BACKGROUND & INFLUENCES

"I remember at some point choosing to use slide because it could be so
expressive, squeezing up to notes and drawing them out with vibrato. I've always listened to horn players as well as guitarists, and in many ways I was trying to
imitate the tone and phrasing of a saxophone. I was also fascinated by the potential
to play independent lines on the guitar, maybe incorporating walking bass lines
into an arrangement, or adding inner voices leading the ear through chord resolutions,
while still playing the melody above. Eventually these two aspects came together ..."

While Paul's musical ability is impressive, he does not like to turn performances into a showcase for special tricks.

"I have some techniques I haven't seen anybody else use," he says, "but they have to be integrated within the music or else it doesn't communicate to anyone but a guitar buff. The guitar playing has to be supporting the song, and the vocals are the most important part of communicating with an audience."

In performing 'covers' he tries not to do 'carbon-copies' or 'museum-pieces', but rather aims to put across the spirit of the original, staying true to the words, melody, etc whilst adapting the song to suit his own voice and guitar style.

"I once read an interview with a famous guitarist, I forget who, saying he'd been influenced by every single guitar player he'd ever seen. I think that's true for myself, and I'd also have to add some jazz horn players, because when I started playing the guitar one ear was tuned to Hendrix and Clapton, while the other was listening to Parker and Gillespie."

"As far as direct influences that can be traced in my playing, for bottleneck style I certainly owe a debt to Ry Cooder and Elmore James, as well as Duane Allman and Lowell George on electric and pre-war acoustic players like Son House, Charlie Patton and Casey Bill Weldon. I also absorbed a lot from the semi-electric solo styles of Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker, and artists like Fats Domino, Slim Harpo, Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed; I particularly liked their sense for melody and lyrics. Over the years I've listened to a lot of jazz musicians, and I still get a buzz hearing Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, and keep coming back to recordings by Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Django."

"I consider live performance vitally important, for me that's the most satisfying part of being a musician."

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