May 20, 2020
Carlos del Junco interview
Always looking to push himself in new directions, Carlos has released an eclectic mixture of genres across the range of his albums. But each song is underpinned with his great sounding fusion of blues / jazz harmonica, with a great tone.
Carlos is also known for his overblowing technique, and he shares how to use this to compliment his sound.
Carlos is also a passionate teacher of the harmonica, and is running some Webinars on how to transcribe music to aid learning.
Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).
https://www.carlosdeljunco.com
Carlos has a teaching website:
https://www.harmonicapractice.com
Carlos has a Webinar coming up on 30/05/20 on using Transcribe! software:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kak3vC5rGI&list=PLnapgL3AuXGqePHifjO-E8YGdDWFjftSb
Some of the equipment Carlos uses:
Echosystem delay pedal by Empress Effects: https://empresseffects.com/products/echosystem
Lone Wolf effects pedals: https://www.lonewolfblues.com
Marble amps:
https://www.marble-amps.com/
Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com
Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB
Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ
Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/
01:29 - del Junco name and early life
02:42 - What got Carlos first playing harmonica
03:47 - Other instruments played when young
04:07 - First harmonica song that inspired Carlos
05:04 - Studied art at college, major in Sculpture
05:56 - Debut performance at school with Maths teacher
07:13 - Produced music for a touring play
08:21 - Nelly The Mongrel Dog
08:59 - Released first album
10:17 - Overblows and learning from Howard Levy
11:24 - Developing his overblows
17:47 - Chromatic harmonica and half-valved diatonic
20:32 - Carlos’s tone and embouchure
22:26 - Keys of harmonicas used by Carlos
24:06 - Singing
24:20 - Just Your Fool album
25:51 - Heddon Tadpolly Spook song
27:05 - Up And At ‘Em album
28:04 - Blues Mongrel album including Our Man Flint
29:25 - Steady Movin’ album
31:44 - Mongrel Mash album
33:44 - Mojo song delay effect
35:11 - Blues Etc album
36:34 - Hang On album
43:28 - Teaching
43:53 - Webinar on Transcribe!
45:53 - Value of transcribing music
51:03 - Why choose Carlos as a teacher
51:27 - 10 minutes question
52:57 - Harmonica of choice
54:22 - Favourite key of harmonica
54:40 - Amps
56:05 - Effects pedals
58:39 - Impact of amps and effects on tone
59:25 - Mics
01:00:25 - Future plans
WEBVTT
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Hi, Neil Warren here again and welcome to another episode of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast with more interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today.
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Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the tracks discussed during the interviews can be heard.
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The Long Wolf Blues Company but each song is underpinned with his great sounding fusion of blues-jazz harmonica with a great tone.
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Carlos is also known for his overblowing technique, and he shares how he uses this to complement his sound.
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Carlos is also a passionate teacher of the harmonica, and is running some webinars on how to transcribe music to aid learning.
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Music
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Hello, Carlos, and welcome to the podcast.
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Hey, Neil.
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It's a stage name all in one, isn't it?
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First of all, it sounds very cool.
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And it's of the reeds, of the harmonica reeds.
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It couldn't work better, really, could it?
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Yeah, why not?
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We're talking about your early life.
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So as you say, though, you're born in Cuba, and then you emigrated to Canada at the age of one.
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And you're around the Toronto area in Canada.
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Yeah, I basically grew up in Toronto all my life.
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And then about 14 years ago, I moved to this just 100 kilometers east of Toronto, still on Lake Ontario in Ontario, to a little town called Port Hope.
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So what was the music scene like when you were growing up around there and your early influences to get you interested in music?
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Oh, Toronto is one of the biggest cities in Canada.
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Tons of musicians, a great blues scene.
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When I first started playing, I guess at the age of 14, it was pretty soon after that.
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When I was 17, I think I took my first lesson with someone, even though I'd already been playing.
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So do you remember what first got you interested in playing the harmonica?
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Yeah, when I was a grade nine or 14, a friend of mine played a little bit of harmonica on a neck rack, you know, while he was playing guitar.
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And I think just the sound of him bending a note, it was like, man, that's such a cool sound.
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I knew I wanted him to do that.
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So as a harmonica on a rack, were you aspiring Bob Dylan at that stage?
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Paul Butterfield was my first influence, I'd say.
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I mean, I like to joke that, you know, it's guys like Neil Young and Bob Dylan that have given the harmonica, the diatonic harmonica, a bad name.
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Brilliant songwriters that they are.
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It's used as an accessory to what they do best, which is writing songs.
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And I mean, and I say that, again, in all humbleness, like to say that, you know, they've helped get the harmonica out into the public ears through mainstream radio.
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But that's the point is that the folks on mainstream radio radio here, uh, They go, harmonica?
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Oh yeah, doesn't Bob Dylan play the harmonica?
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And that's all they're exposed to as opposed to the amazing underground Little Walters and Paul Butterfields and all those people.
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Did you learn any other instruments when you were younger or before you started playing harmonica?
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I lasted for three weeks on the violin when I was eight.
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And then I lasted for six months taking piano when I was 10.
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And then my hair got curly when I was 14 and the harmonica called out to me.
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I never really learned how to read music.
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Was there particularly a song you remember early on, maybe a Paul Butterfield song that really grabs you and you felt, yeah, that's it.
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Harmonica's for me.
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I
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guess, you know, my first kind of record that had a really big impact on me that I was exposed to was my brothers, older brothers had this, the very first Paul Butterfield blues record just called the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
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The opening cut, Born in Chicago.
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Did you ever see Paul Butterfield play live?
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Only once, and that was at the very end when he wasn't doing too well, like in the last year of his life, unfortunately.
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Have you seen that documentary about him?
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Funny enough, I was just looking at it
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on Amazon Prime last night thinking I must watch it.
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Yeah, it's lovingly put together with some great footage and definitely worth a watch.
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Then you went on to, I believe, majoring arts in college, and you studied sculpture.
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Yeah, I ended up majoring in sculpture.
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I went to this Ontario College of Art.
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Through that whole time, there was a couple of basement bands and a couple of different people I started playing with at the art school who were musicians as well.
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So hand-in-hand, you know, visual arts and music.
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I saw a quote from you saying that music is just a different way of creating textures and shape.
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You know, you really see that link between the two then.
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Yeah, I do.
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You know, for me, you know, sculpture, the sort of three dimensionality and the tactile thing about sculpture as opposed to, you know, painting.
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But if it was just like, you know, pure shape and form, there's something about that sensuality of the tactile.
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And it's for me, music.
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Yeah, I like to think that I'm, you know, sort of sculpting these sounds when I play.
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Okay, so you mentioned that you started playing at the age of 14.
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I believe you debuted at high school with a math teacher.
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That's some student talent now.
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I used to practice in the stairwells, of course, because you have this great echo in the stairwell.
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Anyway, my math teacher heard me practicing one day.
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He was playing a 12-string and we played a couple of Lead Belly songs.
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Yeah, it was fun.
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At what point did you decide to become a professional musician?
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I kind of got a late start considering, you know, I started playing when I was 14 and dabbling in visual arts through my 20s and then sort of let it go away slowly towards the end of my 20s, the whole sculpture thing.
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You know, I ended up selling two-thirds of the things that I made.
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I was pretty good at it.
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You can actually see some photographs of some of them on my website, like on the About page.
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So it was a long roundabout way before I finally got to playing full-time professionally.
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So when I was 31, I had kind of a whole career thing about, oh, I can't.
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My girlfriend at the time was like, oh, you can't make a living as a musician, you know, and I was sort of doubting myself.
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And so I went actually to see a career counselor.
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I was thinking I could put some credits that I had from my art school towards a Bachelor of Arts.
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And I signed up for three courses at university when I was 30.
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Then I got an offer to go on the road for this play, playing music for this play called Dry Lep's How to Move the Cap of Skating, a And one of the characters in the play played harmonica, and there was all these dream sequences.
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So I created all these soundscapes on the harmonica around the characters in the play.
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And we ended up going on the road, and basically I dropped out of the school and sort of never looked back.
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I realized that I wanted to become full-time.
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So I continued working part-time at this place.
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poster shop and it was sort of full-time, part-time work and it gradually became more and more part-time until I was 40.
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So there's a long-winded way of saying it took a long time before, you know, taking the full dive and becoming completely full-time.
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You were playing music, you know, on a sort of part-time basis until that stage.
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Were you in bands and things up until then?
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Yeah, I was.
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Act 20s, I started, there was a band called the Buzz Upshaw Band and we had a house gig playing every weekend for a good two years, and then we did a bunch of other gigs and stuff too.
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There was a saxophone player in the band.
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He taught me a lot about playing horn lines and playing in unison or harmony lines together.
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Another point on your art connection, I see on your website you've got your emblem is the angry-looking dog with the earring and the harmonica in its mouth.
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Yeah, that's Nelly the mongrel dog.
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A fellow that designs pretty much all my...
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CD jackets, certainly from my band CDs.
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Michael Rycraft, he's brilliant.
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And every single CD record is completely different.
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So he created Nellie the mongrel dog on a computer.
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So you've got two different types of bulldog heads, some wolf's teeth, a chihuahua's body, and a lemur's tail.
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It's become my mascot and kind of a logo.
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You released your first album in 93.
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Bill Kinnear was the fellow that I recorded that record with, who was a really interesting player.
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He's a guy, basically local in Ontario.
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He was like almost twice my age, but had only been playing since he was 35.
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And so his playing is really rough and tumble and kind of primitive, but he had such a passion.
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It totally worked.
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So his playing was super simple.
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You know, I was already into trying to learn, you know, different things and different ways of playing, you know, like I'd heard about the diminished scale, you know, and I remember trying to put that in one of the solos that I played with him and it kind of works.
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And he's doing a lot of Mississippi Fred McDowell and stuff, cover tunes.
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And yeah, it was really fun, but it really forced me to, to try to think and play simply.
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Were you overblowing by this stage?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I was.
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I mean, I think one of the, better solos on the record you know it was in front of a live audience big road blues yeah i'm quite proud of that like that solo i mean you know we were just fooling around and playing in front of a small cafe audience but yes i was already fooling around with overblows And you had lessons with
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Howard Leamy.
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Is that how you got into overblows?
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I already figured out how to do an overblow sort of on my own and fumbled on it.
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And then I heard about Howard and it was like, you know, mind was blown just because he can do what he can do.
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I mean, he's sort of a musician's musician who's not really a blues guy.
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So my interests were, you know, trying to marry that blues sound with what Howard's doing.
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I went and took, I think in 1988, when Howard was still teaching in this...
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kind of music camp in the summer for a week they'd have these different themes in Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia.
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And so you'd go down and there were just 10 students that hang out for a week and be bowing at Howard's feet.
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And he's just talking way over people's heads about stuff about music theory and jazz theory.
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Basically, they were just classes on jazz theory.
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And this is me playing this position.
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This is me playing in this position.
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So I got all these cassettes over four summers.
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Every time I thought I wouldn't go back, I'd always end up going back just because I'd learned more about jazz theory then probably than I had up until that point.
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Yeah.
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So that's my introduction to Howard and sort of trying to put that into my playing.
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The funny thing about playing with overblows when I first started trying to incorporate them into my playing live, I think my playing almost felt like it got worse because you're trying to, it's really demanding to play well with overblows and to make them musical.
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And you got, you know, your harps, it really helps to have harps that are set up.
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Honestly, even though my last few records haven't really been as bluesy, except for the one that I did with Jimmy Bosco.
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We can talk about that in 2016.
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I would love to make another duo record with somebody that's just more straight ahead blues and be an accompanist.
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I love being the accompanist, you know, and just playing.
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In
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my last interview with P.T.
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Gazelle.
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I made the statement where I said, I don't necessarily like the sound of overblows because to me, you know, they don't necessarily sound that great.
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They maybe sound a little bit weak, you know, because if you don't get them right.
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And PT made the great point, which is, well, that's the case if you aren't very good at them.
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If you listen to some players and you mention your name, you know, they don't sound weak, you know, and I think, you know, that is something that really stands out when you're playing, you know, the overblows sound good with you, you know, because they can often sound a little strained, can't they?
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But what is the secret to getting them to
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sound good?
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I'm laughing because practice, practice, practice, practice.
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I'm sort of of the mind.
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I hate repeating myself.
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I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm really critical of other players, but because I'm really self-critical, I, you know, I realize I put it out on other players when I listen to just jazz records, blues records, whatever it is, like it's such few things that really grab my attention.
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And I'm, so I'm really conscious and I'm not putting out the same record all the time.
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But the point is, is that you've got to really practice and practice and practice.
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Like if I'm, so I've been stretching my abilities, just playing things in a bunch of different keys.
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And so if I come up against something really challenging run, I'll just practice it and practice it.
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Everything is context.
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So if you're going to play an overblow okay here's the overblow let's say hole four this is my a flat harmonica so below four and you play the overbolt you know you gotta feel it and how round it is in your mouth the shape of it and be eventually be able to practice it with like any note i have a whole video just called ta ta dynamics and articulating any note whether it's bent unbent and and being able to play it louder quieter without changing the pitch And you gotta be able to do that with overblows as well.
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And then getting into bending them and putting expression.
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And everything is context.
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So it's what's coming into it.
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You got to practice the note above it or below it.
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It's hardest to go from a blow four straight into an overblow four.
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So you got to practice that.
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So it's simply just practicing the adjacent note and giving it context and making it as strong and practicing again, again, again.
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That's the essence of, you know, making your overblow sound good.
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But you've got to start with the foundation.
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And of course, when you first play an overblow, it sounds like you're strangling a chicken.
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I think overblows has kind of become the new thing, I don't know, over the last 10, 20 years in harmonica.
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And talking to quite a few of the guys on this, they're a little bit dismissive of overblows, as some people are, and they think it's a bit of a fad that is unnecessary.
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But listening to your music, you know, it really shows me, you know, that, as you say, you can really use it effectively.
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You know, your overblows do sound great.
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So I think that it's interesting for people listening that, you know, if you get them right, you know, they can be a very effective tool, as obviously you would testify to, yeah?
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Yeah, you know, and again, for me...
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You know, I really use them as passing tones.
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You don't want to hang out on an overblow.
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Like, although on my last recording, there's a couple of things that are super challenging.
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This one song I played called the Stettel Waltz.
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Stettel Waltz.
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And I was playing, it's a minor tune, and I'm playing in, I think, sixth position.
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It would be the equivalent of playing on a key of B on a C harp.
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There's a couple of spaces where I have to hang on an overblow.
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I'm not interested in trying to play in all 12 keys on a song and showcase that and put it on a recording.
00:15:50.047 --> 00:15:50.828
I would never do that.
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I just don't think it sounds that good, honestly, because, you know, why do you want to try to play a blues in the key of F sharp on a C harmonica?
00:15:59.197 --> 00:16:03.140
You know, it's just going to sound forced and it's an unnatural.
00:16:03.822 --> 00:16:14.511
Yeah, it's possible, but to use it with passing tones, it's totally acceptable, but you have to make them, you know, you do have to practice to get them to sound as good as possible.
00:16:15.113 --> 00:16:20.317
So would you say you use overblows reasonably sparingly or does it depend on the song or?
00:16:20.706 --> 00:16:21.613
I do, yeah.
00:16:21.633 --> 00:16:24.052
I mean, you know, I'm sort of a bluesy...
00:16:24.394 --> 00:16:25.504
I'm a guy that plays...
00:16:25.826 --> 00:16:30.889
blues in a jazzy way here and there, you know, and I'm not a super traditional player.
00:16:30.929 --> 00:16:38.677
My whole new series that I'm doing on webinars is sort of, it's called, I'm calling the series, you know, harmonica blues a little outside of the box.
00:16:38.856 --> 00:16:40.339
You know, I'm not Howard Levy.
00:16:40.418 --> 00:16:58.017
I'm not, uh, I'm me, you know, I'm doing what I do, but it's, yeah, just doing something different than your stock, you know, for lack of a better, you know, great that they were both in their own rights, guys like Sonny Boy, Little Walter, each had their own way of playing But they're sort of called traditional players.
00:16:58.376 --> 00:17:00.181
Little Walter actually could get pretty jazzy.
00:17:00.802 --> 00:17:07.817
But again, I start to question how their knowledge of music theory or applying stuff.
00:17:08.317 --> 00:17:13.630
And it just opens up your playing when you take some really basic things and apply them.
00:17:14.498 --> 00:17:14.778
Yeah.
00:17:14.898 --> 00:17:24.494
And again, I think, you know, you're a good maybe segue into playing overblows for people who haven't maybe investigated them because like you say, you use them in a way that fits music very well.
00:17:24.515 --> 00:17:29.201
You're very kind of, you know, that's a bluesy, jazzy bass player and it all sounds great.
00:17:29.261 --> 00:17:38.657
So this kind of perception that, you know, they are very technical or like you say, playing in some weird key on a C harmonica, you know, I think it all just goes away from that when they hear you playing.
00:17:38.945 --> 00:17:42.811
I play a lot of chromatic harmonica as well myself.
00:17:42.852 --> 00:17:45.536
So I've always sort of thought, well, why do I need to play overblaze?
00:17:45.556 --> 00:17:46.718
Because I just play the chromatic.
00:17:47.179 --> 00:17:49.722
But of course, the chromatic has got a very different sound than
00:17:50.282 --> 00:17:51.085
the diatonic.
00:17:51.525 --> 00:17:54.048
It's interesting, the sound of chromatic harmonica.
00:17:54.088 --> 00:17:59.518
From my money, the best chromatic players have a really great understanding of the diatonic.
00:17:59.577 --> 00:18:02.162
So like Stevie Wonder knows how to bend a note.
00:18:02.721 --> 00:18:07.737
And he's probably one of my all-time favorite because he just makes a talk and makes it sound so sweet.
00:18:08.298 --> 00:18:11.207
Whereas like a guy like Toots Tillman, Toots Tillman was Toots Tillman.
00:18:11.228 --> 00:18:14.195
You know, he's like one of the gods of chromatic jazz harmonica.
00:18:14.637 --> 00:18:15.881
I don't really like his sound.
00:18:16.258 --> 00:18:17.741
Another example, Paul DeLay.
00:18:17.781 --> 00:18:21.991
Whenever Paul DeLay played the chromatic, I just went, yeah, I believe that.
00:18:22.092 --> 00:18:22.613
You know what I mean?
00:18:22.634 --> 00:18:24.919
Like, it's just so sweet.
00:18:25.140 --> 00:18:29.590
And again, Paul DeLay is one of my most favorite diatonic players.
00:18:30.251 --> 00:18:34.080
I love those sort of more progressive voices in the diatonic world.
00:18:34.498 --> 00:18:38.444
I talked to PT Gazelle in the last interview, and we talked about half-valved diatonics.
00:18:39.026 --> 00:18:43.673
And then we had a conversation around the comparison between playing half-valved and playing overblows.
00:18:44.013 --> 00:18:51.987
And PT made the important distinction, which is, first of all, you can't do overblows on a half-valved diatonic because it doesn't mechanically work.
00:18:52.567 --> 00:18:57.375
But what you're doing on a half-valved is you're bending the note down, whereas on an overblow, you're bending it up.
00:18:57.777 --> 00:18:58.557
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:58.690 --> 00:19:01.272
Are you familiar with half valve diatonic?
00:19:01.614 --> 00:19:04.217
I'm familiar with PT Gazelles playing in the sound of those things.
00:19:04.616 --> 00:19:05.117
Yes, I am.
00:19:05.157 --> 00:19:05.357
Yeah.
00:19:06.078 --> 00:19:07.621
But it's not something you play yourself, half
00:19:07.882 --> 00:19:07.981
valve.
00:19:08.001 --> 00:19:13.307
No, again, you know, like the whole, to me, it just sounds like a completely different instrument.
00:19:13.367 --> 00:19:15.050
It doesn't sound like a diatonic anymore.
00:19:15.070 --> 00:19:20.616
As soon as you put a valve on a diatonic, yeah, it just completely changes the sound and it sounds more like a chromatic.
00:19:21.178 --> 00:19:28.813
And I just, I prefer the sound of, the freedom of the breath, so to speak, that you get out of a diatonic.
00:19:29.534 --> 00:19:34.261
And the way it sounds is because of the interaction between the two reeds.
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