I heard Paul, that was just kind of it for me.

00:16:08.085 --> 00:16:19.937
I can autopsy after the fact, like, what are the elements that really appealed to me, but it was definitely just an immediate reaction to when I heard him.

00:16:19.976 --> 00:16:21.477
I was like, ah, this is my guy.

00:16:21.938 --> 00:16:36.894
Here is a guy who is about my parents' age, who lives on the West Coast, somebody I can kind of identify with in some ways, versus being a person I was reading about and didn't get to see.

00:16:37.254 --> 00:16:40.479
They were from a different generation, totally different world.

00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:45.264
He was from my time, like I said, pretty much about my parents' age.

00:16:45.484 --> 00:16:56.355
So I identified with him as like a person that I could know, unlike, say, Sonny Terry or these other greats, you know, Little Walter, I couldn't really identify in that way.

00:16:56.416 --> 00:16:59.818
So I certainly had like that kind of connection with him.

00:16:59.839 --> 00:17:07.567
I wouldn't say that's a personal connection, but why I think he resonated for me in one way.

00:17:07.607 --> 00:17:36.198
And I think in the other way, like that, I encountered Paul in a point in my harmonica development where if it was a record that had a harmonica player on it and was available at my local Borders bookstore, which was kind of the big bookstore where you at that time you could listen to the CDs before you bought them, I pretty much would get every record that I could find of anybody that played harmonica.

00:17:36.258 --> 00:19:22.690
I wanted to know kind of all of it, you know, and Paul obviously was a contemporary player who was pushing a lot of the boundaries and when I think when I heard him there's a combination of things one it's the complete package you know and I don't I hate to compare him to other players that were around at that time but there were guys who were great harmonica players whose singing or songwriting wasn't really that interesting so he really appealed to me on that level and then there were a number of guys who were really tremendous technicians really to probably speak the vocabulary of certain styles or certain eras of harmonica that I like perhaps even better than the architects of that era themselves you know like had really you know crystallized what that style was and there were a few guys like that and I enjoyed them and listened to them but listening to Paul he sounded like a total master one of the guys that struck me as good an improviser as I had really heard in any genre who every song probably offered something unique and unexpected who would push the harmonica in a lot of interesting technical ways whether it's through the unusual tongue splits that i hadn't heard other players use through the effects through playing chromatic in different positions i think i've heard recordings of him on unusual harmonicas like i don't know if it's a cot harmonica or auto valve harmonicas or some different recordings I've heard over the years where he was clearly messing around with some of those things packaged with the songwriting, the singing, the stellar band of really unique characters.

00:19:22.789 --> 00:19:29.336
It's really cool to me the different voices of how each member of that band played these stellar arrangements.

00:19:29.635 --> 00:19:36.682
And it was just a great context to hear music that I could listen to and be into for more than the harmonica.

00:19:36.701 --> 00:20:08.882
And then when I focused on the harmonica, he really just struck me as like a guy who in the era that i was learning harmonica who seemed the most like the real guys to me like he wasn't an imitator which i think most of the real guys there are recordings obviously of like early little walter and things where he sounds more kind of derivative than he does later but pretty quickly All of the guys that I love the most, I'd say most of them really just had this unique style.

00:20:09.785 --> 00:20:18.067
Whether they put emphasis on that, whether they developed that, whether it came natural or not, that's certainly a hallmark of my favorite players.

00:20:19.233 --> 00:20:42.253
really more than anyone else in that era for me, felt like the real thing, an iconoclastic, original voice on the instrument, who simultaneously, there are other guys that I thought were quite original, but his way of doing it to me was not cheesy, and it wasn't overly contrived or forced in terms of being original.

00:20:42.673 --> 00:20:46.837
Yeah, so he just, just one of those things, when I heard it, I was like, this is the guy.

00:20:47.018 --> 00:20:53.593
This is the mastery, the unique it's clear within 20 seconds of every song I've heard.

00:21:14.913 --> 00:21:19.699
So I think what you've all touched on a little bit is his sort of complete package.

00:21:19.739 --> 00:21:25.226
I don't think you can take away the fact that he was a great songwriter, a great singer, and a great harmonica player.

00:21:25.246 --> 00:21:26.586
They all came together, didn't they?

00:21:27.167 --> 00:21:32.574
So let's touch on his songwriting a little bit and some great lyrics he wrote, very funny lyrics as well.

00:21:32.854 --> 00:21:34.736
There's plenty of songs I really love of his.

00:21:34.776 --> 00:21:39.882
So there's a song called Could We Just Shoot Your Husband, which, you know, with a title like that, it's got to be a great song.

00:21:40.143 --> 00:21:42.144
Could we just shoot your husband, baby?

00:21:43.713 --> 00:21:46.939
So we can go on and live our lives.

00:21:47.138 --> 00:21:50.744
It's wrong to keep on cheating.

00:21:51.726 --> 00:21:55.330
Baby, we can make everything

00:21:55.471 --> 00:21:55.872
alright.

00:21:55.892 --> 00:21:56.192
Excellent.

00:21:56.212 --> 00:22:02.241
And one of my real favourites is Ain't That Right, which, you know, really catchy tune and great lyrics.

00:22:02.701 --> 00:22:05.086
Imagine seeing that acute while we're walking down.

00:22:05.314 --> 00:22:06.055
You

00:22:20.631 --> 00:22:26.718
mentioned, Pete, earlier on that he started writing after he came out from his incarceration.

00:22:26.837 --> 00:22:28.640
I think he was writing in prison, wasn't he?

00:22:28.660 --> 00:22:30.161
And then he came out with lots of songs.

00:22:30.422 --> 00:22:48.064
Yeah, he was busted, let out on bail, And then the trial kept getting put off and it was put off cumulatively for like almost two years before finally one day we got the word that like, okay, it's happening tomorrow.

00:22:48.144 --> 00:22:50.086
And he did some sort of a plea deal.

00:22:50.547 --> 00:22:58.698
So he ended up, you know, rather than going away for like 15 years, which was like what he was looking at at one point, because he was busted.

00:22:59.338 --> 00:23:04.224
There was a lot of cocaine involved in transaction that he was a mule for.

00:23:04.738 --> 00:23:06.660
So anyway, he did a plea deal.

00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:18.329
But in that two years after his bust is when he really kind of sobered up and suddenly all of these loose ends started to come together.

00:23:18.829 --> 00:23:27.857
Most of us didn't really understand that there were all these loose ends kind of floating around in his head and in his file folder all those years.

00:23:27.978 --> 00:23:33.742
But when he sobered up, it all started to come together.

00:23:33.762 --> 00:24:02.054
And also he had this sense of urgency it's like he knew he was that he was had gotten busted and was going away for some period of time he had this band who was that was willing to work with him and stand by him and so he really had the sense of urgency to kind of get what he could together in that time frame and we put out two recordings that were later picked up by evidence while he was awaiting trial.

00:24:02.194 --> 00:24:07.740
So his writing really started before he went away but after he got busted.

00:24:08.193 --> 00:24:10.476
Were those two albums the other one and Paul Zilla?

00:24:10.516 --> 00:24:12.698
Yes, yes, exactly.

00:24:12.718 --> 00:24:13.878
Two really excellent albums.

00:24:14.299 --> 00:24:17.063
Yeah, they were mind-boggling to us.

00:24:17.163 --> 00:24:24.990
I mean, you know, I'd been playing with them for a few years at that point, and I was like, wow, where did this come from?

00:24:25.029 --> 00:24:25.891
This is amazing.

00:24:26.151 --> 00:24:28.854
And so all the songs on both these albums were originals.

00:24:29.233 --> 00:24:30.035
Yeah.

00:24:30.055 --> 00:24:32.817
¶¶¶¶

00:24:42.369 --> 00:24:46.518
So the first album you played on with Paul, and was that, what did you say, 88?

00:24:46.617 --> 00:24:47.318
Was it Burning?

00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:48.560
It was Burning.

00:24:48.580 --> 00:24:51.747
Yeah, Burning was a live recording at the Owl.

00:24:52.288 --> 00:24:56.355
And it was early, very early in my tenure with the band.

00:24:56.536 --> 00:24:58.338
And we were, yeah, we were playing all covers.

00:24:58.358 --> 00:24:59.240
I'm pretty sure.

00:24:59.300 --> 00:25:01.585
I don't think there were any original tunes on that album.

00:25:01.885 --> 00:25:03.067
Peter, damn it.

00:25:03.087 --> 00:25:03.808
Hang on to your hat.

00:25:17.506 --> 00:25:18.987
What about the arrangements of the music?

00:25:19.027 --> 00:25:22.630
Was that down to the band or was he instrumental in that as well?

00:25:23.310 --> 00:25:30.037
Well, he would come to the band with some hooks, a kind of a loose idea for the song.

00:25:30.057 --> 00:25:44.328
You know, his writing style was very from the top down in the sense that he would start with the embellishments of the building and then work down to the foundation.

00:25:44.348 --> 00:25:47.152
And he wouldn't even really think about the foundation.

00:25:47.471 --> 00:25:58.604
about the hook that would happen on the bridge, and we would sort of push him into figuring out the structure and how to connect the bridge to the main part of the song.

00:25:59.484 --> 00:26:01.727
It was very much a collaborative process.

00:26:01.807 --> 00:26:27.560
I mean, it was Paul's ideas and kind of ultimately his call on the aesthetic questions, but it was very much the saxophone player coming up with the harmony part for the riff or something that would connect the main part of the song to the bridge or whatever it was very collaborative except for the lyrics I mean the lyrics were really all his doing

00:26:27.842 --> 00:26:31.065
But the lyrics go, I think, so great with the songs, you know, the arrangements.

00:26:31.105 --> 00:26:32.306
They all work so well together.

00:26:32.326 --> 00:26:35.568
I think that's a really strong part of why it all works so well together, yeah.

00:26:35.648 --> 00:26:35.888
Yeah.

00:26:36.348 --> 00:26:44.415
He was born in 1952, so we're talking he was with the Brown Sugar Band from 74, so he was 22, I think, when he was probably playing before then.

00:26:44.496 --> 00:26:51.102
He had a little time where he toured with Sunderland Slim and Herbert Slim and then joined this Paul DeLay band in 1982 when he was 30.

00:26:51.402 --> 00:26:55.726
Played through to 1990 until he was sent away for 41 months, as you say.

00:26:56.066 --> 00:26:57.347
So what about...

00:26:57.807 --> 00:26:58.790
chromatic playing.

00:26:58.810 --> 00:27:00.055
Do you know about that, Grant?

00:27:00.115 --> 00:27:01.779
When did he start picking up the chromatic?

00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:03.124
Because he's very strong on chromatic.

00:27:03.163 --> 00:27:05.330
There's lots of chromatic on his recordings.

00:27:20.705 --> 00:27:22.632
you know when he started um playing that

00:27:22.853 --> 00:27:36.792
he was playing it right when i heard him for the first time which would have been somewhere in the mid 80s i believe mid to later 80s uh I couldn't give you a year when he picked it up.

00:27:36.952 --> 00:27:41.817
But when I heard him play, he already had his own voice with the instrument.

00:27:42.357 --> 00:27:45.701
And like Ross was saying, he was playing in lots of different keys.

00:27:46.060 --> 00:27:53.106
The people that I had heard play chromatic up until that time were mostly playing D modal on a C chromatic harmonica.

00:27:53.547 --> 00:27:55.328
That's not what Paul was doing.

00:27:55.368 --> 00:27:57.230
He was doing all kinds of stuff.

00:27:57.750 --> 00:28:02.454
And then there's plenty of great chromatic playing on the other one and on Paul Zillow.

00:28:02.875 --> 00:28:03.036
Yeah,

00:28:03.296 --> 00:28:03.375
yeah.

00:28:03.375 --> 00:28:04.057
as well.

00:28:04.477 --> 00:28:07.500
He was playing chromatic when I first joined the band.

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:27.382
I forget who he was referring to, but he said early on when he picked up the harp, somebody advised him, and I can't remember whether it was another blues harmonica player or whether it was some other sort of musician, but he said, you know, you really should pick up chromatic because you've got all 12 notes in the scale.

00:28:27.721 --> 00:28:56.373
There's a whole other world out there that you can't get to with the you know he took that to heart and there weren't any real examples in the blues world for him to follow to take cues from he really had to kind of invent that himself i mean they're most of the chromatic harp you hear being played in the blues world is pretty like uh grant was saying is i guess it's the door you know sort of dorian minor key stuff

00:28:56.772 --> 00:28:56.853
yeah

00:28:57.093 --> 00:29:01.718
and he what he wasn't doing that he had already figured out how to do it another way

00:29:02.159 --> 00:29:05.663
yeah no absolutely and and Quite a distinct style, as you say, on the chromatic.

00:29:06.204 --> 00:29:09.049
He's definitely not playing the sort of usual third position stuff.

00:29:09.089 --> 00:29:15.441
So, I mean, I think from my listening, I picked out he did play a song on chromatic on the 1982 album Teasing.

00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:19.346
So I think as early as that, he was playing chromatic with the first Paul DeLay.

00:29:19.366 --> 00:29:19.487
That's

00:29:19.508 --> 00:29:19.607
right.

00:29:27.821 --> 00:29:28.061
That's right.

00:29:32.289 --> 00:29:38.036
Okay, so we've talked on these albums, Paul Ziller and the other one, which is in the early 90s.

00:29:38.636 --> 00:29:42.279
And then he released Ocean of Tears in 1996.

00:29:43.260 --> 00:29:44.623
Again, there's some great harp on there.

00:29:44.663 --> 00:29:45.824
And then Nice and Strong.

00:29:45.903 --> 00:29:54.053
So on there is a song well-known for him, which is$14 in the Bank, which was nominated for a WC Handy Award for Best Song.

00:29:54.272 --> 00:30:05.821
$14 in the bank$1500 worth of honey I told my

00:30:11.874 --> 00:30:12.795
That was kind of interesting.

00:30:12.835 --> 00:30:15.156
We were working on a new record.

00:30:15.596 --> 00:30:21.142
We had put together some material that Paul really thought was going to get us some crossover radio play.

00:30:21.281 --> 00:30:22.824
You know, they were not straight ahead.

00:30:22.844 --> 00:30:31.211
They were sort of a little bit more sort of Robert Cray-like blues tunes and structures with a little bit more complicated bridges and chord changes.

00:30:31.550 --> 00:30:38.616
But he came into the studio one morning and said, you know, we really need like one kind of straight ahead blues tune on this album.

00:30:38.998 --> 00:30:40.278
Let's give this a shot.

00:30:40.499 --> 00:30:44.643
So we kind of ran it down We ran through it and recorded it.

00:30:44.663 --> 00:30:48.307
That was kind of how that particular song happened.

00:30:48.346 --> 00:30:50.368
It was just like a one-shot thing.

00:30:51.009 --> 00:30:55.914
And it was Paul sort of saying to everybody, we need something that's a little bit more straight ahead, guys.

00:30:55.954 --> 00:30:56.635
Let's try this.

00:30:57.416 --> 00:30:59.459
And it still was quirky.

00:30:59.838 --> 00:31:05.045
I mean, if you listen to it, the four chord is a minor chord.

00:31:05.065 --> 00:31:11.791
It has some minor to major kind of chord changes in it that are not predictable at all.

00:31:11.791 --> 00:31:14.234
and I was like, Paul, why are you doing this?

00:31:14.295 --> 00:31:15.556
Let's just play it straight ahead.

00:31:15.615 --> 00:31:16.676
No, no, no, no, Bubba.

00:31:16.936 --> 00:31:18.679
We gotta do it like this.

00:31:19.079 --> 00:31:32.074
He insisted and I didn't get it for a long time and then the more as time has gone on, it's like those little weird quirks are the defining element of that tune.

00:31:32.634 --> 00:31:40.702
We used to call them the nuances in his material but we quickly decided that they were actually more like nuisances.

00:31:41.143 --> 00:31:47.590
So we started to refer to all of his little quirky lines and transitions as nuisances.

00:31:48.791 --> 00:31:59.644
So, I mean, talking about his recordings as well, so, Pete, another thing you do is you help look after the poldelay.com website, which has got lots of great information and lists all the albums that he's released on there.

00:32:00.086 --> 00:32:10.136
So, I mean, looking through and doing my usual research and listening to the album, I couldn't find all his albums, so there's some good compilation albums which have come out, which are, you know, a nice representation, but...

00:32:10.849 --> 00:32:12.771
I mean, where are the albums available from?

00:32:13.113 --> 00:32:14.875
Do you think you can get them via the website?

00:32:14.894 --> 00:32:14.974
Yeah,

00:32:15.615 --> 00:32:17.438
and a lot of the stuff is out of print.

00:32:17.518 --> 00:32:23.805
I mean, evidence is not in business any longer, and we can't even get product anymore from them.

00:32:24.005 --> 00:32:28.029
So a lot of that evidence stuff is out of print and unavailable.

00:32:28.530 --> 00:32:34.417
Frankly, we have not done much updating of that website since he passed.

00:32:34.913 --> 00:32:35.934
I'm not an IT guy.

00:32:35.954 --> 00:32:42.721
I really, I didn't have that much to do with the website except sort of throw content at the people who are putting it together.

00:32:42.740 --> 00:32:46.064
I think at this point we're, we kind of talk about it.

00:32:46.304 --> 00:32:54.270
We just, nobody has quite had the bandwidth to do it is to figure out how to get all of this stuff up on a streaming site.

00:32:54.351 --> 00:32:56.752
So at least the world can hear it, you know?

00:32:57.212 --> 00:32:58.253
Yeah, no, that'd be great.

00:32:58.294 --> 00:32:59.855
I mean, obviously there'll be some clips on here.

00:32:59.875 --> 00:33:32.609
Some people can hear it, but yeah, I think if people want to find out more and really dig into, into some, I mean, looking at video, various forums I've read lots of great things and people saying I sold a CD on eBay I bought an eBay you know a CD on eBay it seems like a lot of that has gone around and that's maybe some of the reason that he's not maybe quite as well known as some of the other players so yeah it'd be great to get his stuff out there more yeah so but as I said there are some really good compilation albums so there's an album called The Last of the Best live recordings by the Paul DeLay and I think that was put out to sort of commemorate him just after he died wasn't it?

00:33:33.009 --> 00:34:29.927
Right yeah we'd recorded I think it was live at the Triple Door maybe in Seattle and have this recording and right after he passed we put that one out that has David Vest who now lives in Canada piano player from originally from Alabama real great boogie woogie guy that's a pretty straight ahead blues album there's not a lot of tricky songwriting on that music Toward the end of his run, He made a hard return to the kind of traditional blues repertoire and expression.

00:34:30.148 --> 00:34:33.510
And part of it had to do with the makeup of the band at that time.

00:34:33.871 --> 00:34:37.454
Because Louis Payne had moved on and Dan Fincher had moved on.

00:34:37.494 --> 00:34:42.699
The guys who sort of helped him structure all the material he put out on Evidence.

00:34:43.340 --> 00:34:46.061
Ocean of Tears, Nice and Strong.

00:34:46.641 --> 00:34:53.007
They had moved on and they were an essential piece of putting that material together.

00:34:53.007 --> 00:34:54.753
and making it happen.

00:34:55.173 --> 00:34:59.025
And there's another live album called Live at Notterden.

00:34:59.045 --> 00:35:00.570
I think it's recorded in Norway.

00:35:02.242 --> 00:35:06.009
Yeah, and that was put out in, recorded in 1997 and put out in 2017.

00:35:06.028 --> 00:35:08.574
And then you played on that show, didn't you?

00:35:08.813 --> 00:35:14.505
Yeah, and that was the core band that put together all of the evidence material, essentially.

00:35:15.166 --> 00:35:19.373
Yeah, so you think that's a good representation of his not straight ahead sort of blues stuff?

00:35:19.534 --> 00:35:20.235
Yeah, I think so.

00:35:20.255 --> 00:35:22.719
I mean, it was a really good set.

00:35:23.661 --> 00:35:23.742
Yeah.

00:35:38.561 --> 00:35:39.688
It was kind of interesting.

00:35:39.728 --> 00:35:44.592
The Notodden Festival had put out a sort of best of album.

00:35:44.994 --> 00:35:50.978
that had cuts from their first 15 years or whatever it was they were celebrating.

00:35:51.380 --> 00:35:53.922
And there was a Paul DeLay cut on that album.

00:35:54.922 --> 00:36:13.798
And at some point after he, fairly recently, like, I don't know, four or five years ago, it dawned on me that if they had a multi-track recording of that song, they probably somewhere, somebody had the full set that we had played that day at Notodden.

00:36:14.259 --> 00:36:22.829
And so I wrote some the festival director, and he said, yeah, I think it might, yeah, Norwegian Public Radio, I think, may have that somewhere.

00:36:22.949 --> 00:36:30.556
So, you know, a month later, I got this link to a Dropbox that had the whole set on a multi-track recording.

00:36:30.958 --> 00:36:38.346
We took that to somebody to master it and sort of retweak it a little bit, and then we put it out.

00:36:38.945 --> 00:36:40.387
And that's available on streaming.

00:36:40.427 --> 00:36:42.329
So, you know, again, people can easily access that.

00:36:42.349 --> 00:36:46.231
And it'll be on the Spotify playlist that I put together as part of the podcast.

00:36:46.291 --> 00:36:46.793
You know what?

00:36:47.432 --> 00:36:48.653
Here's a question for Grant.

00:36:48.713 --> 00:36:50.976
So you knew Paul a really long time.

00:36:51.016 --> 00:37:00.224
There are a few oddities in his catalog, either early stuff that was hard for me to track down or kind of oddball live recordings.

00:37:00.585 --> 00:37:11.534
It sounded like Paul would play a harmonica that was not a chromatic, not a diatonic, you know, whether I think one sounded perhaps octave tuned, like an auto vowel.

00:37:11.554 --> 00:37:23.728
I'm kind of doing this from memory because those tracks, I can't exactly remember where they are at this point, but, um, one sounded kind of like a, maybe like a cotch harmonica or something where you could even bend in it.

00:37:23.947 --> 00:37:28.072
And it sounded like a blues harp, but you also had a button on it, you know?

00:37:28.793 --> 00:37:30.996
Uh, can you speak a little bit about that?

00:37:31.036 --> 00:37:38.403
Cause I'm curious, it's such an oddity and I'm not really aware of many, maybe really any of the other blues players playing stuff like that.

00:37:38.503 --> 00:37:50.483
And they say, Sound really cool on these recordings, but there's only like one or two in his catalog that I encountered, none of it on those evidence albums and stuff.

00:37:50.503 --> 00:37:52.746
So was that something that he was kind of doing?

00:37:52.786 --> 00:37:54.208
What were those instruments?

00:37:55.137 --> 00:37:55.998
I don't know.

00:37:56.039 --> 00:37:59.202
When I heard him play live, I didn't hear that.

00:37:59.262 --> 00:38:02.965
I heard him play diatonics and then different kinds of chromatics.

00:38:03.005 --> 00:38:09.010
It seemed like he had like two or three different chromatics with different availability of notes, right?

00:38:09.090 --> 00:38:16.115
So what would that be, like a 16-hole one and then a 12-hole one and then maybe a smaller one?

00:38:16.376 --> 00:38:16.556
Right.

00:38:17.036 --> 00:38:21.860
But that's, yeah, that's all I can tell you in terms of the harmonicas that he used.

00:38:22.262 --> 00:38:32.172
I understand what you mean, though, because he'd get like sounds and you're trying to figure out how's he getting that sound what's he using so um but i don't have an answer for you sorry man

00:38:32.612 --> 00:38:47.527
yeah no i was i was just curious because it did strike me as either a trick on my ear or more like an oddity you know where he just kind of you know like little walter plays the cotch on a song or two and it's really cool you know

00:38:47.907 --> 00:38:56.498
you know i'm i'm listening to paul and i'm a i'm a i'm a learning you know well i'm still a learning harmonica player a We're all works in progress.

00:38:56.898 --> 00:38:58.579
But I was early in my development.

00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:10.472
And up until that point, I heard a lot of people going so far as to recreate little Walter solos on stage and pass them off as their own, which is just not cool.

00:39:10.552 --> 00:39:11.213
You don't do that.

00:39:11.873 --> 00:39:13.416
But there were people that were doing that.

00:39:14.056 --> 00:39:20.643
And when I heard Paul, I didn't know how to articulate it at the time, and I didn't really know what I was hearing at the time.

00:39:20.682 --> 00:39:24.708
But in retrospect, Paul was a guy that really knew how to serve the song.

00:39:25.007 --> 00:39:28.831
He understood that the job of the musician is to serve the song.

00:39:29.293 --> 00:39:50.795
And how he chose to do that, the different tones that he used from song to song, the different ways that he did or didn't use his hands, whether it was a chromatic tune or a diatonic tune, or like Ross was saying, another harmonica that he picked up that he was just messing around with and learned how to play, and his use of space.

00:39:51.356 --> 00:39:54.639
As we know, there's tons of harmonica players that use no space.

00:39:54.960 --> 00:39:58.266
But Paul was not like that.

00:39:58.306 --> 00:40:01.610
Paul's use of space was really stunning.

00:40:02.012 --> 00:40:03.273
And he had his own voice.

00:40:04.215 --> 00:40:05.777
And that really attracted me.

00:40:05.858 --> 00:40:09.264
That was kind of like, oh, okay, that's a whole other way that you can go.

00:40:09.304 --> 00:40:19.440
And whether he knows it or not, he influenced me quite a bit by just me listening to him and realizing that that's what he was doing.

00:40:20.289 --> 00:40:26.420
Yeah, and I think similarly myself, and again, I've certainly listened to him in the past, and I've got some of his songs in my collection.

00:40:27.021 --> 00:40:32.710
But recently, you know, I find myself playing, trying to, you know, do something which isn't so unusual.

00:40:32.751 --> 00:40:38.260
He does these sort of unusual jumps from low to high, for example, you know, and then just different phrases.

00:40:38.280 --> 00:40:43.027
You know, even just that, just trying to sort of do a little bit of that in your playing sort of rubs off on you, doesn't it?

00:40:43.909 --> 00:40:46.393
Yeah, absolutely.

00:40:46.414 --> 00:40:46.494
Yeah.

00:41:01.378 --> 00:41:06.702
So picking out any favorite songs of his, have you got any in mind that you'd like to call out starting with you, Ross?

00:41:06.722 --> 00:41:10.365
So when I encountered Paul, my first record was Take It From The Turnaround.

00:41:10.686 --> 00:41:15.570
And I picked up every record I could as they came out from there on out.

00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:22.556
And so his early material is kind of stuff that I have found probably since that period.

00:41:22.996 --> 00:41:28.581
Like I had all those high production value evidence criminal records.

00:41:29.101 --> 00:41:30.463
I think those were the record labels.

00:41:31.264 --> 00:41:31.344
Yeah.

00:41:31.344 --> 00:41:31.764
Yeah, okay.

00:41:31.804 --> 00:41:35.713
So the earlier stuff wasn't stuff I encountered until much later.

00:41:35.753 --> 00:41:37.034
I just couldn't get my hands on it.

00:41:37.114 --> 00:41:38.737
But for me, I kind of...

00:41:39.079 --> 00:41:40.300
You asked me a favorite song.

00:41:40.461 --> 00:41:41.864
I kind of consider...

00:41:41.945 --> 00:41:43.608
And I would like to ask Pete about this.

00:41:43.688 --> 00:41:44.208
I consider...

00:41:44.833 --> 00:41:50.760
Pretty much everything on all of those records to be just absolute gems.

00:41:51.101 --> 00:41:57.809
Band arrangement-wise, harmonica playing-wise, you know, it almost sounds like he never repeats himself.

00:41:58.349 --> 00:42:03.416
There's just, you know, such a wide variety of masterful playing.

00:42:03.456 --> 00:42:09.063
Also ensemble work, you know, harmonica in an ensemble, not just as a lead voice.

00:42:09.083 --> 00:42:10.945
There's just so much of it that's so great.

00:42:11.458 --> 00:42:12.280
Not so great.

00:42:12.340 --> 00:42:13.402
It's my favorite stuff.

00:42:14.043 --> 00:42:32.382
But if you ask me to pick a song, I would say when I first heard the Delay Does Chicago album as an aspiring player, like I said, I missed his whole era that Pete has mentioned about playing more straight-ahead material prior to these songs.

00:42:32.514 --> 00:42:34.177
evidence criminal releases.

00:42:34.237 --> 00:42:39.672
So I had not had the pleasure of hearing just Paul play a set of more standard stuff.

00:42:39.851 --> 00:42:45.204
And Delay Does Chicago certainly gets into a lot of stuff that is not Totally standard.

00:42:45.643 --> 00:43:00.086
But when I heard that album, that one really just floored me because it put his playing in a context that I was much more familiar with and also maybe would be playing myself on gigs or with friends, you know?

00:43:00.447 --> 00:43:07.077
More kind of, yeah, standard public domain fare, if you will, in terms of the chord progressions.

00:43:07.498 --> 00:43:11.846
And listening to his idiosyncratic...

00:43:12.418 --> 00:43:23.420
Just that out of hell mastery of the whole thing in this context where you could listen to all of my favorite players play pretty much, you know, was just a revelation.

00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:29.233
And so I could say like, you know, all those tracks are great touchstones for me.

00:43:29.293 --> 00:43:33.380
If I was to pick one, you know, listening to his...

00:43:33.954 --> 00:44:27.045
solo on the back half of the song wait is like maybe the most nasty chromatic playing i can think of it's just got like all of the stuff that i love about his playing kind of in there and some stuff that i've pretty much only heard on some live records like paul didn't really play octaves on the chromatic which is part and parcel to most west coast blues players chromatic style kind of coming out of that George Smith thing now I have heard like little moments here and there where it's happened but not on those records not on those high production value records but like he pops into that for a second he it's just got everything in there this sort of I think one of the things that really blows me away about his improvisations is his He pretty much doesn't really ever sound like he's playing licks to me.

00:44:27.144 --> 00:44:35.806
He sounds like he is composing in a stream-of-conscious kind of way with really wonderful, motivic music.

00:44:35.969 --> 00:44:39.635
development and relationships between phrases.

00:44:40.376 --> 00:44:55.856
And there's just this kind of masterful architecture of how the melodic lines kind of evolve, both in terms of creating a shape to a solo and how they sort of relate on a more, you know, on a more microscopic phrase to phrase level.

00:44:55.896 --> 00:45:15.927
But that solo, it's got the angular weird phrasing that he pops into it's got the odd double stops it's got this nasty tone it's got this killer way of just building a solo that would probably be one I could point to I can't say it's my favorite but whenever I listen to that one I'm just like my god this is everything

00:45:37.922 --> 00:45:41.728
So let's bring you, Grant, a song or an album that you would like to pick out.

00:45:42.349 --> 00:45:45.934
My favorite albums are the other one and Paul Zilla.

00:45:46.135 --> 00:45:54.849
And, you know, I think like Pete was saying, you know, there's a depth and a sense of urgency to both of those albums that's, you know, you can just hear it.

00:45:55.289 --> 00:45:59.998
My favorite tunes on the other one are Why Can't You Love Me?

00:46:00.018 --> 00:46:02.461
Why Can't You Love Me?

00:46:11.202 --> 00:46:33.336
and oat brand and then on the um on the paulzilla album uh i really love i missed you bad and pete you take a gorgeous guitar solo on that one and then i also love don't feel nothing

00:46:35.329 --> 00:46:35.911
Great stuff.

00:46:35.971 --> 00:46:42.603
So, Pete, even though you're not a harmonica player, we'll maybe let you pick one of Paul's favorite songs of yours out.

00:46:43.405 --> 00:46:51.701
I think the one that just really knocked me out, because it was one of the first ones we tackled after he got busted, was the other one.

00:47:09.186 --> 00:47:14.813
You know, it's got some just really cool chord changes that are different.

00:47:14.853 --> 00:47:16.356
And he plays really...

00:47:16.996 --> 00:47:18.318
It's just haunting to me.

00:47:19.239 --> 00:47:20.862
Yeah, I just always really dug that.

00:47:20.922 --> 00:47:30.655
But yeah, there was so much in that repertoire we did with that band that really was just so exceptional.

00:47:30.695 --> 00:47:35.141
That whole period before he went to prison was...

00:47:36.161 --> 00:47:37.264
Under a deadline.

00:47:37.364 --> 00:47:43.483
I mean, in the literal sense of a deadline, it's like, you know, you are dying.

00:47:43.503 --> 00:47:45.447
You're going to die at dawn.

00:47:45.489 --> 00:47:48.356
What are you going to do with the next 24 hours?

00:47:49.090 --> 00:47:52.273
And that was kind of the feeling we had for like two years.

00:47:52.373 --> 00:48:01.440
It's like the whole band was in this, was just focused and really engaged in like everything that we were trying to do and that he was trying to do.

00:48:01.460 --> 00:48:01.541
Yeah,

00:48:02.061 --> 00:48:05.244
it is amazing how that focuses the mind, doesn't it, as you say, having that.

00:48:05.483 --> 00:48:06.204
Yeah, totally.

00:48:06.324 --> 00:48:19.056
And it really was an ensemble, you know, the way we would, you know, I really felt like I was an instrument in an orchestra rather than a guitar shredder in a blues band.

00:48:19.056 --> 00:48:22.460
I mean, I would do that when the time came to do that.

00:48:22.519 --> 00:48:23.280
I'd try to do that.

00:48:23.400 --> 00:48:35.653
But the rest of the time, I was trying to figure out how the guitar parts were going to work with this very reedy sound we had of harmonica, saxophone, and Hammond organ.

00:48:35.833 --> 00:48:39.056
I mean, that's a lot of reed-ish sounds.

00:48:39.577 --> 00:48:50.032
And to kind of pull all that together and weave it together in a way that really worked, we spent a lot of time and put a lot of creative energy into trying to figure out how that could work.

00:48:50.333 --> 00:48:56.574
Because we didn't really have any models to work from.

00:49:12.898 --> 00:49:19.507
There weren't blues bands with this instrumentation that we knew of that we could sort of look to for guidance.

00:49:19.568 --> 00:49:21.429
We had to kind of really figure it out.

00:49:22.311 --> 00:49:27.179
And I think that's why we came up with an original solution, because we had to, you know.

00:49:35.842 --> 00:49:43.190
Hey everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, proudly sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas.

00:49:43.710 --> 00:49:47.875
This is Jason Ritchie here telling you I love Blue Moon Harmonicas.

00:49:47.956 --> 00:49:55.423
I love the combs, the covers, the custom harps, the refurbished pre-war marine bands, and nobody's easier to work with than Tom Halcheck.

00:49:55.623 --> 00:49:59.748
Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

00:50:00.028 --> 00:50:00.590
You know, suddenly...

00:50:00.929 --> 00:50:02.052
Paul died in 2007.

00:50:02.112 --> 00:50:04.840
He's 55 years old.

00:50:05.039 --> 00:50:11.094
So I think, Pete, you played the show with him just before this happened, yeah?

00:50:11.175 --> 00:50:12.820
So if you could maybe tell us about that time.

00:50:13.201 --> 00:50:16.648
So he was, you know, he put on some weight.

00:50:17.090 --> 00:50:20.054
He was having a lot of health-related kind of issues.

00:50:20.454 --> 00:50:23.318
His joints were starting to give him a lot of trouble.

00:50:23.338 --> 00:50:27.804
He was kind of borderline diabetic, I think, probably at that point.

00:50:28.485 --> 00:50:32.210
So we were kind of aware that he was sort of struggling a lot of the time.

00:50:32.891 --> 00:50:36.157
We had played about two weeks before that final gig.

00:50:36.197 --> 00:50:39.360
We had been down in Mexico playing in Playa del Carmen.

00:50:39.862 --> 00:50:42.846
A friend of ours has this place.

00:50:43.041 --> 00:50:57.315
thing down there that she does, and we'd gone down there to play, and he really kind of seemed like he was, I thought it was a sort of jet lag, but anyway, he really was kind of having trouble getting around.

00:50:57.335 --> 00:51:17.731
It was hard to tell how much of that might have just been weight related, you know, because he was carrying a, you know, so he explained one day when he hopped in the van to drive off to a gig, he said, Bubba, Just imagine what it would be like walking through life with, like, 25 bowling balls attached to your back.

00:51:18.112 --> 00:51:21.338
And I went, oh, yeah, okay.

00:51:21.358 --> 00:51:21.978
Okay, I get it.

00:51:22.719 --> 00:51:29.710
So, anyway, the gig in Klamath Falls is in this beautiful Art Deco theater in southern Oregon.

00:51:30.130 --> 00:51:31.273
Really great crowd.

00:51:31.938 --> 00:51:40.329
He had what seemed like it was a bad cold coming on, or a flu or something, because his voice was really raspy.

00:51:41.009 --> 00:51:46.315
He did not do a lot of singing on that gig, but he played great harmonica.

00:51:46.335 --> 00:51:50.440
And he told lots of really funny jokes.

00:51:51.161 --> 00:51:54.025
This is like on a Saturday evening.

00:51:54.561 --> 00:52:24.523
he seemed like he was struggling but he was still there for the gig and he was playing brilliant harmonica playing funny jokes hopped in the van the next day drove him home and he said well I'll just try to sleep this off the next day he called me up we were supposed to play on a Tuesday we had a Tuesday gig He called me up and said, Bob, I think you better get a sub for Tuesday because I just think I'm coming down with the flu or something like that.

00:52:24.563 --> 00:52:25.244
I said, okay.

00:52:25.965 --> 00:52:31.992
So Tuesday, I got the call that he had gone to the doctors, already had been moved to the hospital.

00:52:32.032 --> 00:52:39.583
And by the time I kind of like got focused on what was going on, he was like already hooked up to a morphine drip.

00:52:40.405 --> 00:52:43.509
And they said he has late stage leukemia.

00:52:43.548 --> 00:52:46.934
As far as I know, nobody knew he had leukemia.

00:52:47.425 --> 00:52:53.552
But he had emerged from Klamath Falls with late-stage, full-blown leukemia.

00:52:53.614 --> 00:52:59.981
And he basically got checked into the hospital and just crashed and burned almost immediately.

00:53:00.101 --> 00:53:02.143
Like 12 hours later, he was gone.

00:53:02.925 --> 00:53:04.887
So the whole thing was just sort of shocking.

00:53:05.047 --> 00:53:11.976
I have a live board recording of that gig, and it was a pretty cool gig.

00:53:12.315 --> 00:53:13.318
But it was shocking.

00:53:13.826 --> 00:54:05.505
In some ways, I remember feeling relieved that it wasn't a weight-related issue that the bad should have like been more aggressive about intervening about you know because we had conversations about that all the time should we do something you know he had cleaned up from drugs and alcohol but he really had put on an enormous amount of weight and it was really it was serious enough that every time we had to fly off to a gig i was concerned that you know he might not ever make it off the plane alive you know i just thought oh he's gonna have a blood clot or something so i was in some ways i was relieved that it had nothing to do with any of that it was leukemia it just like came out of the blue took him you know it spared him a lot of years of suffering if he had continued to have to struggle with his weight and his weight related issues

00:54:05.846 --> 00:54:07.889
and mercifully quick as you say so

00:54:08.108 --> 00:54:22.039
it was mercifully quick and he went out he went out kind of in a blaze of glory I mean he You know, like I said, we were down in the Caribbean two weeks before that, you know, and these amazing, beautiful beaches and Mayan ruins and stuff.

00:54:22.099 --> 00:54:25.905
And then like two weeks later, he was gone from leukemia.

00:54:26.606 --> 00:54:26.827
Yeah.

00:54:27.447 --> 00:54:30.574
So we talked about, obviously, you got the last of the...

00:54:31.010 --> 00:54:36.978
the best album out after that, and then this other live album out sort of 10 years later.

00:54:36.998 --> 00:54:40.684
So anything else happen, you know, following his death?

00:54:41.726 --> 00:54:48.695
Well, we put together some, like, memorial concerts out here that were really, really special.

00:54:48.856 --> 00:55:03.215
I mean, we did one up in Seattle, we did a couple of them in Portland, and basically all of the Northwest blues guys like Lloyd, Jones, and Linda Hornbuckle and Curtis, but also people like James Harmon came in.

00:55:03.235 --> 00:55:09.222
And we did these as fundraisers for this youth music project here called Ethos.

00:55:09.804 --> 00:55:16.092
And we raised a fair amount of money and mostly just sort of pulled the community together and kind of celebrated.

00:55:16.713 --> 00:55:26.228
I mean, his departure left a whole void in the scene that has not really ever been He had big shoes to fill, man.

00:55:26.248 --> 00:55:27.490
That's all I can say.

00:55:28.472 --> 00:55:34.242
He took up a lot of space, and there's a big empty space there now.

00:55:34.523 --> 00:55:35.224
There still is.

00:55:35.465 --> 00:55:37.309
I still think about it a lot.

00:55:37.369 --> 00:55:38.710
I think about him a lot.

00:55:39.032 --> 00:55:44.842
Yeah, well, hopefully we can inspire somebody to pick up on some of his uniqueness by listening to this.

00:55:47.927 --> 00:55:49.469
You want to have the time

00:56:07.458 --> 00:56:43.840
So let's now get on to talking about the gear he used so it might not be that easy for us to pick that out and again Pete as a non-harmonica player you might not be quite so clued into what gear he was using but I was reading some great stuff on the forums and there was a great entry from Drury Hammer so if you're listening Drury thanks for your contribution but he basically said he was looking at in Paul's case in 2003 and this is what he was playing so he said he played hone and big river harps which is from what I understand he sort of played all of his careers certainly the last part of his career does anyone know about uh his use of honing big river harps

00:56:44.221 --> 00:57:14.117
he talked about big river harps i mean they're they're the kind of the you know the run-of-the-mill blues harp and um he kind of liked them because they were they made a lot of one of the things he says they made a lot of them in a lot of different keys so they were in tune i think he said that other models of harmonica some of the off keys they made so few of them that they'd quality control or something like that wasn't quite as predictable.

00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:18.414
So anyway, he liked those, but the chromatics were a whole different story.

00:57:18.454 --> 00:57:18.876
I mean, that's

00:57:19.425 --> 00:57:24.269
The chromatics have got, he was playing a hona chromonicus, which are generally 12 holes.

00:57:24.349 --> 00:57:26.851
So, I mean, Ross, you talked about him playing different sort of harps.

00:57:27.693 --> 00:57:30.175
Do we know what he was playing on the chromatics wise?

00:57:30.695 --> 00:57:33.797
I mean, from the recordings, you can tell he's often playing a 16 hole.

00:57:34.498 --> 00:57:56.920
Yeah, I personally don't really know much other than looking at pictures, probably, you know, at that time I got to look into his case and I have gotten to be a guest at his wife's house a a couple of times and when I've been up in the area and she would show me his, you know, sort of leftover harmonica.

00:57:56.940 --> 00:57:59.402
So it was really cool that she showed me that.

00:57:59.543 --> 00:58:01.485
And it was just the kind of stuff you're talking about.

00:58:01.565 --> 00:58:08.972
I can't really speak to whether those are the harps he was gigging with or they were just kind of, you know, left leftover, you know, instruments.

00:58:09.032 --> 00:58:18.702
But yeah, 64 on or 64 and big river harps seem to have been a big part of his kit, at least towards the end of his career.

00:58:18.822 --> 00:58:36.766
And I, you know i can't really i don't know if he did that just because big rivers were cheap and affordable and you could take the reed plates off without needing nails and hammers and stuff or whether those were his favorite instruments but that certainly you know seems to be what he had and

00:58:36.929 --> 00:58:49.722
A very interesting thing I read in this forum again from Drury Hammer is that he used this space case, which was kind of like a briefcase plus an amp, where he had this sort of direct box plugged into a Zoom multi-effect amp simulator.

00:58:49.742 --> 00:58:53.525
So I don't know, Peter, were you aware he had this sort of space case that he used?

00:58:53.726 --> 00:58:53.806
Yeah,

00:58:56.347 --> 00:58:57.909
yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:59.010 --> 00:59:06.177
I think that was his get-rich-quick hope, is that he was going to mass market the space case and retire.

00:59:06.978 --> 00:59:07.759
Or something like that.

00:59:08.119 --> 00:59:22.199
It was a source of a lot of jokes from the rest of the band, because he was always tweaking it and putting things in and taking things out, and the connections were kind of duct-taped together.

00:59:22.440 --> 00:59:28.929
The space case, well, the insight I got into his aesthetic...

00:59:29.282 --> 01:00:33.623
early on we were driving to a gig he had a cooler full of stuff to eat he had traveled with this whole cooler of provisions and in that cooler he had three different kinds of mustard you know he just was a real gourmand for everything including sound so the space case was like the three they had the three different kinds of mustard and then some you know personally i sort of found it distracting because i thought his phrasing was so especially in the chromatic was so so stunning why would you want to put flanges and echoes and stuff like that that would distract and make it hard to really focus on what he was doing so So I was that sympathetic about his kind of struggles with trying to get the space case to work.

01:00:33.903 --> 01:00:36.326
So he was swapping out different effects pedals.

01:00:36.445 --> 01:00:38.768
Was he always sort of changing it and trying to get different sounds?

01:00:39.047 --> 01:00:39.228
Yeah,

01:00:39.487 --> 01:00:41.550
yeah, he was experimenting with it.

01:00:41.570 --> 01:00:46.333
It was in a constant state of development, and it was always the beta, you know.

01:00:46.574 --> 01:00:48.315
He was always testing the beta

01:00:48.596 --> 01:00:48.936
version.

01:00:48.976 --> 01:00:52.099
So he plugged this into what, a solid-state amp, did he?

01:00:52.119 --> 01:00:53.721
So was he carrying an amp around?

01:00:53.780 --> 01:00:55.141
Did he plug that into a PA?

01:00:55.782 --> 01:00:57.384
He mostly went into the PA.

01:00:57.423 --> 01:01:06.297
When I first joined the band, he had like a Tweed Tremolux, Fender Tremolux from the 50s that was just barely hanging together.

01:01:06.338 --> 01:01:17.597
But early on, he just started going direct into either a solid state amp or into the PA through Space Case when he was playing with Space Case.

01:01:18.056 --> 01:01:20.862
I don't think he was using the Space Case anymore.

01:01:20.961 --> 01:01:22.605
in the last of the best era.

01:01:23.726 --> 01:01:24.146
Great, yeah.

01:01:24.186 --> 01:01:29.416
So, well, he's innovative in his use of pedals and other things as much as in his playing, let's say.

01:01:29.516 --> 01:01:40.112
And microphone-wise, again, he was playing in a static JT30, so do we know if that was his only mic or did he have several as most of us do?

01:01:40.833 --> 01:01:41.855
I'm not positive.

01:01:42.155 --> 01:01:46.081
I don't remember him talking a whole lot about his different mics.

01:01:46.802 --> 01:01:48.206
And a lot of times he played...

01:01:48.610 --> 01:01:54.036
straight into the vocal mic, you know, into the PA, into the standard mic.

01:01:54.436 --> 01:02:03.708
He used the old mics when, whatever it is, when we were playing traditional Chicago blues stuff and when he wanted that sound.

01:02:03.829 --> 01:02:08.856
But otherwise, he didn't tend to use that as what I recall.

01:02:09.275 --> 01:02:10.797
Yeah, he was using this space case.

01:02:10.818 --> 01:02:15.443
It probably would work with a sort of standard vocal mic rather than a bluesy mic, wouldn't it?

01:02:15.503 --> 01:02:16.485
So that would make sense.

01:02:17.217 --> 01:02:17.539
Yeah.

01:02:18.222 --> 01:02:20.313
Can I ask Pete just, like, one or two questions?

01:02:20.715 --> 01:02:20.795
Yeah.

01:02:21.458 --> 01:02:23.188
Yeah, I wanted to ask you, man, like, so...

01:02:23.842 --> 01:02:27.025
Those recordings you guys made are just so great.

01:02:27.324 --> 01:02:49.744
Comparing the live recordings to the studio recordings, one thing that knocks me out having no insight into how music was being recorded in that era in Portland or how you guys thought of things, the production value and the nuance and detail to those recordings is masterful.

01:02:49.965 --> 01:02:53.748
It does not sound just like a band doing a take, you know?

01:02:53.807 --> 01:03:00.699
Um, there's delay throws on a harmonica solo as he goes to the final break.

01:03:00.778 --> 01:03:03.181
And there's, you know, there's nuance on that level.

01:03:03.663 --> 01:03:16.081
Paul's playing, you know, um, especially on some of the less traditional materials, some of the, I get the impression he had insanely good ears.

01:03:18.606 --> 01:03:18.686
Yeah.

01:03:54.018 --> 01:05:18.507
yeah you know we worked out the um arrangements very meticulous because that was partly lewis payne's input but you know if you have one the keyboard playing a suspended chord on the on the five chord and everybody else is just playing a regular dominant seventh chord on that chord you immediately have all these conflicts and or if somebody's playing a different passing chord than you are anyway with our instrumentation we really had to work all that stuff out or just got cacophon you know got chaotic the solos were um you know paul was paul was pretty interesting in the early days this was before i was in in the band but like teasing tonight early recording i had heard a story that there's a caught on teasing that paul took like 125 takes of a solo like he was just obsessed obsessive compulsive and he just drove everyone crazy and he took seriously like 125 over a course of a week like 125 different versions of that solo and ended up using i think one of the first or second takes you know so he i guess he learned a lesson there but I think that was partly drugs and alcohol in those days.

01:05:19.108 --> 01:05:28.483
Because when we went into the studio, he was a lot more focused and he would get what he wanted pretty quickly.

01:05:28.523 --> 01:05:35.074
Sometimes he overdubbed a section or took another pass at something.

01:05:35.195 --> 01:05:39.420
But the solos from everyone in the band were...

01:05:40.193 --> 01:05:53.269
You know, the intent was to try to get him on the first pass, because I think at that point we all kind of understood that after the first or second take, you've lost some essential mystery of what you're trying to do.

01:05:53.289 --> 01:05:59.757
I kind of wanted to say something about the Paul DeLay Does Chicago recording.

01:06:00.637 --> 01:06:04.443
We had just come to Chicago from Notodden.

01:06:04.983 --> 01:06:06.606
We had just flown in from...

01:06:07.266 --> 01:06:09.288
norway and we were uh...

01:06:09.929 --> 01:07:04.237
well i think we've come in from norway we also played syracuse in polka knows that summer so we may be coming from there but anyway we had landed in chicago we're playing at buddy guys club i think maybe like on a tuesday or wednesday we were there early paul went down to the club for the jam session and johnny bergens band was the house band so he played with those guys and I think he was really just sort of really revved up by the immediacy and the rawness and the lack of organization of it, you know, compared to what we had been doing for the prior two years since he'd been out of prison and the two years before he went to prison where we were really crafting this pretty nuanced and organized and arranged material.

01:07:04.994 --> 01:07:14.085
He just really liked getting down and just playing straight ahead, Chicago Blues, just watch for the cues, do it on the fly.

01:07:14.126 --> 01:07:18.391
That's what that recording came out of that meeting.

01:07:18.550 --> 01:07:22.235
He kind of got to work right away setting up that recording session.

01:07:22.255 --> 01:07:48.353
¶¶ That was kind of a release from all of the maybe hyper-focused stuff that we'd been doing on Evidence before that.

01:07:48.773 --> 01:07:51.255
Yeah, so that was released in 1999.

01:07:51.416 --> 01:07:52.577
Was it recorded then?

01:07:52.617 --> 01:07:56.541
So that was, I think, the second-to-last album we put out, wasn't it?

01:07:56.702 --> 01:07:59.385
Heavy Rotation was the last one in 2001, was it?

01:07:59.744 --> 01:08:00.706
Yeah, I think that's right.

01:08:01.626 --> 01:08:20.878
Remember what I told you, you don't mean a thing Because I love you, babe One other

01:08:20.939 --> 01:08:39.984
thing to say about that that I'd be curious if Pete has some insights on, is Kim Field played me maybe one or two recordings that he was able to find of Paul as a sideman on maybe some singer-songwriter records, some session dates that he did.

01:08:40.506 --> 01:08:54.113
But almost all the recordings I've found, maybe there's the David Vest era recordings, Where Paul is not the singer in the band on some cuts, you know, but for the most part, it's Paul is front man.

01:08:54.153 --> 01:09:05.028
And with Delay Does Chicago, one thing like so, I think, you know, everybody acknowledges how masterful little Walter is and everything he did.

01:09:05.108 --> 01:09:08.896
But one of the things that like, is just total genius to me.

01:09:09.037 --> 01:09:11.961
It's his accompaniment of Muddy.

01:09:12.301 --> 01:09:16.007
He's able to play so much stuff, and somehow it's all perfect.

01:09:16.047 --> 01:09:31.731
And when I listen to that, I'm like, okay, this is genius at work, that you can accompany in this kind of ostentatious but totally musically satisfying way, the way that Walter does on a lot of that stuff.

01:09:31.811 --> 01:09:32.792
And when I listen to...

01:09:33.314 --> 01:10:26.250
Delay Does Chicago there are a few cuts where he as far as I know on his studio albums maybe the only ones I'm really aware of or at least from that era of him as an accompanist and the way he is accompanying is just the same genius to me it's in the moment interaction music And it blows me away thinking that he probably was not doing a lot of accompanying, but maybe he was.

01:10:26.310 --> 01:10:28.617
And I'm curious if there are records of him just...

01:10:29.442 --> 01:10:49.128
being a sideman on a blues band date, or if you have any insights or thought in that, because he's so in the moment playing no-stock stuff while accompanying in a tasteful way, kind of moving everything around on a few cuts on Delay Does Chicago, and that was another aspect of that recording that knocked my socks off.

01:10:49.329 --> 01:10:50.371
That's really interesting.

01:10:50.390 --> 01:10:52.012
I hadn't really thought about that, but...

01:10:52.514 --> 01:10:54.158
He didn't do a lot of accompanying.

01:10:54.177 --> 01:10:58.788
I mean, he would go in and sit in with other people when they were playing around town.

01:10:58.829 --> 01:11:01.235
He did that a lot, just to go out and play.

01:11:01.315 --> 01:11:06.108
But he didn't do a lot of recording as the side guy harmonica player.

01:11:06.228 --> 01:11:08.072
I think maybe because...

01:11:08.930 --> 01:11:13.337
What he did was so eccentric that it kind of scared people away, you know.

01:11:13.356 --> 01:11:18.286
Oh, I just want a kind of a normal harmonica solo here, not a Paul DeLay solo.

01:11:18.666 --> 01:11:19.747
I don't know what they're thinking.

01:11:19.787 --> 01:11:23.253
But anyway, he didn't do a lot of that accompanying work.

01:11:23.895 --> 01:11:29.023
So I think really it was just he had an amazing, he had amazing ears.

01:11:29.083 --> 01:11:32.810
You know, he just could hear all of it.

01:11:33.185 --> 01:11:40.131
all of the dissonance and harmony and everything else and kind of, he was just there in the moment.

01:11:40.231 --> 01:11:43.914
He absolutely was there in the moment.

01:11:44.195 --> 01:11:44.496
Yeah.

01:11:44.756 --> 01:11:58.627
He just, I mean, early on when I was playing with the band, when he was still really under the influence and he would show up at gigs where he hadn't slept in two days, you know, and he'd go, oh man, how is this going to work?

01:11:58.807 --> 01:12:01.069
You know, the guys passed out in the seat next to me.

01:12:01.189 --> 01:12:01.990
We'd get to the gig.

01:12:02.470 --> 01:12:03.152
He'd get on stage.

01:12:03.152 --> 01:12:07.237
And he would just transcend it totally.

01:12:07.858 --> 01:12:12.984
He was like a superhero when he hit the stage.

01:12:13.204 --> 01:12:15.547
And then he'd get back in the van and just pass out.

01:12:16.309 --> 01:12:18.953
He was totally in the moment.

01:12:19.012 --> 01:12:22.337
He lived for that moment on stage.

01:12:22.396 --> 01:12:23.479
There's no question about it.

01:12:23.498 --> 01:12:31.750
That's where the real drama and beauty of his life really played out to me was on stage.

01:12:31.949 --> 01:12:32.029
Yeah.

01:12:32.865 --> 01:12:33.158
So...

01:12:34.113 --> 01:12:44.002
great thanks all for your contribution so I just want to to finish off now by maybe talking about Paul's legacy or any final words you've got to say about him so a grant starting with you

01:12:44.783 --> 01:13:07.684
yeah I mean you know as far as what I he he never he didn't give me a ton of feedback on you know I think like I said you know I hit him up for lessons and he gave me like two lessons and kicked me out of the nest and said just no man you don't need lessons from me just play you know that was a high integrity thing to do I mean I was I would have been happy to pay him from more lessons, but he just, you know, that wasn't who he was.

01:13:08.123 --> 01:13:17.734
But I do remember him saying to me once, he heard me play at a gig one time, and he gave me some feedback afterwards, and he just said, Bubba, beware the gratuitous vibrato.

01:13:18.314 --> 01:13:19.817
And he said it in a really kind way.

01:13:19.837 --> 01:13:24.242
It was just like, ah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:24.641 --> 01:13:28.305
You don't have to put something on every note that you hold, and you don't even have to hold all the notes.

01:13:28.386 --> 01:13:29.908
And so just those kinds of things.

01:13:30.488 --> 01:13:57.240
I completely agree with what Pete just said about, I mean, he had an enormous setting years and there's so many different ways to be musical and he was just like super musical in all kinds of ways but he and i were talking about theory one time and he didn't know that the kia f had one flat you know in it or something and and and i'm like um And, you know, I mean, that doesn't have any, not taking anything away from his musicianship because he didn't know that.

01:13:57.320 --> 01:14:09.235
But I asked him, I said, how do you tell the guys in the band how you want your songs to go if, you know, if that's one way that you don't communicate in?

01:14:09.917 --> 01:14:13.681
And he just said, I do a lot of nodding my head and shaking my head.

01:14:13.721 --> 01:14:15.923
Yeah.

01:14:20.546 --> 01:14:24.234
He didn't say it that way.

01:14:24.295 --> 01:14:25.177
He demonstrated it.

01:14:25.578 --> 01:14:27.703
But I thought that was really interesting.

01:14:27.743 --> 01:14:34.119
I mean, he was so deeply musical and had such huge ears.

01:14:34.801 --> 01:15:11.921
And from a classical perspective, point of view he didn't speak the language really you know so I was yeah I thought that was really fascinating you know he was a huge influence on me in just a lot of ways like I said before just his the way he served the song the way he used space the way he had his own own way of phrasing and the way he just kind of had his own voice vocally and through the harmonica in everything and it changed from song to song each song He knew exactly how to serve each song.

01:15:12.381 --> 01:15:16.685
And I still do the best I can to carry that on in my own way.

01:15:17.087 --> 01:15:17.327
Great.

01:15:17.367 --> 01:15:17.988
Thanks, Grant.

01:15:18.007 --> 01:15:19.909
So I'll bring you in now, Ross.

01:15:19.930 --> 01:15:23.694
So what do you think is his legacy or his lasting impression on you?

01:15:24.376 --> 01:15:27.158
Yeah, I mean, on me, I think it's multifaceted.

01:15:27.179 --> 01:15:35.908
I think, one, the harmonica, we've been blessed with a number of great players, but we have not been blessed with the...

01:15:36.514 --> 01:15:37.275
Right.

01:15:38.557 --> 01:15:51.965
So, to me, Paul is that, and he, you know, represents...

01:15:52.609 --> 01:16:04.039
an extra special place for me because on the harmonica, there just haven't been very many guys like that, at least playing the kinds of music that I pay attention to.

01:16:04.060 --> 01:16:05.480
I can't speak to other styles.

01:16:05.501 --> 01:16:21.875
So I think for me, one of the things is a constant reminder that a guy like Paul or Thelonious Monk, I consider them somewhat similar in that they are playing out of a style that other players are kind of in and around.

01:16:21.975 --> 01:16:53.856
Maybe not exactly the same thing but you know Monk is playing with these great bebop players he is writing his own music and setting up his own context but it is in the ballpark of some of those other styles and Paul same with kind of playing blues but both of these guys I think show that with creativity originality and vision you can basically turn a known idiom on its head in a way that still works.

01:16:53.917 --> 01:17:13.139
Like for me, one of the things I listened to Paul and he does a lot of stuff where I'm like, okay, that kind of shouldn't really work or it wouldn't work for other players or it's kind of, it doesn't belong in this style based on what other people have done.

01:17:13.179 --> 01:17:17.264
But the way he follows through with it, it makes it work.

01:17:17.583 --> 01:18:35.247
And it is like, a sight to behold that this is a possibility and it's good to be constantly reminded that we're mostly limited by our own kind of you know our own imagination limitations and that he you know could create a similar level of uniqueness to me as as as monk so And then, you know, on a more, you know, micro level, the way that he, I think, expresses a very wide variety of emotions in his playing, I think is an important takeaway for me.

01:18:35.306 --> 01:18:40.212
Like a lot of the blues players I love are just like nasty and intense.

01:18:40.292 --> 01:18:42.536
And that's generally a feeling I get from them.

01:18:42.555 --> 01:18:44.078
They just sound like badasses.

01:18:44.238 --> 01:18:46.079
But Paul will do that.

01:18:46.621 --> 01:18:47.282
He will also...

01:18:47.873 --> 01:20:21.396
play something like really humorous like almost like like a Looney Tunes joke like that break on nice and strong like that's just like a musical humor soundbite you know and he does just that there can be this wider variety of emotions besides you know just one thing you can play beautiful you can play really funny and weird and you can play intense and I think that's a takeaway I think the way he goes from math tones to tiny tones like there's this idea of what a good tone is on harmonica and I think Paul is a good reminder that you can use a lot of terrible tones and amazing massive tones you can use them all alongside for me too much better effect than just a single great tone that you kind of keep in that same zone He has so many takeaways, but I would really just say the fact that he could create such an iconoclastic style that's so offbeat and have it sound like badass blues harmonica to me is the main source of inspiration and takeaway for me.

01:20:22.242 --> 01:20:36.925
great stuff so the felonious monk of the harmonica is certainly a great credit so Pete you probably knew him best having played with him for 25 years you've already said that he's left a big hole from his passing so any final words from you?

01:20:36.965 --> 01:20:54.221
He was really a surprise I mean one of the first gigs I drove I was driving the van out to some like Spokane or Boise somewhere across the western wheat fields and He was passed out in the passenger seat.

01:20:55.143 --> 01:20:59.889
And like the sun was going down and the fields had been just recently plowed.

01:20:59.948 --> 01:21:08.760
And so there's this amazing light and green and browns and thunderclouds and sunlight.

01:21:09.421 --> 01:21:12.163
And I was just going, wow, this is an amazing little drive.

01:21:12.203 --> 01:21:16.949
Paul wakes up, looks at it for a second and goes, Bubba.

01:21:17.537 --> 01:21:24.248
I think these farmers out here were influenced by the Cubists and the French Expressionists.

01:21:24.689 --> 01:21:27.213
Then he went back to sleep and I went, what the hell?

01:21:27.293 --> 01:21:28.856
Where did that come from?

01:21:29.457 --> 01:21:33.203
You know, just visually, he was kind of in a different world.

01:21:33.425 --> 01:21:36.489
I went to pick him up at a gig.

01:21:36.710 --> 01:21:37.993
Well, this happened many times.

01:21:38.092 --> 01:21:39.215
I'd go pick him up at a gig.

01:21:39.515 --> 01:21:43.462
He would be listening to Lawrence Welk's show.

01:21:43.778 --> 01:21:47.123
And I go, Bubba, why are you listening to Lawrence Welk?

01:21:47.465 --> 01:21:49.046
I said, I'm doing research.

01:21:50.088 --> 01:21:51.671
And he would use a lot...

01:21:51.712 --> 01:21:58.463
If you listen carefully, there are lots of inside jokes in his material about Lawrence Welk.

01:21:58.644 --> 01:22:01.850
Little sound effects and goofy little stuff that he put in.

01:22:02.872 --> 01:22:04.213
What's my takeaway about him?

01:22:04.234 --> 01:22:04.996
I don't know.

01:22:05.036 --> 01:22:05.756
I think it takes...

01:22:06.689 --> 01:22:36.677
takes an enormous artistic talent to be able to color outside of the lines of any kind of in any genre but i think in blues it's really hard because you know the audience is expecting it to sound like what they're familiar with yeah and um he was able to color outside of the lines a lot and make it work in a way that still just baffles me and blows me away.

01:22:36.698 --> 01:22:39.581
I mean, sometimes I'd hear him on the chromatic harp.

01:22:40.060 --> 01:22:41.382
He wouldn't be playing scales.

01:22:41.443 --> 01:22:53.694
He would just be like grabbing mouthfuls of sound and just blowing until the thing was distorting, until the harmonica was almost kind of rattling.

01:22:54.536 --> 01:23:06.551
He would pull something like that into something that would somehow make perfect sense on a blues tune, you know, a standard blues tune, or on one of his more kind of nuanced songs.

01:23:06.912 --> 01:23:11.840
I mean, the guy really had an amazing artistic aesthetic.

01:23:11.940 --> 01:23:14.243
I don't know how you would teach that.

01:23:14.283 --> 01:23:16.688
It's just, it's who he was.

01:23:16.768 --> 01:23:20.253
I mean, he was, like I said, he was a one-of-a-kind musician.

01:23:21.314 --> 01:23:22.454
Yeah, he was a one-of-a-kind.

01:23:22.855 --> 01:23:24.177
So thanks so much.

01:23:24.198 --> 01:23:29.323
You're all joining us today to talk about Paul DeLay and his life and how you knew him and influenced you.

01:23:29.384 --> 01:23:33.510
So thanks so much to Grant Dermody, Ross Garron, and Pete DeMann.

01:23:34.291 --> 01:23:34.831
Yeah, thank you.

01:23:34.891 --> 01:23:38.176
It was great hearing all you guys talk about Paul.

01:23:38.315 --> 01:23:40.198
It was really great for me.

01:23:40.618 --> 01:23:40.958
Thank you.

01:23:41.439 --> 01:23:41.881
Me too.

01:23:42.461 --> 01:23:42.921
Me too.

01:23:43.061 --> 01:23:43.582
Thanks, guys.

01:23:44.023 --> 01:23:45.524
Yeah, what a wonderful experience.

01:23:46.242 --> 01:23:48.966
Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast.

01:23:49.246 --> 01:23:59.140
Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas.

01:23:59.680 --> 01:24:02.564
Thanks so much to Grant, Ross and Pete for joining me today.

01:24:03.166 --> 01:24:10.154
Wonderful to hear their first-hand accounts of meeting Paul, seeing him perform and sharing their stories and how he touched their lives.

01:24:11.216 --> 01:24:14.662
And also thanks to Kim Field for helping me out with this episode.

01:24:15.681 --> 01:24:28.658
Thank you for watching.

01:24:37.953 --> 01:24:42.060
I'll sign out now with Paul playing an instrumental, one of Grant's favourites.

01:24:42.561 --> 01:24:53.822
This is Old Bram from the Other One album.