PORTLAND - Blues harmonica player Paul deLay, a fixture on the Oregon music scene for more than three decades, died Wednesday at a Portland hospital of leukemia. He was 55.
Bass player and band member Jimmy Lloyd Rea of Baker City, Ore., said that deLay had been in and out of hospitals for a decade, but that traces of the leukemia were not reported until about 48 hours before he died.
Paul deLay recorded a dozen albums. His last show was with his band on Saturday, a benefit at Klamath Fall's Ross Ragland Theater. Guitarist Pete Dammann said deLay felt ill after the show and thought it might be from the band's recent trip to Mexico. Doctors diagnosed late-stage leukemia and deLay went into a coma.
In the early 1970s deLay and others formed an electric band called Brown Sugar and played the West Coast, laying a foundation for Portland's reputation as a blues city.
The Paul deLay Blues Band formed in 1976 and toured for more than a decade. It is reported that deLay battled alcohol and cocaine problems.
3/7/2007 - To go to the official Paul Delay website click here:
http://www.pauldelay.com/home.ihtml
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