Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Something a little different for episode 110 (and also episode 111 so I can keep the length around the one hour mark).The next two episodes are a compilation of all the ten minute question answers from the series so far, in this, the 110th episode (get it?)Not every episode had a ten minute question, such as the retrospectives, but most did, 96 in fact.So I hope you enjoy listening back to this collection and apply some of the tips and tricks offered by the great players who have been on the ...

Clint Hoover joins me on episode 109.Clint is originally from Minneapolis and has spent a life immersed in music and the harmonica. He’s reached great heights on both the chromatic and the diatonic. Early on he also studied guitar and saxophone and attended a jazz course in New York City where he also took chromatic lessons from Robert Bonfiglio. His eclectic mix of interests has led him to recording albums in genres from pre-war blues to modern jazz, to rock, pop and World Music. His fi...

Roly Platt joins me on episode 108.Roly is a Canadian player who has recorded countless sessions over his 45 year career. He started out playing in a country band which set the scene for him playing a diverse range of genres throughout that time. Roly has recorded 1700 individual session cuts, with the numerous bands he has played in, and also various film, tv and commercial jingles.Roly ecorded his own album in 2017, Inside Out, where he showcased his versatility by including a range of diff...

Yotam Ben-Or joins me on episode 107.Yotam is a chromatic player who attended the Tel-Aviv Music Conservatory, making a name for himself on the Israeli music scene before winning a scholarship to study at The New School for Jazz in New York, age 21.Although predominately a jazz player, Yotam is keen to emphasise the diverse range of genres this encapsulates, including world music and South American influences on his music. Yotam has previously released two albums under his own name, wit...

Eddie Martin joins me on episode 106.Eddie has been described as the ambassador of British Blues, having released seventeen albums over his near fifty year career, with many of the songs self-penned by Eddie. He started out as a one-man band, but also performs as part of his own bands too. In either format Eddie makes extensive use of rack harmonica, and is one of the leading players of using a rack, while also playing some hand-held harmonica as well. Eddie gives us some great tips on playin...

Paul Barry joins me again on episode 105, for another look at the life and career of the great William Clarke.Paul has now released his biography: Blowin’ Like Hell: The William Clarke Story, writing it from insights he gained from Bill’s wife Jeanette, and Bill's children, and the musicians who played with him, as well as many others.Bill dedicated his life from the age of sixteen to become the bluesman he dreamed he could be, and he worked extremely hard at it. He honed his craft from woods...

Mike Turk joins me on episode 104.Mike is a Boston-based player who started out playing blues harmonica, inspired by the great Paul Butterfield, before becoming interested in playing jazz on the chromatic. He recorded some session work in New York and recorded through the 1970s with various artists, with many of those tracks available on anthology albums Mike has put out. He released his first solo album, Harmonica Salad, in 1991. Mike went on to record several more albums, with a letter from...

Konstantin Reinfeld joins me on episode 103.Konstantin is a German who comes from the overblow school of harmonica, studying music at a conservatory and taking lessons from Howard Levy as part of his early development. He released a jazz album at age 18, with two more albums to follow before releasing a classical album played on the diatonic harmonica, for which he won a German Grammy award for classical music. On top of this Konstantin is a music producer, including producing his own recordi...

Christian Marsh joins me on episode 102.Christian is an Australian who plays both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. Starting out playing diatonic, Christian drew inspiration from players such as Norton Buffalo and Charlie McCoy, absorbing as much harmonica as he could lay his hands on . He picked the chromatic up a few years later after hearing Toots Thielemans play, and even went on to maintain Larry Adler’s harmonicas while he was touring Australia.Christian is a mainstay on the A...

Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101.Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn (with it’s 4000 holes). He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons for several years, and then folk music. Neil currently plays in two bands around his local area, an acoustic act playing blues and folk, and an electric band playing different genres, such as ska and funk and blues, including use of the DM48 midi chromatic.He has won three categories of com...

Episode 100 is a retrospective on the greatest ever blues harmonica player, Marion Walter Jacobs, aka Little Walter.Little Walter was born in 1930, probably, and started playing harmonica age 8. He was busking on the streets of New Orleans by age 12, spent some time in Helena, before heading north to Chicago to make his indelible mark on blues and the harmonica. Little Walter teamed up with Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers and cut some classic blues recordings before he went out under his own na...

Dennis Gruenling joins me on episode 99.Dennis is originally from the New York area, where he began his love affair with record collecting, listening to a wide range of music, from country to rhythm and blues and beyond before it all came together when he heard his first harmonica on the great Harp Attack album. Dennis cut his teeth with the support of local harp players before releasing his first album, Jump Time, featuring the jump swing style of his early output. On this, and su...

Michael Pettersen And James Waldron join me on episode 98.In this episode we talk about the iconic Green Bullet microphone, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024. Michael is the Director of Corporate History at Shure microphones , and he tells us about the early design of the mic, what it was used for and about how it took years before Shure became aware that it was such an important mic for harmonica players. James runs SimpleMics.com, where he rebuilds vintage harmonic...

Vitor Lopes joins me on episode 97.He is a Brazilian chromatic player who specialises in Choro music.Vitor tells us about the history of the harmonica in Brazil, starting out when Hohner opened a factory there in 1923, which later became the Hering factory. The availability of harmonicas in Brazil made the instrument very popular and spawned some tremendous players.In 2008 Vitor was awarded the APCA prize for the best Brazilian musician of the year. He has recorded several Choro albums with h...

Paddy Wells joins me on episode 96.Paddy is based in the north of England, where he started out as a singer playing a little harp before hearing amplified harmonica, which really turned him on to the instrument.Paddy is also a freelance music journalist, having written regular articles for several music magazines in the UK, including Blues in Britain. He also wrote an article, Blowin’ Off The Dust, for the SPAH magazine. Paddy has also spent some time travelling the US, including sitting...

Michael Rubin joins me on episode 95.Michael moved to Austin as a young man, initially as a blues player. He found that by diversifying the genres he played on harmonica he became much more in demand in the vibrant music scene in Austin. He added to t his versatility by playing different types of harmonica, including plenty of chromatic in addition to the diatonic being his main axe. Michael has also recorded on bass harmonica and the harmonetta.Michael has gigged and recorded with numerous o...

The interview with Jason Ricci continues on episode 94, part 2.Jason shares how he has matured into his music, including on his 2021 album, City Country City, playing jazz, funk and blues with New Orleans musician Joe Krown. Jason goes on to share what he considers to be his best work on harmonica, and the elements that make up a great performance.He’s recorded two albums with JJ Appleton, and Bad Kind is Jason’s current band, having released two albums so far, and a new album coming out...

Jason Ricci joins me on episode 93 (and on episode 94)In part one: Jason tells us how he started out in a punk band, with his bandmates suggesting he take up the harmonica. Of course, he took to it quickly, to become quite possibly the leading diatonic harmonica player of his generation. After initially developing his blues playing via the classic players, Jason moved to Memphis and developed his signature fast licks under the guidance of Pat Ramsey. Then, after getting into jazz and a b...

Erland Westerstrom joins me on episode 92.Erland is from Sweden, where he studied Swedish folk music on the harmonica at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, with Filip Jers as one of his teachers there.Erland released a solo harmonica album in 2020, Andas! (Swedish for breathe), where he makes use of drones, polyphonic rhythms, tongue spilts and other techniques to create self-accompaniment to the melodies of the traditional tunes he plays.Erland’s latest band is with the trio Västanvind...

Tom Halchak joins me on episode 91.Tom tells us how he grew his successful company, Blue Moon Harmonicas, started in 2009. Tom started out selling custom combs, and then covers in different materials and colours. Tom went on to develop his customisation skills to offer fully fledged custom harmonicas using his Blue Moon product lines. Tom also started offering pre-war Marine Band harmonicas for sale. These hand-crafted harps have stood the test of time and with some improvements by ...

Tom Ellis joins me (again) on episode 90.This is part two of the Paul Butterfield retrospective where Tom takes us even deeper into Paul’s career and talks us through more of his incredible output.About how Butter, while paying his due respect to the greats before him, took the blues in a new direction, with his experimentation and innovation.Butter’s music and bands evolved as he developed, with the best musicians joining him to provide a bedrock to some of the greatest harmonica ever record...

Mike Stevens joins me on episode 89.Mike is a Canadian who made his name playing Bluegrass harmonica, performing with some of the biggest names in Bluegrass and playing at The Grand Old Opry over 300 times. Mike toured with Bluegrass legends, Jim & Jesse McReynolds, and recently played two songs on harmonica at Jesse’s funeral. Mike won the Canadian Bluegrass artist of the year for five consecutive years, and released a Bluegrass book with Hal Leonard.But Bluegrass isn’t his only genre, a...

Jim Hughes joins me (again) on episode 88.Jim is a chromatic player who was last interviewed on the podcast in October 2020, back on episode 26. He is now at the grand age of 93 years young, and he shares the wisdom he has developed over many years of playing the chromatic harmonica.Jim has has become blind since the last interview and after being a life long sight reader has now had to learn how to play by ear. He shares how he has adapted to these new challenges and is finding new joy in pl...

Paul Harrington joins me on episode 87.Paul has a long and illustrious recording career, having had great success on the vibrant session scene in Dallas where he recorded on many commercials. He also played on the hit song Timber by rapper Pit Bull, possibly the most listened to song with harmonica in the last decade, with over one billion streams on Spotify. Paul met and performed with many great musicians on the Dallas music scene, becoming the go to harmonica player for famed record p...

Marcos Coll joins me on episode 86.Marcos is a Spaniard who has been living in Berlin for the last twenty years. Marcos rose to fame at a young age on the Spanish blues scene playing with the Tonky Blues Band before forming the the Los Reyes del KO band, touring the world and sharing the stage with many famous names.Moving to Berlin in 2004, Marcos became a regular on the vibrant blues scene in Germany and recorded with many great artists.In addition to playing blues, Marcos likes to mix mode...

Ed Hopwood joins me on episode 85.Ed is from the UK where he started out playing drums and he shares some tips on how to bring some rhythm into our harmonica playing. Ed loves early styles of harmonica and performs a range genres, including jug band, early blues, cajun, bluegrass and old-timey music. Ed has a one man band show where he plays harmonica, guitar, sings and a whole host of percussion instruments. He’s brought many of these skills to his main band, The Rigmarollers, a trio wh...

Hendrik Meurkens joins me on episode 84.Hendrik is a German chromatic player who has been living in New York since the early 1990s. Toots Thielemans was Hendrik’s inspiration to take up the chromatic and he performed a live radio show in Germany with Toots. Hendrik is also a vibraphone player, which he studied at the Berklee College of Music. Shortly after this he spent a year in Brazil to immerse himself in the music there. This helped him form his brand of Brazilian music, Samba Jazz.Hendri...

Annie Raines joins me on episode 83.Annie is an early pioneer as a female blues harmonica player. Hailing from the Boston area of the US, she drew on the rich source of harmonica inspiration from nearby Cambridge, regularly attending a jam there in her youth, and meeting many great players and joining the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra. Annie then teamed-up with her long time musical partner, Paul Rishell, after also meeting him around the Boston area. They have now been performing and re...

Steve Guyger joins me on episode 82.Steve is from the Philadelphia area of the US and he absorbed the blues harmonica players when he first got into playing, with John Lee Williamson a big early inspiration. Steve was also great friends with the late Paul Oscher, making three albums with him. Steve also teamed up with the legendary Jimmy Rogers, over the course of fourteen years. Steve has released five albums under his own name, with a great mix of diatonic and chromatic blues.Ste...

Ben Bouman joins me on episode 81.Ben is a Dutch blues player who always strives for originality in his playing, partly inspired by his admiration for the playing of Paul deLay. Ben’s current band is The Marble Tones, who took their name from the amplifier company, with Ben helping develop their range of harmonica amps.Ben also helped Seydel prototype their steel reeds before they released them some fifteen years ago, and he tells us all about polishing and profiling steel reeds, his own busi...

Todd Parrot joins me on episode 80.Todd is a gospel harmonica player who was inspired to play harmonica after first hearing it in church. He went on to join the church band and has gone on to develop a heavenly tone on the instrument. Todd listened to a lot of country harmonica and was influenced from several players from that genre, including Terry McMillan. Todd released a self-produced solo album, Songs From The Harp, where he learned to play several instruments to accompany his harmo...

Rocky Lok joins me on episode 79.Rocky lives in Hong Kong, where there is a vibrant harmonica scene. Harmonica is taught in many schools there, which is how Rocky got started playing himself almost 50 years ago. He went on to become part of the King's Harmonica Quintet which has played many prestigious concerts, including in front of an audience of twenty thousand, as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch procession and winning the group competition at the World Harmonica Championship in Tr...

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78.Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to release some great music in that genre. He’s also an expert blues player, has played chamber music, Arabic music and much more on both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas.Marko also runs the successful Berlin Harmonica School, where as well as one-to-one group classes he has some ...

Rob Paparozzi joins me on episode 77.Rob is based around the New York area where he started out playing in blues bands before quickly adding the chromatic to his harp arsenal. He took lessons with Robert Bonfiglio and then had Toots Thielemans giving him tips over the telephone. The versatility afforded to Rob by playing both diatonic and chromatic allowed him to enjoy a tremendous career on the session scene in New York, playing with many famous names including Dolly Parton, Randy Newman and...

Will Pound joins me on episode 76.Will first started playing harmonica age 10 to help with his breathing after he underwent two major heart operations as a child. Since then he has rose to fame on the English folk scene, being nominated for folk musician of the year three times. He now plays harmonica and melodeon, diversifying his musical output to cover many different acoustic genres.Will has released a number of albums with a range of quality musicians, with his last album spanning the tra...

Laurent Maur joins me on episode 75.Laurent is a jazz chromatic player from France. He first started learning diatonic before moving on to the chromatic to pursue his love of jazz music. He had some lessons with the French classical chromatic player, Claude Garden, helping to advance his technique. Laurent played with a few different bands, touring and recording albums with them before releasing two albums under his own name, and two with the Youpi Quartet. Laurent teamed up with the flute pl...

Richard Hunter joins me on episode 74.Richard has immersed himself in harmonica ever since he first picked it up at age 15 and has been pushing the boundaries of the instrument ever since. His first release was a solo acoustic harmonica album, composing most of the songs himself and making extensive use of alternate tunings and counterpoint, followed up by a second album along the same lines.Richard is a true innovator of using effects with harmonica and has created some great sounds using th...

Adam Gussow joins me on episode 73.Adam is a native New Yorker now living in Mississippi, working as a professor at the university there.Adam rose to stardom as part of the blues duo Satan and Adam in the late 1980s. They found their audience on the streets of Harlem, where they were briefly filmed and appeared in a U2 documentary and album. Satan & Adam enjoyed great success, playing together for 15 years, releasing three albums before disbanding in 1998, re-forming some years later and ...

Paul Reddick joins me on episode 72.Paul is a singer, songwriter and harmonica player based in Toronto, Canada. He rose to prominence with his band: Paul Reddick and the Sidemen in the 1990s. Paul describes himself as not a typical blues harmonica player, often using his sparse notes with heavy delay, while also making the use of complex patterns to build interesting rhythms. Paul developed his songwriting approach using the structure of poetry, and his insightful and thoughtful blues ly...

Juzzie Smith joins me on episode 71.Juzzie is an Australian who has a one-man band act with the harmonica pivotal to the sound. He has had over 200 million views of his online videos, starting out when a passer-by recorded him busking at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Juzzie started his one-man band after playing as the harp player in a blues band, and then teaching guitar and harmonica. This gave him a great foundation to lay down the rhythms for his self-penned laid-back bluesy folk. H...

Ricky Cool joins me on episode 70.Ricky hails from the Birmingham area of the UK, and drew great inspiration asa teenager from the American folk festivals which brought some harmonica greats to the city. Under his alter ego Ricky Cool, he went on to lead several successful rhythm and blues band, with Jamaican music also brought into the set. He also played harmonica in a band with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant! Ricky played harmonica and saxophone in most of these bands and this combinatio...

Herbert Quelle joins me on episode 69.Herbert is a German who worked as a diplomat for 40 years. This included 10 years as the German Consul in the US, where he met several distinguished harmonica names. With a deep interest in the harmonica, Herbert has researched the instrument to great depth, using this information to litter facts into his two fictional works centred on our beloved instrument. He tells us of the huge export of harmonicas from Germany to the US, and how the early marketing ...

Cheryl Arena joins me on episode 68.Cheryl is a blues player and singer from the Boston area. She integrated herself into the local music scene there by setting up a jam session near Berklee college, drawing in the great musicians from there. And then set-up another residency with guest musicians joining the house band. Her deep love for the music has taken Cheryl far and wide, and gave her the opportunity to meet and play with some of her harmonica idols, including Junior Wells. This led to ...

Erik Lekholm and Jason Keene join me on episode 67.Where we talk about the innovative DM48 midi chromatic harmonica, designed by Erik initially as a means to practise silently. He posted his creation on a harmonica forum and it soon gained interest, with people eager to purchase it. So Erik and his father started building and sold the first ones in 2017, with the updated version, the DM48X, coming out in 2022 .Jason Keene joins me in the second half of the podcast, to provide the perspective ...

Joel Andersson joins me on episode 66.Joel is an Irish harmonica player from Sweden, while also building one of the best reputations in the business for his harmonica customisation skills. Joel first fell in love with Irish music on the harmonica when he heard Rick Epping’s playing. He spent time in Ireland with Rick, learning both the music and the art of fine tuning harmonicas.Joel went on to release a solo harmonica album: The Irish Harmonica, where he simulates the sound of a fiddle ...

Joe Powers joins me on episode 65. Joe started out playing diatonic harmonica along with blues records as a teenager, before deciding to study music composition at college, taking up the chromatic there.Joe’s passion for dancing led him to Argentina and tango music, where he has become the current leading exponent on harmonica. He believes the chromatic harmonica is the perfect instrument for tango music, and talks us through how to play this captivating genre.Although known as the ‘tang...

Paul Barry joins me on episode 64. Paul is our resident expert on William Clarke, and is currently writing a biography about him.Bill (as he was known to his friends) was born in a suburb of Los Angeles, and starting going to the blues clubs in the south of the city, age 17. Bill met his great inspiration, George ‘Harmonica’ Smith, in 1977, with George showing Bill how to play that big old chromatic harmonica . Bill released his first album in 1978, with other albums following where he a...

Jens Bunge joins me on episode 63.Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo, before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielemans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band. He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band, and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material, as well as guesting on albums by other artists. Jens has travelled extensively, particular in Asia, where h...

Tom Ellis joins me on episode 62 for something a little bit different as we do a retrospective of the legendary Paul Butterfield, with Tom our resident expert. Born in 1942 in Chicago, Butterfield frequented many of the South Side blues clubs located there and even had the audacity to hire Howling Wolf’s rhythm section before going on to record his seminal album ‘The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’. His high energy form of blues launched him on the scene and he quickly followed this with th...

Will Wilde joins me on episode 61.A sixteen year old Will stole his first harmonica while at a party and proceeded to put the rock into the instrument. He first started performing with his sister, Dani, as the harmonica player in her band. But Will has always had ideas of his own and soon formed his own band, with elements of rock and a heavy, driving blues style.Will has a very active YouTube channel, with lots of tuition videos and great performances, such as playing the Free Bird guitar so...

Wade Schuman joins me on episode 60.Wade is the singer / songwriter and leader, and of course harmonica player, of the New York based 8-piece band, Hazmat Modine, with the harmonica playing a pivotal role in the sound of such a big band. In fact, there is often a second harmonica player in the band.Wade absorbed many musical genres from a young age, which helped shape the eclectic styles of music played by Hazmat Modine, from African, Asian, Klezmer, Caribbean, all with an American roots core...

Gerhard Mueller joins me on episode 59.Gerhard is the Product Manager for Hohner harmonicas, a role he has held for 28 years. His father worked as a gardener at the Hohner factory in Trossingen, and as well as getting his son harmonica lessons, he even had a hand in helping Gerhard land his dream job at Hohner.Gerhard talks us through the fascinating history of Hohner and how it was established as the leading harmonica brand in the world having sold over 1 billion harmonicas since the company...

Bertram Becher joins me on episode 58. Bertram is the Product Manager at Seydel harmonicas. He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called The Interactive Blues Harp Workshop. Bertram tells us about the history of Seydel and how their use of stainless steel reeds led to the creation of the ‘new’ Seydel around 2007. As Product Manager for harmonicas he has a very varied role, including creating web pages, selecting pitches for tu...

Mathias Heise joins me on episode 57.Mathias is a chromatic player from Copenhagen in Denmark. He started out playing diatonic, aged eight, before moving across to the chromatic, with which he was the first player to attend the Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. Mathias won the World Harmonica Championship in Trossingen at the age of 20 with his own composition, Sudden Ascent. The album containing this track won Mathias the composers competition ‘New Jazz Star of the Year’ in Denmark in 2...

RJ Mischo joins me on episode 56.RJ hails from the twin cities of Minneapolis-St Paul, where he developed his craft with a little help from local player Slim Lynwood. He then teamed up with Mojo Buford to perform around the cities, including recording an album with Mojo. With numerous albums out under his own name, RJ has also made a career out of performing gigs with ‘pick-up’ bands when he goes on tour, giving his live shows the freshness and spontaneity that he likes to bring out.One thing...

Jim Conway joins me on episode 55.Jim is an Australian harmonica player who rose to fame at the age of 19 in the jug band: The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, with the first two albums from the band receiving gold record status. Jim also played kazoo with Captain Matchbox to great effect. The band evolved into the Conway Brothers act, before Jim decided he couldn’t continue after being diagnosed with MS. But it wasn’t long before he felt the music calling him again and he joined The Backslider...

Tom Ball joins me on episode 54.From Los Angeles, but long time resident of Santa Barbara, he started playing guitar in the popular local folk scene before Sonny Terry turned him on to the sound of acoustic harmonica.He then met Kenny Sultan, to form possibly the longest surviving acoustic blues duo. They have now been performing together for over 42 years and have recorded eight albums together. As well as session work for commercials, television and film, and toured the world together.On to...

Billy Boy Arnold joins me on episode 53.Today we have a little part of blues harmonica history, as Billy lived through the heyday of the blues in Chicago and was a peer of the many great players at the time, being born just five years after Little Walter himself. He took a couple of lessons with John Lee Williamson, aka SBWI, at just 12 years of age. Billy released his first record at the age of 17 and then went on to release two songs with Bo Diddley, including coming up with possibly t...

Rick Estrin joins me on episode 52.Rick grew up in San Francisco and starting sitting in with bands in the city. He was friends with Jerry Portnoy, who persuaded him to spend some time in Chicago. Here he met many of the harmonica greats, and missed the golden opportunity for the harmonica chair in the Muddy Waters band. It turned out this wasn’t a bad thing though, as Rick forged his own path with Little Charlie & The Nightcats (later Rick Estrin & The Nightcats). A band i...

Richard Gjems joins me on episode 51.Richard hails from Norway, with its many blues clubs demonstrating how popular the music is there. Richard is a real student of the blues, and the place of the harmonica within it, and he is involved in archiving music at the National Library in Norway.Richard has incorporated pre-war styles into his contemporary approach to playing the harmonica, where he covers multiple genres, including Nordic folk music.A big exponent of different tunings, Richard...

Magic Dick joins me on episode 50.Magic Dick created one of the all time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whammer Jammer. But his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that.He started playing trumpet at age 9, and this instrument along with his love of jazz and rock and roll shaped his approach on harmonica.He was a founder member of the J Geils Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years. Magic Dick was an integral part of their sound with his harmon...

Rory Mcleod joins me on episode 49.Rory is a modern day wandering minstrel . A multi-instrumentalist ‘folk singing’ troubadour, Rory has travelled far and wide, his trusty harmonica (plus an assortment of other instruments) has been with him every step of the way, including working as a musical clown in Mexico. His first band was ‘Have Mercy’, formed jamming in the markets of London alongside Steve Baker and another harmonica player. Rory has jammed and gone onto collaborate with a wide range...

Cy Leo joins me on episode 48.Leo is from Hong Kong, where he started learning to play classical chromatic harmonica from age 6, under the direction of his father, who is an accomplished player himself, having won the ensemble category at the 1997 World Harmonica Championship with his quintet, helping to raise interest in the harmonica throughout Asia.Leo quickly gained recognition in his own right, winning the World Championship youth category at age 15 before taking the adult crown at age 1...

Jason Rosenblatt joins me on episode 47.A native of Canada but now resident in Israel, Jason is best known for his band Shtreiml, playing a mixture of Klezmer (Jewish) and Eastern European music with great use of the harmonica. His first instrument was piano before he went on to pick up the harmonica after hearing Sonny Terry and Paul Butterfield. He then took advantage of the vibrant Montreal blues scene to witness harmonica live.After hearing Howard Levy’s seminal ‘New Directions in Ha...

Greg Heumann joins me on episode 46.The focus of this episode is all about gear, as I talk to the founder of BlowsMeAway Productions.Greg has released an album of his own and uses his knowledge of playing harmonica to understand what is needed to make great harmonica products.The first product in this line was the volume control which later on Jason Ricci asked Greg to develop into the actual mic, which led to the Ultimate Series of mics.He also hand crafts beautiful custom wood microphones a...

Tony Eyers joins me on episode 45. Tony is an Australian who first picked up the harmonica while studying at Yale in the US. Returning from America he started a successful blues band in Adelaide.He also plays baroque recorder, and has been part of an ensemble for 25 years, which has helped shape his sound on harmonica.In the mid-90s he became interested in playing fiddle music and developed the Major Cross tuning for the diatonic, now available through Seydel. Tony has several successful harm...

Adam Burney joins me on episode 44. Adam is a south London boy, from Croydon. A stint playing with the punk bands of this area has helped shape his sound with an edge of Blues punk, including in his own band, The Brothers of Mothershovel. A big fan of pre-war style of harmonica, Adam has incorporated these techniques into a style which fits into a modern band. Characterised by a rhythmic driving sound which is infectiously danceable.Adam has recorded some notable tv sessions includi...

David Naiditch joins me on episode 43. After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with a touring Sonny Terry, David developed himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing Bluegrass music on the chromatic harmonica, and has recorded various albums with some of the stellar names from the Bluegrass world. David likes the clean, consistent tone that the chromatic brings.He also plays Gypsy Jazz, a genre which he sees as having some similarities with Bluegras...

Hermine Deurloo joins me on episode 42. Hermine is a Dutch female chromatic harmonica player who grew up to the sound of master jazz player Toots Thielemans. After studying saxophone at the Amsterdam Conservatory, she picked up the chromatic and transitioned over to the harmonica being her instrument of choice. Her first album was of Brazilian music, and she has gone on to record several jazz albums in her own name. Her more recent album, Riverbeast, delves into 70s funk. She has ap...

Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41.Phil was one half of one of the best known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over thirty years. They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world, and even played at the White House to the Clintons. They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach.A native of Washington D.C., Phil wrot...

Bob Corritore joins me on episode 40. Bob grew up around Chicago and absorbed the best blues scene in the world, attending the blues clubs in his youth, seeing his harmonica heroes in action and befriending many of them. He moved to Phoenix in this 20s and quickly became a record producer. Bob put his Business degree to good use, opening a blues club called The Rhythm Room. He took the unique opportunity to record many of the visiting blues artists, appearing on numerous albums alon...

Mat Walklate joins me on episode 39. Mat is based in Manchester and has worked as a professional musician throughout his life, playing mainly blues and traditional music using a variety of harmonicas. He started out with a love for Sonny Boy Williamson II, and was soon touring Europe in a blues band. His interest in traditional music came from learning the tin whistle, and he also picked up other instruments for this genre, including the flute and pipes.Mat supplements his playing income...

Will Galison joins me on episode 38. Will first picked up the chromatic harmonica when studying guitar at the Berklee College of Music. He quickly realised he had an affinity with the instrument, and after spending a day with Toots Thielemans he knew the chromatic instrument was what he wanted to do. Will went on to record numerous albums under his own name, including a successful collaboration with Madeleine Peyroux. He has been an in-demand session player for numerous years, with cred...

Rick Epping joins me on episode 37. Rick worked for Hohner USA for 18 years and played a pivotal role in improving the quality of their harmonicas back to their former glory. While at Hohner, he also developed the XB40, the all-bending harmonica. Rick is also an expert customiser of harmonicas and can be credited with the creation of embossing reeds to improve playability.Rick has a real passion for playing Irish music, to such an extent that he even moved to Ireland so he could immerse ...

Mark Hummel joins me on episode 36.Mark is a West Coast blues harp player who has put out some great harmonica songs in his catalogue of over 30 albums. A real connoisseur of the Blues, he has drawn inspiration from a wide range of the classic players. Mark felt a particular affinity with Little Walter early on, and received a Grammy nomination for his 2013 album, Remembering Little Walter. This was part of the harmonica blow out series, where he has put together numerous tours fea...

Robert Bonfiglio shares with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player. After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player, Cham Ber Huang, and another 12 years studying with the first flute player of the New York ballet. Robert has been playing classical harmonica concertos since 1986, and has played in some of the great venues around the world. He has performed all the major pieces composed for the harmonica, as well as re...

Steve Baker moved from his native London in his early 20s to become part of the vibrant music scene in Hamburg. His brand of punk folk won him recognition and he was soon a regular on the German session circuit, as well as collaborations in various bands and duos, with his best work coming working alongside Chris Jones. Steve has long been a consultant to Hohner, and was instrumental in the development of the modern incarnations of the Marine Band: the Deluxe and the Crossover, as well a...

Son of Dave is originally from Winnipeg, Canada, where he enjoyed pop chart success for ten years with folk-rock band Crash Test Dummies. He then moved to London and pursued a solo career. After two albums he decided to quite literally go it alone and become the all singing, all dancing solo performer that is the Son of Dave act. While doing so he quite possibly invented a brand new genre of harmonica, incorporating beat-boxing and loop pedals to compliment his strong rhythmic harmonica style...

Filip can be described as the complete harmonica player, being adept on the diatonic, chromatic and bass harmonicas, as well as being able to play numerous other instruments. He started out on diatonic, with a love of the blues before submerging himself into the overblow style of play pioneered by Howard Levy. Filip is the first harmonica player in the 300 year history of Sweden’s Royal Academy of Music to be accepted to study there. It is here he explored the range of possibilities of the ch...

Errol Linton is a south London boy, with roots in Jamaica. His brand of ‘Brixton Blues’ music merges his Caribbean heritage with his love for the blues to create a distinctive reggae-infused form of blues.Starting out busking on the streets of London, Errol was noticed by BBC Producer John Walters, who made a documentary about him. This led on to some airplay on BBC Radio. Errol built on this early success and has released a number of albums since the early 1990s. His two most recent alb...

Fata Morgana are a Dutch harmonica quartet, who first formed in 1980 after meeting at the Eindhoven Harmonica Club. Two of the original members survive from that time, with the current line-up existing since 2001. The group have played at many festivals around the world, including in Asia where harmonica groups are still very popular. They have released six albums, with their latest one in 2017 including four guest harmonica players from across Europe. They share how they put together their o...

Greg Zlap hails from Poland, where he played along with black market blues records on his one harmonica.He moved to Paris in his late teens where he discovered the great French harmonica player, JJ Milteau. Greg started up a harmonica school in the city and has released a number of stellar harmonica albums. Always driven to push the harmonica forward, he has added harmonica to genres ranging from jazz, to electro music, to pop, house music and rock, while remaining true to the foundations of ...

Donald Black is predominantly a tremolo player, using the instrument to great effect across the range of traditional Scottish music. He learnt many of the tunes he loves from accordion music, emulating the sound on the tremolo harmonica. Donald’s musical career started quite late in life, and since then he has performed around the world, appearing at the SPAH convention and even in Moscow. With five albums to his name, Donald has also recorded two tracks with the great Charlie McCoy.&nbs...

Charlie Musselwhite grew up in Memphis, rubbing shoulders with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Work took him north to Chicago were he discovered the South Side blues scene, where he befriended several legends of the blues harmonica. Sitting in with Muddy Waters got Charlie noticed and he was soon recording his seminal album, Stand Back! This led him to the West Coast, from where he has recorded over thirty albums, received numerous Grammy nominations, won a Grammy in 2013, been inducted in the...

British Chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26.Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show, Last Of The Summer Wine. Jim set up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, The World Harmonica Championship in Jersey, 1987, as well as involvement in other festivals....

Sugar Blue has certainly pushed the boundaries of the harmonica, with his rapid fire licks, lots of high end runs and gorgeous tone. It was perhaps his early jazz influences that shaped his distinctive sound, although there is no doubt that he has paid homage to the harmonica greats, spending time with some of the classic players. As well as numerous solo albums, Sugar has recorded with many illustrious names, including the Rolling Stones, Willie Dixon and Frank Zappa, to name but a few....

Grant Dermody first picked up the harp in Alaska, where he emulated the greats before developing his own acoustic sound playing American roots music. He played as a session man on various albums before releasing the first of his four solo albums to date, which included harmonica duets with Phll Wiggins and Joe Filisko. In-between Grant toured for six years with Eric Bibb, and for his latest album, My Dony, he has returned to his roots with a raucous electrified harmonica sound. Not only ...

Chromatic player, Antonio Serrano, is the current SPAH harmonica player of the year. And with good reason. Antonio’s father was a great influence on the fledgling harmonica player. And Antonio met Larry Adler at a young age, and performed with him for the first time, at only 13 years of old. Since that time Antonio has made a big splash on the Spanish music scene, not least when he played with flamenco legend Paco de Lucia. He has recorded with many artists and released some albums under his ...

Mark Feltham grew up with a love of country music and just knew he had to play harp when he heard Stone Fox Chase on the UK music programme, Old Grey Whistle test.As he entered the London music scene he found he had to adapt his style to create a fusion of melodic and blues playing, which has served him very well throughout his career. Best known from his work with Punk Blues band, Nine Below Zero, Mark also played with Rory Gallagher for a long spell. Alongside this he has had a great c...

Mickey Raphael started out playing on the Dallas folk scene before meeting with Willie Nelson at a jam session. Forty six years later, Mickey has toured the world with Willie. Alongside that, Mickey has enjoyed great recording success as a session musician, playing with Emmylou Harris, the Highwayman Country Supergroup, U2, Wynton Marsalis, Ringo Starr, and more recently with Chris Stapleton. The list goes on and on. He played at Ray Charles funeral, and was most likely the inspiration for th...

Jerry Portnoy joins me on episode 20 of the podcast.Jerry grew up with the sounds of Maxwell street in his ears. It took him a few years to pick up the harp, but when he did he enjoyed a tremendous career. Starting out with Johnny Young’s band, he had only been playing for six years before his talents landed him the greatest harmonica chair there ever was, playing with the Muddy Waters Blues Band. Jerry went on to play in the Legendary Blues Band and then with guitar legend Eric Clapton....

John is a harmonica repairer and customiser. Following years of experience as a toolmaker John moved into repairing musical instruments, initially for woodwind instruments, before tapping into a rich vein of work repairing harmonicas. As well as many private clients, he now does repair work for the big three manufacturers. This has led to John now making quite possibly the only hand-made harmonica in the world today, under the name The Great British Harmonica company.Select the Chapter M...

Mick Kinsella started out as a drummer before moving across to the harmonica to pursue his love of traditional music. Skilled in the use of both the diatonic and chromatic, Mick played on numerous sessions before releasing his own 2002 album ‘Harmonica’ with an assortment of genres and some tremendous harmonica work. He went out to tour with Rick Epping and Brendan Power under the name Triple Harp Bypass. Mick likes to tinker with his harmonicas, has a tuition book to his name and teaches eac...

Gregoire Maret is a chromatic player, originally from Switzerland. After studying jazz at the New School in New York, Gregoire went on to play with some of the biggest names in jazz: from Jimmy Scott to Cassandra Wilson, Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock. Although he can also turn his hand to other genres, such as pop, funk and even opera!In 2012 Gregoire made the first of the albums under his own name, as well as continuing to be an in-demand sideman.Renowned bassist, Marcus Miller, said that G...

Rachelle Plas is a French player who learnt her craft at an early age in group lessons provided by Greg Zlap in Paris. She won various competitions at French music festivals which led on to her touring Europe and beyond with her band. After making a splash at the World Harmonica Festival in Germany, Rachelle became the face of Hohner’s Golden Melody harmonicas. She has gone on to record two albums since, with her fusion of blues, soul, pop, rock & electro bringing her fast flowing harmoni...

Michael D’Eath is the President of the American harmonica organisation SPAH. He tells us what SPAH is all about and the many benefits it brings to its members.The SPAH convention is one of the biggest events on the harmonica calendar, and this year it will be online. Allowing more international artists to be utilised, and providing the opportunity for people around the world to take part in the convention, which takes place from Aug 12-15 2020. Select the Chapter Markers tab above to sel...

Howard Levy is known to be the pioneer of overblows on the diatonic harmonica, but his music shouldn’t be defined merely by the use of this technical tool. Starting out as a piano player, he first started using overblows to enable him to play the music that he wanted to play. And they have allowed Howard to take the instrument to soaring new heights across a diverse range of genres. And make no mistake, he has rhythm, feel, a great bluesy tone when he needs it, and most of all, blisteri...

Lee Oskar left his native Denmark to move to the US at age 18, and was soon enjoying phenomenal success with the rock funk band War, interweaving soulful harmonica lines into the horn section.Lee also has numerous solo albums, releasing some of the most downright catchy harmonica melodies ever recorded.On top of all this, he set-up his own harmonica company, leading the way with innovations such as replacement reed plates and different tuningsSelect the Chapter Markers tab above to select dif...

A grammy award winner, Peter Madcat Ruth has enjoyed a long career, from playing jazz with the Brubecks, to numerous solo projects and playing in various bands and duos and trios. Madcat has loved Sonny Terry from the start and has really mastered the style, and gives some pointers during the podcast.Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).Madcat's website:http://www.madcatmusic.net/index.htmlEquipment:Shaker microphones:https://...