Last Saturday night, Mary and I heard Portland blues giant Paul deLay in concert at the Ross Ragland Theater here in town. We had dinner with our new friends Ronda and Jim, then walked over to the show together. A great evening!
deLay played with a quartet featuring guitar, bass, and drums, plus himself singing and playing harmonica. He’s known as one of the best blues harmonica players with obvious jazz influences. He put on a great show doing exclusively Chicago style blues with a somewhat smaller group than it takes to do it right. Still, I was impressed with his musicianship and the group’s swing.
Overall, it was a great night of music, if not the best blues concert I’ve ever seen. Afterwards, Mary and I both said we enjoyed it, though it didn’t seem to take off in the way that can bring an audience to its feet. Mary said deLay seemed tired, a simple explanation that I hadn’t hit on. We both commented that his voice seemed damaged, maybe the inevitable result of a life of shouting the blues, maybe just a cold. He said the group had just returned from Mexico, so we thought maybe he was a little done-in from traveling.
So I was shocked to read this morning on the Oregonian front page that he died yesterday of leukemia. His guitar player said that he was tired after the show and suffering from bronchitis, but back in Portland, doctors said he was in an advanced stage of leukemia. His organs were shutting down, and he went into a coma, dying yesterday morning. No one knew he was sick.
I feel somehow honored and certainly fortunate to have been at his last concert sitting just three rows back. Despite the obvious fatigue, he joked with the audience, played two long sets, and came out for an encore. I bought a CD, Nice and Strong, which adds a Hammond B3 and tenor saxophone to the mix and which I highly recommend.
This leads, of course, to some thoughts on mortality. deLay was 55, four years younger than me. In 1990, he was heavily into alcohol and cocaine and was busted for dealing. He did four years in prison, but got straight before he did the sentence and seemed to stay clean the rest of his life. If he had to die young, this was a good life, full of music and working to the end.
May we all live so well and go out doing what we love.
RIP Paul deLay.
deLay played with a quartet featuring guitar, bass, and drums, plus himself singing and playing harmonica. He’s known as one of the best blues harmonica players with obvious jazz influences. He put on a great show doing exclusively Chicago style blues with a somewhat smaller group than it takes to do it right. Still, I was impressed with his musicianship and the group’s swing.
Overall, it was a great night of music, if not the best blues concert I’ve ever seen. Afterwards, Mary and I both said we enjoyed it, though it didn’t seem to take off in the way that can bring an audience to its feet. Mary said deLay seemed tired, a simple explanation that I hadn’t hit on. We both commented that his voice seemed damaged, maybe the inevitable result of a life of shouting the blues, maybe just a cold. He said the group had just returned from Mexico, so we thought maybe he was a little done-in from traveling.
So I was shocked to read this morning on the Oregonian front page that he died yesterday of leukemia. His guitar player said that he was tired after the show and suffering from bronchitis, but back in Portland, doctors said he was in an advanced stage of leukemia. His organs were shutting down, and he went into a coma, dying yesterday morning. No one knew he was sick.
I feel somehow honored and certainly fortunate to have been at his last concert sitting just three rows back. Despite the obvious fatigue, he joked with the audience, played two long sets, and came out for an encore. I bought a CD, Nice and Strong, which adds a Hammond B3 and tenor saxophone to the mix and which I highly recommend.
This leads, of course, to some thoughts on mortality. deLay was 55, four years younger than me. In 1990, he was heavily into alcohol and cocaine and was busted for dealing. He did four years in prison, but got straight before he did the sentence and seemed to stay clean the rest of his life. If he had to die young, this was a good life, full of music and working to the end.
May we all live so well and go out doing what we love.
RIP Paul deLay.
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