Criminal Records in the Press

From the Cascade Blues Association Website
Link here

This documentary on the history of the Portland blues scene was compiled a couple years ago and had a premier viewing at the Portland Art Museum in January 2010. Since then many people have begged to see it again and better yet, have it released as a DVD. Well lucky fans, here you are. Portland Mojo: How Stumptown Got The Blues is now available on DVD and it is well worth the wait for anybody who wants to know more about the music’s history in the area or die-hard fans of Portland blues.

It is really so much more than just the history of the blues in Portland. It starts off giving you the history of the city itself and sadly the racist attitudes of the founders and following public at large. It also tells the story of how laws were changed to allow for music to be performed in taverns and how that created a boom for musicians, and again sadly how it has waned over the succeeding years. It is not just a story of Portland; it offers the rise of blues in Eugene and then its migration to the bigger city.

The interviews in the film are priceless and include heavy-weight artists such as the late Paul deLay, Lloyd Jones, Pete Karnes, Curtis Salgado, Bill Rhoades, Duffy Bishop and others. Charlie Musselwhite even appears in several spots relating his appreciation for the city’s musicians, as do non-musicians of note like Terry Currier and Ray Varner. (Special hint, watch the credits at the end as they throw in more short clips and the one of Curtis talking about Otis Rush is priceless.) Live clips of the artists are scattered throughout with rare footage of Brown Sugar and performances at various venues like the Trail’s End, Lefty’s, and several clips of the Bill Rhoades’ benefit show held at the Cascade Bar & Grill. Of course the Waterfront Blues Festival serves as background for a number of the performances also.

A big hand to Bob Leitch for creating a well-told documentary on a blues scene that may have escaped many peoples’ knowledge outside of the region. It will definitely bring back some fond memories and make you sad knowing what had to transpire before and the future’s bleak outlook in many ways in not just the local scene, but everywhere with live music. This film is highly recommended.

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From the Portland Tribune Website
Link Here

'Sugar' sweetened blues
Portland’s Criminal Records returns to musical life with a big bag of deLay history
By Jason Vondersmith

It all started when Paul Jones was off serving the country in the U.S. Air Force, a Vietnam-era draftee. It was the late 1960s.

As the story goes, one day when members of his former band Moxie gathered to jam, a fresh-faced teenager from Milwaukie High School strolled into the room, and picked up the harmonicas of Lloyd Jones, Paul’s brother and the group’s replacement drummer, and started blowing. At the end of practice, the harmonicas went out the door with the kid, who went on to practice them every day, barely stopping to eat and drink.

The blowing didn’t stop until Paul deLay had become one of the world’s preeminent harmonica players, before succumbing to leukemia in 2007 at age 55.

Today, his former bandmates and colleagues are setting out to bring deLay’s legacy back to life. Paul Jones, former bassist Don Campbell and producer Ray Varner, have given rebirth to the Criminal Records Northwest label that produced 18 records in the 1980s, many of them from the late, great Paul deLay Band.

While it’s unfair to say the blues in Portland began with deLay, the music hit its stride when deLay joined the newly formed band Brown Sugar with bassist Al Kuzens, guitarist Jim Mesi and drummer Lloyd Jones. The band performed up and down the West Coast in the 1970s.

Criminal Records Northwest, run by Paul Jones through most of the 1980s, plans to go back in time with its initial project, which debuted with the release and publicity of Bob Leitch’s film, “Portland Mojo: How Stumptown Got the Blues,” at the recent Waterfront Blues Festival.

Tribune Photos: Christopher Onstott • Criminal Records Northwest organizers Ray Varner (below, left), Don Campbell (center) and Paul Jones (right) have re-started the music label, focusing on the late Paul deLay’s first musical venture.

A CD of early Brown Sugar songs — live and recorded — will be made, as well as a DVD of band performances and television appearances and a book. Along with the Brown Sugar stuff, Criminal Records Northwest plans to re-issue several of its records.

Along with producing five Paul deLay Band albums, Paul Jones also guided the band on a European tour and through 50 shows opening for B.B. King. Criminal Records also put out D.K. Stewart’s first album, “Sun Valley Sessions,” and Paul Jones, after living in Hawaii for three years, re-incarnated the label and put out records for J.C. Rico and Steve Bradley. Jones also produced “All My Friends Can Sing,” a collaborative album with the Northwest’s topnotch blues musicians.

Varner got the thing going, wanting to re-start the label and make available a somewhat lost part of Portland’s music scene.

“I’m a retired teacher, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do, and I have two friends who are highly qualified,” says Varner, 65, and a player in the Eugene-Portland-Seattle blues scene of yesteryear. “I called them up and said, ‘Hey, records were cheap to make back then, let’s try it again!’ ”

The label intends to pursue new recordings, including a gospel CD, Varner says.

“At some point, yeah, we’d love to do some local projects (with bands),” says Campbell, 56, a freelance writer who still plays bass with much aplomb, most recently with Ron Rogers and the Wailing Wind. “But we have enough on our plate with the historical stuff.”

COURTESY OF CRIMINAL RECORDS NORTHWEST • A significant act in Portland blues history, Brown Sugar of the early 1970s featured (left to right) guitar player/singer Lloyd Jones, sax player Danny Fincher, guitarist Jim Mesi, bassist Al Kuzens, drummer Bob Lyon and harmonica player Paul deLay.