Great crunchy tone. Paul Orta tells me he was using an "older Princeton" and an Astatic mic. My guess is it is a blackface Fender Princeton (non-reverb), the amp Big Walter used. In fact, Paul said, "The guy in London who owned the amp said Walter Horton also used it on some recordings in Europe." Nice!
Paul has huge tone. Standing next to him at a seminar I was blown away by his big sound. I believe he worked with Gerald Weber on the development of the Kendrick Texas Crude big 12" speaker amp. He was playing the Kendrick at that fest, about 9 years ago.
Yep, he helped Gerald Weber at Kendrick Amps develop his first harp amp circuits. Paul Orta is a great player who is somewhat overlooked.
This recording is from the Blues Harp Boogie compilation album released way back in 1998. I've been listening to this song on my iPod for about 8 years. The tone is iconic for me.
When I started playing, JT30's were commonly used microphones in Chicago. Some guys used the Shure stick mics, but not many. I never saw a Green Bullet until I moved to the West Coast. ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
Last Edited by on Sep 22, 2012 1:37 PM
What sets this recording apart from the other 100 guys who play this Little Walter cover isn't just the tone--which is to say, the range of tones--and the intensity, but the rhythmic footprint: all the ways in which PO doesn't place his notes right on the beat, but scatters them before and after the beat. He doesn't necessarily swing harder than other players--Dennis G. swings a lot harder--but he has loads of personality. His playing here is "rough," in rhythmic terms. The effort shows. But it's the effort of a pro, not somebody who hasn't mastered all the nuances. That makes a difference.
Personality. It's a hard thing to define, but we know it when we hear it, if we're listening for it. There's a hell of a lot of personality in this cut. I love it.
Last Edited by on Sep 22, 2012 7:39 PM
Adam, great analysis of this clip. All these years I've been listening to the tone and phrasing in this song. Now you have me hearing his "rhythmic footprint." cool...
This track is from the live album "Attack of the Atomic Guitar" by the late UP Wilson and Paul Orta & the Kingpins (RLCD094). Paul sings on 2 other cuts and leads with Wilson on 3 more.
The Kingpins were backing Wilson at the Weavers Arms in London (as they had done on a previous album), Mike Vernon (who should need no introduction to blues fans) engineeered, mixed & co-produced.
Another track, "Enter the Tornado" (Wilson was dubbed the "Texas Tornado") has featured on other Red Lighting affiliated compilations.
We saw Paul a few years after this, he showed us a Filisko modded "slide harp" that had an A diatonic reed plate and a D plate, Paul could flit between 2 harps just using the slide. He used a Kendrick bassman head & cab, by this time his Astatic carried a dynamic EV element courtesy of Tom Ellis (not a drop-in conversion, Ellis had already stopped offering the conversion by this time).
Superb player & very nice guy, went off the radar for a bit not long after moving to Germany, good to see him more active again recently.
He has quite a back catalogue in his own right, also Featured on the Texas Harmonica Rumble CD, with Darrell Nulisch, Memo Gonzales & others. ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
http://www.facebook.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Sep 23, 2012 1:30 PM
