Episodes
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The great living player, protege of George Smith and perhaps the greatest master of double cross harp.
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The precision, the tone, and the underlying swing! Out of Chicago, also sitting that Muddy Waters harp chair.
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Missing episodes?
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Richard Salwitz of the J. Geils Band, the inventor of rock n roll harmonica. My all-time harpgod.
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The great living master and creative force of the blues harmonica, Paul Butterfield's non-evil twin.
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We have reached our rendezvous with blues harp racial destiny!
The two documentaries mentioned are "Horn from the Heart" and "Born in Chicago" -
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The great player and mentor of masters (Rod Piazza, William Clarke, James Harman) George 'Harmonica' Smith, never quite adequately recorded. And his astonishing friend the criminally underappreciated Big Mama Thornton. "Me and him have been scuffling a long time."
Gunsmoke Blues
https://youtu.be/_ATwmyuhmeY?si=-T_By5lQJvJKeqwB
Big Mama Thornton and Big Walter! (and John Lee Hooker!)
https://youtu.be/GX8f70FW3lU?si=_G--_fYYjF6yfSQa -
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The greatest of blues improvisers, as he showed on the London Muddy Waters Sessions.
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The furiously rocking god of blues harmonica!
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The incredibly right player and maybe the greatest blues singer I ever experienced.
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The fine rack players, born mid-1920s, with classic songs galore. Big Boss Man. Baby Scratch My Back. Sorry about audible incoming emails. I can do better.
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The great Big Walter Horton, also known as "Shaky" and "Mumbles". Perhaps Little and Big Walter are the two greatest "classic" blues harp players
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Rice or Alex or Alec Miller, Little Boy Blue, or SBW2: A real asshole, seemingly. But one of the handful of greatest music artists of the 20th century. Help me, baby!
I screwed up when I said that his band included Jimmy Rogers. Robert Junior Lockwood! -
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Episode 4: The great Piedmont/country/acoustic/folk blues master Sonny Terry.
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The very different but related country/blues styles of Opry star Deford Bailey (1899-1982), an incomparable virtuoso, and incomparable influence John Lee Williamson (1914-1948), known as Sonny Boy 1 (Rice Miller, Sonny Boy Williamson 2, swiped the name, but was an even better player).
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bonus episode on why the diatonic harp is ideal for blues. country and other folk or roots genres, and a bit about how i learned to play circa 1971.
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By acclamation, the greatest blues player ever to blow a harmonica. Here are likely future episodes:
Sonny Boy Williamson 1 and 2
James Cotton
Junior Wells
Sonny Terry
Magic Dick
Paul Butterfield
Carey Bell
Jason Ricci
Charlie McCoy
Mickey Raphael
Deford Bailey
George Smith
Rod Piazza
Kim Wilson
William Clarke
Charlie Musselwhite
Jerry Portnoy
Lee Oskar
