This is an amazing recording for the breadth and intensity of the songs, not to mention the vast styles combined with a sparse yet really diverse instrumentation. I didn't know Paul could play such moving gospel songs, either-- and especially on the melodica, which sounded like a smoking B3! His chromatic harp playing is also totally brilliant-- haunting and mysterious but with the kind of power that Little Walter had on songs like "She Moves Me". He just takes his time on everything, and it makes the entire cd extremely enjoyable. Most of all, I like Paul's sincerity in his songs, they just cut through with so much feeling. I kept thinking: this must be the kind of blues Paul used to play alone in that apartment in Brooklyn....Anyway, this is a great cd, and it puts to shame all those over produced tourist-trap blues recordings that are afraid to really stick their necks out. In short, Paul's a serious muh-fuh. Buy this and support the real blues and this great record label!

For the uninitiated, Brooklyn-born Paul Oscher was the harp player in Muddy Waters' band from 1967-1971. During these four years, he also learned blues guitar by watching Muddy and Sam Lawhorn. While sharing a house with Otis Spann, he learned blues piano. All his musical influences come together on his latest release on the Electro-Fi label, "Alone With The Blues." This is indeed an apt title, as fully twelve of the seventeen cuts here feature Paul as a virtual "one-man band," as he plays piano, guitar, and neck-rack harp to really convey the feeling of one man literally "alone with the blues." Paul reaches into a mixed bag of musical influences, too, mining not only blues territory, but gospel and jazz as well. Listen to the plaintive vocal on "Louis Collins," along with some fine accordion work, putting a new spin on the Mississippi John Hurt original. "My Sweet Suzanne" also has a Cajun feel, but what sounds like an accordion is actually a harmonica, Paul playing both the melody

Given his multiple talents, Paul Oscher has a surprisingly low profile in the blues world. In 1967 Oscher became the first white member of the Muddy Waters blues band and occupied the harmonica slot there until 1971; his reminiscences of his time with the band were some of the most compelling in Robert Gordon's Muddy bio and documentary. Since then he has spent much of his, time playing in his native New York as "Brooklyn Slim" and recorded intermittently for a variety of small labels. Naturally, the experience in Muddy's band shaped Oscher's musical outlook. Aside from drawing from Waters' great harp players, Oscher also developed into an impressive Waters-style electric slide guitarist, and plays piano in the vein of Otis Spann, with whom he shared the basement of Muddy's house. Although this CD sometimes echoes these influences, it's mostly a low-key affair that spotlights Oscher's skills as a solo per-former. Eight of the seventeen tracks were recorded several years ago in Toron

Paul Oscher, a young, skinny white harmonica player who in the late ‘60s had worked his way into the world’s last great blues band, is playing for keeps. Muddy Waters was in peak form back then, burning down stages around the country with a group that included pianist Otis Spann, bassist Calvin Jones, Pee Wee Madison and Luther Johnson on guitars and drummer S.P. Leary supplying the crucial tombstone beat. Oscher, all of 18 years old, had taken a spot previously filled by Little Walter, Junior Wells and James Cotton in Waters’ lineup. Needless to say, the pressure was on. This was a band that could slice up the competition with their eyes closed, laughing while they laid waste to all comers. The Muddy Waters crew played Chicago blues, the kind that would curl your toes and tear up your heart, and that’s just on the opening number. By the end of the evening, their music defined whole worlds of hurt, finally leading to happiness of the kind usually delivered by religions and other right