GaGa

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Other Side of the Ocean	3:51	Play
2		GaGa (Boogie #3)	4:43	Play
3		I Love My Baby	6:41	Play
4		Where'd You Sleep Last Night? (Hommage to Hubert and the Wolf)	4:36	Play
5		Good Thang (I Don't Come Cheap)	5:20	Play
6		I Miss Jimi (trilogy)	6:32	Play
7		Go Figure (Hang Time)	4:07	Play
8		Cell Phone Blues	4:33	Play
9		Mojo Come Home	5:56	Play
10		Mail Order Mojo	3:20	Play
11		Bonus Cut - Hold That Camel	5:18	Play

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Paul Cooper Bio

Who is Paul Cooper?

Paul Cooper is an amazing solo Blues touch guitarist and vocalist who has developed his unique style after immersing himself in the Blues and all forms of music since his early childhood.

Born in Philadelphia, PA in 1952, he took lessons on violin and piano from the age of 4. Paul first picked up the guitar at the age of 13. He rapidly taught himself guitar, after which he formed a band, the Pawns, that led to an early gig, opening for Diana Ross and the Supremes when they visited Philadelphia. During his teens he also played bass in a jazz trio.

Following high school, Paul took off from the United States and spent almost two years traveling through Europe, North Africa, Greece, Turkey, Iran, and finally ending up in Afghanistan before returning to the United States all the while playing guitar in the funniest of places, such as the Tangiers Hilton in Morocco and in Afghanistan at the American Cultural Center. Upon his return to the United States, he spent two years in Atlanta, Georgia, where the Blues found him in the form of the "Howlin' Wolf London Sessions" album and the chance to meet and even jam with Howlin' Wolf and Hubert Sumlin who were in town playing six nights that week, two shows a night at a local club. Paul attended every show. Hubert Sumlin, who was going to leave the Wolf and form a band with Paul, introduced the 21-year old Paul to Freddy King as his "protg". These Blues legends were immediately followed a week later by the Muddy Waters Blues Band. Paul was there all six nights, two shows a night (over the years Paul played with the Muddy Waters Blues Band on at least nine occasions.) The Muddy Waters band was immediately followed by the Willie Dixon band, who played the club for six nights, two shows a night. Again, Paul was there for every show. It was like an intensive master class in the Blues. Through these Blues greats, Paul became enthralled, impassioned, and hooked on the Blues.

Louisiana Red, after jamming with Paul in Atlanta, invited Paul to come to New York City the next week to record with him on his new album. That's when Paul started working with Sugar Blue in the New York City Blues Band, which Paul convinced Sugar to rename as the Sugar Blues Band in order to help his friend gain more recognition. Shortly thereafter, they recorded an album for Victoria Spivey's label, called "New York Really Has the Blues" (1974). They played the streets everyday (they were the first to have battery powered amps) and played clubs at night like Max's Kansas City. This lasted for two years at which point Paul went to Chicago with his friend and fellow guitarist, Brooklyn Steve Freund.

On the first day of arriving in Chicago, Paul played with Hubert Sumlin, Eddie Shaw, Detroit Jr., and Chickenhouse Shorty, at Howlin' Wolf's 1815 Club on the Westside. Paul then played with Homesick James at Elsewhere on Lincoln on the Northside. This clinched it, and Paul moved to Chicago where he became totally immersed in the Chicago Blues scene, working with many of the great Bluesmen like Sunnyland Slim, Freddy King, Tail Dragger, Big Leon Brooks, Big Walter Horton, and many others. Louis Myers, who did all the guitar parts with Little Walter, called Paul one day and invited him to join his band, asking Paul, "why would I hire you to play in my band when I am a guitar player myself?" Paul didn't know how to answer that one. Louis continued, answering his own question, "because I plan to play a lot of harmonica and I think that you're the best guitarist in Chicago for accompanying Blues harmonica." Paul was totally floored. They played to a packed house at Wise Fool's Pub. In addition to Louis and Paul, the band consisted of A.C. Reed on saxophone, Odie Payne, Jr., on drums and Bob Stroger on bass. There were days that Paul would wake up thrilled because his own band would be performing that night consisting of such Blues luminaries as Fred Below on drums, Hubert Sumlin on guitar, Dave Myers or Bobby Anderson on bass and at times S.P. Leary or Odie Payne, Jr. on drums. Over the years, Paul played and appeared with Magic Slim, Jimmy Rogers, Frank Jr., Willie "Mr. Guitar" Lyons, Big Moose Walker, Good Rockin' Charles, Jay Bird, Dogman, Eddie "Playboy" Taylor, Brooklyn Steve Freund, Otis Rush, Jimmy Johnson, and many other Blues greats.

In 1978, Sugar Blue asked Paul to go over to Paris, France for a three-month tour that turned into eight years of success in Europe. Paul's decision to remain in Europe was prompted in part by Eddie Shaw's advice while passing through Europe on tour with the Wolf Gang, "Paul, if you're making any money at all over here, stay, all the musicians are starving back home."

While working in Europe, Paul played many of the major festivals and was Memphis Slim's last guitar player up until Slim's death. Paul also played with Booker T. Laury (Memphis Slim's brother, a great pianist and singer), Albert Collins, Luther Allison, Willie Mabon, Kaz kasanoff, Dave Maxwell, Guillaume 'Honky Tonk' Petit, Steve Potts, Vic Pitts' Night Peoples (a Funk and Soul band), and also made a gospel tour with Lavelle in France. Paul's own band, the Paul Cooper All-Stars, was an eight-piece band with horn section, harmonica, keyboards, bass, and drums with Paul leading, singing and playing guitar. Maurice Cullaz, President of the French Academy of Jazz, arranged a worldwide radio transmission on Radio France, from La Maison du Radio, of the Paul Cooper band. Maurice later wrote, "that the concert was the great success of our season, and I assure you equally of my recommendation to other producers and organizers of concerts and of festivals so that the public of music lovers, Parisian and French should be able to hear Paul Cooper the most widely possible." Paul crisscrossed Europe with these different bands and artists playing in France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

During this time, Paul would fly in occasionally and play in New York City, where he headlined at Dan Lynch's. In 1984, upon the death of his brother, Ira, Paul returned to Philadelphia, PA, his hometown, where he met Bluesman Willie Phillips. Paul toured with Bluesman Willie's big band up and down the East Coast, Canada and even went to Greenland. Paul returned to Europe for two more years.

Craving sunshine and American television, Paul returned to the United States from Europe in 1987 and was immediately drafted back into the Bluesman Willie band playing many festivals and clubs with the band. He opened each show playing and singing to great reviews.

While in Paris, Paul witnessed Jim Lampi playing the Chapman Stick and was enthralled. Vic Pitts looked at Paul and told him that he would be doing this on guitar one day. After returning to live briefly in Philadelphia, PA, Paul had a flash of inspiration, and in a millisecond saw everything that he had been doing on guitar translated into two handed tapping and knew that he had a lot of work ahead to bring this new style into the real world. Paul channeled his obsessive compulsive musicality into translating all that he had learned over the years into what would become the encyclopedia on how to approach a two handed tapping technique -"Touch"- with the rhythmic demands of the Blues. This had never been seen or done before. "GaGa", his recording of 1998, represents the culmination of years of uncountable hours of intensive wood-shedding. It's the future and the past, here and now! There were no teachers for this, Paul had to create this style by himself. Audiences, young and old, were stupefied with his mastery of this original style. Comments like - "it's not possible", "incredible", "you play like a god", "great", and "how excellent" are heard regularly at every one of his appearances both here and abroad. Recent performances have included such locations as Paris, France, Geneva, Switzerland, and in Washington, D.C. at the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian Institute. Recently he played in Oakland and Petaluma, California, where he wowed audiences. He has taken what used to be the other musicians' parts of his eight-piece band and plays these all at the same time - SOLO. You hear the bass lines, the rhythm guitar, the solos, the horn section, all while Paul is singing at the same time! Plus, he's got a sense of humor. Totally awesome.

On "GaGa", Paul wrote all the songs and created the cover artwork. You've never seen or heard anything like this! On his track entitled, "I Love My Baby," Paul unveils 'touch slide guitar' for the first time in recorded history. His tribute to Jimi Hendrix "I Miss Jimi" was, in the words of one reporter, Dennis Holstun, writing a review of a Los Angeles concert at the prestigious Le Cafe:
"Paul was able to float us all...out onto the lucid sea of memory and vision that only Hendrix could paint... Paul moves right along investigating some of the uncharted regions between the 9th and 15th frets of his quad soap-bar Les Paul. Meanwhile his left hand knocks out bass lines lower on the neck. It sounds like two guitars. He uses no pick, but "intones". You'll love it. The sweet mix of Paul's stage innocence and bold approach to the guitar is a freshness you look for... "Mojo come home" and "Where'd you sleep last night?" make this young player a guy you will enjoy seeing. What may be ahead for Paul if I get the clues he drops so easily into songs already being performed on 8 levels... is more solid accomplishment in split verse single/double time and added syncopations perhaps only he hears. Everything is safe however, because of Paul's inherent talent for phrasing."

Paul Cooper Bio by Marta Rothwarf September 2005


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Read more about Paul Cooper...

Paul Cooper Sets Paris Gig
By Rod Richardson in Free Voice, Paris, France 1984

"Every night Monday through Thursday, from 9:00 to 12:00, Paul Cooper assumes the identity of mild mannered disk jockey Johnny Mars on Paris' only all English-language radio station KLOD (96.6 FM). But on other nights he changes costume and becomes 'Super Guitar Man', as he flys on stage with the best bluesmen in Paris. In recent months he has played with Memphis Slim, Albert Collins and Magic Slim, to name just a few of his musical co-pilots.
Paul Cooper has just put together a new band, the Paul Cooper All-Star Blues Sextet - a blues, funk and soul band, which includes Vic Pitts, Titus Williams, Guillaume Petite and Vincent Buscher. His group will be performing every Friday and Saturday during May at the Cloitre des Lombards, 62, rue des Lombards (10:00 p.m., 60F).
When Cooper steps up on stage with his glasses glinting in the spot light, he seems in the throes of an electric ecstasy. Rapid fire audio sparks hurl their way to the audience's ears as he pounds on the heavy gauge strings of his blue Gibson Stereo guitar. As he rocks back and forth, his rapidly gliding fingers create a whirlwind shower of very hard and heavy blues sounds that leads one listener to observe, "He's not playing from his guitar, he's playing from his body, from his soul".
Paul Cooper in concert is an extraordinary experience and the Paris audience will have the opportunity to hear this virtuoso bluesman on Friday, March 6, 8:30 PM, at the American Church, 65, quai d'Orsay, Paris 7e (admission is 30FF).
Paul's musical training began early. At age 5, he was taking lessons on both violin and piano. When he was thirteen years old, Paul recounts, "The Beatles were just out. I was up at summer camp and I was very lonely. I had the blues." So, to cheer himself up, he got a friend to show him a few chords on the guitar. "I picked it up real quick. It was like very natural to me to play guitar, " Paul recalls. He soon became the lead guitarist of his first band, the Pawns, who played "all the old time rock stuff," Beatles songs, and soul. About the same time, he also became the bassist of a jazz trio.
He was living in Atlanta when the blues finally got him, in the form of a record album, Howlin' Wolf London Sessions. Paul relates, "I had never heard of Howlin' Wolf at the time, but this record had all the English rock stars, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts. It was these people that attracted me to this." As it turned out, Howlin' Wolf and his band were playing at a local club and Paul had the chance of making friends with the band and jamming with Hubert Sumlin. The following week Muddy Waters and his band played at the same club. In the band were two young white musicians, Jerry Portnoy and Bob Margolin, who were only a few years older than Paul. Befriending them and playing with them, Paul realized, "with a lot of hard work and studying of the blues, I, too could have the opportunity to play with all these heavy blues people."
Paul moved to New York. Two years later he finally went to the blues capitol, Chicago. He became deeply immersed in the scene there, playing and learning from such bluesmen as Big Walter Horton, Big Moose Walker, Homesick James, Tail Dragger, Dave Myers, Louis Myers, Fred Below, Big Leon Brooks, and others.
In March 1978, in response to a letter from Sugar Blue (who had already been in Europe six months), Paul came to France, starting work his first night here with a gig with Sugar at La Vielle Grille. But working in clubs in Paris is not always lucrative, so Paul would play in the metro during the day.
Now, however, those days seem distant. "It's starting to get easier. There's more gigs coming up for my band and some tours coming up," admits Paul. Perhaps next month he will be starting on his own album. "After three years of touring in France, Spain, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, I feel that, before I go back to the States, it's important for me to make my record, " Paul states."


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Read Paul Cooper's note to Hubert Sumlin's Guest Book, 2005:

I love you Hubert. I pray for your good health and a long, happy life. Thank you for believing in me and inspiring me at such a young age, thanks to you I've had a wonderful career as a blues guitarist. When I was 21, you were still with the Wolf, you introduced me to Freddy King as your 'Protg.' You told me one day I'd be in Chicago, long before I knew my destiny, and when I got there you put me right to work in your band with Tail Dragger, Chickenhouse Shorty, Chico Chism, Eddie Shaw, and so many other friends like Big Leon Brooks, Frank Jr., Willie"Mr.Guitar"Lyons, and led to me working with Louis and Dave Meyers, A.C. Reed, Fred Below, Big Moose Walker, Odie Payne Jr, Dogman, S.P.Leary, Jaybird, Bob Stroger, Big Walter Horton, Homesick James, Goldie, Muddy, Bobby Anderson, Sunnyland Slim, Dimestore Fred, Luther"guitar Jr." Johnson, Pinetop, Calvin Jones, Willie"Big Eyes"Smith, Jimmie Johnson, Magic Slim, Nick Holt, Daddy Rabbit, Luther Allison, Albert Collins, Freddy King, Willie Mabon, Good rockin Charles, Louisiana Red, Detroit Jr...it breaks my heart to go on with this because so many of these beautiful people are no longer alive, but still in my heart. When I went to Europe with Sugar Blue, I had no idea that I would be Memphis Slim's last guitar player right up to his death...Thank G-d you are still alive, please stay well until we can meet again. It was such a pleasure being interviewed numerous times by William Romano for your biography. I'll never forget the uncountable times we played together at David and Thelma's on the west side or Kingston Mines - you were always so kind and generous to me, even turning down a tour of Europe because they insisted on an all black band and you stayed loyal to me. The way you smiled when putting on a guitar before the music, I do that too. The way you smiled and bowed and didn't even count or look at the money when I was embarrassed about the small amount my gigs would pay when we split the shares - I follow your example to this day! Those were cold winters in Chicago, you were always warm...I remember when the neck on your Rickenbacher snapped from coming in from the cold! But, we never missed a gig...the good old 1815 club, you made it my home. Oh please live forever! Our paths must cross again soon. I need for you to hear the monster guitarist you made out of me. Your music is in there - you'll recognize yourself flowing through it mixed with everybody else...Now I'm getting to be an old man, 53 years old, and my beard is gray, I still play my guitar everyday. I love you Hubert and I hope you get this message, know that you gave me a life that I love, and included me right from the start. I can lose a lot of things, but nobody can take my precious memories away of you and all these beautiful people that you brought into my life. Sincerely, and deepest "Thank You", your 'protege', Paul Cooper