Torontonian Paul James began his illustrious music career in that "blues
mecca" ever since he was a teenager, going back to the mid-70s. He has
variously shared bills and performed with such artists as Bo Diddley, John
Hammond, Ronnie Hawkins, Muddy Waters, Lighnin' Hopkins, Buddy Guy & Junior
Wells, John Hammond, Spencer Davis, Johnny Winter, and even Jack Scott. A
chance meeting with Bob Dylan in 1986, at Nag's Head North, led to
reciprocated onstage guest appearances with the legendary figure in Toronto
in 1996 and in Buffalo in 1999, not to mention an ongoing friendship. Paul
is hoping Mr. Dylan will make good on a suggestion that the two players
record together. Who knows? Perhaps they still will.
Not one to hang on the coattails of others' fame, Paul forged ahead with his
own talent, winning a Juno award in 1991 for "Best Roots & Traditional
Album", as well as Toronto music awards for "Best Club Band" and "Best
Blues Artist". While he's equally comfortable playing in clubs or at
outdoor festivals, if anyone gave out awards for "Best Wedding Musician", he
'd probably win a few of those, too, as he is very often called to do this
dirty deed (although hopefully not dirt cheap!). A father of three, he is
not one to rest on his laurels and hustles his own bookings wherever they
can be found.
While he's certainly got a rock'n'roll heart, his soul lies in the blues.
Apart from an entire CD devoted to Acoustic Blues (and titled exactly that),
his all-original Electric Blues recordings on Lazy Crazy Blues stand as
precursors to his "Red Hot Mama" as well as Willie Dixon's "Red Rooster",
both contained on his newest release, La Vie en Bleu.
We began our conversation speaking of the good ol' days of blues gigs in
Toronto "and the thing about it that was great was that they would all play
at least a week, with a matinee on Saturday, so you were in an intimate
setting and you could go out a couple of nights a week if you liked what you
saw, and the cover charge was, like, two bucks". Yonge Street's infamous
Colonial Tavern was also mentioned, where Paul was amused to learn I had
first heard a young Jeff Healey play in the very early '80s.
When I enquired about a picture of him and Leon Russell, Paul told me he had
opened for Leon and Edgar Winter at the "Phoenix of the Diamond Club", a
reference to the venue's name change and stated that he had opened for
Johnny Winter, as well, expressing sympathy over Johnny's health problems.
Edgar Winter is now associated with a website organization known as "Blues
Idol" (along with Marino de Silva and Larry Cohn). I told him that a
proposal by the group to launch a "Blues Idol" competition is being
challenged in court by the makers of "American Idol" (who ostensibly own the
rights to "Canadian Idol" as well). Incredulous but interested in the
competition, Paul stated "I should try for that.I think they should be able
to do that...really.that would be good."
I expressed my own incredulity that there is no all-blues radio station in
Toronto, considering that it is the "Blues haven of Canada". "TV stations
go up to 200 or 300 and you get the same thing on every one. I mean, even
the Muchmusic, you know, there's MuchMore Music. It seems to be much more
of the same stuff. It's supposed to be a little bit different. On the
Galaxie Blues TV station and my complaint about having to constantly grab
the remote and click "Info" to read the credits (as the screensaver blanks
out after a few seconds), he replied, "Well, that's the blues, eh?"
When I questioned him about the numerous references to R&B in the CD review
section of his website, stating I thought his music was "99% rock'n'roll",
he answered that "Chuck Berry was rock'n'roll but they put him in R&B.there
is so much stuff that is called 'rock'n'roll now that.I do the kind of rock'
n'roll that comes directly from the blues like a doctored Jimmy Reed which
was electrified Robert Johnson, I think, in a kind of way, a different
dimension.
He now prefers to sell his CDs (cheques/money orders only) through his own
website, basically in order to control costs, but also to avoid losing his
merchandise, particularly when a store closes, as in the case of Sam
(Sniderman) The Record Man. Alluding to a possible, but reluctant, deal
with PayPal in the future, he says, "I'm a man who wears many different
hats.there's less chance of cardiac arrest this way. Once you've got stuff
out there and it's being distributed, [a person] can make 25 copies here and
25 copies there, they've got these little machines.you can do.lots of
bootlegging now. He was fascinated when I mentioned there was technology
already in place that could prevent a CD from being copied (e.g. Madonna's
or Sarah MacLauchlan's) or even destroy a computer's hard drive when
attempts are made to copy certain material.
Over the years, he has played several times in Hamilton, which he claims a
personal liking for. "It's quiet there."
On juggling his career with family responsibilities, "I'm not on the road as
much as I used to be. In the old days I would book a tour and go up and
play Sudbury and Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay and work my
way out to Winnipeg and then Saskatoon and then to Edmonton and Kamloops and
Vancouver, Whistler, Victoria and then start working my way back. I'd go
down to Calgary and Regina, hit the bottleneck at Winnipeg again, Thunder
Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and then back to Toronto. It would take three months.
I used to do that once or twice a year and then go out to the East Coast and
St. John's. It was great. I loved it! I got to see the whole country.
That might have been at a point when I was single but then I did have a
family. But now, they're grown, so to speak, I mean they're old enough. I'
ve separated from their mom but I see the kids every second week; it still
works out. I mean, living in Toronto is great because you can play in a lot
of other towns and still sleep in your own bed.like Hamilton, Burlington,
Mississauga, Scarborough, Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo, Oshawa, Whitby,
Peterborough.it's all commutable. I can do that and every once in a while
fly out to Vancouver on a Friday, play Friday and Saturday night, come home
Sunday and then have the kids come over on Monday. I've got a band in
Vancouver, another in Calgary, a band in Edmonton, a band in Saskatoon that
I play with. When Bo Diddley came to town, I used to back him up all the
time. He used to come into town just by himself and then I became his
Toronto band and we'd some other gigs as well. We'd go as far as Montreal
and around, you know.when we played at the Rib Row in Hamilton, those were
my regular Toronto players. Former Bottle Devil drummer Henry (Diclemente)
is new to the band, for just over a year."
On the music business, "It's crazy, but it's alright. You've got to like to
travel and I do."
On his Juno win: "I won for 'Best Roots & Traditional Artist'. I mean,
call me whatever you want. The kind of rock'n'roll I do, I suppose, is from
the '50s and '60s. Now the '60s stuff is 40 years old. I still call it
rock'n'roll.I don't know, they got names for everything, like Hip-Hop, Heavy
Metal, so."
On playing at (Jeff) Healey's in August: "Every time I've played there, he
usually shows up and plays with me. I've played with Jeff tons of times.
There was a time I did a house gig.I had a few house gig periods.it was
during the winter time 'cuz I didn't want to be on the road too much.the
marquee could have included Jeff's name, as he used to show up there so
often to play. It was sort of like an offer you can't refuse...
Diane Wells
(www.geocities.com/ddrocker)
"Rockin' the Blues from Canada"
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