Header Graphic
Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! > Fantastic new Paul deLay video
Fantastic new Paul deLay video
Login  |  Register
Page: 1

Adam Pritchard
119 posts
Mar 08, 2017
3:39 PM
Watch this an tell me Paul deLay wasn't a genius on diatonic and chromatic. 30 minutes of pure inspiration. His soloing on Little Walter's "You Know It Ain't Right" from around 24.40 is particular outstanding. The other thing of note is how he uses the mic to get light and shade throughout his solos. I haven't seen any other players use their mic that way so effectively.

kudzurunner
6196 posts
Mar 08, 2017
8:00 PM
One of the great blues harmonica videos on YouTube. I agree with you about "You Know it Ain't Right." By the 26:15 point or so, he is on fire.

This should be mandatory watching for anybody who wonders what the difference is between a very good harmonica player and a great one. He never plays a cliched note. He just invents, invents, pushes at the limits.

What's interesting to me is how much his "thing," here, comes from Big Walter. He's got an incredibly good sense of time, and, like Big Walter, he likes to stick pretty close to the beat and work variations off of it. He keeps note-durations relatively constant and then does everything he can to find new ways of moving and ending lines.

(Of course when he's playing chromatic, he does the opposite of everything I've just said.)

Actually, by the time he gets to 26:15, nothing I've said is true. That's what a genius is. Somebody who makes you sound like a fool when you dare to declare what they are.)

Amazing stuff!

Edited to add: I still remember the first time I heard Delay's name. Sterling Magee and I were in Ferrara, Italy at a busker's festival back in the summer of 1991. A player came up and said, "Do you like Paul Delay?" I said "Who?" We didn't have YouTube or the internet back then. There were all kinds of players out there I'd never heard of--and I'd seen a lot of the greats when they passed through New York and the Bucks County R&B picnic.

Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 09, 2017 3:08 AM
sydeman
186 posts
Mar 08, 2017
8:26 PM
beautiful...simply the best!
Tuckster
1551 posts
Mar 08, 2017
8:56 PM
Wow that made my night!
1847
4022 posts
Mar 08, 2017
9:20 PM
perhaps it is just coincidence, but he seemed to struggle a little bit with the golden melody harmonica.
Adam Pritchard
120 posts
Mar 08, 2017
10:59 PM
Wow, if only I could struggle any near as well as he did, I'd be a happy man!
Spderyak
130 posts
Mar 09, 2017
4:46 AM
I didn't make it to the mandatory watching part...I lasted about 5 minutes. Perhaps I'll try again at a later time.
The Iceman
3071 posts
Mar 09, 2017
5:26 AM
Let's not forget his song writing skills as well as incredible word play, vocals and bigger than life personality that shines through how he plays harmonica as well..
----------
The Iceman
MN
424 posts
Mar 09, 2017
5:49 AM
This video is a treasure! Thanks for posting, Adam. Man, I miss Paul. :-(
robbert
418 posts
Mar 11, 2017
9:39 PM
Awesome. There's precious little footage of deLay. Thanks for posting.
The Iceman
3073 posts
Mar 12, 2017
8:13 AM
Why not check out when it all started - everything in place already!


----------
The Iceman
slaphappy
265 posts
Mar 12, 2017
10:35 AM
Also wanted to post a thanks to Adam P for this incredible video.

So few players acheive that unique flowing originality and sound that he has.. it still tracks to the tradition and yet pushes it at the same time.

A+, I think he's one of the best examples of what I think of as "Modern Blues Harmonica"


----------
4' 4+ 3' 2~~~
-Mike Ziemba
Harmonica is Life!

Last Edited by slaphappy on Mar 12, 2017 10:37 AM
The Iceman
3074 posts
Mar 12, 2017
10:59 AM
Totally agree w/slaphappy.
Listening to Paul brought me back from the brink of being bored forever with blues harmonica...it was so "modern" sounding. He would start an idea and, lo and behold, my inner ear was not able to predict where it would end!

I find the same thing in listening to Carlos del Junco.
I guess if you have a "de" in between your first and last name, you are an amazing modern blues harmonica player?
----------
The Iceman
wheel
539 posts
Mar 12, 2017
1:13 PM
Wow! Many thanks!Fantastic stuff!
----------
Konstantin Kolesnichenko(Ukraine)
http://kolesnichenko-harmonica.com/

I'm on CDBaby

Amazon
ITunes
Google Music
my music on youtube
1847
4024 posts
Mar 12, 2017
7:18 PM
not sure i agree on the modern part...

he is not using any of ..... "those" notes.

just the same old notes all of us have available...

little walter to howard levy .......old school.

howard levy to the present ..... modern.
indigo
334 posts
Mar 13, 2017
12:16 AM
Strange,i've got all of his released albums (AFAIK)
and love his playing.singing and song writing..a true original..but this just doesn't do it for me.
There are a shitload of bum notes through out,, maybe because,as as he commentated early on,he had bought a Hohner Golden Melody on his way to the party.(because it was the only Harmonica they had in stock).
Imho the just tuning may have put him off a bit?
slaphappy
266 posts
Mar 13, 2017
9:23 AM
1847, maybe Kudzu disagrees with this but I don't think you have to be in the Howard Levy school or even use any overbends to bring a modern fresh sound to the blues harp. This video is case in point although maybe some hear more traditional playing than I do.

For me it's the phrasing, the way he weaves his lines, where he starts and ends his musical thoughts, where he places emphasis and where he doesn't.. Personally I'd much rather hear that kind of musicality than "those" notes if you know what I mean.

@indigo, I dunno sure there's a few clams in there but I think it's cause he's playing so loose which is what really makes it such a killer video IMO.

----------
4' 4+ 3' 2~~~
-Mike Ziemba
Harmonica is Life!
kham
103 posts
Mar 13, 2017
10:46 AM
@slaphappy I agree. Doe's he sound like anyone you've heard? Not me. He's fresh and inventive with his own style. Sounds and seems modern to me. To dismiss those who play without overblows as not modern, I don't think that's very modern!
1847
4026 posts
Mar 13, 2017
11:03 AM
is he highly inventive and unique? no doubt about that.

i tried to define modern, he has been dead for over 10 years
some of these clips are 40 years ago. is that considered modern?

is paul butterfield modern? mitch kasmar? little walter?
slaphappy
267 posts
Mar 13, 2017
11:36 AM
you should maybe start a new thread ;) but it's a good discussion.

to me PB is a bridge between the traditional and modern, Mitch Kashmar is modern (even though he plays traditionally), and LW is traditional of course.


----------
4' 4+ 3' 2~~~
-Mike Ziemba
Harmonica is Life!
kudzurunner
6198 posts
Mar 13, 2017
1:58 PM
"Modern," in this context, means "the next step past Little Walter, Big Walter, George Smith, and players who audibly work the same terrain, including Kim Wilson, Rod, Rick, etc.

You certainly don't need to use overbends of play like Howard Levy to be modern in this sense. Delay, like Sugar Blue, is a non-overblower who uses blow arpeggios on the lower holes (1-7) in a way that owes something to bebop. They are both modern players.

Modern means ahead of the curve, wherever the curve was at the time. Little Walter was modern in his own time; Delay was modern in his time. Jason Ricci is modern in our time. Kim Wilson was at least moderately ahead of the curve in the late 1970s, but not a lot, in part because he was playing with, and supporting, on an almost-daily basis, a lot of older black bluesmen and his role demanded that he NOT be ahead of the curve. These days nobody would accuse him of behind ahead of the curve, but some might reasonably say that he DEFINES the curve, and that's a good thing.
1847
4027 posts
Mar 13, 2017
2:30 PM
ok paul was modern in his time, i can accept that.
sadly that time has past, so we can't think of it as modern at this juncture.

paul delay was i believe a disciple of george smith at one point. you can hear that influence as well as big walter in his playing.

i have a hard time discerning what is considered modern.and what is not.

if someone says jason is a modern player, i can accept that at face value.
he is playing chromatically on a diatonic. that seems somewhat modern.

but at the end of the day it is the same blues grooves that have been around for
close to a hundred if not thousands of years. it is more than a little bit confusing.

Last Edited by 1847 on Mar 13, 2017 2:31 PM
kudzurunner
6199 posts
Mar 13, 2017
7:36 PM
It is confusing, isn't it? My wife and I spent a couple of hours yesterday in the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Ala. They have a few thousand vintage motorcycles. That's not an exaggeration. Four or five floors.

http://www.barbermuseum.org/

We spent a while ooohing and aaaahing over a 1959 Chevrolet Impala Bel Air, fully loaded, perfectly resorted.

Just an old car. But modern for its time. If you'd grown up thinking that the Chrysler Airflow was the bomb--well, boom! Drop the mic. Twenty-three skidoo. That's dope.

Three kinds of modern. It's confusing, I know. Walter, Delay, Jason. The Model T was incredibly modern looking, compared with mule-drawn wagons.

Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 13, 2017 7:37 PM


Post a Message



(8192 Characters Left)


Modern Blues Harmonica supports

§The Jazz Foundation of America

and

§The Innocence Project

 

 

 

ADAM GUSSOW is an official endorser for HOHNER HARMONICAS