Re: Paul Delay, James Cotton, Mark Hummel, James Harmon

["mark wilson" <markwilson53@xxxxxxx>]

> I'm going tonight to see this at the Blue Cafe in Long Beach...
>
> How was it last night Mark?
>
> ~Donnie~

It was a harp players orgy.  Due to a wild coincidence I was seated directly
across from a guy (Hello Dennis)  who attended a David Barrett Masterclass
with me this summer in Hawaii. We had 2 or 3 other harp players at our table
as well.

Everyone put on a good show.  The stand outs to me were Paul Delay and James
Cotton.  Paul played with the crowd, cracked some good jokes, and had a big
smile on his face all night.  He played some very unusual creative stuff on
the chrom and diatonic and really let it rip a few times. He definitely had
a captive audience.  He did something I had not seen much before.  He'd
relax the cup on his bullet which would let some of the higher frequencies
through and his harp would really scream, loud enough to compete with the
guitars. At one point he went from a tight cup, to a loose cup, to no cup
with his harp directly in front of his vocal mic, then right back to a tight
cup all in about 20 seconds. Spine tingiling stuff. He's still playing Big
Rivers.

The master Cotton came up last.  He slowly made his way up to the stage and
without saying a word sat down and played a screaming instrumental without
going below the 5 once.  This was followed by a soulful moody version of
Quarter to Twelve.  Then Mark Hummel came up and sang while Cotton played
harp.  I only heard him speak once and  his voice was almost completely
gone. I don't think he could have sung if he wanted too.  You could tell he
missed it because he was lip syncing along with Hummel during the vocals.
He hasn't lot it at all on the harp though.  I'm really gald I had a chance
to see him before he's gone.

Junior Watson was the guest guitarist last night.  Keep your fingers crossed
that he plays the Blue Cafe tonight because that man can play.

Your gonna have fun tonight Donnie!

Mark