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Post by whitefang on Sept 2, 2019 9:47:32 GMT -5
BTW--- I think it's kinda cool that you make some livelihood out of blowing harp. And it's even cooler there's folks willing to listen!  I was never part of a "working" band, the ones I was in maybe played a few parties for friends( and very little cash) and I'd do only one tune where my so-called harmonica "skills" were required, a "close as I can" copy of this!----   Whitefang |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2019 20:10:46 GMT -5
I tried to play the harmonica back in the day and I was sort of getting the idea, but decided I liked guitar best so I put my efforts there, but I like the sound of a good blues harp in the band (as long as I ain't playing it)  |
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Post by jbone on Sept 2, 2019 22:21:59 GMT -5
We are not "strictly blues" these days. Heavily influenced but starting about 10 years ago we began writing stuff more along the lines of Dylan, hank Williams, and others. We do a lot of covers from Memphis Minnie to RJ to Little Walter, Wolf, and Jimmy Reed, but also a Bowie here, a Pink Floyd there. Jawbone and JoleneWe've produced 3 projects from ideas to recordings to CD's. Kind of very cool to play your own work! |
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Post by whitefang on Sept 3, 2019 9:35:22 GMT -5
That's one issue I have with nearly any form of music----
When people(usually non-musicians, but more annoying when they are) generalize based on simple minded association. For example, I've heard more than on guy claim that John Lennon is blowing "blues harp" at the beginning of "Love Me Do"! I however, wouldn't go that far.....
But we all seem to draw our own conclusions, eh?
Whitefang
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Post by jbone on Sept 3, 2019 20:34:20 GMT -5
I get why someone would say that, and think it. The cross harp or 2nd position style is what most people associate with blues harp playing. I do a lot in 2nd and it's not all blues by any means. In all there are 12 positions a harp can be played in, but mostly people play in maybe 6. I use 3 positions a lot and dabble in one more.
John Lennon on Love Me Do played in a blues style, cross harp, but that is not a blues song.
Even a Sonny and Cher song had a nice harp part. Baby Don't Go was the title I think. But again it was not blues at all.
Harmonica has been a big part of popular music for a lot of decades. Even Grand Ole Opry had a harp guy way back when, DeFord Bailey. He played in straight or 1st position pretty much exclusively.
One that I love, and it happens at least a few times a year, is when someone hears us and describes us as Bluegrass. Nothing further from the truth! Memphis Minnie to Johnny Cash, David Bowie to Pink Floyd, Robert Johnson to Bob Dylan. WHAT bluegrass?
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Post by whitefang on Sept 4, 2019 9:50:18 GMT -5
So you see what I mean. But then too, people seem to be "splintering" the genres. When really it all just fits under one name. Recall these lyrics?---- "Hot Funk", "Cool Punk", Even if it's old junk; It's still rock'n'roll to me!" Like the "newest" of the splinters called "Indie rock". In an effort to gain insight to just what that is, I listened to music access that professed to play noting but "Indie rock", and what I heard was: The same kind of rock'n'roll music I spent hours listening to through the '60's, '70's, '80's and into the '90's for a time! Seemed to me that the "genre" of "Indie rock" encompassed several "sub-genres" of rock'n'roll.  Whitefang |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2019 10:13:50 GMT -5
Of course the blues harp is only one kind of harmonica, but it is the only one I ever tried to play. I did also have a chromatic harmonica but never bonded with it either.
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Post by jbone on Sept 4, 2019 13:55:38 GMT -5
There is much more to harmonica than meets the eye. Or ear. 100 years ago most people who played were playing it like it had been intended, as a straight 1st position instrument, doing cowboy songs and other stuff like popular (at the time) songs, chord or melody work. My grandfather was self taught, not sure at what age. I heard him when I was 3, doing San Francisco Bay Blues and Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out. Not long after I had occasion to hear him play much more, from marching songs to cowboy tunes, show songs, gospel and spiritual. He had emigrated from England at an early age and my guess is, he found harmonica to be an inexpensive way to learn and play among friends. He was part of a local ragtime band I think.
Just looking at how harp has been played in Europe, and here, is a big kettle of fish. Then if you listen to people in India and Asia you find some incredibly rich new ground that's been covered.
I've seen reference to the idea that Native Americans actually turned early slaves on the Mississippi River, onto the I-IV-V and the minor notes associated with the "blues idiom". I've seen native people doing songs and chants that are closely mirrored in early gospel and Delta blues as well. Then harmonica was brought into it since it was a very inexpensive catalog order kind of item, and somehow or other someone discovered the bent draw notes fitted with the minor guitar notes. I think that took place in the Delta, but also if you look at some mountain music you find interesting parallels, with fiddle or banjo instead of harmonica.
"Modern" popular music had harmonica all over it, from the 30's or so on. The old large harmonica groups who did vaudeville etc., had a direct bearing on later artists using harp as a viable addition in ragtime, jump/swing, and more "citified" blues a la guys like Muddy Waters/Little Walter and others. And from the 70's through the 90's guys like Norton Buffalo brought harmonica into movie scores, TV themes, and commercials. Not to mention his work with Steve Miller and others. This new interest in harmonicas is encouraging, but I doubt "real" music of any kind will compete for the tween/teen current electronic mess that's got young audiences all over the globe in thrall. Look up current R&B artists and despair.
Rant about over. My tastes are for much wider variety than cross harp bent notes these days. Harmonica is a truly adaptable instrument.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2019 14:52:37 GMT -5
I remember the Harmonicats on TV here is a version of The Orange Blossom Special. Those guys were big back in the 50's and 60's. I was duly impressed back in those days by that group. Looks like you will have to watch it on You Tube. just click on the link on the video below
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Post by jbone on Sept 4, 2019 20:40:24 GMT -5
Kim Field's book, "Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers" is a wealth of history about harmonica including those guys and many others.
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Post by whitefang on Sept 5, 2019 9:50:55 GMT -5
Interesting you brought up "mountain music", which consists of old folk tunes from Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, and other western and Eastern European countries brught over by settlers of the "new world" and over the years took many forms plus mixing and melding songs from several different origins together over a few centuries until it got rolled into one big form of music. And over time MORE music influences got thrown into the pot, along with everything you put together up there, and in the end( which is far from in sight ) we now have what we're hearing on radios and clubs all over town. I've heard some younger guys say, "I don't like rock'n'roll", but ask them what they DO like, they'll claim it's either what sadly passes for R&B these days, or Hip-Hop or whatever, but look sceptical when you remind them if it WASN'T for rock'n'roll, they wouldn't HAVE what they prefer instead! And too, eveyy now and then a harmonica is thrown in somewhere. Now, I mentioned my friend's Dad belonging to SPAH, and I remember every once in a while, he'd crack us up by pulling out his fancy looking Chromatic and playing "Hound Dog" or some other popular rock'n'roll tune. It did show the versatility of the instrument. Sorta like THIS guy!------- Whitefang |
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Post by jbone on Sept 5, 2019 10:50:24 GMT -5
You're spot on about the origin of "mountain music".
To me there is a sort of blue component to many different forms and genres, if it does not express feeling then what would be the attraction? Even the coolest- or coldest- of ethereal jazz got its start in boogie woogie piano, or out of urbanized blues riffs.
The earliest ancestor to a harmonica was a free reed instrument developed centuries ago called a sheng. Of course the concept was refined and polished into what we have today by some guys in Europe over 100 years ago. But the other descendants of the sheng are still used in Asia today.
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Post by whitefang on Sept 6, 2019 9:44:23 GMT -5
Well, if you wanna get the lowdown on musical "history", ya gotta get a reliable source! So, watch, listen, and learn! Whitefang |
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Post by whitefang on Sept 7, 2019 9:57:37 GMT -5
I remember having that on an orange 45rpm "Little Golden" record! And while traipsing down memory lane, THIS was an old 78 I wore out when I was a kid( the one shown wasn't mine, but looks just the same ) Whitefang |
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Post by whitefang on Sept 25, 2019 9:58:11 GMT -5
My wife used to make a big deal out of this guy(Mickey Rafael) who used to blow harp for Willie Nelson. Sadly, I couldn't find a good clip that more illustrates his playing, and you'll have to wait for the 1:20 or 2:20 mark to hear him...
Whitefang
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I was never part of a "working" band, the ones I was in maybe played a few parties for friends( and very little cash) and I'd do only one tune where my so-called harmonica "skills" were required, a "close as I can" copy of this!---- 
