No more deLay

After 41 months in prison, Paul deLay has something to sing about

by Mark Edmonds

Forget about every made-to-order, hat-wearin' bluesman who record-company marketing departments and failed used-car-salesman booking agents have pushed in recent years. Paul deLay is the real deal -- a bluesman who plays for no other reason than, as John Lee Hooker once said in song, "It's inside of him, and it's got to come out." He's worthy of a first, second, and third look when he finally arrives on our coast next week. It's an arrival, in my opinion, that is about seven years late.

Why? Chalk it up mainly to the 45-year-old Portland, Oregon-based band leader's personal troubles this decade. No matter. If the material on his latest Evidence disc, Ocean of Tears, is any indication of what he will dish out when he appears at Gilrein's next Thursday, my advice would be to go hear him. Aside from fellow left-coaster Charlie Musselwhite, there's nobody doing things with a harmonica these days like deLay is.

On disc, he comes across both as a virtuoso harp player and as author of some of the cleverest original material the blues genre's seen in years. No Muddy Waters retreads here. Instead, deLay draws a wide array of personal experiences, along with ingredients from the blues, R&B, soul, and gospel, into each of Ocean's 10 tracks.

Many of the song lyrics are the result of his experiences with members of the opposite sex. On "Bottom Line," he explains this longing he has for an attractive but (to him) out-of-reach woman best in the song's recurring lament. "Guys like me, don't get women like you," he growls, while his five-piece band conjures up a background melody that recalls the plodding footsteps of Hollywood B-movie horror-film monsters. It's humorous, but sad at the same time.

Meanwhile, "If She Is" is a Memphis-styled slow blues number about an untrue girlfriend. The song drips with gloom from the minute deLay utters "I've got to see my baby/If she is my baby." Though there are a handful of tracks that are just as heavy, the sun does eventually come out on Ocean. The gospel-styled "Maybe Our Luck Will Change" finds him in an uplifting duet with Portland singer Linda Hornbuckle (the two share the story of a working woman who can't get ahead in a man's world), while "Slip, Stumble, Fall" is a snappy shuffle that allows deLay to discuss his triumph over substance abuse.

His playing is meaty and to the point. His solos float above his kick-ass guitar/organ/sax/ drums and bass rhythm section, while his phrasing wafts in and out of melody lines.

The Pacific Northwest's best-kept roots-music secret (to Easterners, anyway), deLay grew up in a middle-class Portland suburb, discovering the blues from the records of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Mayall, and Paul Butterfield. After high school, and gigs with local blues-rock outfits, he logged nine years with Portland guitarist Lloyd Jones. Going solo in '79, he cobbled together his first pro band and took on the Northwest club circuit.

A decade and half later, and just as he was about to hit the national circuit, substance abuse stepped in. By then, the burly musician was consuming up to three-fifths of wine a day. And then there was cocaine . . .

"It all seemed pretty harmless when I started out," he says. "Back then, I thought that in order to be a good blues musician you had to drink heavily. That's what my heroes did. So I did too. And then the cocaine came in, and that ran a predictable course. It was a slight improvement, because I wasn't drinking as much. But I still wasn't that swell a guy. And my music was really suffering."

Ironically, 41 months in a federal prison, after a drug conviction, offered deLay a chance to work on song ideas for the first time in years.

"I made the most of my time," he says. "And it was educational, too. A lot of the people I was in with weren't necessarily dangerous; many were minorities who felt it was worth the risk to sell drugs to make their way out of poverty. Being a middle-class kid, [I] had no idea what it was like to be part of that underclass. So it did me a lot of good to see things from that perspective."

Though he's late in getting here, deLay warns that he plans to make up for lost time. "We've been practicing hard for this trip, and I'm looking forward to it," he says proudly. "You just tell 'em we got ammo, man. And when we get there, we're going to be using it. We ain't going to be firing no blanks."

The Paul deLay Band will play Gilrein's at 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 24. Tickets are $6. Call 791-2583.