Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Any members on this forum who play the harp? I do, and I have a Brian Jones style of harp playing down. I can nail "Not Fade Away", "Good Times, Bad Times", "Little Red Rooster", "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man", "High and Dry" and all the songs with Brian on harp, but I have trouble doing Beatles and Who songs. (The Who's "Join Together" for instance, but that's cos it was played on a chord harp) Dylan songs, I find, aren't that hard.

Play a bit kinda the Stones/Beatles style also....tough around here though as Charley Musselwhite and Norton Buffalo live in the area

I have tried to play harmonica but seem to be a perpetual beginner.

I still get confused trying to cross harp on minor Blues progressions. I don't even have many of the keys. Just a couple harps.

Fortunately there's a kid who I've had sit in a couple of times who is already excellent on blues and very enthusiastic about the harp players I've turned him onto (James Cotten, Jr. Wells, Butterfield, etc).

I'm afraid I'll probably never get it down as most people who've heard me try to play harp sort of glaze over and walk away.

The harmonica is a powerful musical instrument that you can carry in your pocket. I cannot believe that I did not carry one of these around when I was a teen. There are great fun and a very soulful instrument.

I'll bet Charly G. knows his way around a blues harp...

whenever I play one my dog wants to jam, so I'm limited to songs we both know

I don't play but I have backed some of the best out there including Phil Wiggins of Cephas & Wiggins, R.J. Mischo, Mitch Kashmar, John Nemeth and Doug Jay. Harp can be a hideous instrument in the wrong hands ...... or mouth. It can also be an extremely expressive instrument with as much a voice as any tenor sax. All the guys mentioned above can seriously play this thing.

If you really want to expand you vocabulary Jake, I'd suggest listening to guys like Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, George Smith, James Cotton, Junior Wells and Sonnyboy Williamson; John Lee Williamson not Rice Miller or known as Sonnyboy II. All are very expressive players and both Little Walter and Big Walter were instrumental in bringing the blues harp to where it is today. Once you grasp that, the next step is to listen to the phrasing of horn players for ideas. Dennis Gruenling of Philly is a master at this; the guy was copping Earl Bostic alto lines a few years ago and it sounded fantastic!

On an aside, Delbert McClinton told me that he was the guy who showed John Lennon how to play the lines that you hear on "Love Me Do". They'd met when Del was a teenager touring Britian with Bruce Channel in the early '60s on the success of "Hey Baby". If you get a chance, compare the two songs side by side and you'll hear the influence for yourself!

The keyboard player in my band plays harmonica.