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.
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
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
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
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?
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!
@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!
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!
"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.
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
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