Reviewed by: Megan Gillis from 'The Recorder and Times'

Paul James' guitar licks are so blistering even Bob Dylan is a fan.

The crowd-pleasing blues and rockabilly guitarist is no slouch as a storyteller of the blues, the roots of rock 'n' roll and how he came to meet his hero either. It was 1986 at a Scarborough club called the Nag's Head North. Still playing his wireless guitar and clad in a signature ruffled purple tuxedo shirt, James wandered over to the bar and ordered a drink. 

"It's a little shtick I have," He explains. "I was playing with one hand and drinking a beer with the other hand. This guy steps in front of me, His face is a foot in front of me.
It's Bob Dylan." 

James whispered that he wouldn't tell anyone Dylan was there. the grizzled folk icon asked to join him on stage. "He says introduce me as a hitch-hiker from Vancouver," James said. "We
played a two-hour set. After that, we went back to my place and sat on the floor and played the guitar until 10 in the morning. Dylan kept calling for Toronto gigs and a few years ago invited James up on stage in Buffalo to play Highway 61 and Like a Rolling Stone in front
of a massive stadium crowd. So it's no surprise that those tunes turn up on the Paul James Band's new disc, La Vie en Blue. After releasing discs of acoustic blues and original tunes, it's a collection of the Juno and Toronto Blues Awards winning guitarist's most requested tunes. It's masterful guitar turned to a rock and roll station rooted in the blues, long before the bloated stadium rock of the 1970s and the glossily overproduced offerings on the dial now. There's a trio of Dylan songs - listen for It's All Over Now Baby Blue, too - a version of Louie Louie with intelligible lyrics and some Stones, including Sweet Virginia and Satisfaction. Then throw in Chuck Berry's Carol and Willie Dixon's Red Rooster and four original tunes for good measure. Best of all is Hey Now Rosie, a new James composition critics point to for cooking along nicely to a Fred McDowell/R.L. Burnside riff. 

"Sometimes you have to go back and get in touch with all the roots," he said. That's where I've been - that early rock 'n' roll stuff. I try to make it work for the 2000s. 

"The early days of the Rolling Stones and the Chicago Blues - I always thought that was the best stuff.

Everything built up to that, that was the high point. After that, everything went down.

" The rock gods of the 1960's listened to the blues - Paul McCartney famously on American short-wave radio - then played fast and sweaty rock on the club scene. After 35 years as a
professional musician - "I'm sort of the age of Stevie Ray Vaughn if he was alive" - James says he's stayed true to his first love. "A lot of people follow the trends," he said. "I pretty much stayed where I am and tried to get better at it. I would say I do what I do well.
When I get up to play, I have a really good time. "It has nothing to do with pyrotechnics - it's the performing and bringing it right down to the basics of early rock 'n' roll. There's' magic to that music. If it wasn't for that music we wouldn't know who the Beatles or the
Rolling Stones or Dylan are."