Nov. 11, 2020

Charlie Musselwhite interview

Charlie Musselwhite interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Chromatic Blues

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 Blues Hall of Fame, and appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 film.

Charlie’s latest album, 100 Years of Blues shows that he still loves the blues just like he did when he first got started.

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Links:
Charlie's website:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/

Discography:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/discography/

Charlie's store:
https://stores.portmerch.com/charliemusselwhite/

Seydel tunings:
https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Categories/Configurator/Config_Welcome/Configurator_Help


Videos:

Website video page:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/video/


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/

Support the show

01:13 - Grew up in Memphis, which had great music scene

02:10 - Used to see Johnny Cash and Elvis around Memphis

03:14 - Blues guys around Memphis Charlie hung out with

03:41 - Charlie plays some harmonica on a rack

04:43 - Charlie started playing harmonica aged 13

05:30 - Sonny Boy Williamson I was an early influence

06:33 - Learning guitar helped with Charlie’s harmonica playing

07:33 - Charlie’s singing

08:23 - Charlie’s passion to learn music is still going strong

08:44 - Most of Charlie’s family played an instrument

09:54 - What Blues music means to Charlie

10:03 - Moved to Chicago

11:30 - Charlie was welcomed into Blues scene of Black community

13:29 - The blues scene in Chicago in the 1960s

16:05 - Charlie’s got known when sat in with Muddy Waters

17:37 - The harmonica players Charlie knew around Chicago

18:58 - Walter Horton and Little Walter playing harmonica in different positions

20:58 - Charlie spent time learning patterns on harmonica

21:42 - Used to spend a lot of time with Walter Horton

22:25 - First recording session

23:08 - Recordings with Big Walter

23:50 - First solo album: Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite’s South Side Band

25:20 - Christo Redemptor song

26:28 - Moved to California

27:18 - Charlie at forefront of white blues boom?

28:30 - Memphis Charlie album in 1969

29:16 - Longevity of Charlie’s recording career

29:58 - The Harmonica According To Charlie Musselwhite album (and accompanying instruction book)

30:58 - Knew George Harmonica Smith and plays quite a lot of chromatic

32:02 - Ace of Harps album, first one on Alligator records and first Grammy nominee

33:19 - Interested in expanding genres in the blues idiom to his harmonica playing

34:49 - Continental Drifter album, recorded with a Cuban band

38:25 - Sanctuary album in 2004

39:46 - The Well album: girl trapped in well inspired Charlie to give up drinking

41:56 - Get Up! Album with Ben Harper, which won a Grammy

43:39 - No Mercy In This Land album with Ben Harper

43:46 - Charlie’s elderly mother was killed in a burglary

44:48 - Latest album: 100 Years of Blues

46:14 - Close friend of John Lee Hooker

47:31 - Jimmy Reed’s unique sound

47:41 - Has played with Cyndi Lauper, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt

47:52 - Played theme tune on The Wire TV show: Way Down in The Hole

48:38 - Has been on the road since for over 50 years

49:15 - The long list of Charlie’s music awards

49:37 - Played for President Obama in 2013

50:00 - Appeared in Blues Brothers 2000. Dan Ackroyd says Elwood is based on Charlie

51:27 - Charlie has acted in some movies

52:04 - Has a laid back style of playing

52:30 - 10 minute question

53:15 - Harmonica of choice

54:01 - Favourite key of diatonic

54:26 - Different tunings: likes Circular tuning

54:46 - Overlows

55:06 - Embouchre

55:18 - Amps

55:43 - Uses Fat Box from Fat Tone company effect pedal to play through PA

56:11 - Microphones

57:19 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.322 --> 00:00:02.290
Charlie Musselwhite joins me on episode 27.

00:00:03.073 --> 00:00:06.668
Charlie grew up in Memphis rubbing shoulders with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.

00:00:07.089 --> 00:00:10.705
Work took him north to Chicago where he discovered the Southside Blues scene.

00:00:10.977 --> 00:00:13.641
where he befriended several legends of the blues harmonica.

00:00:14.063 --> 00:00:19.111
Sitting in with Muddy Waters got Charlie noticed and he was soon recording his seminal album Stand Back.

00:00:19.431 --> 00:00:31.830
This led him to the West Coast where he's recorded over 30 albums, received numerous Grammy nominations, won a Grammy in 2013, been inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame and appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 film.

00:00:32.271 --> 00:00:38.661
Charlie's latest album, 100 Years of Blues, shows that he still loves the blues just like he did when he first got started.

00:00:39.137 --> 00:00:45.898
A word to my sponsor again, thanks to the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more, designed for harmonica.

00:00:46.338 --> 00:00:49.508
Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:01:08.546 --> 00:01:10.668
Hello, Charlie Musselwhite, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:10.987 --> 00:01:11.588
Glad to be here.

00:01:11.868 --> 00:01:14.790
So first off, let's start off about your early life.

00:01:14.831 --> 00:01:18.674
You were born in Mississippi, and then from the age of three, you moved across to Memphis.

00:01:18.935 --> 00:01:19.516
That's true.

00:01:19.656 --> 00:01:26.542
I moved to Memphis, but I kept spending my summers with my grandparents in Mississippi and visiting different relatives.

00:01:26.861 --> 00:01:31.365
I mean, Memphis is right on the border of Mississippi, so it's not like I went that far.

00:01:32.447 --> 00:01:38.512
As you say, you were in Memphis from a young age, and that's the music scene that you grew up in, and a very good music scene, I think.

00:01:38.512 --> 00:01:41.876
You enjoyed quite a lot of range of music around there when you were growing up.

00:01:42.415 --> 00:01:45.099
Well, Memphis was a real music city.

00:01:45.118 --> 00:01:50.825
I don't know what it's like now, but when I was growing up, it was great gospel and you could hear it on the radio.

00:01:51.084 --> 00:01:53.227
I loved to go to the tent meetings.

00:01:53.548 --> 00:01:54.308
I didn't go in.

00:01:54.569 --> 00:02:00.314
I would drive up next to them and drink beer and watch the show and hear all the great singing and everything.

00:02:00.575 --> 00:02:04.198
Johnny Burnett, the rockabilly guy, lived right across the street from me.

00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:06.021
Johnny Cash didn't live that

00:02:06.061 --> 00:02:06.742
far away.

00:02:07.242 --> 00:02:10.126
I understand you went to school with Johnny Cash's brother

00:02:10.286 --> 00:02:16.231
yeah Tommy was on the basketball team and because of that Johnny would come to the basketball games

00:02:16.693 --> 00:02:23.280
and also Elvis was around at the time as well wasn't he and this is something you saw around and went to some of his parties I understand

00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:42.060
yeah I had his phone number I'd call up find out where he was holding he would have parties around town he would like rent a theater and have some the latest movies or he might rent the whole entire fairgrounds with all the rides free and free hot dogs and hamburgers And they would always go from like around midnight till dawn.

00:02:42.199 --> 00:02:46.264
And I like to go because there was a ton of really pretty girls there.

00:02:47.346 --> 00:02:47.645
Excellent.

00:02:47.665 --> 00:02:49.707
So he was famous by this point, then I take

00:02:49.728 --> 00:02:49.768
it.

00:02:49.788 --> 00:02:59.258
He was famous, but also he really meant something to local people because he like validated the poor boy from Mississippi type of guy.

00:02:59.277 --> 00:03:02.421
You know, Memphis is full of poor boys from Mississippi like Elvis.

00:03:02.622 --> 00:03:06.186
And we all combed our hair like that and bought clothes on Beale Street.

00:03:06.425 --> 00:03:08.367
But we were considered like white trash.

00:03:08.367 --> 00:03:10.911
but Elvis like he made us cool

00:03:12.072 --> 00:03:24.145
absolutely and you still are so obviously some great people around Memphis but also some good blues harmonica players and blues players so Will Shade and Gus Cannon around there as well did you manage to check those guys out when you were younger

00:03:24.465 --> 00:03:34.996
oh yeah I spent a lot of time with those guys and there was another guy named Harmonica Joe but he recorded for his son another guy named Johnny Moment and a friend of mine named Clyde L.

00:03:35.056 --> 00:03:46.008
Smith but as usual there's more guitar players than harmonica players Well, I have a whole album out of

00:03:47.449 --> 00:03:47.889
guitar

00:03:55.277 --> 00:03:57.039
music.

00:03:57.139 --> 00:04:01.844
There's another one in the can I recorded in Clarksdale with a drummer named Quicksand.

00:04:01.865 --> 00:04:05.788
I don't know when I'll release that, but hopefully within a couple of years or so.

00:04:05.808 --> 00:04:07.852
I did two tours with B.B.

00:04:07.891 --> 00:04:08.271
King over the years.

00:04:08.271 --> 00:04:14.079
opening for him in one in Europe and one in the US, where I just came out and sat down and played guitar.

00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:15.981
And the harmonica on the rack at the same time?

00:04:16.201 --> 00:04:18.605
Yeah, not on every tune, but a lot of the tunes.

00:04:19.004 --> 00:04:19.865
And which album is that?

00:04:19.987 --> 00:04:24.492
Have you got an album where you're playing the guitar with harmonica on the rack?

00:04:24.591 --> 00:04:27.055
I believe the title of it is In Your Darkest Hour.

00:04:27.095 --> 00:04:29.117
It's on the Henrietta label.

00:04:41.314 --> 00:04:49.661
talking about other instruments then and getting into obviously you also play guitar as well as harmonica and singing of course was it the harmonica which came first for you

00:04:50.017 --> 00:04:53.680
Well, in a way, it seemed like everybody had a harmonica when I was a kid.

00:04:53.860 --> 00:04:55.382
You know, they were real cheap.

00:04:55.523 --> 00:04:57.423
They only cost like a dollar or something.

00:04:57.504 --> 00:05:00.607
And kids would get them for Christmas or for their birthday.

00:05:01.048 --> 00:05:02.348
It was a common toy.

00:05:02.389 --> 00:05:04.069
You know, it was considered a toy.

00:05:04.110 --> 00:05:05.250
And I had one.

00:05:05.290 --> 00:05:08.774
You know, I just tooted around on it like a kid might do.

00:05:09.134 --> 00:05:12.697
And when I was around 13, I became interested in blues.

00:05:12.798 --> 00:05:16.161
And I really loved the way the first Sonny Boy sounded.

00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:19.002
I remember thinking to myself, well, you got a harmonica.

00:05:19.262 --> 00:05:19.983
It sounds so good.

00:05:19.983 --> 00:05:22.906
to listen to it, I bet it feels even better to play like that.

00:05:23.127 --> 00:05:27.492
And I just take that harmonica out in the woods and just try to make up my own blues.

00:05:27.612 --> 00:05:28.132
And that's

00:05:28.273 --> 00:05:30.115
where I got started, out in the woods.

00:05:30.574 --> 00:05:31.976
You mentioned the first Sonny Boy there.

00:05:32.016 --> 00:05:34.459
Was there any particular songs of his that really grabbed you?

00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:39.144
You know, I used to go around Memphis looking in junk stores for old blues 78s.

00:05:40.004 --> 00:05:46.952
Well, I got a lot of Sonny Boys and one of them, one of my first ones I really liked was The Big Boat and Sonny Boys Jump.

00:05:46.973 --> 00:05:49.935
That was, I loved that one.

00:05:49.935 --> 00:06:01.086
Thank you.

00:06:01.762 --> 00:06:03.163
I still love those tunes.

00:06:03.202 --> 00:06:04.564
They sound great to me.

00:06:04.944 --> 00:06:07.166
And then what age did you pick up the guitar?

00:06:07.487 --> 00:06:15.673
When I was 13, about the same time I got interested in playing blues on harmonica, my dad gave me his guitar, which was an old Supertone.

00:06:16.053 --> 00:06:19.497
I started playing that, trying to figure out how to play the blues on it.

00:06:19.516 --> 00:06:26.764
There were guys, there were street singers I'd watch in Memphis, and I'd go home and I'd watch what they were doing and go home and try to

00:06:26.783 --> 00:06:27.704
duplicate that.

00:06:28.504 --> 00:06:32.829
Do you think learning the guitar at that time also helped you as a harmonica player?

00:06:33.088 --> 00:06:36.072
Yeah, I think anything you learn helps with other things.

00:06:36.653 --> 00:06:40.596
Any new way you can think about music helps the other ways you have of playing it.

00:06:40.997 --> 00:06:42.800
Sometimes I'll figure something out.

00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:45.562
You know, harmonica, you can't see anything.

00:06:46.083 --> 00:06:54.692
And sometimes it's easier to visually look at the fingerboard on a guitar and figure something out and then translate that to the harmonica.

00:06:55.413 --> 00:07:01.579
Yeah, and I hear on your recordings, quite often you do a thing where you play in unison with the guitar.

00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:05.086
Thank you.

00:07:19.745 --> 00:07:26.716
So is that maybe something you got interested from, you know, from playing the guitar yourself and, like you say, working things out on the guitar and on the harmonica?

00:07:26.937 --> 00:07:27.598
Well, it could be.

00:07:27.677 --> 00:07:31.382
I just know that's kind of a cool sound when you can play in unison.

00:07:31.803 --> 00:07:32.946
Catches people's ears.

00:07:33.846 --> 00:07:37.432
And, of course, singing is another thing you're very well known for.

00:07:37.473 --> 00:07:40.858
Were you also singing back then or did it take you a little bit longer to find your voice?

00:07:41.250 --> 00:07:42.492
I'm still finding it.

00:07:43.733 --> 00:07:54.146
I always thought if you really want to sing, the best thing to do is go to church, but I just wasn't much of a church goer, so I just kind of figured it out on my own.

00:07:54.165 --> 00:07:59.752
¶¶¶¶

00:08:08.961 --> 00:08:11.964
I like to think of myself as a lifelong learner.

00:08:12.165 --> 00:08:14.687
I'm still learning guitar and harmonica and singing.

00:08:15.086 --> 00:08:17.548
Well, that's great to hear that you've still got that passion for learning.

00:08:17.829 --> 00:08:22.994
It's a good lesson to everybody, isn't it, that you've got to keep that interest in learning and improving all the time.

00:08:23.033 --> 00:08:23.334
Well,

00:08:23.795 --> 00:08:27.237
I do it from the point of view of pleasing myself.

00:08:28.358 --> 00:08:33.623
Even if I had never recorded or had a career in music, it's still what I'd be doing.

00:08:34.063 --> 00:08:42.779
If I worked at the factory and never left Chicago, I would still be playing music if it wasn't for anybody but myself because I just love it that much

00:08:43.041 --> 00:08:54.052
and it makes me feel good your father of course did play some harmonica and guitar but he didn't encourage you to pursue music did he oh no That wasn't a real job in his eyes.

00:08:54.672 --> 00:08:55.673
It turned out well for you.

00:08:55.692 --> 00:08:58.875
Was he proud of what you managed to achieve in the music?

00:08:59.456 --> 00:09:01.378
Oh, finally, he came around.

00:09:01.398 --> 00:09:01.477
Yeah,

00:09:02.019 --> 00:09:05.100
and your family, I think you came from quite a musical family, didn't you?

00:09:05.140 --> 00:09:09.065
Lots of your family members played instruments, including your mother, tinkered on the piano.

00:09:09.345 --> 00:09:15.669
Yeah, a lot of people, they weren't necessarily professional, but they played guitars or harmonicas or something.

00:09:15.730 --> 00:09:18.413
And I did have an uncle that had a one-man band.

00:09:18.692 --> 00:09:21.054
And I asked him one time, who did you play for?

00:09:21.075 --> 00:09:23.717
And he said, He just followed the harvest.

00:09:23.878 --> 00:09:30.043
You know, when people were harvesting in the fall, he'd be right there when they got off of work playing for them for tips.

00:09:30.284 --> 00:09:31.005
Field workers.

00:09:31.505 --> 00:09:35.309
And almost every mussel I've ever met plays some kind of instrument.

00:09:35.549 --> 00:09:38.514
And so maybe it's kind of partly genetic.

00:09:38.594 --> 00:09:39.033
I don't know.

00:09:39.333 --> 00:09:40.576
Yeah, it's in the blood.

00:09:40.735 --> 00:09:41.636
It's in the blood somewhere.

00:09:41.677 --> 00:09:42.498
Did you play?

00:09:42.538 --> 00:09:44.340
Did you jam with your family members?

00:09:45.061 --> 00:09:45.821
No, not really.

00:09:45.841 --> 00:09:47.543
I just wanted to play blues.

00:09:47.623 --> 00:09:51.547
And they kind of looked down on blues or weren't interested in blues.

00:09:51.927 --> 00:09:52.048
Really?

00:09:52.048 --> 00:09:56.666
read some quotes from you about the love that you have for blues and what the music means to you.

00:09:56.686 --> 00:09:56.767
Yeah,

00:09:57.328 --> 00:10:00.822
I say it's your comforter when you're down and your buddy when you're up.

00:10:01.384 --> 00:10:02.408
It's always there for you.

00:10:03.073 --> 00:10:06.256
So then you moved from Memphis up to Chicago.

00:10:06.297 --> 00:10:07.778
I think you were in the early 60s.

00:10:07.817 --> 00:10:09.318
You went up there just looking for work.

00:10:09.339 --> 00:10:12.682
Yeah, you didn't even know Chicago was a blues town, did you, when you went up there?

00:10:13.322 --> 00:10:14.403
I didn't know that at all.

00:10:14.423 --> 00:10:19.788
I was aware that these labels like Chess and BJ were in Chicago.

00:10:19.869 --> 00:10:24.633
It said so on the label, but that didn't mean to me that there was a big blues scene there.

00:10:24.993 --> 00:10:30.878
I had been told that anybody that was an entertainer, they either lived in New York City or Hollywood.

00:10:31.339 --> 00:10:36.703
So in my mind, I kind of picked Richard, a guy like Muddy Waters living in New York City or something.

00:10:36.764 --> 00:10:37.284
I didn't know.

00:10:37.585 --> 00:10:43.191
So it was a big pleasant surprise to me to suddenly find myself, find this whole big blues scene.

00:10:43.230 --> 00:10:45.613
It was just, I was like a kid in a candy store.

00:10:45.974 --> 00:10:48.115
So this was in the early 1960s.

00:10:48.475 --> 00:10:53.782
I think you took a job and you became aware of the blues clubs around and you saw them.

00:10:53.902 --> 00:10:55.144
I think you were driving a truck, weren't you?

00:10:55.203 --> 00:10:59.528
And you became aware of the blues clubs and that's how you started going to the blues clubs around Chicago.

00:10:59.948 --> 00:11:00.669
It wasn't a truck.

00:11:00.870 --> 00:11:03.619
It was a guy who was an exterminator and he had a car.

00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:05.115
It was a little car called a Lark.

00:11:05.378 --> 00:11:09.201
And I would drive him and his tanks for spraying roaches.

00:11:09.301 --> 00:11:15.807
I'd drive him all over Chicago, which was perfect because I got to learn the whole city right away, real fast.

00:11:16.126 --> 00:11:21.851
And that's where I saw posters and signs on the front of bars for Muddy.

00:11:22.153 --> 00:11:25.134
I remember seeing Elmore James Tuesday night.

00:11:25.615 --> 00:11:29.058
Once you find a couple of those bars, you find out all the rest of the

00:11:29.119 --> 00:11:29.879
places to go.

00:11:29.918 --> 00:11:31.780
These are mostly black clubs, yeah?

00:11:31.801 --> 00:11:34.283
So you went and you were like one of the only white guys in there?

00:11:34.602 --> 00:11:35.344
Yeah.

00:11:35.344 --> 00:11:38.788
Rarely saw any white faces, but it didn't bother me.

00:11:38.868 --> 00:11:41.711
I was always perfectly comfortable with black people.

00:11:41.791 --> 00:11:43.493
I'd known black people all my life.

00:11:43.913 --> 00:11:57.267
Even when I was a baby, my mother was in Silver Service, which took her away from home, and my dad was in the Navy, and I was left in Mississippi alone with a black lady named Velma, and she was like my other mother.

00:11:57.607 --> 00:12:00.890
And my mom would come home, and I'd be with her for months.

00:12:01.111 --> 00:12:05.296
My mom would come home and want to cook for me, and I'd say, no, I want Velma's cooking.

00:12:05.296 --> 00:12:07.839
She told me it hurt her feelings, but she got over it.

00:12:08.219 --> 00:12:09.000
That's great to hear.

00:12:09.059 --> 00:12:15.866
And I think, you know, the message I saw there is that you got a great welcome from all these blues musicians in Chicago, these black blues musicians.

00:12:15.947 --> 00:12:21.994
And they sort of saw you as coming from the South where, you know, where some of them had come from and their family had come from.

00:12:22.333 --> 00:12:27.440
And you were welcomed into that scene and they were very welcoming and encouraging to you, you know, the kind of only white guy in the club.

00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:28.860
Well, they were really flattered.

00:12:29.302 --> 00:12:34.506
I knew who they were and I had their records and I knew the names of their tunes and I was their fan.

00:12:34.567 --> 00:12:35.889
And that's why was there.

00:12:36.289 --> 00:12:40.933
So that's because at the time, their records were really only selling to black audiences, were they?

00:12:40.994 --> 00:12:43.155
It wasn't popular with white audiences at that point.

00:12:43.375 --> 00:12:47.440
Well, for one thing, young black kids my age had no use for blues.

00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:49.120
They didn't care for blues at all.

00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:54.686
When I would talk to guys my age about Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, they just thought I was crazy.

00:12:54.826 --> 00:12:56.827
They'd say, man, that's the old folks' music.

00:12:56.868 --> 00:12:58.469
You've got to get up with the times.

00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:02.312
So it was the music of their parents, and they didn't want nothing to do with it.

00:13:02.413 --> 00:13:29.520
So not only did I stand out because I was white, but I stood out because i was young this was strictly adults for as far as i was concerned there wasn't anybody my age black or white in these clubs for both those reasons they were real flattered and uh being from down south seemed to really mean something i wasn't a local yankee when i would be introduced to other people that always add that you know charlie he's from down home like that really meant something that was important

00:13:29.681 --> 00:13:43.416
were you part of that wave of the you know the sort of white blues boom you know you obviously yourself and paul butterfield and mike bloomfield and obviously the british blues boom did the british blues boom come sort of before the american blues boom or you know how did that work

00:13:43.676 --> 00:14:07.741
well i was playing blues before i ever heard of any english groups playing blues when i did hear english groups playing blues i was i thought that was cool because you know blues was like really underground for a long time there wouldn't there's nothing like it is today you couldn't read anything you might find a book on jazz it would have a little chapter on blues and they would just talk about Bessie Smith or something.

00:14:08.022 --> 00:14:10.845
You didn't read about Lightning Hopkins or nothing like that.

00:14:11.245 --> 00:14:19.014
And I mean, all these things you have today, like blues societies and blues festivals and blues cruises, and none of that existed.

00:14:19.234 --> 00:14:21.135
Blues was really underground.

00:14:21.216 --> 00:14:22.918
You couldn't hardly find blues records.

00:14:22.957 --> 00:14:25.179
You had to like really search places for them.

00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.081
And it's a whole different world now.

00:14:27.383 --> 00:14:31.407
It's all accessible with the DVDs and everything, YouTube.

00:14:31.586 --> 00:14:34.230
I mean, you can just saturate yourself with blues.

00:14:34.289 --> 00:14:36.732
But back in the early 60s, it just wasn't it

00:14:37.253 --> 00:14:47.683
that's really interesting to hear you say that because certainly i have a perception that you know chicago was a great blues town and obviously there were lots of blues clubs but like you say probably somewhat underground and within the black community

00:14:48.004 --> 00:16:05.287
no there was a big blue scene on the south side of chicago in the black part of chicago there were a lot of blues clubs and occasionally guys would come out with a 45 like alan wolf or sunny boyer it wasn't a big scene outside of the south side outside of the black neighborhoods you know you didn't pay up the paper and read about you know Muddy Waters is playing tonight you know it might be an ad in a local black paper it was all underground and hidden you had to find it for yourself but like I said once you found a couple of clubs and got to know people that were blues lovers you would find out about all the other clubs too and everybody it was kind of a network that you got into and you met people that knew about the other clubs and musicians and the bands and where they were playing and but you know there wasn't any internet back then nothing like that you had to really figure it all out a lot of great blues and a lot of clubs but they're all small it wasn't enough you couldn't hardly make a living playing and if that's all you did well a lot of those guys had day jobs only guys that didn't have day jobs were guys like wolf and muddy that were they were still putting out singles and touring and when they weren't on the road they had their home club that they would play at like wolf was always at sylvio's when he was in chicago and muddy was always at peppers when he was in chicago

00:16:05.548 --> 00:16:13.615
that's when you got your your sort of break here you you sat in with muddy at pepper's club and uh you know that's that's maybe when you first got your name known for playing the harmonica

00:16:13.875 --> 00:16:37.701
yeah i wasn't going around asking to sit in i didn't even ever tell anybody i played anything they just thought i was a fan but i got to know this waitress real good i played for her one time at her apartment next thing i know she's telling buddy you ought to hear charlie play harmonica buddy's like surprised he didn't know i played anything and when he found out that i played he insisted i sit in which i Wasn't unusual to sit in with Muddy.

00:16:37.761 --> 00:16:39.744
People sat in with Muddy all the time.

00:16:39.803 --> 00:16:46.230
It was very casual, but it was just unusual for a young white kid or any young kid to sit in.

00:16:46.331 --> 00:16:48.533
And I got a lot of attention right away.

00:16:48.594 --> 00:16:53.077
And other musicians that hung out at Peppers when they weren't working, they heard me playing.

00:16:53.118 --> 00:16:55.581
And right away, people started offering me gigs.

00:16:55.801 --> 00:16:57.863
Boy, that got my attention, really.

00:16:57.883 --> 00:17:00.326
I thought, wow, you're going to pay me to play?

00:17:00.466 --> 00:17:00.986
All right.

00:17:01.407 --> 00:17:04.471
So when you first played with Muddy, were you quite a good player by that stage?

00:17:04.871 --> 00:17:05.491
I could play.

00:17:05.571 --> 00:17:22.750
I mean, I was playing I just I had never thought about doing that for a living or I didn't have a goal to be on stage that wasn't anything I ever thought about it I like to play the blues and I just played it for myself I didn't have any intent intention of becoming a known musician that just happened to me

00:17:22.950 --> 00:17:29.758
great to hear that Muddy was encouraging and some of the other harmonica players I've spoken to on here have said the same Kim Wilson and others

00:17:30.097 --> 00:17:36.924
well after that anytime I saw Muddy he always would have me sit in no matter where I saw him he would call me up to sit in.

00:17:37.246 --> 00:17:45.354
And whilst you were in Chicago, you obviously hung out with a lot of other blues musicians and you lived with Big Joe Williams who wrote Baby Please Don't Go.

00:17:45.694 --> 00:17:53.122
But also, I mean, harmonica player-wise, you knew Sonny Boy II, you knew Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, of course, plays harmonica.

00:17:53.143 --> 00:17:54.903
So were you hanging out with these guys?

00:17:54.923 --> 00:17:57.686
Were you playing with them, getting any tips from them or anything like that?

00:17:57.727 --> 00:18:00.810
No, people didn't really talk about stuff like that.

00:18:00.851 --> 00:18:05.776
You just, you know, everybody expected you to play, you know, and everybody seemed to have something to do with it.

00:18:05.776 --> 00:18:06.297
offer.

00:18:06.317 --> 00:18:12.123
You know, a guy that might not play a whole lot, what he did play was respected and important.

00:18:12.262 --> 00:18:13.884
You know, like a guy like John Rencher.

00:18:13.984 --> 00:18:17.647
I really loved his playing, but it was, well, even Helen Wolfe.

00:18:17.748 --> 00:18:23.294
Wolfe didn't play more than about three or four notes, but it sounded so good the way he played.

00:18:23.433 --> 00:18:25.596
I mean, his tone was just massive.

00:18:25.757 --> 00:18:26.617
That's all he needed.

00:18:26.657 --> 00:18:29.380
He could have got away with just playing one note.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:18:37.442 --> 00:18:40.541
Thank you.

00:18:42.145 --> 00:18:48.171
There wasn't much talk about technique or what kind of mic you have or what kind of amplifier you have.

00:18:48.230 --> 00:18:51.034
I never heard anybody talk about any of that stuff.

00:18:52.674 --> 00:18:52.894
Wow.

00:18:53.375 --> 00:18:55.958
Again, not like today when that's all over the internet.

00:18:56.578 --> 00:18:57.358
And I'll talk to you about

00:18:58.099 --> 00:18:58.440
it at the end too.

00:18:58.460 --> 00:19:01.923
You know, one thing comes to mind about as far as technique.

00:19:02.103 --> 00:19:10.109
I saw Walter Horton playing one night and he had two harmonicas back to back and he would play one and he'd flip it over and play the other one.

00:19:10.349 --> 00:19:45.567
And one of them I could tell from the his phrasing he was playing in second position but the other one i couldn't tell what he was doing i never heard anything like that and he was playing in the key of a you know the d harmonica he showed me that he the other harmonica was c so he was playing in fourth position on a c harmonica i had never heard of such a thing i didn't know if there was first second and third i'd never heard of anybody ever mentioned anything about playing another key another position well that was pretty mind-blowing for me back then and a couple of weeks may Maybe after that, I saw Little Walter on 63rd Street.

00:19:45.647 --> 00:19:46.669
I'll never forget it.

00:19:46.909 --> 00:20:02.645
He was standing on the sidewalk, and I walked up to him, and we were talking, and I remembered seeing Walter Horton playing the key of A on a C harmonica, and I told Little Walter about it, and I still remember Little Walter just shrugging his shoulders and saying, oh, that ain't nothing.

00:20:02.726 --> 00:20:05.409
You can play in the key of E on a C harmonica, too.

00:20:05.429 --> 00:20:21.825
And I thought, damn! Then I got to thinking, it seemed like if you could find any artist octave on a harmonica there's one some way to get between those two notes and make it make yourself playing in that key but uh five positions is enough for me

00:20:23.365 --> 00:20:40.422
yeah i guess again though interesting looking back on when you were you know learning these things back then you know compared to now when it was all over the internet i mean so how did you learn these things is just from talking to other players or were there a few one or two books around and things like that or just playing along with records

00:20:40.993 --> 00:20:42.115
No, I just listened.

00:20:42.134 --> 00:20:50.246
I would soak it up just listening, and then I would sit around and just fool around with the harmonica and figure out stuff for myself.

00:20:50.486 --> 00:20:54.471
I would play a note, and I'd think to myself, what's the next note you want to hear?

00:20:54.510 --> 00:20:55.372
And I'd find it.

00:20:55.633 --> 00:20:57.394
And I'd say, what's the note you want to hear after that?

00:20:57.434 --> 00:20:58.496
And I'd find that note.

00:20:59.116 --> 00:21:02.481
Another thing that Walter Horton told me, he said, learn your patterns.

00:21:03.009 --> 00:21:06.818
Figuring out the note you wanted to play one by one, that was a pattern.

00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:14.758
When you started playing in different keys and learning the patterns for those keys or positions, they were the patterns that he was talking about.

00:21:15.009 --> 00:21:17.874
That's what I put my time into, is learning the patterns.

00:21:17.973 --> 00:21:24.443
I wasn't necessarily trying to play like anybody else, and I never was much for memorizing anything.

00:21:24.544 --> 00:21:30.032
I did, at one time, knew how to play juke note for note, but I don't remember that anymore.

00:21:31.213 --> 00:21:33.778
I think that was the only thing I ever really memorized.

00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:35.861
You mentioned Big Walter there.

00:21:36.342 --> 00:21:38.265
Big Walter did give some lessons, didn't he?

00:21:38.444 --> 00:21:41.509
Did you ever go around to his place and have a lesson from him?

00:21:41.922 --> 00:21:44.632
Well, I used to spend a lot of time with Walter.

00:21:44.652 --> 00:21:46.378
We were just real good friends.

00:21:46.759 --> 00:21:49.189
But a lesson was really just sitting around drinking.

00:21:49.249 --> 00:21:50.132
That was a lesson.

00:21:51.738 --> 00:21:52.701
We'd play together.

00:21:52.961 --> 00:22:00.692
But he didn't give me any instruction, you know, like, don't do that thing you're doing there or do it this way or nothing like that.

00:22:01.634 --> 00:22:03.356
We'd just have fun together.

00:22:03.576 --> 00:22:04.759
And we would walk around.

00:22:04.778 --> 00:22:08.884
We'd walk all over Chicago, going to different people's homes he knew.

00:22:08.924 --> 00:22:11.808
The idea was that we would go in and play for them.

00:22:11.909 --> 00:22:12.990
We'd get a free drink.

00:22:13.230 --> 00:22:16.875
We'd do that all over Chicago, all over the

00:22:16.935 --> 00:22:17.576
South Side.

00:22:18.210 --> 00:22:21.212
You've got some recordings with him on the Chicago Blues Today album.

00:22:21.252 --> 00:22:23.576
So is that your first recording session?

00:22:23.936 --> 00:22:24.656
I'm not sure.

00:22:24.676 --> 00:22:31.664
I know that Sam Charters had hired me to play on an album by Tracy Nelson called Deeper the Roots.

00:22:42.617 --> 00:22:42.718
Music

00:22:55.746 --> 00:23:07.377
and I remember playing for some folk singer, I don't remember his name now, he wanted a harmonica on his record, but I don't know what came first, I just don't remember anymore.

00:23:08.019 --> 00:23:16.086
No, that's fine, but yeah, I mean, there's some great, you know, I think there's three tracks on that Chicago Blues today, and you're playing Rockin' My Boogie with Big Walter.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:23:27.074 --> 00:23:40.599
Well,

00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:45.067
Sam Charters, he got the idea to do that because he had seen us play together.

00:23:45.288 --> 00:23:50.397
So he wanted to capture that two harmonica thing and he put it on that album.

00:23:50.529 --> 00:23:53.813
And then you did your first album, the Stand Back.

00:23:53.952 --> 00:23:56.855
Here comes Charlie Muswight's Southside Blues Band.

00:23:56.895 --> 00:23:58.717
So you were 22 years old then.

00:23:58.836 --> 00:24:01.219
And I think you recorded this in one session, didn't you?

00:24:01.500 --> 00:24:03.922
Yeah, we had to do the whole thing in three hours.

00:24:03.981 --> 00:24:05.502
We did it in under three hours.

00:24:05.722 --> 00:24:09.926
If you went over three hours, according to the union, they had to pay you double.

00:24:10.166 --> 00:24:11.868
And Vanguard wasn't going to have that.

00:24:11.989 --> 00:24:14.730
So we had to get it all done in under three hours.

00:24:15.151 --> 00:24:17.512
Came out and it was very successful for you, that album, wasn't it?

00:24:17.814 --> 00:24:19.295
Yeah, much to my surprise.

00:24:19.355 --> 00:24:21.396
I had no idea it was going to do anything.

00:24:21.596 --> 00:24:25.381
I mean, the whole idea of me making an album was kind of a lark to me.

00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:30.527
I just had no idea anybody was interested or it would do anything.

00:24:30.606 --> 00:24:33.170
And as far as I looked at it, it was a session.

00:24:33.190 --> 00:24:36.452
I thought I'd make some money from the session so I could buy a new amp.

00:24:36.613 --> 00:24:41.818
But when the union got the check and they told me to come down and get it, the check was only for 36 cents.

00:24:42.199 --> 00:24:46.063
And to get that check, the union wanted me to give them$4 work dues.

00:24:46.864 --> 00:24:48.145
Well, I never got the check.

00:24:48.165 --> 00:24:51.368
36 cents wasn't going to do much for me.

00:24:51.669 --> 00:24:54.172
Did you get anything from the sales of that album?

00:24:54.511 --> 00:24:56.034
Was that all owned by the record company?

00:24:56.334 --> 00:25:02.019
You know, the deal I signed with them was really a bad deal and I didn't know anything about the business.

00:25:02.099 --> 00:25:06.184
I had no manager, I had no booking agent or nothing.

00:25:06.265 --> 00:25:12.090
I knew zero about the business and I had nobody to advise me or tell me anything or how to do it.

00:25:12.612 --> 00:25:15.795
But nevertheless, it was still a great album for you and definitely got your name out there.

00:25:16.035 --> 00:25:17.797
It gave me a career and put me on the road.

00:25:18.178 --> 00:25:19.598
It was worth that 36 cents.

00:25:20.019 --> 00:25:26.596
So, I mean the song you're very closely associated with and you've recorded on several of your albums is Cristo Redemptor.

00:25:41.794 --> 00:25:45.502
which I think was originally a sort of jazz tune from a trumpet player, wasn't it?

00:25:45.963 --> 00:25:50.535
That's true, but I remember the first time I heard it, thinking that would sound great on a harmonica.

00:25:50.835 --> 00:25:53.662
You know, they had it on the jukebox in the blues clubs.

00:25:53.701 --> 00:25:54.443
That's where I heard it.

00:25:54.483 --> 00:25:58.914
Anyhow, I just knew that that melody would sound really pretty on a harmonica.

00:25:58.954 --> 00:26:00.117
I think I was right.

00:26:00.865 --> 00:26:16.720
absolutely yes it's a very haunting melody it's a it's fantastic tune yeah so yeah and then there was help me and early in the morning so you know you did a lot of the obviously the blues songs that you loved at that time yeah so it's a great album and it came out very well and still i mean it still holds up well today doesn't it that's

00:26:16.940 --> 00:26:21.463
it's never been a friend it's been in it's been available for over 50 years

00:26:22.044 --> 00:26:39.390
fantastic and just 22 years old then as well so that's the start of it for you so and then i think that was in 66 and then is it 67 you moved to California and was this sort of on the back of the success of the album that your sort of name and you got some gigs in California on the back of the Stand Back album?

00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:47.017
Well, after that album came out, I started getting calls from different places to come play and I kept putting it off.

00:26:47.096 --> 00:26:54.522
And finally, some guy in California put together a whole month of work for really good money, way better than I was making in Chicago.

00:26:54.623 --> 00:26:58.646
So I thought, well, I'll just go out there and make that money and come back to Chicago.

00:26:58.846 --> 00:27:07.314
But when I came out to California, I saw that there was a ton of work all up and down the whole West Coast and that blues was kind of something exotic.

00:27:07.713 --> 00:27:09.455
They didn't know about blues on the West Coast.

00:27:09.455 --> 00:27:17.984
coast the hippies didn't anyhow they were the ones going to these ballrooms and so that's where the money was at so i just i didn't go back to chicago

00:27:18.465 --> 00:27:27.375
was this a sort of start at least for you as you know the kind of white blues band and do you think you were one of the forerunners of that you know moving over to california and doing well over there with that

00:27:27.674 --> 00:27:45.535
well it wasn't uh on purpose that it was white it was just whoever was available i could get to play with me later on i got a lot of guys to come out from chicago i had lewis myers and jack myers and fred below and freddie roulette and a lot of guys i brought out from chicago later on when i could afford it

00:27:46.035 --> 00:28:03.733
yeah so i mean obviously you didn't see it as a racing like you say you were very well integrated with the guys in chicago anyway but obviously there's that kind of white kind of blues band in the 60s and um obviously yourself and paul butterfield i mean do you think you were the first in that or were there were there a few other bands around at the time you know sort of white blues bands

00:28:04.134 --> 00:28:24.756
well there was a couple of guys in chicago uh and then on the west coast there wasn't much they I knew about at the time I mean later on I got to know other people and I'd run into people that white guys my age that were playing harmonica that a lot of them because of they had heard me or Butterfield and were inspired because of that that they could do that too

00:28:25.237 --> 00:28:41.173
so then you made you made another album in 68 Louisiana Fog which is another good album and then in 1969 I've got to I've got to talk about this one Charlie Memphis Charlie your Memphis Charlie album that's the first time I heard you Charlie and I absolutely loved it ain't right, I'm finger lickin' good.

00:29:03.137 --> 00:29:04.900
finger licking good.

00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:09.022
And Memphis Charlie, you were known, I think, as Memphis Charlie in Chicago, weren't you?

00:29:09.042 --> 00:29:10.845
Hence the name of the album.

00:29:11.164 --> 00:29:12.086
Yeah, Big Joe Williams

00:29:12.125 --> 00:29:13.906
gave me that name when I first met him.

00:29:14.228 --> 00:29:15.608
That's where that name comes from.

00:29:16.068 --> 00:29:17.509
You've had a great recording career.

00:29:17.529 --> 00:29:26.218
I mean, I think I'm counting on the discography on your website that you've got 34 albums listed on there and you've recorded on numerous others as well.

00:29:26.298 --> 00:29:28.259
So a great long list of albums.

00:29:28.339 --> 00:29:36.968
I mean, picking through the albums to talk about, it's difficult to choose because you've done so many, you know, and it what about your your long recording career how have you managed to keep that going and

00:29:37.348 --> 00:29:58.070
well it seemed like there's always somebody interested in you know a label or promoter or somebody interested in recording me so that helped you know i never quit playing i never quit touring and so i've always had an audience that would buy my records and you know eventually i started putting them out on my own label called the henrietta label which is my wife's name and she's also my manager

00:29:58.431 --> 00:30:25.215
another album going to the late 70s now the harmonica according to charlie musselwhite some great songs and some great harmonica instrumentals on there such as harping on a riff You do Armonica Instrumental really well.

00:30:25.476 --> 00:30:33.962
Originally, that album was supposed to be just a, it was a company, I forget the name of it now, but they just put out instructional books with an album.

00:30:34.083 --> 00:30:35.845
Kickin' Mule, that was the original label.

00:30:35.904 --> 00:30:37.066
That's all that was about.

00:30:37.165 --> 00:30:39.607
It's just supposed to be with an instructional book.

00:30:39.807 --> 00:30:43.351
That other label that it's on now bought it and put it out itself.

00:30:43.592 --> 00:30:45.073
Did it come out with a book at the time?

00:30:45.313 --> 00:30:46.294
Yeah, it was a book.

00:30:46.554 --> 00:30:52.138
It had a lot of mistakes in it, and every time I would try to correct the mistakes, they would just add more mistakes.

00:30:53.059 --> 00:30:54.463
But you It's a good album.

00:30:54.884 --> 00:30:56.388
I think it was recorded in London, wasn't it?

00:30:56.609 --> 00:30:57.090
That's right.

00:30:57.131 --> 00:30:58.153
It was recorded in London.

00:30:58.255 --> 00:31:02.145
There is a chromatic instrumental on the Blues in the Dark, which is a George Smith song.

00:31:02.185 --> 00:31:03.851
That was done on chromatic, yeah.

00:31:06.157 --> 00:31:06.238
Yeah.

00:31:15.682 --> 00:31:38.642
knew George the first time I met George Cotton had quit Muddy and I went down to see Muddy at a club in Otis Bend I see him walking over to my table with this tall guy with him and he comes over and says hey Charlie I want you to meet George Smith our new harmonica player well I already knew who George Smith was because I had some 45s of his and we became friends right then we were friends from then on

00:31:39.021 --> 00:31:43.006
because he's another west coast player wasn't he so was he out in the west coast when you were

00:31:43.185 --> 00:31:47.009
yeah but I met him in Chicago because Muddy brought Brought him out to Chicago.

00:31:47.470 --> 00:31:51.955
And so, I mean, talking a little bit about blues chromatic, then you do play quite a lot of chromatic, don't you?

00:31:51.976 --> 00:31:54.199
Blues chromatic on your albums.

00:31:54.519 --> 00:31:57.763
Yeah, I play, you know, mostly for myself, I play a lot.

00:31:57.923 --> 00:32:00.268
I should probably start playing more in person.

00:32:00.288 --> 00:32:01.409
I have a lot of fun with it.

00:32:01.829 --> 00:32:04.753
Going up to the 90s now, your first album on...

00:32:05.153 --> 00:32:07.296
Alligator Records, which you've had several.

00:32:07.395 --> 00:32:11.980
I think your first Grammy nominee album, which was Ace of Harps in 1990.

00:32:12.099 --> 00:32:13.621
So what about signing for Alligator?

00:32:13.801 --> 00:32:14.721
Well, it's a good company.

00:32:14.801 --> 00:32:19.626
I mean, Bruce Iglar, the owner, is one of the real honest guys in the business.

00:32:19.866 --> 00:32:22.308
You make a deal with Bruce and he'll stick to it.

00:32:22.548 --> 00:32:24.371
He loves the blues like we all do.

00:32:24.631 --> 00:32:29.194
So it's nice to work for a guy that is not just a businessman, who actually does love the music.

00:32:29.634 --> 00:32:33.377
Also, a guy like Chris Strock, which he really loves the music too.

00:32:33.419 --> 00:32:35.119
He's also one of the few really honest guys in the business.

00:32:35.119 --> 00:32:36.502
honest guys in the business.

00:32:36.883 --> 00:32:38.486
Alligator really knows the business.

00:32:38.506 --> 00:32:42.252
They know how to sell records, and it's a good label to be on.

00:32:42.653 --> 00:32:46.882
And that album, Ace of Harps, you've got that very interesting song, Yesterdays.

00:32:57.622 --> 00:32:57.821
Yesterdays

00:33:02.210 --> 00:33:04.852
You often do this, don't you, where you step out of the blues genre.

00:33:05.472 --> 00:33:10.096
This is quite a minor, ballady, almost jazzy type song.

00:33:10.336 --> 00:33:13.859
You play a bit of jazz and Tex-Mex and different genres.

00:33:14.540 --> 00:33:15.922
You've always been interested in doing it.

00:33:15.942 --> 00:33:18.344
You started developing it in some of your later albums.

00:33:18.884 --> 00:33:24.388
Well, back when I was a kid in Memphis looking for blues 78s, they were so cheap.

00:33:24.449 --> 00:33:26.330
They were only like a nickel or a dime.

00:33:27.011 --> 00:33:28.932
I'd buy anything that said blues on it.

00:33:29.032 --> 00:33:31.935
I didn't have to know who it was until I took it home and listened to it.

00:33:32.175 --> 00:33:34.878
anything else that looked interesting, I'd get that too.

00:33:34.919 --> 00:33:44.769
So I discovered a lot of music that had a bluesy feel to it, like Arabic music and Greek music and stuff from different parts of the world I didn't know anything about.

00:33:44.788 --> 00:33:50.394
I got the idea that every culture around the world had its own music of lament.

00:33:50.516 --> 00:33:55.540
You know, like anywhere you went in the world, there's a guy standing on the corner singing about My Baby Left Me.

00:33:56.541 --> 00:33:59.444
That's a human experience anywhere you go.

00:33:59.484 --> 00:34:08.235
And also in the blues clubs, those a lot of jazz on the jukebox, especially like the trios like Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff.

00:34:08.414 --> 00:34:14.021
Those guys were playing blues, you know, but they would do other tunes too and they would blues them up.

00:34:14.121 --> 00:34:23.231
So it was interesting to me how you could take blues and blues up something that's not necessarily a 1-4-5 tune and make it better.

00:34:23.391 --> 00:34:28.597
So I've always been interested in how you could use blues to make other forms of music interesting.

00:34:29.217 --> 00:34:30.559
Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

00:34:30.579 --> 00:34:34.181
I mean, Charlie Parker, probably, you know, renowned to be the greatest improviser ever.

00:34:34.222 --> 00:34:40.086
A lot of the jazz songs he's worked with were blues songs, sort of blues songs with more complicated chord structures, yeah.

00:34:40.248 --> 00:34:41.989
Thelonious Monk is a blues player.

00:34:42.188 --> 00:34:43.831
Really, a lot of his tunes are 1.5.

00:34:44.371 --> 00:34:48.255
Even Coltrane recorded whole sides of albums that were blues.

00:34:48.855 --> 00:34:51.637
Yeah, so you talk about obviously different cultures there.

00:34:51.757 --> 00:34:57.503
An album which you're quite well known for is Continental Drifter, which I think you recorded with a Cuban band, yeah?

00:34:57.722 --> 00:34:59.184
Yeah, Quarteto Patria.

00:34:59.184 --> 00:35:01.567
from Santiago de Cuba.

00:35:01.746 --> 00:35:04.188
And the leader of that band is Eliadis Ochoa.

00:35:04.349 --> 00:35:10.476
He also appears in that Buena Vista Social Club movie or video, the guy with the big white hat.

00:35:10.655 --> 00:35:17.083
But actually, I liked his group better than anything you hear on the Buena Vista Social Club situation.

00:35:17.342 --> 00:35:20.706
And to me, Eliadis is like the muddy waters of Cuba.

00:35:20.827 --> 00:35:23.329
He's really down home and a great guy.

00:35:23.349 --> 00:35:25.251
And his music really comes from the heart.

00:35:25.572 --> 00:35:27.454
I asked him about harmonica.

00:35:27.494 --> 00:35:32.440
I said, I guess you've never heard anybody play harmonica with a traditional Cuban son.

00:35:32.679 --> 00:35:37.985
And he said, oh no, it used to be a tradition, except there's hardly any harmonicas left in Cuba.

00:35:38.346 --> 00:35:46.153
It turns out that there was a black guy from the South, and I don't know when this was, maybe in the 20s, he went to Cuba.

00:35:46.695 --> 00:35:53.561
He must have been a blues player because he started adapting what he knew to the local music, which was traditional son.

00:35:53.943 --> 00:35:57.746
It sparked a lot of harmonica players, according to what Eliades told me.

00:35:58.027 --> 00:36:05.315
And it'd be interesting to go to Cuba and find if any of those harmonica players are still around and how they played and what they sound like.

00:36:05.514 --> 00:36:07.456
So how did that album come about with the Cuban band?

00:36:07.617 --> 00:36:13.143
Well, I already knew who Eliadas was and I had all his CDs because I love that music.

00:36:13.242 --> 00:36:16.427
It's just so infectious and has a lot of heart in it.

00:36:16.646 --> 00:36:26.978
And it's also a music that came from African and European music came together to spark a new music and a new place just like blues did in the American South.

00:36:27.458 --> 00:36:30.961
Anyhow, I was playing a festival in Bergen, Norway.

00:36:31.262 --> 00:36:36.248
And I was talking to the promoter, and it turns out he was also a big fan of Quartetto Patria.

00:36:36.527 --> 00:36:40.371
And neither one of us had ever met anybody that even knew who they were.

00:36:40.773 --> 00:36:46.458
So we were really excited to finally meet somebody else that knew who Quartetto Patria was.

00:36:46.838 --> 00:36:52.525
Well, a couple of months go by, and that promoter calls me up and says, hey, I found Quartetto Patria.

00:36:52.804 --> 00:36:55.487
I'm bringing her to my festival, and you got to come back.

00:36:55.809 --> 00:36:58.291
And I thought about it, and I thought, well, this would be great.

00:36:58.311 --> 00:36:58.992
I hope I get to see her.

00:36:58.992 --> 00:36:59.693
sit in with them.

00:36:59.773 --> 00:37:01.474
It'd be wonderful to hear them play.

00:37:01.795 --> 00:37:05.759
And I thought, well, if I get to sit in with them, it'd be nice to get a recording of that.

00:37:05.958 --> 00:37:08.001
I should have something with me to tape it.

00:37:08.202 --> 00:37:09.742
And then I thought, well, wait a minute.

00:37:09.963 --> 00:37:12.045
Surely they have a studio in Bergen.

00:37:12.065 --> 00:37:15.168
We'll just go in the studio and record, just see what happens.

00:37:16.269 --> 00:37:26.722
So I go to Bergen, and I meet Eliado Sochoa, and we talk it over, and he's really interested, and we have some rehearsals, and I played him some blues.

00:37:26.802 --> 00:37:33.829
I thought, well, they could play the one-fourth chord change with the Cuban rhythm, but that wasn't going to work.

00:37:33.929 --> 00:37:35.010
I saw it pretty quickly.

00:37:35.251 --> 00:37:36.193
I said, it's okay.

00:37:36.472 --> 00:37:37.393
I know your music.

00:37:37.594 --> 00:37:40.257
We'll record your tunes and I'll put my lyrics to it.

00:37:40.637 --> 00:37:42.980
And that's what happened.

00:37:43.081 --> 00:37:46.844
And Elianos was really happy about it and liked what I did.

00:37:46.985 --> 00:37:47.144
And...

00:38:01.666 --> 00:38:09.079
After that, we got to tour together quite a bit, and that was a lot of fun being on the road with those guys.

00:38:09.661 --> 00:38:18.677
Yes, again, a great album, and again, showing the diversity of what you've done there, different genres, different styles, and putting the harmonica in that different context, really interesting.

00:38:19.318 --> 00:38:23.126
I thought it really fit, and it worked, and it didn't sound contrived.

00:38:24.047 --> 00:38:25.070
It was very comfortable.

00:38:25.474 --> 00:39:02.079
and another album which I really like of yours which again is a little bit different is Sanctuary again it's just really got that atmosphere a little bit like Cristo Redempto it's really got that atmosphere which you do so well and that song for example Shadow People it's just kind of eerie sort of harmonica music You know, that's a really good album.

00:39:02.099 --> 00:39:02.621
I love that one.

00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:03.943
Well, thank you very much.

00:39:04.403 --> 00:39:05.945
Ben Harper played on that album, didn't he?

00:39:05.967 --> 00:39:09.693
And we'll obviously get on to Ben shortly, but that's where you first recorded with Ben.

00:39:10.193 --> 00:39:14.059
Yeah, I think we did a tune called Homeless Child.

00:39:14.641 --> 00:39:16.625
And Alicia is another song I really like.

00:39:19.630 --> 00:39:19.710
Yeah.

00:39:30.690 --> 00:39:31.326
Thank you.

00:39:34.914 --> 00:39:37.195
So that's an excellent album, that Sanctuary one.

00:39:37.255 --> 00:39:37.876
Yeah, I love that one.

00:39:38.597 --> 00:39:44.481
Released numerous songs all through the last 20 years as well, getting into the 2000s.

00:39:44.521 --> 00:39:45.884
Sanctuary was 2004.

00:39:46.204 --> 00:39:50.788
The Well is another Grammy-nominated album like a lot of yours have been.

00:39:50.807 --> 00:39:57.434
I understand, is it right that The Well was based on a girl trapped in a well and that sort of inspired you to give up drinking?

00:39:57.733 --> 00:40:03.539
Yeah, I was on my way to a gig and I'd been toying with the idea of quitting drinking.

00:40:03.898 --> 00:40:06.280
It's funny how when You're trapped in that world.

00:40:06.342 --> 00:40:10.126
You can't see how to get out of it, or at least that's how it was for me.

00:40:10.166 --> 00:40:17.333
I'd been cutting down, drinking less and less and less, but the final hurdle was to get on stage without drinking.

00:40:17.554 --> 00:40:19.655
I'd never really been on stage without drinking.

00:40:20.016 --> 00:40:22.838
It didn't suit my nature to be in the spotlight.

00:40:22.898 --> 00:40:29.306
I never liked being in the spotlight or having people looking at me or performing for people.

00:40:29.746 --> 00:40:34.070
As much as I love the music, I didn't get into it for attention.

00:40:34.831 --> 00:40:37.414
Drinking made all that really easy.

00:40:37.434 --> 00:40:39.617
I knew that it made sense to quit.

00:40:39.637 --> 00:40:41.239
I just couldn't do this forever.

00:40:41.539 --> 00:40:45.362
So that was the last hurdle, to get on stage and play sober.

00:40:45.643 --> 00:40:53.371
And I'm on my way to work, listening to the radio, and I'm hearing them talking about this little girl, this fella in the bottom of this well.

00:40:53.692 --> 00:40:55.034
I think she had a broken arm.

00:40:55.494 --> 00:40:57.275
And I was struck by her bravery.

00:40:57.356 --> 00:41:04.063
I mean, here she was in a life and death situation, and she was down there in that well singing nursery rhymes to herself.

00:41:04.603 --> 00:41:24.164
I thought, I don't know if I told you The story about

00:41:34.735 --> 00:41:42.088
little girl she fell way way down in a deep old texas well i was on my

00:41:42.168 --> 00:41:50.824
way to work when i heard it on the news she took my attention from a night of getting real loose

00:41:53.346 --> 00:41:55.748
Well, I've done that little girl for inspiring you to do that.

00:41:56.329 --> 00:42:06.536
And then coming up to 2013, you've had numerous Grammy nominees, and then you finally got the Grammy you deserved in 2013 with the Get Up album with Ben Harper.

00:42:06.797 --> 00:42:08.498
Yeah, that was a big surprise.

00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:12.081
It sure meant a lot to me and everybody else involved.

00:42:12.362 --> 00:42:14.324
And Cindy Lauper, my old friend, was there.

00:42:14.364 --> 00:42:15.965
She was the one that announced it.

00:42:16.206 --> 00:42:17.786
It made it even more special.

00:42:17.947 --> 00:42:19.007
She's a big blues fan,

00:42:19.047 --> 00:42:19.268
too.

00:42:19.668 --> 00:42:23.311
So, I mean, what is it you think about that album, which won the Grammy over the other?

00:42:23.311 --> 00:42:26.034
you've had numerous nominations for Grammys.

00:42:26.054 --> 00:42:28.097
What do you think it was about that one?

00:42:28.637 --> 00:42:29.599
Oh, I couldn't tell you.

00:42:29.619 --> 00:42:30.760
I have no idea.

00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:37.447
The way the voting process goes, I don't know who they are or how they think about what they're listening to.

00:42:38.327 --> 00:42:42.231
I just know it happens and it happened this time and I was glad it was for me.

00:42:42.271 --> 00:42:45.755
It's a real nice honour and I'm real thankful.

00:42:46.175 --> 00:42:46.976
No, superb.

00:42:47.036 --> 00:42:47.577
Well done for that.

00:42:47.597 --> 00:42:49.320
Have you got the Grammy in your house there?

00:42:49.900 --> 00:42:51.983
It's at my Clarksville, Mississippi home.

00:42:52.302 --> 00:42:52.963
Excellent, yeah.

00:42:52.983 --> 00:42:54.489
So, So yeah, well done for that.

00:42:54.550 --> 00:42:56.056
And a nice song on there.

00:42:56.659 --> 00:42:58.467
I'm in, I'm out and I'm gone.

00:43:18.242 --> 00:43:23.969
through the 2010s, you released numerous albums, I Ain't Lying, which is a bit of a catchphrase of yours, isn't it?

00:43:24.070 --> 00:43:24.650
I Ain't Lying.

00:43:25.150 --> 00:43:26.773
Yeah, it's just something I used to say.

00:43:26.853 --> 00:43:28.396
I didn't actually think about it.

00:43:28.416 --> 00:43:31.018
I came up with that for some reason.

00:43:31.338 --> 00:43:32.922
It was just a saying of mine.

00:43:32.981 --> 00:43:34.543
I would say it without even thinking.

00:43:34.784 --> 00:43:36.847
People would laugh about me saying that.

00:43:37.347 --> 00:43:39.030
We decided to name the album that.

00:43:39.329 --> 00:43:46.056
Yeah, and then you recorded another album with Ben Harper, No Mercy in This Land, which has got another Grammy nomination.

00:43:46.496 --> 00:43:53.963
And, you know, sadly, I believe the lyrics to No Mercy in This Land were written about, unfortunately, your mother was killed in a burglary.

00:43:53.983 --> 00:43:54.543
Is that right?

00:43:55.063 --> 00:43:56.385
Yeah, that's what happened.

00:43:56.445 --> 00:43:59.447
She was murdered in my home, the home I grew up in.

00:43:59.728 --> 00:44:03.871
And the guy wanted money for Christmas, so he stole her.

00:44:04.132 --> 00:44:12.547
After he killed her, he took her little keyboard and her Casio keyboard and her TV and and a bunch of stuff like that and hocked it at the nearest pawn shop.

00:44:13.449 --> 00:44:14.393
So yeah, terribly sad.

00:44:14.413 --> 00:44:19.429
And then the song for that won the Song of the Year and the Blues Music Awards in that year.

00:44:20.130 --> 00:44:27.619
Well, there was another song also I did with Mavis Staples called Sad and Beautiful World that I wrote about my mom's death, too.

00:44:27.858 --> 00:44:30.702
I thought it came out really nice with Mavis.

00:44:31.382 --> 00:44:47.101
Oh, mama, your child is crying Such a sad and beautiful world Mama, your child is crying Such a sad and beautiful world Mom!

00:44:48.994 --> 00:44:53.458
And then your most recent album, so the 100 Years of Blues with Elvin Bishop.

00:44:53.637 --> 00:44:54.739
Great, so lots of fun.

00:44:54.759 --> 00:44:57.541
You can hear the camaraderie between you and Elvin.

00:44:58.121 --> 00:44:59.922
He's great with the sort of witty lyrics.

00:44:59.983 --> 00:45:01.905
So yeah, that's a really fun album.

00:45:01.945 --> 00:45:06.829
That Birds of a Feather talks about how the two of you are playing together and really captures the fun of that album, I think.

00:45:06.909 --> 00:45:20.824
Here we are, birds of a feather, whole bunch of blues lovers gathered together, fixing to get loose, have a good time like Brother Charlie's I ain't lying.

00:45:21.246 --> 00:45:24.536
So clap, stop, holler and yell.

00:45:25.398 --> 00:45:26.983
We're all friends here.

00:45:27.324 --> 00:45:39.007
Well, we really enjoy playing together, and we're good friends, and we've known each other a real long time, and we love the music in the same way, and playing together is just so effortless.

00:45:39.409 --> 00:45:42.355
It's just automatically fun.

00:45:42.916 --> 00:45:44.378
We don't have to rehearse or nothing.

00:45:44.418 --> 00:45:45.581
We just sit down and play.

00:45:45.621 --> 00:45:46.682
We just know what to do.

00:45:46.702 --> 00:45:49.387
I don't think there was any second takes, hardly.

00:45:49.429 --> 00:45:52.014
We just played it like we played it live.

00:45:52.418 --> 00:45:53.018
Yeah, it's great.

00:45:53.059 --> 00:46:04.094
And that 100 Years of Blues song tells a story that you're both in Chicago and you've been playing the blues for such a long time and still, like you said earlier on, still learning, still improving, still working on your playing.

00:46:04.114 --> 00:46:07.478
So yeah, it's really got a lot of energy and a lot of fun in that album.

00:46:07.498 --> 00:46:08.820
Yeah, I really enjoyed listening to it.

00:46:09.641 --> 00:46:14.286
As well as all these albums you recorded under your own name and with some other guys, you've recorded with numerous people.

00:46:14.827 --> 00:46:21.757
Of course, John Lee Hooker, you're quite famously associated and you have recorded with him, you recorded on the Healer album, That's Alright.

00:46:23.458 --> 00:46:28.123
When you love a woman, you know she's doing you wrong.

00:46:29.586 --> 00:46:33.291
But love is blind, love is blind, love is blind.

00:46:34.512 --> 00:46:39.300
You, you, you, you know you've been you, you know you've been

00:46:39.320 --> 00:46:40.782
you.

00:46:40.802 --> 00:46:43.646
He knew John Lee Hooker is quite a friend of yours, wasn't he?

00:46:43.842 --> 00:46:44.902
He was a real good friend.

00:46:44.922 --> 00:46:46.463
I first met him in Chicago.

00:46:46.503 --> 00:46:50.568
He lived in Detroit, but he would come to Chicago to play gigs.

00:46:50.668 --> 00:46:52.009
And that's where I met him.

00:46:52.048 --> 00:46:54.471
And we became like instant friends.

00:46:54.570 --> 00:46:56.932
It was like we'd always known each other or something.

00:46:57.134 --> 00:47:02.018
We always stayed real close in touch with him and often spend the night at his house.

00:47:02.157 --> 00:47:04.099
And he was all his family.

00:47:04.179 --> 00:47:05.981
And I was at his funeral.

00:47:06.121 --> 00:47:07.862
And he was a real good friend.

00:47:07.902 --> 00:47:08.824
He was a good man.

00:47:08.903 --> 00:47:12.206
And anybody that knew him, I know they all miss him like I do.

00:47:12.547 --> 00:47:13.807
Yeah, and an amazing hypnotist.

00:47:13.807 --> 00:47:18.715
blues style he had as well you know really distinctive sound that he had in the blues and they're amazing

00:47:18.956 --> 00:47:40.568
i love his solo guitar playing oboe blues and crawling king state that stuff just kills me that's some of the most nobody sounds like that even if they try to play it like it just doesn't sound the same the same with jimmy reed there was a guy his music is so simple you would think when you try to do it it just doesn't come out the same he can't copy that

00:47:41.121 --> 00:47:47.291
And then some of the other people you played with, you played with Cyndi Lauper, as you mentioned, on the Memphis Blues album.

00:47:47.311 --> 00:47:51.418
You played with Tom Waits, the Chocolate Jesus song, played with Bonnie Raitt.

00:47:52.059 --> 00:48:04.119
But another song, I didn't realize this was you, Charlie, until I did my research over the last week or two, is you played on the Way Down in the Hole song, which was the theme tune to the Wire TV series with the Blind Boys of Alabama.

00:48:07.885 --> 00:48:07.965
Yeah.

00:48:09.762 --> 00:48:35.951
Oh, yeah, that's on their album called Spirit of the Century.

00:48:36.291 --> 00:48:38.014
That solo was in fifth position.

00:48:38.818 --> 00:48:41.400
So yeah, great, long, amazing recording career.

00:48:41.422 --> 00:48:43.364
And as you say, you've toured all around the world.

00:48:43.403 --> 00:48:44.985
You've always been on the road.

00:48:45.045 --> 00:48:51.394
I mean, what's life been like being on the road since what, pretty much since you were, you know, the late 60s, early 70s?

00:48:51.414 --> 00:48:52.356
Have you been on the road since?

00:48:52.896 --> 00:48:57.001
Well, pretty much, except now with the pandemic, things have come to a halt.

00:48:57.784 --> 00:48:57.983
Yeah.

00:48:58.925 --> 00:49:02.230
I pretty much lived out of a suitcase for 50 years or so.

00:49:02.849 --> 00:49:09.271
My suitcase is still sitting on my floor in my office waiting to go, but ain't no place to go right now.

00:49:09.311 --> 00:49:11.119
I'm enjoying being home.

00:49:11.259 --> 00:49:14.007
I never had so much time at home.

00:49:14.108 --> 00:49:15.213
It's really a luxury.

00:49:15.713 --> 00:49:18.637
I think reading here, you've got 13 Grammy nominations.

00:49:18.697 --> 00:49:25.081
You won a Grammy with Ben Harper for the album Get Up.

00:49:25.101 --> 00:49:27.543
You've won various Blues Music Awards.

00:49:27.784 --> 00:49:30.806
But you were also inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010.

00:49:31.447 --> 00:49:32.588
Yeah, that was real nice.

00:49:32.809 --> 00:49:36.452
And also the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, too, just a couple of years ago.

00:49:37.012 --> 00:49:41.235
And then you even played for President Obama in 2013 as well.

00:49:41.536 --> 00:49:42.436
That was really nice.

00:49:42.577 --> 00:49:44.358
I had already met Obama.

00:49:44.378 --> 00:49:49.929
We have a mutual friend And I met him at my friend's home, and I gave him a harmonica.

00:49:49.949 --> 00:49:55.039
I remember telling him, I hear you like blues, and if you're interested, I can give you some lessons.

00:49:55.099 --> 00:49:58.947
And he said, well, that's great, Charlie, but I'm a little busy right now.

00:50:00.769 --> 00:50:08.076
As well as your recording career, you've also been in numerous films and you were in the Blues Brothers 2000 film in the band there at the end.

00:50:08.697 --> 00:50:10.878
I heard a story, is it true that Elwood

00:50:10.978 --> 00:50:12.159
is based on yourself?

00:50:12.380 --> 00:50:18.746
Well, that's what Danny has told me several times and I've seen where he's been interviewed and said the same thing.

00:50:18.826 --> 00:50:25.731
I used to play a club in Canada and he was a college student and he hung out at that club and he would see me there.

00:50:25.811 --> 00:50:29.875
I didn't know him then, but he would see me and that's where he got the idea for the look.

00:50:29.974 --> 00:50:41.628
I didn't wear a hat and i didn't wear a handcuff so much with my heart back then i used to wear a black suit with shades and my hair slicked back and pretty much like i did in chicago

00:50:41.668 --> 00:50:52.358
and then you're in that great band at the end in the in the sort of band competition at the end of the blues brothers so yeah great to play with her with all those legends you know bb king and jimmy vaughn and eric claps and so it must have been a lot of fun

00:50:52.679 --> 00:51:02.210
it was a lot of fun i wish they'd filmed all the behind the scenes of just us hanging out talking and joking and carrying on that that could have been a whole movie right there

00:51:02.451 --> 00:51:08.362
Dan Aykroyd obviously plays harmonica as Elwood in the Blues Rivers do you know have you ever talked to him about his harmonica playing

00:51:08.663 --> 00:51:14.813
oh just a little bit he would tell me listen I'm not a harmonica player I'm just an actor that plays harmonica

00:51:15.106 --> 00:51:16.847
But I think he has a blues show now, doesn't he?

00:51:16.887 --> 00:51:18.469
So he's still very much interested in blues.

00:51:18.489 --> 00:51:21.190
And I do have a sort of book of his, which is about blues as well.

00:51:21.572 --> 00:51:22.612
Oh, he loves blues.

00:51:22.652 --> 00:51:23.914
He's a big blues lover.

00:51:23.934 --> 00:51:26.916
He has a radio show, The House of Blues radio show.

00:51:27.317 --> 00:51:29.137
And then you've been in a few other films as well.

00:51:29.699 --> 00:51:31.400
Yeah, there's a new one.

00:51:31.639 --> 00:51:35.824
I don't know if it's out yet or not, called Rough Boys, which is a biker movie.

00:51:35.943 --> 00:51:39.646
And the same guy made another one called Rebel on the Highway.

00:51:39.746 --> 00:51:41.148
It's another biker movie.

00:51:41.489 --> 00:51:45.072
And a lot of bikers are blues fans and happen to know a lot of them.

00:51:45.072 --> 00:51:53.427
And I was in a horror movie called Pig Hunt, and it's about a 3,000-pound wild killer pig, and a lot of people get hurt.

00:51:53.467 --> 00:51:54.688
Are

00:51:54.728 --> 00:51:56.331
you acting in these films?

00:51:56.713 --> 00:52:00.099
Yeah, I deliver the lines, and my wife appears in Pig Hunt.

00:52:00.199 --> 00:52:02.923
She didn't have any lines, but you can see her standing behind me.

00:52:03.264 --> 00:52:03.905
Yeah, excellent.

00:52:04.418 --> 00:52:05.719
You've got your style of playing.

00:52:05.759 --> 00:52:12.864
You've got this quite laid-back style, haven't you, when you're playing and then you're singing, and it comes off, it's very relaxed.

00:52:13.246 --> 00:52:15.608
Well, I just follow my heart, as I put it.

00:52:15.708 --> 00:52:18.730
I don't really try to style myself after anybody.

00:52:18.789 --> 00:52:20.952
I just try to play what I believe is right.

00:52:21.072 --> 00:52:26.998
And I know you can't satisfy everybody, so I just try to please myself and figure somebody will like it.

00:52:27.177 --> 00:52:28.619
It seems to have worked out okay.

00:52:29.099 --> 00:52:29.780
It certainly has.

00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:34.384
So a question I ask each time, Charlie, is if you had 10 minutes, what would you spend 10 minutes doing?

00:52:34.384 --> 00:52:35.425
playing on the harmonica?

00:52:35.786 --> 00:52:39.032
You know, I really like the way Hank Crawford phrases.

00:52:39.052 --> 00:52:41.556
I would listen to him and try to play along with him.

00:52:41.596 --> 00:52:55.018
Okay, so you have tried to emulate saxophone players then.

00:52:55.239 --> 00:52:57.481
Has that been quite a key part of your learning?

00:52:57.702 --> 00:52:59.465
Well, I get a lot of ideas listening to it.

00:52:59.842 --> 00:53:00.643
saxophone.

00:53:00.742 --> 00:53:06.027
Also, Grant Green's guitar playing, a lot of his licks are perfect for harmonica.

00:53:06.126 --> 00:53:08.208
And these guys are all real bluesy players.

00:53:08.610 --> 00:53:08.969
Superb.

00:53:09.010 --> 00:53:12.452
So we'll move on to the last section now, which is talking about gear.

00:53:12.532 --> 00:53:14.355
We'll get a little bit harmonica geeky now.

00:53:14.454 --> 00:53:16.577
So first of all, you're a harmonica of choice.

00:53:16.617 --> 00:53:18.737
I know you're a Seidel endorser these days.

00:53:18.797 --> 00:53:21.181
So that's obviously your harmonica of choice these days.

00:53:21.621 --> 00:53:23.963
Well, I discovered them before they discovered me.

00:53:24.043 --> 00:53:26.405
I mean, I was not an endorser at first.

00:53:26.644 --> 00:53:29.807
I discovered a Seidel and I started playing them and I just loved them.

00:53:29.807 --> 00:53:32.090
immediately and it's just the best.

00:53:32.271 --> 00:53:34.952
As far as I'm concerned, it's just not a better harmonica.

00:53:35.213 --> 00:53:40.920
People sometimes give me custom-made harmonicas and I've yet to find one that's any better than a saddle.

00:53:40.980 --> 00:53:42.702
I'm right at home with a saddle.

00:53:42.922 --> 00:53:47.666
I like the 1847 with the wood comb and the stainless steel reeds.

00:53:48.068 --> 00:53:53.994
They also make a really killer chromatic called the Symphony and that's my favorite chromatic.

00:53:54.353 --> 00:53:56.737
That's the one with the magnetic slide, isn't it?

00:53:57.036 --> 00:53:59.760
Yeah, but I don't get it with the magnet and I get it with the spring

00:53:59.760 --> 00:54:02.943
okay do you have a favorite key of diatonic

00:54:03.403 --> 00:54:24.065
oh not really i mean they all have something to offer c is always good because uh i taught myself how to read music and i could read for c it would say if something was written in c and i could play it on a c i could you change it to f well i just pick up an f harmonica and play it the same way so i can root for the diatonic or the chromatic and

00:54:24.166 --> 00:54:28.590
guitar too yeah super and do you play any different tunings on the diatonics

00:54:29.271 --> 00:54:32.295
uh yeah there's Just some that I just fool around with for fun.

00:54:32.315 --> 00:54:32.976
I don't know.

00:54:32.996 --> 00:54:39.708
I like the circular tuning, and I like the one that they call the ED harmonica that Saddle makes.

00:54:40.027 --> 00:54:42.070
You can get some real bluesy stuff out of there.

00:54:42.411 --> 00:54:46.197
The circular tuning is just, it seems like the melodies just pour out of there.

00:54:46.530 --> 00:54:47.371
What about overblows?

00:54:47.431 --> 00:54:48.532
Do you use any overblows?

00:54:48.891 --> 00:54:54.376
I can do that on a good day, but so far I don't think I've ever recorded doing anything like that.

00:54:54.597 --> 00:54:58.179
It just doesn't occur to me when I'm playing to use that technique.

00:54:58.340 --> 00:55:06.266
Sometimes sitting around, I'll fool around with it just out of curiosity, but when I'm on stage or recording, I never think about

00:55:06.728 --> 00:55:06.947
it.

00:55:06.967 --> 00:55:08.568
And what embouchure do you use?

00:55:08.608 --> 00:55:10.431
Are you a tongue blocker or a puckerer?

00:55:10.710 --> 00:55:11.731
I go back and forth.

00:55:12.072 --> 00:55:18.257
Sometimes you really want to bear down on something and I'll lip block it The rest of the time, I'm tongue-blocking.

00:55:18.458 --> 00:55:22.302
Amplifier-wise, I see on your website it mentions the Sonny Junior amp.

00:55:22.541 --> 00:55:24.625
Is that your large amp of choice?

00:55:24.965 --> 00:55:35.255
Yeah, I've got all different models, the Avenger, the Cruncher, and the Super Cruncher, and the Super Sonny, but I also have some old, smaller amps I use just for recording.

00:55:35.315 --> 00:55:39.900
Like, on the cover of 100 Years of the Blues is a magnetone right at my feet.

00:55:40.661 --> 00:55:42.423
I use that for recording sometimes.

00:55:42.864 --> 00:55:57.659
And you've got an opening there called Fat Tone, and they make what they called the Fat Box, which you can plug in to play through the PA, which is really a nice way to go, especially if you're traveling and you've got to fly and you can't bring your amplifier with you.

00:55:57.880 --> 00:56:00.902
A Fat Box from Fat Tone will serve you well.

00:56:01.184 --> 00:56:02.445
Any other effects pedals?

00:56:02.945 --> 00:56:04.427
I don't actually use anything.

00:56:04.646 --> 00:56:06.670
I just have a mic and an amp, and that's it.

00:56:07.269 --> 00:56:10.233
Okay, so not even a delay or anything like that?

00:56:10.574 --> 00:56:11.094
No, never.

00:56:11.134 --> 00:56:15.659
Microphone-wise, I think it blows me away, microphone.

00:56:15.918 --> 00:56:22.606
Yeah, it's a company owned by my friend Greg Heumann, and he lives right here in this little town I live in called Geyserville.

00:56:23.106 --> 00:56:25.750
Yeah, he's mixed some beautiful-looking microphones.

00:56:25.889 --> 00:56:27.592
They look so beautiful, don't they?

00:56:27.711 --> 00:56:31.135
And a friend of mine over here, Richard Taylor, owns one of them.

00:56:31.155 --> 00:56:32.757
I tried it, and it's a very nice mic.

00:56:32.797 --> 00:56:35.740
I think I saw you playing one on the video.

00:56:35.780 --> 00:56:39.103
So is that the mic you use typically when you're using a sort of bullet mic?

00:56:39.364 --> 00:56:40.326
That's all I use.

00:56:40.525 --> 00:56:43.389
I mean, I've got several, and they have different elements in them.

00:56:43.409 --> 00:56:46.351
You can have whatever you want, every kind of element you want.

00:56:46.351 --> 00:56:46.972
won't end it.

00:56:47.193 --> 00:56:49.474
And they can customize the grill.

00:56:50.195 --> 00:56:53.800
You can have your initials or just a design or anything on the grill.

00:56:53.860 --> 00:56:55.282
And I really like the wood.

00:56:55.561 --> 00:56:58.925
It's just a really good, you know, blues microphone.

00:56:59.186 --> 00:57:02.349
They've got nice volume controls on the end as well, haven't they, which are useful.

00:57:02.750 --> 00:57:03.030
Yes.

00:57:03.130 --> 00:57:06.673
And also he has another microphone called the bulletini.

00:57:06.713 --> 00:57:13.300
At first I didn't, I thought it was okay, but as time has gone by, I've really, really got to like it a lot.

00:57:13.420 --> 00:57:14.081
And I'm using

00:57:14.121 --> 00:57:14.902
it more than ever.

00:57:15.342 --> 00:57:15.844
Superb.

00:57:15.864 --> 00:57:27.655
So yeah, just um up to the up to the final question now then so looking at your website you do have some gigs showing on there for next year so you're still hoping to get out there next year obviously dependent on how we get on with the pandemic

00:57:27.835 --> 00:57:43.333
well we keep hoping i mean a lot of those gigs have just been rebooked and rebooked and rebooked hoping that uh this will come to an end and those will be able we'll be able to do them and keep them on the calendar but if it keeps going we'll just have to rebook them again till we get her done

00:57:43.492 --> 00:57:49.860
well they're in the u.s at the moment aren't they that's the safer option at the moment but you will you still be planning to do some international gigs if you can

00:57:50.099 --> 00:57:57.447
well sure I don't right now I don't want to get on an airplane but once this gets squared away and the dust settles I'm I'm ready to go

00:57:57.708 --> 00:58:14.385
well hopefully I'll see you over in the UK again hopefully even next year Charlie but maybe the year after that hopefully things settle down thank you very much for talking to me it's a real honor I've been a big fan of yours for a long time and as I say when I first heard I ain't right I was I was hooked from that point on so thanks very much Charlie

00:58:14.606 --> 00:58:22.614
well thank you like I said before I admire your taste, and thanks for the good work you're doing, and I look forward to meeting you either here or there one of these

00:58:22.795 --> 00:58:23.056
days.

00:58:23.817 --> 00:58:25.137
That's it for today, folks.

00:58:25.498 --> 00:58:33.208
Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica.

00:58:33.547 --> 00:58:35.090
Be sure to check out their website.

00:58:37.672 --> 00:58:39.974
Charlie, it just ain't right.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
...

00:58:46.690 --> 00:58:52.349
Thank you.