'By the skill of his teeth': Allan deLay interview, 1996


As a supplement to my CulturePulp comic, "The last time I saw Allan deLay," here's a slightly edited version of the original story I wrote after meeting the musical-saw maestro in December 1995. Posted courtesy my former employers. (Photo courtesy Keith Graham.)




By the skill of his teeth

80-year-old musical-saw impresario Allan deLay mingles music, photography, the Boy Scouts, and high-diving — among other skills — into a life of international adventure

By Mike Russell
The Clackamas Review, Jan. 4, 1996
_______________

Upon entering Allan deLay's shrubbery-encased home, you might think he's just eccentric.

The interior design could be classified as "Contemporary Packrat" -- the result of 80 years (deLay's age) of collecting. The walls (and the stairs, and the floor) are concealed behind hats, boxes, hand-crafted hangings, 30-year-old black-and-white portraits … and you run across the odd fencing foil, chainsaw, or giant mobile of 56 clock faces (one of which still tells time) on the way to a chair.

One also notices an inordinate number of handsaws.

Then you take a closer look. One of the boxes, labeled "Beatles Press Conference," is filled with professional stills of the Fab Four's Portland appearance -- not to mention original photographs of young Elvis Presley. The back of each photo is stamped with deLay's name. The gallery-quality portraits hung amid the clutter are also, in fact, deLay's.

One of the stacks of paper comprises deLay's to-be-sent Christmas cards. Inside each is a color Xerox of the octogenarian climbing Mt. Hood -- his 13th ascent -- last July.

It also becomes apparent that the hats -- among them a traditional Middle Eastern cloth headdress -- are authentic souvenirs of deLay's American and world travels.

And the handsaws? DeLay plays a flawless, haunting accompaniment to a recording of "The Christmas Song" by bending one of the saws and stroking its edge with a bow. It's masterful.

Swimming-fit and more lucid than most twenty-year olds, deLay offers a thoughtful defense of his clock mural.

"These clocks regulated how many people's lives?" he asks. "They woke up an awful lot of people -- made a lot of people late."

DeLay has parlayed the lost musical art of saw-playing -- and quite a few other skillsets -- into what he modestly calls a "door-opener" to a life of travel and adventure.

• • •
"When I was 12 [in 1927], there was a carpenter building a house a block from mine," recalls deLay. His voice betrays his age, but his storytelling is succinct. "My friends and I would wait until he was gone and play on the site -- running around, that sort of thing. The carpenter would amuse us by hitting the saw with a block of wood, so it'd make that 'boing boing' sound."

Young deLay's interest was piqued.

The story jumps ahead a few years, to when he was working as a delivery boy. There were saws downstairs at work. "To kill some time," he says, "I'd get a stick with rubber bands and make sounds on the saw. I'd take my lunch breaks down there where no one would hear.

"I was playing along with the radio -- Guy Lombardo, Lawrence Welk…. My mother was a music teacher, and she would coach me, help me stay true to the music."

Mom -- who played a bizarre instrument called the theremin -- bought him a custom musical saw for $10 from some people for whom she was making a dress. He still has the instrument/yard implement; the blade is now chrome-plated and has a velvet carrying case.

His first true "gig" took place at age 16 in the Milwaukie Grange, accompanied by pianist and friend Vic Lockyear. They reunited at the Grange this year, on the 64th anniversary of their debut.

DeLay was stationed in the Aleutians during World War II as part of the Army Air Corps, and his saw came with him. Tell deLay his music is haunting, and he replies, "It'll also put you to sleep. The guys in the barracks would say, 'Get out yer saw, deLay.' I'd play for an hour, and everyone would be asleep."

Fortunately, the instrument's entertainment value wasn't lost on the brass. He auditioned for and won a place in a troupe -- christened the "Arctic Antics" -- which played 183 shows throughout Alaska from July of 1944 to May of 1945. DeLay played saw on such standards as "All of Me," "Melancholy Baby," and "The Way You Look Tonight." During the Antics shows, he would appear in drag as "Miss Cold Bay."

• • •

DeLay has an impressive collection of musical saws, a few of which he actually uses in his yard -- making this perhaps the only musical instrument that could theoretically be used to create another.

Not every saw is well-suited to music. "The thing in finding a good saw," he says, "is in finding a good, even piece of steel tempering. The molecules have to line up. It almost happens by chance." He recommends a Stanley Handyman standard 26-inch saw as "excellent to start on."

DeLay's finest instrument is a bit more advanced. The "Sandvikers Stradivarius," imported from Sweden, has a custom handle and an approximate two-and-a-half-octave range. It's filed down on the teeth side to spare the pants of the user. DeLay has never once cut himself playing.

He uses the thumb of his left hand, with the saw braced under his right leg, to bend the saw into an S-curve. (His thumb is permanently bent back from 64 years of this activity.) He can either play the resulting instrument by hitting it with a tiny mallet -- a simple slice of garden-stake with felt padding on the ends and coat-hanger wire for a handle -- or by sawing the smooth top edge with a well-resined three-quarters practice bow with nylon string. He wobbles his left leg for vibrato, although most saw players use their more-inefficient bracing leg.

"With the saw edge you get the sharp notes," he says. "With the back side you get the flat notes."

The reporter writes this down dutifully.

"That's a joke."

The resulting sound is uncanny. It sounds very much like the theremin deLay's mother played -- the first electronic musical instrument, often featured on the soundtrack of '50s sci-fi movies.

The sound -- combined with the sight of deLay extracting it from a handyman implements -- is genuinely, beautifully eerie.

• • •

Perhaps the apex of his musical career came when he performed two nights with the Oregon Symphony in 1974. DeLay played a part (originally written for the flexitone) in the Khatchatarian Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. He also had a solo.

Legend has it that deLay -- to this day unable to read sheet music -- was handed his part in writing by then-conductor Laurence Smith. Rather than reveal his illiteracy to a major symphony conductor, the guest artist bought a recording of the concerto and learned it by rote. Perfectly.

In a letter, Smith later described the Khatchatarian experience to deLay as "great fun."

• • •

DeLay's national and world travels -- he claims to have set foot in some 47 countries and principalities, including Monaco, Israel, and Hong Kong -- often had nothing to do with his music, though the saw came with him on all trips.

He worked as a freelance photographer, following a 1946-59 stint doing photo work for the •Oregonian•. His freelance work took him around the world -- with the New Oregon Singers (for whom the saw sang) and as official photographer for 14 national and world Boy Scout Jamborees. A scoutmaster until four years ago, deLay is starting his 69th year of continuous registration in the Scouts.

"I can very easily claim to be one of the oldest Scouts," he says. "I still teach, demonstrate knots. I'm an expert at making a fire with a spindle and bow."

He'll also be traveling to Sheffield, England in 1996 to compete internationally in Masters-division 10-meter diving. He's currently ranked fourth in the world in his age division.

"I'm getting some professional coaching now," he says. "At my age, it's really just a matter of staying alive and healthy. I could belly-flop and win if nobody makes it there."

• • •

DeLay tells a story of traveling in Tahiti with the New Oregon Singers. He's known among the locals of the Tahitian island of Moorea as "Papa Noel," and once brought over a footlocker full of candy, clothing, and other treats for the children. He sported a Santa hat.

"I was taking a walk around the island, taking nature shots," he recalls of one particular trip. "Whaddya do? It's Tahiti. And I ran across some native fellows. They didn't speak any English, but they knew who I was, and one of them made this hand-gesture of me playing the saw and made the [musical] noise -- 'whooo, whoooooo.' So I used my most universal English -- you know, 'okay' -- and I sat on a palm stump, and I put on a little show for them. It was kind of neat. Here's this thing I picked up as a kid -- and now I'm entertaining Tahitian natives.

"What a wonderful, fun thing it's been."
_______________

Related links:
CulturePulp 047: The Last Time I Saw Allan deLay
The Clackamas Review
_______________

Permalink to this post


Posted: Thu - January 4, 1996 at 10:36 PM        

|

©