SINCE ARRIVING on the scene in 1999 with his debut album Eclectic Impressions, guitarist/songwriter Chaz De Paolo has exhibited a passion for the blues that set him apart from his contemporaries.
Growing up in Kearny on the New Jersey shore in the 1970s, he was heavily influenced by the Italian, Irish, and Scottish immigrant populations and his early years were spent listening to the rhythms of their language and song.
“My mother ran a dancing school and she rented out the studio to an Irish dance company,” Chaz tells me. “I got to see a lot of Irish dancing as a kid and the constant rhythm of the jigs and reels was something that very much fed into my playing style.”
De Paolo’s mother was a Rockette on Broadway and encouraged Chaz to pursue a life on the stage. However the area where he went to school was known as ‘Soccertown, USA’ and Chaz played alongside future professional players such as Tony Meola, John Harkes, and Tab Ramos.
“Soccer was actually my first love before music,” he says. “I had season tickets to the New York Cosmos in the 1970s and 1980s and got to see some of the greatest players in the world like George Best, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, and Pelé play.
“I grew up five minutes from Giants Stadium but I’ve never been to a professional American football, baseball, or basketball game because it was always soccer for me. I played for a feeder club for a semi-pro league and some of the guys I grew up with such as Tab Ramos and John Harkes went on to play for teams like Real Betis and Sheffield Wednesday. I slowly got more and more into music and as soon as I picked up a guitar I knew it was the thing for me.”
New Jersey has a diverse musical heritage with Frank Sinatra, Debbie Harry, Bruce Springsteen, and Bon Jovi among its most famous exports.
“I wasn’t really into any of that music much,” Chaz recalls. “I was more into what my older brothers and sisters were listening to - people like Commander Cody, James Taylor, The Eagles, and a lot of acoustic stuff. Actually when I first took up the guitar I played acoustic fingerstyle and really admired the purity of it.”
In the early 1980s Chaz’s close-knit community life was ripped apart when two of his siblings died in tragic circumstances.
“My brother was killed in a drinking and driving accident and a month after that my sister was murdered,” Chaz admits. “That happened when I was nine-years-old and as the years passed I had a lot of problems dealing with their death and dealing with my own mortality. The song ‘Pearly Gates’ on this current album has helped me deal with a lot of those feelings.”
For many years Chaz battled with alcohol addiction and depression but playing the blues helped him through many of his darkest days.
“Playing the blues is very healing for me,” he admits. “Anyone who has ever seen me play live knows I’m not in it for the money. I put all my emotions into a performance and it almost becomes part of who I am. Bluestopia is the closest into the blues I’ve gotten so far”
The album has five of Chaz’s own highly impressive compositions such as ‘Woman In A Black Dress’, ‘You Know My Baby’, ‘It’s Not You It’s Me’, and the aforementioned ‘Pearly Gates’. It also sees him pay homage to his heroes by including cover versions of songs by Albert King and Roscoe Gordon.
Through his playing and singing over the past decade this rising artist has channelled his melancholy and sadness into something truly positive and uplifting.
Chaz De Paolo will officially launch Bluestopia in Galway in October. See www.chazdepaolo.com
