Diatonic Harmonica Episodes

Episode 111 is part 2 of the ten minute question, from the remaining podcast guests up until this point. As per the last episode, I’ll say the name of each guest before they respond to the question: “if you had 10 minutes to ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 gain...

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 s...

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 re...

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 Charli...

Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101 (oh, that’s me). 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 ...

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 bef...

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 als...

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 sce...

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 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 p...

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 ...

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...

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 pa...

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 ...

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 T...

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 ...

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 g...

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 ...

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 g...