Paul deLay, the larger-than-life Portland bluesman who redefined the harmonica and its musical potential, died end-stage leukemia diagnosed just days before. He was 55.
20 years old," said guitarist Jim Mesi, "and he got better from there.
" Mesi first played with deLay "I've lived in Boston, New York and Austin, and I've played all around the states and in Europe, and everywhere I've been, I've met Paul deLay fans," said Seattle musician and author Kim Field. "His soulful singing, his brilliant chromatic harmonica cliche; he was rigorous about that," said Louis Pain, who played organ with deLay for 10 years. "He was so funny, and so original and he had such a wit, both in his playing and his personality.
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career, won several music awards and was nominated for a W.C. Handy award.
He and his band toured constantly, and his show," said guitarist Pete Dammann, who worked with deLay for the past two decades. "He wasn't pirouetting onstage, but he was joking and yakking with the crowd and he played hard. We did two long sets, and nobody had any idea anything like this was going on.
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Neither did deLay. After the show, Dammann said, deLay felt under the weather, presumably from bronchitis he'd several shows. But doctors found that deLay was suffering down, and he lapsed into a coma from which he never height as 6 feet and his weight as 400 pounds, and he had recently developed type II diabetes, so he'd had health issues.
He also battled alcohol and cocaine addiction in the by all accounts, deLay had been clean and sober for more than 15 years. He even named his music publishing company after his new drug of choice: French Roast.
The leukemia diagnosis was a complete surprise, said Dammann.
"This is really beyond my ability to process right now. Of all the dozens of different things we worried about happening to Paul, of all the ways the scenario could've played out, this was completely off the Paul Joseph deLay was born Jan. 31, 1952, in Portland, where he lived all his life.
In the early 1970s, he, Mesi and In 1976, deLay and Mesi formed the Paul deLay Blues Band, different lineups. The band recorded albums such as during occasional breaks from the road. But deLay's the itinerant lifestyle of touring.
In January 1990, he was federal prison in Sheridan.
Before serving that sentence, deLay cleaned up and for the his new band. He released two fine albums of original material, "Paulzilla" and "The Other One," which established his artistic bona fides like nothing in the previous two decades had.
When deLay went into prison for 41 months, his band played out. They went on to record such groundbreaking albums as "Ocean of Tears" and "Nice and Strong," hadn't heard of Paul deLay.
He's survived by his wife, Megan Gill deLay, two sisters, and a daughter from a previous relationship.
Plans announced, but bet that a lot of songs in the foreseeable future will be dedicated to our big man of the blues.
"His big body, mind, heart and soul was in every note he ever played.
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