Harping On The Blues Two Greats, Charlie Musselwhite And Paul Delay, Are Ready For Another Chance To Share The Stage
Charlie Musselwhite is a Mississippi-born, Memphis-trained harp giant.
He’s a laid-back player who specializes in the funky blues of Memphis and the big-city blues of Chicago, where he went after leaving Memphis many years ago.
Some people say he’s the world’s best blues harp player.
Paul deLay hails from Portland, a city with a thriving blues scene but none of the panache of Musselwhite’s Memphis/Chicago connections.
His playing gets a strong tug from another side of the blues fence - from gospel, early R&B and jazz - and his partisans say he’s the world’s best harp player.
So who’s the greatest? Both men would tell you it’s a foolish point to argue, that such a thing could not be decided. What’s important is that Musselwhite and deLay have faced down personal demons and now stand at the peaks of their respective careers. They will share the stage Saturday night at the Davenport Hotel.
deLay disclaims any right to primacy.
“Yeah, right,” he said this week when asked about his place in the blues hierarchy. “There are little old asthmatic grandmas in wheelchairs that play better than I do. Technically, I stink.”
Methinks the harp player doth protest too much. He may not dazzle you with degree of difficulty, but has sufficient mastery of his harp to send shivers up and down your spine with solos of uncommon beauty.
He will admit to having developed a sound of his own.
“I do think - oh, dear me, how do I say this? - I think I have a gift of some sort and I try not to play cliches. I don’t like to play the same thing in the same position, style or tone more than once.”
Like most great players, deLay looks outside his immediate discipline for inspiration.
“I’ve been heavily influenced by gospel and Dixieland jazz and big band jazz,” he said. “I’d like to get that chromatic (harp) to get a Miles Davis sound out of it.
“I love listening to Toots (Thielman, the great jazz harpist), but I’d never put my name in the same sentence with his.”
Prior to 1992, deLay was a frequent visitor to Spokane, but a drug bust put him away for 41 months. It was time he used to sober up, sharpen his songwriting skills and prepare himself for a new life and a new career.
While deLay was in prison, Musselwhite was a frequent correspondent but the two men haven’t seen each other since before deLay went in.
“I haven’t seen him since before I went into that camp, in ‘91 or 92,” said deLay. “He wrote as often as anybody, which was awfully nice of him.
“We used to play together all the time, but his career has really taken off and he’s very often in different parts of the world. It’s gonna be nice to sit down and eat some vegetarian food together.”
A joke right? Bluesmen eat barbecue.
“I definitely do miss barbecue,” said deLay. “I’m still trying to find things to put that sauce on.”
Now that he’s given up meat, booze and drugs, deLay says he can focus all his enormous energy on his his music.
“It’s my passion. I do it constantly. I’ve lost interest in about all else.”
Times have changed for Musselwhite, too. Meat and alcohol are taboo and, by all accounts, he sounds better than ever. He’s also playing guitar some these days, and everyone says he’s a powerful player, if not an especially technical one.
As a child, Musselwhite remembers listening to Mississippi fieldhands singing the blues. When he was a little older, his family moved to Memphis, where he fell into a musical circle which included blues greats Furry Lewis and Will Shade.
He played harp and ran moonshine until he turned 18 and took off for Chicago. He was immediately accepted in Chicago’s blues family, sitting in with such legends as Little Walter, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.
“Coming into Chicago was like walking into Fat City,” Musselwhite has said. “These guys inspired me. They gave me an incentive to find my own sound.”
It’s a tradition he has extended - he has befriended Spokane’s Too Slim and the Taildraggers and sat in on their last CD.
“If there’s anybody that’s seen me or Charlie back in our drinking days,” deLay said, “I think they should come down and give us a second chance. We both sound a hell of a lot better than we used to and we’re both happier people, too.
“I think people would get a kick out of that.”
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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Charlie Musselwhite and the Paul deLay Band Location and time: The Davenport Hotel, Saturday, 9 p.m. Tickets: $13 ($15 at the door) The Paul deLay Band is also playing the Waterin’ Hole in Coeur d’Alene Sunday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8, available in advance by calling (208) 667-4858.