Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
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Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
Paul Oscher retrospective, with Jerry Portnoy, Steve Guyger and Louis Erlanger
Jerry Portnoy, Steve Guyger and Louis Erlanger join me on episode 123, for a retrospective on Paul Oscher.
Paul was born in Brooklyn in 1947 and has a place in history as the first white player in a major black blues band, with Muddy Waters. Joining Muddy’s band gave Paul the best grounding in Chicago blues, he lived in Muddy’s house where he also learnt from the great Otis Spann. After leaving Muddy’s band Paul moved to New York and became a pivotal figure in the blues scene there. Paul put out a number of albums under his own name, with the first being Rough Stuff in 1993, up to Cool Cat in 2018. These included solo and band albums, showcasing his wide range of talents on the harmonica, and also the guitar, piano and vocals.
Links:
Website:
https://www.pauloscher.com/
Interview with Paul, by Margie Goldsmith:
https://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/paul-oscher-interview.html
Louis Erlanger Blues Blast Magazine interview:
https://www.bluesblastmagazine.com/featured-interview-louis-x-erlanger/
Videos:
Paul Oscher documentary by Jordan Haro:
https://vimeo.com/208402633
Story of Jimmy Johnson and harmonica trick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFFPMYhLTt0
Paul playing piano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSbAahV30Do
Playing Juke on a rack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3WJgDEN4aA
Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com
Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB
Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ
Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
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Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com
Jerry Portnoy, Steve Geiger and Lewis Erlanger join me on episode 123 for a retrospective on Paul Osher. Paul was born in Brooklyn in 1947 and has a place in history as the first white player in a major black blues band with Muddy Waters. Joining Muddy's band gave Paul the best grounding in Chicago blues. He lived in Muddy's house where he also learnt from the great Otis Spann. After leaving Muddy's band, Paul moved to New York and became a pivotal figure in the blues scene there. Paul put out a number of blues albums under his own name, with the first being Rough Stuff in 1993, up to Cool Cat in 2018. These included solo and band songs, showcasing his wide range of talents on the harmonica and also the guitar, piano and vocals. This podcast is sponsored by Zidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas
SPEAKER_07:music music
SPEAKER_02:Hello Steve Geiger, Jerry Portnoy and Louis Erlanger and welcome to this retrospective about Paul Osher. Hey Neil, great to be with you. So Jerry and Steve we've had on the podcast before. Jerry you were on back in August 2020 on episode 20 so welcome back and of course you were I think the second white player with the Muddy Waters band and Paul Osher was the first which we will get into later but that so you followed on from him.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, well, I wasn't the second white person. I was the second white harmonica player. He also had Hollywood Fats and Bob Margolin playing guitars before me.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, and Steve Geig, of course. So we had you on in episode 82 in March 23, so about 18 months ago now, so welcome back, Steve. And both Gerry and Steve, you knew Paul really well, so hence the reason you guys are on to talk about Paul Osher today, so it'll be great to hear your times with Paul and what you knew about him, so that'll be great. And our third guest, we have Lewis Erlanger. So, Lewis, I think you knew Paul since he was a teenager, and you sort of co-produced quite a few of his albums, didn't you? That's how... you knew him very well from his music that way yeah
SPEAKER_08:yeah well I used to Paul used to play around New York well I knew about Paul even before that because I saw him with Muddy very early on but I met him in New York when he was playing around and you know I booked him at a college I was at and you know got to know him over the years then we worked on a number of records together yeah I knew about him even since I was about 13 because I had a friend who knew Paul and he would tell me these stories about Paul that the guy was sort of an icon in my mind before I met him so yeah I've known him a long time. So do you play the harmonica yourself Lewis? No no I'm a guitar player I work with a group called Mink DeVille that's sort of my claim to fame. Actually, Paul helped me out. One of the things, Mick DeVille had some songs co-written with Doc Palmas, the songwriter who wrote Save the Last Dance for Me, This Magic Moment, Lonely Avenue, Viva Las Vegas. And I met Doc Palmas through Paul because I went to a gig of Paul's on the Lower East Side. Sitting in the audience was this guy in a cowboy hat. And Paul brought me over there and said, this is Doc Palmas. He wrote all these great songs. And struck up a friendship with doc which ended up with him writing for mink deville so you know paul was kind of a pivotal guy in my life in that respect also so
SPEAKER_02:we're getting on to paul so paul was born in uh in brooklyn in new york in 1947 um and then he played obviously mainly harmonica but he also played guitar and piano and did some singing as well and played various types of harmonica diatonic and chromatic and uh and bass harmonica as well so um What do you guys know about his early life? From what I've read, his father encouraged him to play the accordion and he didn't really fancy that and his uncle bought him a harmonica at age 12 and that's how he got started. Do you know any more beyond that?
SPEAKER_06:Well, all I know is that he told me he used to work in a grocery store and there was a black guy that worked in there that played harmonica and that was the first time he heard real blues harmonica being played. I guess that guy was an influence on him.
SPEAKER_08:Well, what I know about that story, too, is that all he knew about the moniker before that, before hearing that guy, was, you know, people playing kind of show tunes on it. And then when he heard that guy, the way he bent the notes and all that really caught his ear.
SPEAKER_02:What sort of a... Age was Paul when you guys got to know him?
SPEAKER_06:When I first met him, he was playing in Muddy's band. I was kind of a beginner. I mean, I'd been woodshedding and I could play some. I'd moved back to Chicago and I went to see Paul at a club called The Quiet Night on the break. I told him I played harmonica, and he whisked me into the bathroom to see what I could do. He asked me, can you play juke? So I started playing juke, and he was surprised by how well I played, and he invited me to come down to his crib, and he was living in Muddy Waters' basement at the time. on Lake Park Avenue on the south side. So that's how our friendship began. We were pretty tight around Chicago.
SPEAKER_02:What about you, Steve? How did you get to know Paul in the first place?
SPEAKER_05:It was from that live record that they did. I knew about him back in, I guess that was, what, early 70s?
SPEAKER_02:The live at Mr. Kelly's was that, the one with Muddy, yeah? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Just a country boy Yeah, I know I always would treat you wrong And
SPEAKER_05:I used to get the village voice out of, I'd be down in Center City by here in Philly. I'm from Philadelphia area. And I used to see that Paul was playing up there. 1975, I went up to see him and he was playing a little place called Barber's My Way in Brooklyn. And he had his whole band with him. You know, Victoria Spivey was there that night. I sat in with Paul, and I talked to Paul about different stuff, and that was the first time I met him. I thought he was going to play a monocle all night, but he didn't. He was on piano.
SPEAKER_06:You know, Steve, I was at the gig at Mr. Kelly's almost every night. Oh, man.
SPEAKER_05:So then Paul took the guitar off of little Frankie, who was his guitar player, and he started playing guitar. I was totally blown out. I thought all he played was a monocle. And it just completely flipped me out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're getting how he picked up on the different instruments, because I think he did pick them up a little bit after playing the harmonica, didn't he?
SPEAKER_08:Actually, no. Actually, no, because I'll tell you, because I know this. I was about 13. I had this friend I went to school with since kindergarten, and I'm still in touch with him. His older brother went to Adelphi University, which is out on Long Island, and this was before Paul was with Muddy, Paul was hanging out there. I don't know if he was taking any classes there or what, but my friend's brother struck up a friendship with Paul because Paul used to play the guitar and the harp outside on that campus, and my friend used to hang out there because Paul attracted all these girls. So there were all these great-looking girls around, and then he started hanging out with Paul, and he said Paul played great guitar back then, played great harp back then, but not only that. he told him that one day he was going to play with Muddy Waters. So he was onto this track pretty early on.
SPEAKER_02:Wow yeah so he had that ambition early on so before we get on to the Muddy story so again from what I've been reading about him so we understand his sort of first band was to play with Little Jimmy May he went into a black club and then Jimmy May was a band leader there he sat in with the band and then he started playing with Jimmy May after that after appearing in this club is that how you understand it?
SPEAKER_08:I know that he said those shows were sort of like a review where They'd have a comedian come on, you know, and open up the show and kind of warm up the crowd. And then, you know, he'd be playing with Jimmy May, and he said that he was impressed with the way people dressed, too. They all had these great outfits on and stuff, you know. So the whole scene kind of intrigued him from that, you know.
SPEAKER_02:So he started playing at age 15 and he was doing gigs with Little Jimmy May and then I assume his big break was when he became the first white harmonica player to play with Muddy Waters Band and I think the first white player was he, Jerry? I'm harking back to what you were saying about the guitarist.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, he was the first white player to play in a major black blues band.
SPEAKER_08:Well, he went to see Muddy at the Apollo. He was friends with Snake Johnson. And Johnson told him to come down to the Apollo. I think Big Walter was supposed to be on that gig and then he canceled it the last minute. I think that's what happened. And then Snake told Muddy to listen to Paul. I think and then Paul sat in and everybody was impressed. I think that's how he got in with Muddy. Muddy said, can
SPEAKER_06:you go on the road? The words that came out of Muddy's mouth because I heard them myself was, can you travel?
SPEAKER_08:So then he has this whole story about how the first day in the car, Spann and his wife both took out guns and were, you know, checking them out and the driver, what was that, Bo was the driver?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, Bo.
SPEAKER_08:Took a big swig of vodka or something and then passed it around and Paul said he was watching that and he said, I'm in now. You know, that's what he was saying in his head. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you said there, Jerry, that You heard Muddy say that about Can You Travel, so were you actually there when Muddy asked Paul to join the band?
SPEAKER_06:No, but that's what he said to me when I joined the band.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right, yeah, okay. So the fact that he became Muddy Waters' harmonica player, obviously, you know, the seat in many ways for a harmonica player, and the first white guy especially.
SPEAKER_01:Playing harmonica, there's Paul Archer.
UNKNOWN:Yeah!
SPEAKER_02:that made him an influential figure right in the harmonica world and he's that someone obviously jerry you know you looked up to then and you know as uh you know being a great harmonica player that inspired a lot of what of a white generation of players was it absolutely
SPEAKER_06:first of all yeah paul was our he was our lodestone or touchstone for a whole bunch of guys me rick estrin kim field uh everybody because not only was he the first but paul was as a musician he was he was unique. There was something about his touch and his feel and time. It was really just a mystery. It was magic. And he had that on every instrument he played. He had it on guitar and piano as well as harp. His touch and his feel and his time was just a beautiful thing. You couldn't really learn it. It was just innate in him. He was really a brilliant guy in a lot of ways. He hit it under a bushel he didn't like people to know really how smart he was or whatever paul was a brilliant brilliant guy and and just a born musician he had a feel for the blues that really was unmatched he was a great great guitar player and a great piano player yeah he was like a one man muddy waters but he could play guitar like muddy and my
SPEAKER_01:baby don't
SPEAKER_06:love me no more
SPEAKER_01:I was knocking on
SPEAKER_06:the front. And a whole lot of other people, too. And, you know, harp like Walter and span, piano like span.
UNKNOWN:piano like span.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think that what you were saying a few minutes ago, Lewis, I think he really learned the trade from being in that band, from what I've read as well. You know, like learning the piano from Otis Spohn, as you said there, Jerry, you know, watching Muddy play guitar. He really picked up that really authentic Chicago, you know, style directly from them.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, absolutely. I mean, he got not only the licks, but the feel. He
SPEAKER_08:talked a lot about the time, because to me, that was his real key, was the time, because it was just something that... And he used to talk about expansion and contraction. He said when he used to play along with Muddy's records, he would play a certain way, but then when he got with the band, he realized that you couldn't do it that way. And Spann, he said Spann actually helped him a lot with his time, showing him how you have to listen to what the singer's doing, and that tells you a lot about how you do the time around the singer. but also this expansion and contraction, which sounds like it's something you could get your hands around, but it's very hard to do. Paul seemed to have a natural
SPEAKER_06:ability to do that. He was really a natural, but I'll tell you, you know, the one thing I really... I mean, I envy Paul that he got to play with Spann. You know, I played with almost everybody you could name, almost every great name in the blues I got to play with. Somebody asked me once... Is there somebody you didn't get to play with that you would have loved to? And immediately, you know, the answer is Oda Spann. Because the harmonica players that came into Muddy's band were trained by Spann. He trained Cotton and, you know, Mojo and everybody else. And I didn't get that lucky. I never got to play with Spann. Did you meet Spann? No, I never met Spann.
SPEAKER_02:So Paul joined Muddy's band in 1967. I think he was 19 then. So this was in Chicago, right? So he'd moved from New York to Chicago at quite a young age. Had he already moved there? Do we know that?
SPEAKER_06:No, I think he went to Chicago. He joined Muddy's band in New York, got on the road and then, you know, he... He started living in Muddy's basement. That's when he went to Chicago.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, right. So he met Muddy in the Apollo Theater in New York and then he went to live with Muddy straight from that, did he? Okay.
SPEAKER_08:And in the basement also was Otis Spann.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:So they were together a lot. And he said Spann used to set up the piano in an alleyway and play. People would come around. So he was right with them all the time.
SPEAKER_02:And so he was in Muddy Waters Band from 1968 to 1970. And then I think he did another short stint after that as well. And then you joined in 74, Jerry, yeah? Right. So I believe Paul went to Muddy's funeral. Is that something maybe you went to, Jerry? We went to the funeral together. Yeah, and Paul was also on the board of directors who were trying to turn Muddy's Chicago Southside house into a museum.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I believe he was involved in that.
SPEAKER_08:No, he was on the board because I helped him write some of the stuff that he, you know, he had to write up a number of things that he wanted to see them do. He was a little upset because he felt that they didn't fully understand the importance of, you know, some of the things that they should have there to, you you know, remember muddy so he had all these ideas about that and when he got sick you know it was very frustrating for him because you know he was he was very involved at the point that he got sick and then he couldn't do a lot that's why he asked me to write this stuff so yeah he was very devoted to that and wanted to see it happen
SPEAKER_02:and did that happen so i might excuse my ignorance on this front
SPEAKER_06:oh yeah yeah they they've got funding and official status from uh you know various landmark commissions and it's being rehabilitated and renovated now.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, and it's Muddy's house. Do you know that?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's Muddy's house, the one that, you know, Muddy lived in for a long time before he moved to the suburbs, and it's the one that Paul lived in in the basement with Otis Spann. So now it's becoming, I think the title is the Muddy Waters Mojo Museum.
SPEAKER_08:They have some events there, you know, and I guess they plan to have more, you know, with different blues people playing and trying to get young kids in the community. involved in it. I just wanted to say one thing, though. You had talked about Paul rejoining Muddy. There was a gig that he did with Muddy much later on. I think it was in maybe the 1990s. I can't remember. Whoever was playing piano at the time with Muddy, maybe it was Pintop, couldn't do the gig, and so Paul played piano with Muddy. And that was at the Bottom Line in New York.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah,
SPEAKER_08:I was on that gig. Oh, were you? Were That's the one where Bob Dylan showed up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was there too.
SPEAKER_08:And Muddy introduced Dylan as John Dylan and nobody made any comments in the audience. They didn't know who it was. Then somebody leaned over and told Muddy, no, it's Bob Dylan. And then Muddy announced Bob Dylan and the whole place went crazy. No, he didn't change it.
SPEAKER_06:He didn't? I wrote it up in the book and I remember it Very, very well. Ladies and gentlemen, we got a surprise for you tonight. We got a big, big star in the house tonight. You all know him. Dylan's here. John Dylan. Come out here, John. And that's how it went down. Oh, boy. Afterwards, I went to a party at Victoria Spivey's house with Paul and Dylan and a couple people from his Rolling Thunder tour.
SPEAKER_08:Paul said that Dylan played Don't Think Twice for everybody at that party.
SPEAKER_06:That I don't remember, but I do remember Dylan sat down with an acoustic guitar and he said, this is a new song I wrote, and he sang some new song. I don't remember what it was. I actually do remember that I was surprised at my own reaction because it was actually a pretty moving performance and, you know, Bob Dylan wasn't really my thing at the time. I'm a total blues guy. I prefer Elmore James, but what can I say?
SPEAKER_02:Did he play any harmonica, Jerry? No. He was too afraid in front of you guys.
SPEAKER_06:At that particular gig, he came up to me afterwards. He asked me how I got that sound out of my harmonica, and he invited me to join his Rolling Thunder band. review which had just begun a couple weeks earlier oh wow uh you know it was a no-brainer i turned it down i mean i wasn't about to leave muddy waters band for a one-shot tour with bob dylan
SPEAKER_02:yeah no no the right decision of course so paul um played with uh with muddy and he did three albums with him after the rain live at mr kelly's and unkin funk
SPEAKER_06:so
SPEAKER_02:And then he left Muddy's band, I think, in 1971, where he moved to New York. So do we know about that decision to leave the band? That's quite a big cheer to leave. Was that his decision?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, he had health problems. He had some kind of pneumonia or something. Anyway, he went back to New York for health reasons. Carrie Bell was in there for a while, and then Mojo Buford, and then I got the gig, and I was there for six years.
SPEAKER_02:Is this Steve when he moved back to New York? Is this when you became, you know, more aware of him or, you know, when he was around New York, did you see him playing then?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah. That's right. The first time I saw him was at that place I said Barber's My Way in that 80s, 75. And then I started hanging out with his guitar player, little Frankie Bedini. And then I started going down and seeing Paul playing different clubs in that area. The Fugue was one of them, a couple of different places. And then I started, you know, going to Paul's house here and there. You know, that's how I got. I just popped into his house that one night in 76. And I was on Saturday and he started smiling at me and he starts and he goes, well, I got Walter Horton playing at the feud tomorrow night. I guess I'm staying over.
SPEAKER_02:So when he first went to New York, back to New York, he was playing under the name Brooklyn Slim. So was he playing as a harmonica player? Was he also playing guitar, piano, singing at this stage?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he played piano, you know, guitar. Lou knows I have a live tape of him. We
SPEAKER_08:were just talking about that last night. He played everything. I even saw him set up vibes one night and he was playing vibes.
SPEAKER_06:Let me tell you something. You could give Paul Osher an instrument, some kind of musical instrument that he had never seen before, and you put him in a room for 30 minutes, and he'll come out playing some swinging stuff for you. Yeah, that's the way Paul was. He was just a natural. And, you know, I remember when I first discovered that he played guitar... This guy David Bromberg was kind of a big name in acoustic guitar at the time or whatever. Anyway, I remember Paul saying, oh, I can play that shit. I can play that shit better than he can. And then he gave me a tape of him playing Make Me a Pallet on the Floor. And it was just... Just fabulous. He was great at anything he picked up. You
SPEAKER_08:mentioned that song, Jerry, and I found in Paul's stuff, he has a demo, an acetate. that I think he did for Folkways Records of Make Me a Pallet on the Floor. And talk about time. Oh, yeah. You know, you hear a lot of people play that tune, but they don't play it the way he did. It's a certain... It blows your mind.
SPEAKER_05:Lou, that's the biggest thing that Paul told me when I went to see him that first night. He sat me down and he says, you know, all about timing. It's the timing. It's like where you put the note... When the note's got to be there, when you play it. It's not like these guys today, it's as they know, oh, look what he just did, you know. I said, what did he do? He didn't say anything. He's playing a lot of notes, but he ain't saying anything. And with Paul, that was it.
SPEAKER_08:It gives you this feeling like in your chest or something that is just different, you
SPEAKER_06:know. You know, it's something you can't really pinpoint. No. But you could recognize. You knew it when you heard it. Right. but replicating it was just something else. He just had a...
SPEAKER_08:Well, that's what I wanted to say about when he came back to New York. First of all, the places he played, like that Club My Way, there were a lot of black clubs in Brooklyn with a whole rhythm and blues scene going on. I mean, if you look at some of the stars of later on, a decent number of them came from these clubs, these little clubs in Brooklyn. Like, I don't know if you know Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens, but Paul used to play this play in Brooklyn called the Night Cat.
SPEAKER_05:On
SPEAKER_08:the bill there, the house singer was this woman, Naomi Davis. And later on, on Daptone Records, she had Naomi Shelton in the Gospel of Queens. She used to sing like James Brown. People would walk by the club and think it was James Brown. They'd go in and see this woman singing. But there was this whole scene there and Paul was the only white guy really that he was so attracted to that music that he was there all the time and did gigs there and he sort of brought this white audience over there because people had seen Paul with Muddy, people loved the way Paul played and people wanted to sit in. Paul used to let people sit in. So this whole group of young white kids would start going to those clubs just to sit in with Paul and to see what was going on. So he kind of in a certain way integrated that whole scene there. I think that was a big thing that Paul did in New York at that time when he moved back.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you think he really helped the blues scene in New York then, do you? He started getting it going, yeah? Sure. I
SPEAKER_08:mean,
SPEAKER_02:look,
SPEAKER_08:Steve
SPEAKER_02:came all the
SPEAKER_08:way up from Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_05:I can't even tell you how many times I did that stuff. I mean, it was nothing for me to drive. I think it was the week after he played in some place in Queens. The Marble Lounge. Marble Lounge. They played the Marble Lounge. I went back the next week with another guy that started the Bucks County Blues Society, Tom Cullen. We drove out there to see him. It was totally different than the week I saw him before. I mean, nothing bad. It was just unbelievable. His playing was, you know, it wasn't about like this stuff that goes on. I don't want to start negative, but look at me, look at me. It wasn't about that.
SPEAKER_08:But he also had all these great black musicians from New York playing with him too. You know, Candy MacDonald, you know, Ola May.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Bob Waddy, Larry Dale.
SPEAKER_08:Right. Yeah. He sort of was a catalyst bringing all these people together and putting on these, you know, reviews, you know. I
SPEAKER_02:understand in 1976 he toured Europe with Louisiana Red. Is that the first time he went to Europe and did he do much after that? He went to Europe with... Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I did a couple shows with Louisiana Red, too, and it was insane. And I mean insane in a good way. The guy was a great harmonica player on top of everything else. Red was heavy, too. Red was another guy that was just, wow, you know.
SPEAKER_08:well also Paul used to play with Dave Maxwell a lot on the piano and just I don't know Louisiana Red and Maxwell came up here to play you know I'm in Vermont they came up here to play I don't know it was already at least 10-15 years ago
SPEAKER_02:through the sort of 1980s and sort of early 90s he kept a bit more of a low profile do you know what he was doing during this time was he still out playing was he in New York or
SPEAKER_06:well first of all After he left Muddy's band, he went to Brooklyn College and got a degree in criminal justice. He was working at the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. I think he was ascertaining the charges that various criminals would be charged with. But I remember, because I had come to New York, I don't know if I was playing with Muddy or, I don't know, I was in New York and Paul took me out for a celebratory dinner at a fancy steakhouse to celebrate him graduating from Brooklyn College. He was married to a New York cop and he was working at the DA's office for a while. He had this great job. He wasn't that involved in music.
SPEAKER_08:He also had some degree from, I don't know where, in graphic design. He was a really good painter, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was just going to say that. He did some paintings when he was a kid that Rick Estrin told me about that Rick saw him These two paintings that Paul had done when he was about 9 or 10 years old. And Rick was completely blown out with what Paul had painted.
SPEAKER_06:Nothing could possibly surprise me about Paul Osh. No.
SPEAKER_08:Well, if you look at some of his album covers, he used to design those. And he was very particular about how they should look. And, you know, that was because he had a really good eye.
SPEAKER_02:yeah no nice yeah so like you had many many talents as you were saying early on jerry an intelligent guy he got the degree and so yeah he did a sort of day job for sort of maybe through the 80s and 90s and then he released what uh an album in 1993 uh called rough stuff which was with pine top perkins and uh well that was me that was you yeah go on tell us all about it yeah
SPEAKER_08:well i'll tell you what happened was i always you know followed him because yeah number one i wanted to sit in because i was hoping some something would rub off on me. I don't know how much it did. So I was always looking for him, and I didn't see him playing for a long time. And then I had moved out to Seattle, and I moved back to New York. I'm walking by this restaurant that's got a big picture window. I'm with my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time, but she was new to New York, didn't know anything about the characters that I used to hang out with because I had met her in Seattle. And so I see somebody banging on the picture window and it's Paul. He was sitting there having like a snack or a cup of coffee or something. So he tells me to come in and, you know, I introduce him to my girlfriend and we sit down and we're talking. And then this is something that Paul used to do a lot because he was kind of eccentric, you know. In the middle of the conversation, he just got up and walked out. My wife said, you know, what did I say? something? And I said, no, no, no, just Paul. Don't
SPEAKER_07:worry about it.
SPEAKER_08:So that was really funny. But when I saw him, I got his number. I called him. And it was at that point I found out he wasn't playing a lot. And that's when I started thinking, I should really record him because this guy's going to disappear otherwise if he's not doing anything. And people should know what he can do. So I asked him about that. And he said, OK. it became an actual much better project than I thought it was because he brought in Pine Top and he brought in Willie Smith. I thought, well, Jesus, I just stepped into something that I hadn't planned but is great, you know. So we went into the studio and first he was going to do solo and then he brought them in and I knew a little bit about what I was doing but I didn't know enough to really make it a great record, you know. But with those guys on, it's it turned out pretty nice.
SPEAKER_02:Gray sounds like you rejuvenated his career as well, which is fantastic. And in 1995, he released the Deep Blues of Paul Osher album, which was his sort of first solo album, was it? Were you involved with that one, too?
SPEAKER_08:You know, I can't remember if I was involved in that one, but I do want to say there was another one before that that was called Knockin' on the Devil's Door.
UNKNOWN:.........
SPEAKER_08:which was done by, I forgot the guy's name, but he was involved in a lot of blues in New York. But it's an interesting story because I had been putting these ads in all these different blues magazines and, you know, Rough Stuff was doing okay, but I didn't have the resources to really, you know, promote it a lot. I just promoted it to the people that knew about Paul already. But this guy who was doing a lot of blues in New York, I think he saw some of that and realized Paul was being active again and that's when he got him. But that was another good Paul story in that for Knock on the Devil's Door they were going to do like a CD release party at this club called something blues. It was right near my apartment. It was like a block from my apartment. So Paul asked me if I'd play guitar on that and I was flattered. I said, yeah, I'll play that show. But then I hadn't played in a while and I wanted to rehearse with him. you know, he set up some rehearsal times, but I was working full time and I'd have to take off time to go to these. Every rehearsal, we never got around to rehearsing songs. And he was busy doing, fixing equipment and stuff. So I ended up, I told him, look, you know, I haven't played in a while. I don't want to do this without a rehearsal. But I was really pissed at myself for not doing it because the place was packed and it was a really great show. You know, I don't think he even had He's not a guitar player. I think he ended up playing the guitar himself. And it was just a beautiful show and it was really a big comeback for him. So that knocking on Devil's Door I think did a lot for him after Rough Stuff.
SPEAKER_02:In 1999, he did an album with Big Bill Morganfield, Moneywater's son, called Rise and Sonia.
UNKNOWN:MUSIC
SPEAKER_02:we know how that came about. Was it the connection with Muddy?
SPEAKER_05:That, I don't know how that came about. You know, Big Bill was just coming back out. I had actually recorded some stuff with him. Of course, me and Paul recorded together too. I recorded one of his records behind him. I played some harmonica behind him and then we did an album together.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, is this the Deep in the Blues album, year 2000, this album you're talking about?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that was a lot of fun. You know, some of the stuff I wish they had recorded when we were just, me and Paul were just sitting around. He was playing piano and I was playing a harp next to him.
SPEAKER_08:Well, Steve, I want to mention that Paul's got a whole box of darts. I don't know if people know what a dad is anymore, but they're digital tapes that were popular at one time. And he's got a whole box of them of you, Steve, and him playing. And he told me he wants me to put them out at some point on his label. Because he really thought so highly of Steve. He really wanted to get this stuff out. So I have to go through them.
SPEAKER_05:The thing with Jerry, I used to go see Muddy and watch Jerry would play something like... off the wall or something like that. And then I, then I said, no, that's how the song goes. And then I would, I learned, I'd be trying to learn it off the record, but I'd have to go see Jerry play the song and then I would learn it better. And I, so thanks Jerry. I never got to see you out in Long Island, man. My father's place with him. You did, you did that one song and I said, that's how it goes. Okay. And that's what we did. You know,
SPEAKER_06:the students surpassing the teacher.
SPEAKER_02:I love Baby Please Don't Go, Jerry, and definitely some of my favourite versions were of you playing that song with me, so I've done that too, from a distance. So great, so this album you did with Paul, Steve, this Deep in the Blues, is that you mainly playing harmonica on there?
SPEAKER_05:Oh yeah, you know, I sung in some of the songs, I think we were just, you know, I have a way of singing songs i make them up as i'm playing sometimes
SPEAKER_02:i've got you both playing together on on the song have mercy
SPEAKER_05:that's the last song on the record and that song still brings tears to my eyes the way paul presented that we all stood around and paul started that clapping thing and uh you know we were all singing behind him on that you know i was playing some harmonica always takes me back. It was beautiful the way we did it.
SPEAKER_06:Hey Steve, what album was that you played Sugar Mama on? I can't remember
SPEAKER_05:those guys' names. You played it great. Well, thank you. Yeah, I'd say, you know, we go back to the original guy, you know, John Lee. Yeah, that's my favorite. John Lee Williamson, the original Sonny Boy, was the godfather of the whole blues harmonica thing. Exactly. You know, and if you didn't learn that stuff, and I never read the book, Muddy Waters, was it him and the bluegrass guy? Yeah, Bill Monroe. And Muddy said, if you don't know how to play like John Lee, you can't play Chicago blues, Monica. That to me was like, I went out like within the next month, I had everything by John Lee you could get. I bought everything. If it was on 78s, 45s, or whatever, I had it, you know? I mean, I just like money said it, then I got to do it, you know, and that's what I did.
SPEAKER_02:It's the way to learn.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Hey, everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour podcast, proudly sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas. This is Jason Ritchie here telling you I love Blue Moon Harmonicas. I love the combs, the covers, the custom harps, the refurbished pre-war marine bands, and nobody's easier to work with than Tom Halcheck. Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.
SPEAKER_02:So then in the 2001, Paul married Suzanne Laurie Parks and she was a playwright, right? And I understood he sort of influenced her writing of a play called Top Dog Underdog, which she won a Pulitzer Prize from.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I know a lot because he invited me to the opening to that. I had met Susan, you know, before that play and everything, but he invited us to come to the opening, which was quite a show first of all it was a great play but there are a lot of scenes in the play with that where you could see paul's touches let
SPEAKER_06:me say this about paul paul was the kind of guy that if something fascinated him or intrigued him He would get to the essence of it. That's why his feel for the blues was so unmatched. He got to the essence. He understood the core of whatever it was that fascinated him. And he got fascinated by magic. And in six months... He had the chops of a professional magician. I
SPEAKER_05:forgot all about that about Paul. Paul was a card shark.
SPEAKER_08:That's what I wanted to get to here. At this opening, okay, they had a party afterwards. And I walk in and there's a bar, right? And there's all these famous people there. Spike Lee was there. James Earl Jones. Just everybody you could think of. You're walking through. It's like walking through a wax museum, right? But there's a crowd down at the end of the room And I wanted to go see what was going on there. So I'm walking past all these people. I think Mos Def was there also. And I get to the end of the thing. And the crowd is all around Paul. And he's doing his three-card Monty for these people. They're all dressed up to the nines. And there he is doing three-card Monty. It was hilarious. And they were all fascinated by it, you know.
SPEAKER_06:Now, you know, the first time I met Little Walter, you know, I was blessed because I was around all those cats. I used to live in Muddy Waters' house. And over the span introduced me to Little Walter. He was... in a car drinking in January with little Walter and Johnny Young. And we must have been about nine degrees out. They had a whole bunch of bottles in the car, so I know they were there for some time. So I was walking down the street with a fellow. His name was Luther Georgia Boy Snake Johnson. Span said, hey, Walter, this is Monday's new heartblower. This is Paul, man. That's brother Paul. Hey, man, don't play no cards with that boy. He's bad with that three-card molly.
SPEAKER_02:And so about Suzanne Laurie Parks, Lewis, I understand you're working on a book about his life called Alone with the Blues and that's something you're working with Suzanne, is that?
SPEAKER_08:Well, I'm actually not working with her because we started to talk about it and then I got the feeling that it was a little difficult for her to do. She's kind of moved on with her life and stuff, you know. But I will say this, when he was together with Suzanne, it was really a nice thing. They seemed to really have a great connection with each other. Is that book still out? I want it to happen. The problem is getting the support to help me do it. There's two people, his ex-manager and this woman up in Maine that Paul knew since he was pretty young. They have copies of everything and I have copies. Paul's also spoken to a recorder and there's a lot of audio that he's done. But the difficulty is I'm trying to pull together things because he wanted me to run this label so i'm trying to pull together that and at the same time pull together the book in a way that keeps his voice because i think it's very important you know he had a unique way of saying things and also of seeing things and i want to make sure that that comes out in the book so you know i need help it's really what i need
SPEAKER_02:sure so there's a book in the offing hopefully it sounds like you're busy i'm busy with stuff but yeah good good stuff so so in 2003 he was he was part of an album which was nominated for a Grammy for the best traditional blues album with Herbert Sumlin so yeah and Eric Clapton was on this on this album and Herbert was previously with Hollywood's guitarist so yeah it's Hubert Hubert Hubert sorry yeah so was that a big deal for him you know did he get you know playing some big names and some recognition there too
SPEAKER_08:was Clapton was there and I think Keith Richards was there also at the recording sessions and maybe even Lee Von Helm, I don't remember. But they did that out in New Jersey, I remember. But I'm sure that was a good record for him to be on.
SPEAKER_02:And then in 2004, there's Alone With The Blues, I think is a completely solo album, is it? I know, Lewis, you were definitely involved with this one.
SPEAKER_08:No, I wasn't involved with Alone With The Blues. That was another guy who recorded that. I forgot who that was.
UNKNOWN:I forgot who that was.
SPEAKER_08:I think the next one I got involved with was
SPEAKER_02:down in the Delta. Okay, so, but yeah, so this Along With The Blues, I think it was mainly a solo album where he was, you know, playing completely by himself. There might be a couple of songs with other musicians on. So he was definitely going for more of the one-man band thing at this stage, was he? And was he also doing that on the Down In The Delta album, Lewis?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, well, he was doing a lot of, he was doing some performing by himself, you know, and the thing that was great about those performances was he was the only guy to play Little Walter in a neck rack, you know. He would play juke. and he played a bottom part on the guitar and he played a harp in a neck rack but get little walter's big sound well when he was doing that so that made him a very different kind of performer you know uh from what was going on at the time
SPEAKER_02:and was he amping the harmonica on the rack to do that or is it
SPEAKER_08:he had uh this i don't know i mean steven and jerry can tell even better about this he had some kind of mic it was like a long tube It looked like a metal tube. Yeah, he did. It went on the side of the harmonica, and that was his amplification. I don't know if he built that himself or it was a commercial product. I have no idea.
SPEAKER_05:No one probably built it himself or figured out how to use something.
SPEAKER_08:But I know that he also had this whole foot pedal. setup that was in a large metal box. And, you know, he was very particular. That was the thing about Paul. That's why he was so good, was he was extremely particular about everything he did. And he was very particular about this whole setup of his things. They had to sound just right.
SPEAKER_05:If you were a sound guy with Paul at a concert, he drove those guys out of their minds. Everything had to be set up in a certain way and put in a certain thing. And I never watched it. And I just sat there and laughed. I wish I didn't video it because the sound guy wanted just to jump off a bridge somewhere. Wall was so particular. Everything had to be a certain level, certain angle. I don't know what it was, but, you know, it's like he had a way of... His visual thing with setting stuff up was like, I don't know. I just... I think I talked to a sound guy one time, and the guy was furious. He'd been frustrated.
SPEAKER_08:Remember that gig you did up here with him, Steve? The sound guy here, luckily, he'd done sound for years, and he was kind of immune to everything. So he was pretty calm doing the whole thing. But he did post something on Facebook. It's a picture of me trying to adjust the dial of Paul's thing, and Paul's sitting there with the guitar, and the caption he put down there was, was, how does this sound now, Lou? Which I thought pretty much defined the whole sound check.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Paul saw and heard things that we just didn't hear it the way he heard it.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You know, and that's, you know, it's amazing, you know. I'm just loved it. I wouldn't be the musician I am if it wasn't for Paul Osher. That's all I can say. I would not be, you know.
SPEAKER_06:Well, that goes for a lot of us. Yep, I know. The one thing about Paul, you know, I mean, I'm old now. I'll be 81 this month. And at this stage of the game, you know, you see a lot of people die. And life goes on. Like my mother said, life is for the living. But honest to God, the world to me just seems a diminished place without Paul Osher. I miss him all the time.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he was special to me too. The phone conversations we used to have, just, yeah, you know, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:So he definitely left his mark on you guys as well as the whole Monica world, so... this Down in the Delta album which you were involved with it won a Acoustic Artist of the Year and Acoustic Album of the Year in 2006 at the Blues Music Awards so it got a lot of recognition did you produce that album is that something you were
SPEAKER_08:I co-produced it with him I mean to say to produce Paul was really he wanted me there because I think we felt comfortable that I would you know if I didn't like something that it probably was not okay but mostly I let him do I had patience, I think that was a lot of it. I would let him dick around as much as he wanted to get the sounds that he wanted to get and try to help him do that also. But the music itself was all his doing. I can't say that I contributed to the music, I just helped him evaluate what he had done each time he did a take. That was really what I was there for. But it was wonderful to watch him, you know, I learned a lot watching him because he'd bring in different musicians and stuff and, you know, then when he would maybe like something, but he'd tell me, well, I don't like this. And I'd listen to it, I wouldn't hear the difference at first, and then all of a sudden I would hear what he's hearing. And you realise that he's hearing these minute things that are actually really important. So that was a real education for
SPEAKER_02:me. So the guy's just been saying he could be quite demanding on the sound engineers at a gig, so what was it like producing an album with him? Was he
SPEAKER_08:good to work with? I'll tell you one thing about Rough Stuff because he talked about it up until his death. There was one take, you know, with Paul, I didn't know the first time when I did Rough Stuff. You have to leave the tape running because you never know when he's going to launch into a song. He doesn't say, okay, I'm going to do this tune. So I didn't know on Rough Stuff to do that. On the later ones, I did. But on Rough Stuff, he did this one take of Iodine and My Coffee with Pine Top, where Pine Top just played this out-of-the- I mean, just amazing. It was so beautiful. And at the end of it, we found out the guy didn't have the tape rolling. And Paul never let me hear the end of that. Up until he died, it was a riot. I mean, it was sad, but it was a riot at the same time. so yeah he could be demanding he did a i think we did also uh bet on the blues up here in brattleboro and he told me that he was going to do that solo and and so i got a studio where i thought it would be good for solo stuff and like two days before he came up here he told me he was bringing a band in so so those are the kind of things you know you deal with with paul and you just sort of had to be flexible you know
SPEAKER_02:so that was 2010 bet on the boys and And then in 2011, he moved to Austin, Texas and became neighbors with James Caan, I think, coincidentally. So what prompted the move to Austin?
SPEAKER_08:Well, he broke up with Susan is what happened. And, you know, she was living with her out in California in Santa Monica, I think it was. And, you know, they broke up. So he had to find a place to go. And he thought Austin might be a place because of the musicians and stuff down there.
SPEAKER_05:I stayed out. there in California with him for about a week. I did a couple games with him.
SPEAKER_08:Now, he was playing on the boardwalk out there sometimes, right?
SPEAKER_05:We went down on the beach and all this different stuff, and oh, man.
SPEAKER_02:Did he hang out with James Cotton when he was in Austin?
SPEAKER_08:Oh yeah, he told me the story that he was moving into his house and this car drove by and it was Cotton and he found out that Cotton was living right down the street from him. So yeah, then they started hanging out a lot.
SPEAKER_02:And then his last album produced when he was alive, there's another album which we'll get onto which was released after his death, was Cool Cat in 2018. This is quite a big project, lots of you know horn players on there very jazzy numbers on there and
SPEAKER_08:Well, I was involved in that one, too. He started it before I got involved, and then he called me up and said, you've got to come down. And so I came down on a day's notice. He was doing it. I think it was Jimmy Vaughn's Bass Players Studio. And this place was like in the middle of a horse farm. There were horses walking around. It was like 105 degrees outside. Every venture with Paul was like that. But he had good people on it. He had, I'm trying to remember the names of it. Who's that woman bass player who played with everybody in Austin? Sarah Brown. She was playing bass. He had a couple of really good guitar players. And this guy on drums, Two different people on drums, but one of those guys plays all over Austin. He's just a great, great blues drummer. And he sings a song on there, a tribute to James Cotton, called Ain't That a Man.
SPEAKER_00:and even Texas too. James Cotton played the blues for you. He played the blues just for you. Ain't that a man?
SPEAKER_08:And Paul's playing guitar on that, and this drummer's singing. And then he had Miss Lavelle White.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:He had her singing on a tune also, and that was quite an experience. See, I knew Luann Barton, and I was trying to get her to do this thing because Paul needed Paul wanted someone else to sing and he felt like he couldn't sing it right so so he but Luann couldn't do it so he Lavelle White was I think in a she wasn't in great health but he got somebody to get bring her over there she never heard the song before so we had to cut up these lyrics into little pieces and spread them out on the floor so she could sing it but she did a great job you know she just really got the right away she understood the gist of the song. It was called Dirty Dealin'
SPEAKER_03:Mama. Now you don't know who you're messing with. I'll tell you where I've been. I went down to the landlord cause I didn't have the rent. I went down to the pawn shop.
SPEAKER_08:got it right away and just did a great job on it and then you know paul paul was playing i think some piano on there uh and that was really an interesting thing to watch too because he would just he had her singing and then he just pulled up this piano you know this portable piano and he just sat on the couch and played a part for it you know and it was just just right you know so
SPEAKER_02:what was the was he obviously pushing into you know it's quite a sound like
SPEAKER_08:we're going uptown it's because three car money is
SPEAKER_06:on a down track And these hustlers, they can't make anything. They wake up in the morning and try to figure out how they're going to get over on somebody.
SPEAKER_08:He loved that jazz that had that bluesy sound to it. And Cool Cat was inspired by something he saw where, he describes it actually in the song. There was this guy who used to walk down the street And these people, these little kids would follow him around. He was kind of like a cool Pied Piper, you know, kind of guy. And that's sort of what the song is about. You know, that was just something that he always had in him. But he wanted to put it down on record. And he did two versions of it. One is more jazzy than the other one. They're both on the record.
SPEAKER_02:So sadly, in 2021, he died during the coronavirus pandemic. So I think he died of COVID, yeah, so...
SPEAKER_08:Well, he had gone into a grocery store. He had just gotten vaccinated. But, you know, the vaccine was new, so it was just starting. So he had just gotten vaccinated, went into a grocery store, and he thinks that he stayed in there too long. And so he picked it up before he was fully immune, you know, which is the sad part. But, you know, he had other health problems, which probably contributed to it. It seemed like he was going to survive.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, he He was in intensive care, and then they took him out, and I remember he called me. We spoke, I think, two days before he died, and he was only semi-coherent. I think the next day or two days later, he died, and I found out Steve called me to tell me. He found out before I did.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I still have, on this phone, I still have the last two messages Paul sent me. I can't listen to them. I would just break down. I wouldn't be able to. The things that Paul said on him and, you know, he wasn't ready to go and all this stuff. And I just, I kept him.
SPEAKER_08:It was frightening because his voice also, because of his lung condition, his voice had gone up almost half an hour. It was really upsetting.
SPEAKER_02:So there was an album released in April this year, 2024, Lewis. I think you were involved with it. It's a live album from the Tombs Detention Centre in New York from the 1980s. Is this something you helped get out yet?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, that's all my doing. I went through his stuff, and there's nothing out that showed the reviews that Paul used to put together, like at the Nightcap. And I thought people should hear that stuff, because it's just, you know, so it has Bob Gaddy on it, it has Rose Melody, who used to sing with him all the time, it's got Candy MacDonald, it's got Dave Maxwell, it's all these people. I mean, I wish it had Steve, and I wish it had Jerry on it, but these were the people that played with him at that particular gig and it's really exciting too because the the people in the prison were going crazy It was what Paul was all about when he was in New York. The sound isn't fantastic, but it's good enough sound that you really hear the mood like you would hear on Live at the Regal for B.B. King or something like that. It's got that real energy. And there's beautiful playing on it. There's more stuff in the can that I want to put out. There's something he did with Little Sammy Davis where he's playing guitar. I want to get that out, so I have to work all that out. but you know he did so much great stuff what can I say
SPEAKER_02:yeah well done for getting that out and carrying on with that stuff Lewis look forward to more coming out so at this juncture so I understand Jerry Portnoy's got to leave us shortly so we'll just come over to Jerry and Jerry just any final words you want to say about Paul his influence on you and the harmonica and blues music in general
SPEAKER_06:well he was just like I say his feel for the blues was unmatched I learned a lot from him a lot of guys you like I said myself Rick Estrin, Steve Geiger, Dave Waldman in Chicago and he was very influential and he had something special as a musician that you it was something that you couldn't be taught or learn or practice it was just he was just a natural and I really miss him there's a He appears prominently in the book I've got coming out next year. I miss him.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks so much for that, Jerry. So thanks so much for you joining. And obviously, great to speak to you and hopefully maybe speak to you about your book when it's coming out. That
SPEAKER_06:would be great. It'll be out in the spring of 2025. And anyway, I really enjoyed it. Good to talk to you again, Neil. And best to my buddies, Steve Geiger and Lewis Erlanger. Yeah, Jerry,
SPEAKER_05:we'll
SPEAKER_06:talk soon. Yeah. All right. Take care,
SPEAKER_02:guys. We'll see you. got to go thanks thanks jerry another thing i read about um paul is that he never considered himself a singer but there's a story i read about that he was a singer didn't turn up for a gig so he started singing the people didn't walk out so uh so he sort of figured you know he carried on and from there he sort of then you know decided to carry on singing more is that
SPEAKER_05:paul just had a distinctive sound when he sung you know
SPEAKER_08:Well, I could tell you that when we would record, sometimes I would say, well, why don't you try singing it this way? And he would say, well, you know, I've got to sing it the way I feel it. And, you know, this is my voice, and this is the way I'm going to sing it. So that's what he would do. He didn't want to put on airs or anything like that. He wanted to sing it the way he felt it. And I have to say, I will tell you this, there's quite a few women I know that really like the way he sings. So he's obviously getting across,
SPEAKER_01:you know, so.
SPEAKER_08:Well,
SPEAKER_02:again, it's all about he obviously had that great feel for the blues and he managed to get that across. So, yeah, so great stuff. So we touched on a few of the awards that he'd been given. I'll just run through some of them now. He won two handy BMA awards, nine handy BMA nominations, the Grammy nomination we've already mentioned, and also a Lifetime Achievement Award from Clarksdale, Mississippi. So he's recognized there. Obviously, he played plenty of chromatic harmonica as well through his albums. Do you know, Steve, is that something he started picking up relatively early, I think, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05:I'm sure Paul probably started the chromatic back when he was on the diatonic back in the 60s. He knew the chromatic was being played, you know. Yeah. You know, George Smith, Little Walter. were probably the two main chromatic blues guys on chromatic.
SPEAKER_08:He also co-wrote a tune with Mos Def. It was a big tune. He met Mos Def because Mos Def was one of the actors in Susan Lorre's play for a time. Mos Def was a huge rap artist. Huge. I mean, you know, multi-million selling records and stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:But it's interesting that Paul, Mos Def saw something in Paul's stuff that he wanted to bring into his own music. I thought that was interesting. You know, Paul kind of crossed over to all different kinds of black music.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I read something about where he sort of felt that, you know, like rap was the modern equivalent to blues, you know, that sort of energy and, you know, the themes, some of the themes of blues are in rap music as well.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, he had a great story he told me about how he was sitting in this little coffee shop And there was a guy, young black kid sitting next to him, who had his headphones on and he was doing, you know, singing some rap lyrics. And Paul turned to him and said, hey, what do you think about these lyrics? And he started singing one of Muddy's tunes. I forgot which one where he's singing. Anyway, it's a Muddy tune. And the kid said to him, wow, those are great lyrics. Where'd you get those? So Paul told him all about Muddy Waters. So this was was a kid who was into rap and paul's telling him that muddy's just as cool you know
SPEAKER_02:yeah definitely i
SPEAKER_08:thought that was a great story
SPEAKER_02:yeah and he's right too yeah so so let's just get on now to finish off on talking about some of the gear that you so we've always we've already talked a little bit about how he amplified his uh his harmonica played on a rack and lots of things he did in the sound so but he played honer harmonicas i think again back in the day they were you know there wasn't much choice so that honer was often the the one but um i think did he play them Do you know Steve through the 90s and 2000s?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I don't think Paul ever played any other harmonica but Homer's.
SPEAKER_02:I've heard a story where he claimed to have come up with the idea of the low F harp. Do any of you guys know anything about that?
SPEAKER_05:Well, he might have been the guy that created that, the low F. Because they also came out with the low E harp. just about every marine band now has a low low in there you know original was uh you know the low c that was uh what they called the big marine band
SPEAKER_02:yeah which of course sunny boy williamson the second played but the the story i read he was he was working with a tech from hona called andy pascas and paul asked andy to make him a low f harp and then um he said a year later hona came out with a low f harp so that's what i that you know that's what i read so um he may well have come up with the idea of the low f harp and and then like you say the subsequent other harmonicas in in different keys steve because obviously the the there was the kind of a you know the uh the low c's which were used earlier on by sunny boy and things
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah i did that on that that one record we me and paul did together it was called i gotta go now and i played the low low c on that the big marine when you listen to paul's piano playing behind me I don't know how to even explain it. It's just, it's perfect. He influenced every bit of my music. You know, I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for Paul.
SPEAKER_02:And do you know what embouchure he used, Steve? Was he a tongue blocker on the pucker or anything else?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Paul basically was a tongue blocker. You know, some people curl tongue. That's another way of doing it. And, you know, playing with the lips, you know, on certain stuff, you'd use the lips. You can do whatever you can do. Once you learn the tongue block, then you can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_02:And do you know anything about what amps or microphones he would use?
SPEAKER_05:Gosh, I don't know. I can't remember all the amps that Paul used to have, but he was very particular about the sound.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, there was one amp that he bought up here, actually. We went to this place that had all this old studio equipment, and he found this old... I can't remember, though, what brand it was. It might have been a... Steve, you had a little amp that I used.
SPEAKER_05:It was an Egyptian Skylark. I still have two of them.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_08:Well, I think it might have been some version of that that he brought up here, but there were two of them and he only picked out one because he said the other one didn't have the right sound. I thought that was amazing because they seemed exactly the same, but he heard something in one of them that was better than
SPEAKER_05:the others. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08:So, yeah, I mean, I don't know that much. I did want to mention, though, that he also played the bass harp. He used to sometimes hold it up and say, this is how I get that big sound, you know, because it's a big harp. But it was, he could really play the hell out of it. Oh, yeah. He does Round Midnight, I think it is. He does a beautiful version of that.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:he did an instrumental on I think it was an instrumental on the record that I did with Paul. A living legend. He blew that on air.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I remember that. That's a great tune.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I don't think there's an instrument on this planet that Paul wouldn't have messed with if he had the time and had heard it.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, and there's one thing I want to say too, and I think all the great blues people do it, and you do it too, Steve. There's a certain way that the sound really cuts the air when he would play. You could almost see it hanging in the air the way that he would. Every note Every note was intended. There was no baloney going on. Every note was intended. Even if he surprised himself, it was always good. I
SPEAKER_05:was going to remind you, Lou, you have that live... What was that one that I sent you?
SPEAKER_08:Was that at the Fugue?
SPEAKER_05:Live at the Fugue. I recorded that in the 70s.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:There's
SPEAKER_08:some great stuff on there. Yeah, I mean, I have to do something with that.
SPEAKER_05:I can't believe that I recorded it that well, that it came out that well. But it's a great thing. You know, eventually we should put it out, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, so just thanks so much for joining, guys. Obviously, Jerry, you had to depart a little bit earlier, Steve and Lewis. So any last thoughts you want to say about Paul?
SPEAKER_05:Me, I miss him dearly. To talk about him, I started remembering a lot of stuff that we did, and I'd forgotten when he was living in California. I never got out to see him in Texas. He influenced my whole music. I wouldn't be the musician I am today if it wasn't for Paul. That's all I can say about that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks, Steve. Anything from you, Lewis?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, I said a lot already, but he was the guy that pointed the way for me. He was the guy that I aspired my music to be as good as, because I thought he was the best, and he was a great guy too. He was not easy to get to know, but when you did, there was so much depth in him as a person and as a musician, that it's a real loss to the world that he's not here. And I miss his sense of humor, too. He could be a very funny guy. Very funny guy. I mean, don't you think so, Steve? Just talking about it, I remember so many funny things.
SPEAKER_05:You know, it's just when Lou was saying the depth of Paul's playing, that's the thing that really gets you, you know? There's a lot of great musicians out there, but Paul had this thing about, like, the intensity. of what he when he was playing and his recordings were like they were they were intense they were just You know, it's just, I don't know how to describe it any more than that.
SPEAKER_08:He had such a love for the blues and he never wavered from it. And he used to say, he used to say the blues was a gift because once he fell in love with it, it gave him a lifelong mission.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So thanks so much to Louis Erlanger and Steve Geig for joining me. And also, obviously, Jerry, who had to leave a little bit earlier. So thanks so much for sharing your thoughts about Paul Osher. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Jerry, Steve and Lewis for joining me today and sharing their great stories and memories about Paul Osher. Paul clearly left his mark on them as well as on the world of harmonica and blues in general, and he led the way for the explosion of white harmonica players that followed. As Lewis discussed, he is looking to put out some more material recorded by Paul. These will be available on the paulosher.com website, so look out for those. It will be great to hear some more of those takes that Lewis will be putting out. You can also check out the Spotify playlist linked on the podcast page to hear the full versions of the song clips used in this episode and to find what I've just discussed. I'll leave you now with the more jazzy side of Paul Osher playing a version of Miles Davis' Walking Dead.
UNKNOWN:Thank you.