Re: [Harp-L] Paul deLay has passed away

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Oh, man, this hurts.

Paul was one of those people who had overcome the addiction, done the
jail time  - seemingly in a state of joy, had overcome other medical
problems like sleep apnea, and whose tribulations seemed to have
elevated rather than degraded his spirit. It's been years since we
spoke, and I'd always wished I had kept up contact, meant to get back
in touch. One assumes people will always be around, but it just ain't
so. (memo to self - stay in active touch with the people you treasure.)

People talk about his highly original harmonica playing and rightly so.
But what knocked me out even more was his songwriting. He had that rare
gift among blues artists of writing from multiple points of view. I
could see him having a career writing songs for the theatre - maybe he
had a blues opera in him. 

His deeply human and sympathetic mind allowed him to write from the
point of view of abused women through the words of their abusers, of
dopey man too smitten with a desperate woman to keep from allowing
himself from being manipulated even when he knows full well that it's
going on, of the would-be pool shark who can't seem to get the message
when he's shunned by the good players, of the lover who has to choose
between two women then frets about what happens to the rejected one, of
the paranoid who utters the line, "I woke up to the sound of jingling
change" about his spouse going through his pockets while he's asleep.
And also of the joyous man glad to be alive and to have the gift of a
reprieve, which he surely did.

It's telling, too, that Paul's band stayed together as the No Delay
band while he was in jail. That kind of loyalty - and with a humorous
twist at that - says volumes about the effect he had on his bandmates.

Winslow

--- bobby <bobby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Just heard on XM Radio Bluesville that Harp Player Extraordinarie
> Paul deLay 
> has passed away.
> 
> Another Bluesman done gone home. 
> 
> Bobby
> http://bobbyblackhat.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
> 



 
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