May 1, 2024

Clint Hoover interview

Clint Hoover interview

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

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Chromatic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Jazz Chromatic Jazz Diatonic Pre-war Harmonica Rock Harmonica

Clint Hoover joins me on episode 109.

Clint is originally from Minneapolis and has spent a life immersed in music and the harmonica. He’s reached great heights on both the chromatic and the diatonic. Early on he also studied guitar and saxophone and attended a jazz course in New York City where he also took chromatic lessons from Robert Bonfiglio. 

His eclectic mix of interests has led him to recording albums in genres from pre-war blues to modern jazz, to rock, pop and World Music. His first recorded album was with a mainstream band called The Fontanas back in 1989, with the album release being delayed for thirty four years, coming out in 2023. In-between he’s released jazz albums, jug band music, rock and more, really showcasing his extraordinary talents on both the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas.

Links:
Website:
https://clinthoover.com/

Clint article: ‘My Harmonica Journey’:
https://clinthoover.com/a-harmonica-journey/

Richard Hunter interview with Clint:
https://www.hunterharp.com/hoover1/

The Fontanas album:
https://blackberrywayrecords.com/album/2566074/the-fontanas

Videos:
Clint’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE7io6uwgGzsOBpanupYdBg

Les Thompson performing live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlLGjO8MzpU

Get Up Off That Jazzophone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23VJPJeakJI

Sister Sadie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQG1sHJedgY


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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:33 - Originally from Minneapolis, now living in Pittsburg, but most of his music career spent around the twin cities of St Paul and Minneapolis

02:08 - First turned onto the harmonica when saw James Cotton playing with The Muddy Waters band

03:17 - Started playing diatonic harmonica a few years later at age 17, and blues harmonica was Clint’s entry point

04:11 - First learnt by playing by ear, along to records and had the Tony Glover harmonica book

04:48 - Started playing in a duo in school

05:02 - Picked up the chromatic from the advice of a bassist playing some piano to Clint

06:04 - Was still mainly blues-based originals when Clint started playing the chromatic

06:51 - In 1987 attended the Parsons Jazz and Contemporary Music Program in New York

07:12 - Decided to become a musician after completing Art college, learning music theory and played a lot of guitar to get work in bands

07:40 - Then transferred knowledge of guitar to the chromatic harmonica and started playing some jazz

08:10 - Started teaching harmonica at a music school in Minneapolis, where he met a lot of musicians

08:42 - Had lessons with Robert Bonfiglio while in New York

09:09 - Tried to get some lessons with Toots Thielemans but that didn’t work out

09:25 - Tried to apply Bonfiglio’s corner switching technique to Bebop, but couldn’t apply this too well to improvisation

10:09 - Is corner switching more suited to music reading?

10:33 - Mainly uses puckering when playing jazz on the chromatic and tongue blocking when playing diatonic

10:58 - Clint took private lessons with Robert Bonfiglio as part of the jazz course as that didn’t have any harmonica tutors

11:44 - Only studied on the jazz course in New York for one year due to the finances

12:14 - Still plays guitar for composition and applying musical knowledge from that to the harmonica

13:02 - The value of playing a chordal instrument when playing a mainly single note instrument like the harmonica

13:28 - Also a great diatonic player where he was inspired to learn overblows after seeing Howard Levy perform

16:01 - Clint chooses to play chromatic on most of jazz playing as likes the dedicated reed for each note

17:13 - Uses diatonic in the jazz genre more for jazz blues and jazz soul

17:24 - Still practises overblows on the diatonic and remains fascinated in transferring chromatic harmonica knowledge to the diatonic

18:13 - Clint believes the chromatic can be as expressive as the chromatic, with great bending capability on the chromatic too

19:09 - Spent a lot of time on developing expressiveness on chromatic, making it sound close to a diatonic

19:26 - Hasn’t removed the wind savers to make the chromatic more bendable and plays a standard tuned chromatic in the key of C only, except for some recording purposes

20:52 - Plays a range of different styles of music, from pre-war to modern jazz, to rock and pop

21:52 - Some of Clint’s favourite harmonica players, starting with Les Thompson: the unheralded West coast version of Toots

22:07 - Irish player Eddie Clarke and Clint played some Irish music at one point

23:16 - Clint is a fan of pre-war harmonica and mentions Blues Birdhead, supposedly the first person to have recorded an overblow and played like a jazz trumpeter

25:12 - Rhythm Willie is another favourite pre-war harmonica player of Clint’s

25:40 - Clint played in a jug band (The Sugar Kings) where he recorded some pre-war style harmonica and got to a good level playing that

26:50 - Horn players are a major source of inspiration for Clint and the Charlie Parker Omnibook

28:44 - First album released in 1997: Dream of the Serpent Dog

29:19 - Recorded an album before the one in 1997, with rock band The Fontanas in 1989 with that album eventually released in 2023

30:31 - The Fontanas album has Clint’s hard driving chromatic harmonica featured strongly on the songs

30:56 - The playing on the Fontanas album is pre-Blues Traveller, which has a similar sound

31:50 - Plays hooks on the chromatic on the Fontanas songs

32:11 - Overlaid saxophone and harp on the Fontanas songs

32:19 - Why the Fontanas album has been released 34 years later

33:38 - Dream of the Serpent Dog album, mainly acoustic jazz with some World Music too

34:24 - Snake Oil song is in ‘second flat’ (as per the Howard Levy system)

34:57 - Album with Bill Geezy & The Promise Breakers is more pop based

35:41 - Clint is better known as a chromatic player but he has released a lot of recordings on diatonic

36:26 - Album with Papa John Kolstad (who Mike Turk also recorded with)

37:36 - Released album as a band leader: The Clint Hoover Trio

38:55 - Two jazz albums with a band called Eastside, in 2009 and 2014

40:13 - In 2021 played rock harmonica with a band called Jimmy Mac & The Attack after moving to Pittsburgh

40:52 - Got into playing amplified harp and using effects in this band

41:14 - This album recorded ‘live’ in the studio, bringing a freshness to the sound which Clint likes

41:36 - About using the chromatic in a rock setting, which is not heard very often, and plays organ lines on the diatonic

42:50 - Likes to use a Hohner CX12 for amplified chromatic playing

43:10 - Done quite a lot of session work, including a TV news theme

43:40 - Has recorded some material for harmonica instruction books but hasn’t released his own

44:00 - Done a lot of teaching of harmonica and has own methodology

44:25 - Ten minute question

45:13 - Practise regime includes lots of scale and arpeggio work, as well as transposing and practising repertoire

46:10 - Still practises a lot, now at the age of 68 he thinks it keeps him young and what Dizzy Gillespie said about practising

47:21 - Diatonic of choice is the Hohner Golden Melody, and has lots of customised ones in compromised tuning so chords sound good

47:55 - Customisers he uses include Joe Spiers, Joel Andersson and Tom Halchak

48:42 - Advantages of custom harps but still has to set offset to own liking due to playing style

49:24 - Chromatics are high maintenance and a lot of that work has to be done by Clint himself

49:41 - Has lots of different types of chromatic

49:50 - Uses the older model of the Golden Melody and also likes the Hohner Rocket

50:13 - Favourite chromatic is the Hohner 64X and has customised versions from Will’s Make

50:36 - Uses CX12 for amplified work on chromatic

50:41 - Uses a 12 hole more these days, previously using only 16 hole chromatics

51:01 - When playing with The Fontanas used a Hohner CBH 16 hole chromatic with the slots on them making them good to use amplified

51:52 - Has an Eastop brass comb chromatic and Suzuki Fabulous

52:16 - Uses Richter tuned diatonics and standard tuned chromatics

53:01 - Amplification: did play acoustically for a long time and the dynamic range of the diatonic

54:28 - Returned to amplified playing in recent times once moved to Pittsburgh

54:38 - Main amps of choice is a Fender Princeton Blackface Reverb

54:55 - Has a custom Megatone amp

55:21 - For jazz plays through a powered PA speaker through a cupped mic for a clean sound

55:47 - Mics include an Audit Fireball and a Sennheiser 441, a Bulletini, but doesn’t use a lot of bullet mics

57:24 - Future plans includes getting out playing around Pittsburgh, some teaching and is working on a follow-up album to Dream of the Serpent Dog

WEBVTT

00:00:00.130 --> 00:00:02.012
Clint Hoover joins me on episode 109.

00:00:03.575 --> 00:00:08.041
Clint is originally from Minneapolis and has spent a life immersed in music and the harmonica.

00:00:08.882 --> 00:00:12.007
He's reached great heights on both the chromatic and the diatonic.

00:00:12.948 --> 00:00:21.301
Early on he also studied guitar and saxophone and attended a jazz course in New York City where he also took chromatic lessons from Robert Bonfilio.

00:00:22.274 --> 00:00:29.564
His eclectic mix of interests has led him to recording albums in genres from pre-war blues to modern jazz to rock, pop and world music.

00:00:30.545 --> 00:00:40.380
His first recorded album was with a mainstream band called the Fontanas back in 1989, with the album release being delayed for 34 years, coming out in 2023.

00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:50.194
In between he's released jazz albums, jug band music, rock and more, really showcasing his extraordinary talents in both the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas.

00:00:50.786 --> 00:00:53.310
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:53.729 --> 00:01:03.084
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:25.762 --> 00:01:27.647
Hello, Clint Hoover, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:28.248 --> 00:01:32.240
Oh, well, hello to you, and thank you so much for having me on your show.

00:01:32.301 --> 00:01:32.962
This is quite

00:01:33.003 --> 00:01:33.385
an honor.

00:01:33.405 --> 00:01:34.367
Thanks, Clint.

00:01:34.408 --> 00:01:35.230
Thanks for joining.

00:01:35.290 --> 00:01:40.445
So, I understand you're originally from Minneapolis, but now you're living in Pittsburgh.

00:01:40.802 --> 00:01:41.382
That's right.

00:01:41.602 --> 00:01:44.504
Yeah, I've been out in Pittsburgh about 12 years.

00:01:44.986 --> 00:01:46.846
And I grew up in Minneapolis.

00:01:47.587 --> 00:01:57.977
Really, the majority of my music career is really in the Midwest of America, you know, and centered out of the Twin Cities in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

00:01:58.296 --> 00:02:00.819
And yeah, so what's the music scene like around there?

00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:02.760
And what got you into playing the harmonica around there?

00:02:03.021 --> 00:02:07.625
Well, it goes back to when I was quite a young person.

00:02:08.806 --> 00:02:10.548
Minnesota has one of the great...

00:02:10.768 --> 00:02:13.069
state fairs in America.

00:02:13.450 --> 00:02:19.777
And I was at that when I was about 12 or 13 years old, probably around about 69, 1969.

00:02:21.079 --> 00:02:25.403
And they had at the time, because it was the late 60s, they had what was called the teen fair.

00:02:25.883 --> 00:02:29.288
And at the teen fair, you know, it's like, well, okay, I'm going to go to that.

00:02:29.487 --> 00:02:31.789
And so I wandered off and went to that.

00:02:31.971 --> 00:02:35.294
And I heard this music coming out from under this tent.

00:02:35.473 --> 00:02:37.997
And I wandered into this, under this tent.

00:02:38.257 --> 00:02:41.501
And I saw these guys up there playing blues.

00:02:42.061 --> 00:02:47.187
It turned out later it was Muddy Waters with James Cotton playing the harmonica.

00:02:47.567 --> 00:02:50.069
I had no idea who those people were even.

00:02:50.409 --> 00:02:59.379
But I stayed for the whole concert and I was just enthralled with what they were doing particularly the guy with the big belt not with the harmonicas on it, James Cotton.

00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:16.078
I didn't start playing until a few years later but I really go back to that as the turning point for me and kind of getting very interested in music and in harmonicas, but I was very naive at that point.

00:03:17.239 --> 00:03:21.903
I've got here that you bought your first harmonica at age 17, a diatonic Horner Blues Harp, was it?

00:03:22.243 --> 00:03:22.844
Yeah, that's right.

00:03:23.025 --> 00:03:24.347
Blues Harp for$3.99.

00:03:24.507 --> 00:03:25.687
I still remember the price.

00:03:26.068 --> 00:03:26.408
Great.

00:03:26.449 --> 00:03:33.295
So a point which we'll obviously cover on here is that you play both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas to a very good level.

00:03:33.376 --> 00:03:42.825
So you started out on diatonic, so obviously you'd listen to James Cotton and play with Muddy, so you started listening to blues harmonica first and that's what you started playing first?

00:03:43.026 --> 00:03:45.169
Right, that was my entry into it.

00:03:45.468 --> 00:04:05.550
You know, I was also listening to stuff by, you know, Allman Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival and things like that and then Jay Giles Band and all that kind of stuff that when you're that age, you know, they were very popular and it was a big deal and so that was my entry into playing.

00:04:05.570 --> 00:04:10.996
I didn't pick up the chromatic until a couple years later so I was mostly on the blues harpen first.

00:04:11.456 --> 00:04:13.139
And how did you learn at that stage?

00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:14.539
Was it playing along with records?

00:04:15.001 --> 00:04:18.463
That was strictly just by ear.

00:04:18.483 --> 00:04:21.266
I had no musical training at all.

00:04:21.447 --> 00:04:22.928
I didn't know what I was doing.

00:04:22.949 --> 00:04:27.553
I just listened to records and tried to copy them, just like a lot of people in those days.

00:04:27.834 --> 00:04:30.737
And there was no internet, there was no instruction.

00:04:30.757 --> 00:04:35.783
I had one instruction book by, ironically, Tony Glover, a harmonica player.

00:04:35.822 --> 00:04:39.807
I believe that's the first blues instruction book that was out.

00:04:40.067 --> 00:04:41.928
And he was from Minneapolis as well.

00:04:42.250 --> 00:04:43.271
Yeah, I had that book too.

00:04:43.331 --> 00:04:46.053
I think everyone back then had that book, didn't they?

00:04:46.533 --> 00:04:48.115
Yeah, that's how I got started with it.

00:04:48.415 --> 00:04:56.485
And before I knew it, I was playing in a little duo in high school with this girl and we started doing stuff.

00:04:56.504 --> 00:05:02.290
We played in the talent show and got a standing ovation and I was hooked at that point.

00:05:02.612 --> 00:05:10.720
For when you picked up the chromatic then, again, reading that you were playing along with the piano player and then you saw some of the limitations of the diet on it.

00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:11.201
Was that right?

00:05:11.221 --> 00:05:13.303
And then he put you onto the chromatic.

00:05:13.543 --> 00:05:13.805
Right.

00:05:13.904 --> 00:05:24.199
In those days, you know, if you wanted to expand the musicality of the instrument, you know, I didn't know anything about the idea, concept of overblowing or anything like that.

00:05:24.220 --> 00:05:26.081
It wasn't really out there.

00:05:26.101 --> 00:05:36.055
And so, actually the guy, the first trio that I was in with this girl, he was the bass player, but he was from a very literate musical family.

00:05:36.115 --> 00:05:39.600
They came out of musical theater, opera, and he was...

00:05:40.161 --> 00:05:43.064
you know, he said, well, you know, you should try to pick up the chromatic.

00:05:43.404 --> 00:05:44.326
You've got all the notes.

00:05:44.805 --> 00:05:50.771
And I was a little frustrated in the band with some of the things because I couldn't play certain lines and so on like that.

00:05:51.071 --> 00:05:55.755
So I just sat down with him and he played out all 12 scales on a piano.

00:05:55.896 --> 00:06:04.343
And I, you know, meticulously wrote it down with numbers and arrows and circles for when you push the slide and just started trying to figure out different keys at that point.

00:06:04.802 --> 00:06:05.064
Great.

00:06:05.144 --> 00:06:10.829
And so you were playing different sorts of music then, were you, in this trio and, you know, away from the blues a little bit?

00:06:11.369 --> 00:06:14.492
It was, yeah, it was a blues influence.

00:06:14.533 --> 00:06:26.004
Some of it was, you know, I mean, we weren't like students at that point of Chicago blues or anything like that, but we were really an original kind of a folk rock blues trio.

00:06:26.365 --> 00:06:35.074
And we did a lot of work in that area, you know, at the time and had a fair amount of success in what we did.

00:06:35.675 --> 00:06:40.040
But we were doing things like playing in talent shows and that kind of thing.

00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:41.541
But the music was good.

00:06:42.283 --> 00:06:45.408
The girl that played guitar and sang, she was a good writer.

00:06:45.447 --> 00:06:50.656
So we were really deep into the kind of the original music thing at that point.

00:06:51.418 --> 00:06:55.745
So then you started getting more seriously into playing jazz, right?

00:06:55.764 --> 00:07:01.793
Because then you went to the Parsons Jazz and Contemporary Music Program in New York in 1987.

00:07:02.134 --> 00:07:04.038
So how far along is this?

00:07:04.418 --> 00:07:06.420
Yeah, that's quite a bit later.

00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:10.463
I mean, you're talking about what we've been talking about at this point was like 74, 75, 76.

00:07:10.884 --> 00:07:15.848
So I finished college with an art degree.

00:07:16.247 --> 00:07:20.031
When I got out of college, I decided I really wanted to be a musician.

00:07:20.072 --> 00:07:23.153
And that's when I started getting serious about studying.

00:07:23.173 --> 00:07:28.678
I was playing guitar, learned a lot of my theory via the guitar.

00:07:28.699 --> 00:07:31.120
I also took theory lessons.

00:07:31.581 --> 00:07:39.790
And basically, for a long time, I was really dedicated to being a good guitar player because I could get into bands easier that way.

00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:49.800
But I basically transferred all my knowledge from the guitar in terms of chords and scales and stuff and started doing it mostly on the chromatic at that point.

00:07:50.300 --> 00:07:55.425
And that got me into some local bands and playing in bar bands and that kind of a thing.

00:07:55.607 --> 00:07:58.670
And then I started playing with a fellow, Dale Dahlquist.

00:07:58.750 --> 00:08:01.173
We did old swing music.

00:08:01.593 --> 00:08:10.442
And that was really my first introduction into some kind of jazz and starting to listen to jazz music and getting involved in that kind of thing.

00:08:10.862 --> 00:08:17.209
I started teaching harmonica at a little music school in Minneapolis, West Bank School of Music.

00:08:17.569 --> 00:08:20.192
I got to know a lot of good musicians through that.

00:08:20.233 --> 00:08:25.559
And at that point, some of the teachers, we started getting together and playing some jazz.

00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:41.001
And that's when I started getting really interested in researching about the players and the history, which finally culminated me really wanting to go back to school and go into a jazz program and that's when I went to New York at that point in 1987.

00:08:41.062 --> 00:08:41.263
Right,

00:08:41.403 --> 00:08:46.634
yeah, so you took this jazz course and you also had lessons from Robert Bonfilio.

00:08:47.054 --> 00:08:48.317
Yes, right.

00:08:58.081 --> 00:09:05.629
The one program at that time that I could find where I could really, you know, use the harmonica as my main instrument of study.

00:09:06.269 --> 00:09:08.931
And so, you know, he was my teacher at that point.

00:09:09.272 --> 00:09:16.837
I was trying to get lessons with Toots Thielman as well, but he really wasn't around in New York in the wintertime.

00:09:16.857 --> 00:09:18.178
He was during school.

00:09:18.219 --> 00:09:20.841
He was back home in Belgium at that point.

00:09:20.922 --> 00:09:22.163
But very nice man.

00:09:22.423 --> 00:09:25.466
But I never really got, unfortunately, never got to take lessons with him.

00:09:25.566 --> 00:09:35.375
But with Bonfilio, I did a lot of studying of his classical technique, you know, learning corner switching, getting better at reading music, all that kind of stuff.

00:09:35.676 --> 00:09:45.907
Our concept really at the time was the idea of, you know, could you apply the classical corner switching technique to jazz improvisation?

00:09:46.126 --> 00:09:55.998
And so we were taking some, you know, bebop heads and then you'd go through and you'd analyze, you know, where to switch from side to side corner and you'd work it up that way.

00:09:56.378 --> 00:10:03.085
Unfortunately, what I found after a while was I could do that as long as it was something that was planned out ahead of time.

00:10:03.586 --> 00:10:09.152
I never really could learn to improvise freely and do corner switching at the same time.

00:10:09.732 --> 00:10:13.436
So does that mean you think corner switching is more suited for music reading?

00:10:13.897 --> 00:10:14.758
That's a good question.

00:10:14.898 --> 00:10:25.028
I think perhaps if somebody came along who started with that technique from the beginning, they might be intuitive enough with it to be able to improvise.

00:10:25.528 --> 00:10:32.817
I couldn't because I'd spent a long time before that, you know, playing, whether it was tongue blocking out of one corner or puckering.

00:10:32.836 --> 00:10:45.691
And like a lot of jazz players, I tend to play, at least on the chromatic for jazz and swing and things like that, I tend to play the pucker style, particularly for articulation purposes and that kind of a thing.

00:10:45.971 --> 00:10:47.832
But I also use a lot of tongue blocking.

00:10:47.893 --> 00:10:50.615
I'm a, I guess what you'd call a hybrid type of player.

00:10:50.635 --> 00:10:57.764
I like tongue blocking a lot, particularly on diatonic harp, but I do use it on the chromatic as well.

00:10:57.903 --> 00:10:58.764
Great.

00:10:58.924 --> 00:11:02.469
So was Robert

00:11:02.489 --> 00:11:27.836
Monfilio one of your tutors on the jazz course or was this just private lessons?

00:11:27.855 --> 00:11:54.244
so you'd have to at that time I played saxophone too so I you said I'd have to I'd have to do my major on saxophone if I wanted to do a performance degree and I didn't want to do that really so anyway but yeah yeah it was it was private lessons for credit basically in the program and I only lasted in the program to be honest with you for a year I started looking at the debt I was piling up and so on and so forth and got kind of flipped out about that

00:11:55.384 --> 00:12:18.789
yeah I never think you're going to make that money back from music probably be right so from the what from the kind of early 70s when you really started playing the harmonica you really got stuck in there you obviously played the diatonic you played the chromatic you picked up the guitar seriously you're playing the saxophone so you're working really hard on all your chops there you know you know do you still play the saxophone and guitar or have you gone you know sort of solely to the harmonica now

00:12:19.150 --> 00:12:34.167
well yeah I pretty much don't play the saxophone anymore and when I was in New York I was in a band where I was a triple hitter kind of a guy and who was a clean-up guy who played sax, guitar, harmonicas, both types, and vocals.

00:12:34.547 --> 00:12:36.690
But I've kind of abandoned the saxophone.

00:12:37.049 --> 00:12:40.913
And really, my harmonica is my saxophone, really.

00:12:41.073 --> 00:12:45.698
And the guitar, I still play because I don't play piano.

00:12:45.739 --> 00:12:55.470
And the guitar, I say it enough that I can really have a good, solid knowledge of chords and inversions of chords and all that kind of stuff.

00:12:55.789 --> 00:12:59.355
And so I use it for composition Sure, yeah.

00:13:00.236 --> 00:13:01.620
And

00:13:03.644 --> 00:13:09.014
we know that playing a chordal instrument with a single note instrument like the harmonica is extremely valuable, right?

00:13:09.054 --> 00:13:12.280
So, you know, you would definitely advocate that.

00:13:12.642 --> 00:13:13.842
Yeah.

00:13:13.863 --> 00:13:14.003
Oh, yeah.

00:13:14.023 --> 00:13:17.225
Everybody should learn some kind of a chordal instrument.

00:13:17.306 --> 00:13:21.509
I mean, a full chordal instrument, you know, an instrument that can play every chord and every key.

00:13:22.049 --> 00:13:27.794
That's really, really a helpful thing to your understanding and your ability to move on to the next level, for sure.

00:13:28.255 --> 00:13:33.700
So another thing that you've done, you touched on earlier is, you know, you got to play a great level on diatonic as well.

00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:42.607
And you're playing overblows on the diatonic, which is probably reasonably unusual for get people who play the chromatic to a good level and play the diatonic with overblows as well.

00:13:42.607 --> 00:13:46.491
So what made you do both and

00:13:51.157 --> 00:14:04.471
tell us about that journey?

00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:14.721
I thought it was unique and so on and so forth.

00:14:14.841 --> 00:14:22.890
And then a friend of mine, the same bass player who showed me my scales on the piano, he called me up and said, hey, there's this guy from Chicago.

00:14:22.931 --> 00:14:26.634
He's coming into town and he's playing jazz harmonica.

00:14:26.815 --> 00:14:28.537
I said, oh, OK, well, let's go see him.

00:14:28.677 --> 00:14:36.546
And of course, I walked in the door and I thought, well, you know, this is totally assumed it was going to be, you know, somebody in the toots mold.

00:14:36.645 --> 00:14:39.629
And there he was up on stage, Howard Levy.

00:14:39.869 --> 00:14:41.530
And I go, wait a minute.

00:14:41.811 --> 00:14:41.951
What?

00:14:42.272 --> 00:14:45.402
You know, I And he had the diatonic harmonica in his mouth.

00:14:45.884 --> 00:14:47.148
And he's doing all this stuff.

00:14:47.288 --> 00:14:49.315
And I couldn't believe it.

00:14:49.817 --> 00:14:52.004
I just said, well, how is he doing that?

00:15:09.474 --> 00:15:16.059
And I ended up talking to him on a break, and he told me about this concept of overblowing.

00:15:16.379 --> 00:15:17.640
And that was in 85.

00:15:17.740 --> 00:15:26.509
So I immediately went home and figured out how to get an overblow and started tinkering around with that.

00:15:26.548 --> 00:15:37.457
And at first, I would add overblows into my standard blues playing to fill out the rest of the blues scale, you know, on the higher end in cross harp.

00:15:37.859 --> 00:15:39.000
And then I started...

00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:44.304
around with it chromatically because, okay, I can get a chromatic scale here.

00:15:44.645 --> 00:15:57.538
And so with my knowledge of the chromatic harmonica and playing guitar and saxophone, you know, it seemed like it was just a natural thing to start kind of exploring that on a diatonic harp.

00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:00.261
And that's pretty much how that came about.

00:16:00.903 --> 00:16:01.243
Great.

00:16:01.283 --> 00:16:01.624
Yeah.

00:16:01.964 --> 00:16:16.222
So, you know, I made the point that you don't get many people playing the chromatic and overblows on the diatonic because, you know, you maybe would turn to the notes right so what do you you know what when would you play a diatonic overblow rather than playing a chromatic say on a jazz song

00:16:16.524 --> 00:16:45.047
yeah yeah well i i would play the chromatic on most of my jazz playing even to this day so I like the idea of having a dedicated read to every note.

00:16:45.547 --> 00:16:57.758
There's something about that that's really, really nice in terms of getting your phrasing to be consistent and have the timbre of that phrase and the articulation of that phrase working really well.

00:16:58.158 --> 00:17:12.651
That is truly, to me, the strength of the chromatic harmonica right there is that fact that you have a dedicated read to each note and that each one of those notes can be manipulated in a similar fashion.

00:17:13.112 --> 00:17:21.000
In the jazz thing, I will definitely use my diatonic in more of a jazz, blues, and soul jazz kind of a setting.

00:17:21.520 --> 00:17:24.463
It seems to work well with that very nicely.

00:17:25.044 --> 00:17:34.875
I am working, I am still chipping away at being able to play straight ahead jazz standards on the diatonic harp as I move along.

00:17:34.954 --> 00:18:00.461
I'm not Howard Levy, that's for sure, and I don't dedicate the time on the diatonic that I should to be able to like just completely play everything on it I still reserve that for my chromatic but I am fascinated with year after year after year of just trying to transfer everything that I learned with the chromatic harmonica over to the diatonic.

00:18:01.063 --> 00:18:23.467
Yeah because exactly that knowledge is there isn't it you know it transfers obviously fantastically well from the chromatic once you've got that knowledge so yeah you've got that so you taught there about you using the overblows on the diatonic on the style of music more than well you know obviously the diatonic is more expressive right you can bend it and the chromatic's cleaner sounding so that's driven again by the style of music that you choose between the two is it

00:18:24.027 --> 00:18:29.713
yeah a little yeah a little bit i mean and i would i might take a little issue about the expressiveness of a chromatic

00:18:30.114 --> 00:18:34.278
yeah it's um i mean the bend it's the bendability as much as anything yeah

00:18:34.558 --> 00:18:43.151
well yeah there is but you know the thing about a chromatic is and if you're you know you listen to Stevie Wonder and stuff, you can bend every note.

00:18:43.778 --> 00:18:45.159
really well, you know.

00:18:45.378 --> 00:18:49.883
I mean, and it's a different timbre, but every note is bendable.

00:18:50.042 --> 00:18:51.243
It's just that you don't bend.

00:18:51.285 --> 00:18:53.425
You bend for expression only.

00:18:53.465 --> 00:18:59.451
For me, very rarely do I bend to like doing a half step to get a half step.

00:18:59.811 --> 00:19:06.258
I can on a lot of notes, but I bend for expression and the fact that you can bend every note.

00:19:06.557 --> 00:19:09.539
That's quite a nice thing about a chromatic.

00:19:09.980 --> 00:19:19.730
I spent a lot of time, particularly my days when I was really pushing the I play my chromatic in a blues band on tunes that most people would assume you would use a diatonic on.

00:19:20.050 --> 00:19:26.196
And so I really worked on my expressiveness of a chromatic to the point where I can make it scream, I hope.

00:19:26.557 --> 00:19:29.019
So you haven't removed any wind savers or anything to do that?

00:19:29.201 --> 00:19:30.142
No, I don't do that.

00:19:30.182 --> 00:19:35.586
No, I play a straight up chromatic with, you know, standard tuning in C.

00:19:35.686 --> 00:19:37.869
I don't play other key chromatics.

00:19:37.990 --> 00:19:43.236
One of my biggest things was to be able to play fluently in all 12 keys on a C.

00:19:43.695 --> 00:19:45.479
chromatic and leave it at that.

00:19:46.119 --> 00:19:50.386
I didn't want to be carrying around a bunch of chromatics like I do a blues harp.

00:19:50.787 --> 00:19:54.452
I've already got that where I pick up different key diatonics.

00:19:54.512 --> 00:20:04.209
So if I have a studio session where somebody wants me to play chromatic but they want me to play chords in a particular key, then I have chromatics that I can use for that if I need to.

00:20:04.328 --> 00:20:07.413
But I do not mess around with other key chromatics basically.

00:20:08.609 --> 00:20:09.990
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00:20:38.576 --> 00:21:23.919
have a question or need advice just drop Jonathan a line on sales at theharmonicacompany.com and he'll be happy to help the discount code and email address are also listed on the podcast page I mean what you do as well is the great use of the chromatic and diatonic is you play a range of styles of music which really covers you know a lot of the genres for the harmonica so you like to play some pre-war sort of blues stuff obviously we talked about you playing jazz you're playing rock and pop as well so you've done loads of session work because you've got this versatility to play these different styles so I was reading a really interesting interview with Richard Hunter with yourself and on there you pick out five of your sort of favourite players or albums so just you know I've quickly looked through some of these.

00:21:23.939 --> 00:21:31.010
So first of all, there's a song by Les Thompson on the album Mouth, Organ, Madness.

00:21:31.692 --> 00:21:34.657
And I'm aware of Les Thompson, but listen to this clip.

00:21:34.758 --> 00:21:35.920
Oh, it's incredible playing.

00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:37.762
What a chromatic player he was.

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

00:21:52.417 --> 00:21:53.800
Oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:53.881 --> 00:21:58.128
He was the unheralded West Coast version of Toots Thielman.

00:21:58.690 --> 00:21:59.510
He was amazing,

00:22:00.212 --> 00:22:00.834
yeah.

00:22:00.874 --> 00:22:03.618
Yeah, and obviously you're listing the Toots on this list as well.

00:22:03.638 --> 00:22:05.221
We've already covered Toots.

00:22:05.241 --> 00:22:15.161
So another one, you also pick out Eddie Clarke, who's an Irish player who plays mainly, I think, on chromatics, doesn't he, where he's playing fiddle tunes on chromatics.

00:22:15.181 --> 00:22:15.741
Yeah.

00:22:28.354 --> 00:22:33.298
So do you play much Irish music yourself and you draw inspiration from that sort of nice, fast Irish style?

00:22:33.538 --> 00:22:35.660
There was a point where I was kind of into that.

00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:41.726
I mean, I worked up a number of Irish tunes and some bluegrass and old time tunes.

00:22:41.786 --> 00:22:43.886
There's a lot of interplay with that kind of stuff.

00:22:43.988 --> 00:22:58.319
And especially like when I was playing with people like Brian Wickland and other people in the kind of a traditional music world, I started picking up on all that stuff more or less just as a exercise to be, you know, for speed and all that kind of stuff.

00:22:58.319 --> 00:22:59.342
But I enjoyed it.

00:22:59.402 --> 00:23:03.411
My wife is a huge fan of Irish music, and I enjoy it very much.

00:23:03.490 --> 00:23:08.240
But I'm not going to go out and try to sit in on some serious high-level session.

00:23:10.690 --> 00:23:29.205
but yeah but again it's a great use of you know harmonica sounds great in that setting yeah so yeah yeah and then in the pre-war stuff you you've picked out the the great harp players 1927 to 1936 album it's a great album and particularly uh blues bird head on there who you know is supposed to be the first person to have recorded overblows right

00:23:29.645 --> 00:23:45.722
right right there's a little i guess there's a little bit of controversy about that but you i can i think i hear it in there so and whether it was a mistake or not i don't know maybe he just did it by accident he's trying to bend a blow note and he was on a note that didn't bend and it popped the overblow.

00:23:45.823 --> 00:23:46.242
I don't know.

00:23:46.282 --> 00:23:54.173
The thing about him that's so wonderful is that, you know, he was really the first jazz diatonic player.

00:23:54.233 --> 00:24:02.244
I mean, when you listen to what he's doing, he sounds like a Chicago jazz trumpeter from the 20s and that's really cool.

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

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

00:24:17.506 --> 00:24:18.846
No, incredible play, yeah.

00:24:19.086 --> 00:24:25.992
And like you touched on there, that sort of similarity between that pre-war and the jazz styles is actually pretty close, isn't it?

00:24:26.032 --> 00:24:32.058
You know, you wouldn't necessarily think the pre-war blues would be, but that definitely got that swinging jazz feeling there, isn't

00:24:32.078 --> 00:24:32.118
it?

00:24:32.159 --> 00:24:39.265
Well, you know, the thing about the history of jazz is that, like, post-blues wasn't associated so much with jazz.

00:24:39.424 --> 00:24:41.186
Oh, the jump players, you know, yeah, yeah.

00:24:41.586 --> 00:24:49.013
But pre-war, I mean, jazz and blues was just, there are people walking both sides of street all over the place.

00:24:49.173 --> 00:24:57.303
I mean, if you look at the classic blues recordings, you know, with the classic blues singers, I mean, they're using all of these jazz horn players.

00:24:57.343 --> 00:25:01.988
Now, if you were to come up to one of those cats and say, yeah, man, yeah, you're a jazz player.

00:25:02.008 --> 00:25:03.128
You can't play the blues.

00:25:03.308 --> 00:25:04.830
I don't think you'd want to do that.

00:25:06.011 --> 00:25:08.134
Those guys played really good blues.

00:25:08.433 --> 00:25:12.157
And so there's so much interplay with all those guys.

00:25:12.238 --> 00:25:15.461
And Rhythm Willie is one of my favorite guys, too.

00:25:15.501 --> 00:25:21.789
He's right up there with Blues Bird Head and And people love to make that name.

00:25:34.753 --> 00:25:37.757
Yeah, some great players in those pre-war ones, which are often neglected.

00:25:37.836 --> 00:25:38.656
Yeah, I know.

00:25:38.737 --> 00:25:40.098
It's really too bad.

00:25:40.138 --> 00:25:46.044
And that's when one of the bands I was in in the late 90s, early 2000s was the Sugar Kings.

00:25:46.144 --> 00:25:59.635
And we were essentially a jug band influenced pre-war kind of a group with a tuba and me and a guy playing resophonic guitar and slamming a hi-hat on the two and four.

00:26:00.115 --> 00:26:03.259
And we toured around a lot and did a record.

00:26:03.338 --> 00:26:12.510
And I got a real It was a real chance to kind of like really get into really researching and studying the styles of some of those pre-war players.

00:26:12.631 --> 00:26:15.736
It's really, really was a wonderful opportunity for me.

00:26:15.836 --> 00:26:22.885
And, you know, I felt blessed I could, you know, actually get away with doing some of that stuff and doing it in a band that worked.

00:26:23.666 --> 00:26:24.367
Yeah, definitely.

00:26:24.387 --> 00:26:24.509
Yeah.

00:26:24.528 --> 00:26:26.310
And you do a blues bird head song on there.

00:26:26.451 --> 00:26:27.873
Get up off that jazzophone.

00:26:28.354 --> 00:26:29.174
Yeah, I love that.

00:26:33.741 --> 00:26:33.821
Yeah.

00:26:39.842 --> 00:26:42.263
So

00:26:42.304 --> 00:26:44.125
we'll get into your output now.

00:26:44.145 --> 00:26:49.730
We've talked about how your divergent approach is, which has got some great output yourself.

00:26:49.770 --> 00:26:54.355
So you mentioned earlier on that you'd studied visual arts as your degree, right?

00:26:54.714 --> 00:26:55.194
That's right.

00:26:55.556 --> 00:26:59.358
And that sort of influenced your approach to music about pushing yourself for your own voice.

00:26:59.398 --> 00:27:01.840
So that's an interesting point.

00:27:01.861 --> 00:27:05.845
So what do you do to find your own voice in your music, and how does it help you with that?

00:27:06.444 --> 00:27:13.852
Well, part of the thing I did was, of course, I just did a lot of I just said I got into deeply studying all these pre-war harp players, and I did.

00:27:14.272 --> 00:27:33.032
But one of my main inspirations over many years and decades, like Little Walter, I really listened to the horn players a lot, the trumpet players and the saxophone players, jazz, blues, jazz, soul jazz guys, all that stuff.

00:27:33.073 --> 00:27:39.759
I have quite a collection of listening to them, and I think that helped me create a style of music.

00:27:39.759 --> 00:27:58.961
of my own in a way you know I was certainly did my homework with all the great Chicago great players and all that kind of stuff and I certainly spent a lot of time particularly listening to toots and stuff but really I think a major source of my inspiration is with horn players

00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:02.304
and did you you know did you learn this sort of Charlie Parker Omni book

00:28:02.604 --> 00:28:37.101
yeah that's my bible yeah you know there's something about that even if I'm not playing Charlie Parker tunes there's this something about looking at and taking apart his solos and and his heads uh it's like it's a distillation of american music up to that point and it's it's full of blues by the way and it's wonderful stuff and it's not only is it a distillation of everything that was going on up to that point and then it also looked forward to the next level and so yeah i i am a huge huge charlie parker fan

00:28:37.422 --> 00:28:41.748
yeah the greatest improviser of them all eh so um So we looked through your recordings.

00:28:41.788 --> 00:28:43.731
We touched on the Jug Band one there.

00:28:43.771 --> 00:28:52.588
So I think your first album coming out in 1997, was this your first ever album, or had you recorded as a sideband on other people's albums before?

00:28:52.608 --> 00:28:55.453
The first album I did was Dream of the Serpent Dog.

00:29:10.913 --> 00:29:19.842
yeah so that's in 1997 so you've been playing for quite a long time at this stage like there's sort of 20 odd years right so it took you quite a while to uh to get yourself down an album yeah

00:29:20.001 --> 00:29:49.250
yeah well and then that's that story of uh uh the fontanas was really you know that was supposed to come out in uh 1990 the fontanas and uh that was that was after i just moved back from new york i was kind of tired of jazz and at the time i got into this original rock band that was part of the Minneapolis scene of music going on, which was very, very vibrant for original rock at that point.

00:29:49.849 --> 00:29:52.712
But that never came out until this last year.

00:29:53.334 --> 00:29:56.698
But that really was my first record, the Fontanus thing.

00:29:56.897 --> 00:30:00.823
We were done recording that in 1990, that's right.

00:30:01.343 --> 00:30:04.346
Yeah, so this is, like you say, a kind of pop rock band, right?

00:30:04.406 --> 00:30:07.871
And so they were quite heavy driven sound.

00:30:07.911 --> 00:30:10.814
And are you using mainly chromatic on this one?

00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:12.445
Thank you.

00:30:25.986 --> 00:30:29.989
Yeah, I was still way deep into the chromatic idea.

00:30:30.289 --> 00:30:42.180
And I'd never heard anybody really, you know, I consider that band kind of like a cross between, you know, power pop, garage rock, a little bit of new wave thrown in there.

00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:56.251
And I was really, really interested in taking my chromatic and highly amplifying it and trying to make it work in that kind of a context because I hadn't really heard anybody do that.

00:30:56.332 --> 00:31:00.115
Now, this is also pre-Blues Traveler, by the way.

00:31:00.676 --> 00:31:05.942
Yeah, because I noticed there was some similarities to the Blues Traveler sound, but so this was your sound first, was it?

00:31:06.643 --> 00:31:19.978
Yeah, yeah, and it's chromatic, and it's mostly, I mean, I have a couple of diatonic tunes on the album, but really it was about the chromatic, and it was about the sensibility of, you know, the Fontanas was not a jam band.

00:31:20.077 --> 00:31:31.148
I mean, it was a pop band, you know, in terms of, like, even though we had extended solos where you could improvise But if you listen to that first tune on there, Where He Lies, that was supposed to be our single.

00:31:50.465 --> 00:32:08.521
I was trying to think, like, okay, I'm George Harrison, and somebody gives me a song, and okay, what kind of a secondary hook line can I come up with for a song that brings the tune out, makes it even more hooky, but doesn't overwhelm the song?

00:32:08.622 --> 00:32:10.163
That's the kind of thing I was trying to do.

00:32:10.182 --> 00:32:19.050
I also did, I was still playing saxophone that time, I was overlaying saxophone and harp together on a number of tunes as well on that record.

00:32:19.471 --> 00:32:22.433
So what's the story, how Come the album's been released, what?

00:32:22.453 --> 00:32:23.394
34

00:32:23.756 --> 00:32:23.935
years

00:32:24.056 --> 00:32:24.296
later.

00:32:24.316 --> 00:32:25.657
34 years later, yeah.

00:32:25.897 --> 00:32:30.643
Well, it's just a typical music biz disaster kind of a thing.

00:32:30.682 --> 00:32:38.270
We had a financial backer who we'd finished the album, and he skipped out.

00:32:38.711 --> 00:32:40.512
And we were left with a gigantic bill.

00:32:40.553 --> 00:32:44.917
And the label said, look, we can't release this.

00:32:44.958 --> 00:32:46.380
We can't keep doing this.

00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:50.384
So the whole thing just essentially at that part just completely collapsed.

00:32:50.384 --> 00:32:52.566
And that was the end of it.

00:32:52.586 --> 00:32:54.008
And everybody went their separate ways.

00:32:54.028 --> 00:33:00.494
34 years later, the label just decided, well, let's see if we can put this out.

00:33:00.694 --> 00:33:05.881
Because they want to complete the history of the Blackberry Way label and have all the bands.

00:33:06.421 --> 00:33:06.540
Great.

00:33:06.560 --> 00:33:10.305
So are you guys going to reform and start touring the album?

00:33:10.885 --> 00:33:11.626
I don't think so.

00:33:12.508 --> 00:33:16.592
Well, you know, hey, if it became a hit, well, yeah, sure.

00:33:16.692 --> 00:33:18.054
I'd go out on the road with it.

00:33:18.074 --> 00:33:18.453
It'd be fun.

00:33:18.854 --> 00:33:36.032
I mean, the guy who's the main songwriter, songwriter Brian Drake and singer and rhythm guitarist he's still very active in the Twin Cities rock scene as a songwriter excellent writer and you know hey something happened who knows

00:33:37.354 --> 00:33:51.669
yeah great so going back then to what is your is it your second album then was the Dream of the Serpent Dog the first one actually released that was in 1997 so this was largely a an acoustic jazz album,

00:33:52.029 --> 00:33:52.450
yeah?

00:33:52.549 --> 00:33:52.990
Yeah, yeah.

00:33:53.211 --> 00:33:57.154
A little bit of a kind of a world music thing thrown in there as well.

00:33:57.855 --> 00:34:14.773
The big thing was there were three primary writers, myself, Bobby E., and Jim Chenoweth, the bass player, and we all wrote three tunes, put them on the album, and basically there was one tune that was co-written with Bobby E., the guitar player, Snake Oil.

00:34:14.974 --> 00:34:38.461
That record kind of set the stage for what I like doing on some of my jazz albums uh primarily chromatic one diatonic tune snake oil was yeah that was my one diatonic thing doing it and for everybody out there if you listen to it it's in uh what the howard levy uh system of uh it's called a second flat so

00:34:49.409 --> 00:34:56.085
So, yeah, so you had this album in 97, and then you had your Jug Band album, which you mentioned in 99.

00:34:56.425 --> 00:34:56.626
Yeah.

00:34:56.967 --> 00:35:01.597
And then in 2003, you played with Bill Geezy and the Promise Breakers.

00:35:01.617 --> 00:35:03.842
This is more poppy, is this one, would you say?

00:35:03.862 --> 00:35:08.414
Yeah, it's kind of an Americana roots country and pop.

00:35:08.610 --> 00:35:15.356
rock pop thing you know it's crossover like a lot a lot of different influences but you know that kind of idea

00:35:15.815 --> 00:35:18.699
yeah and you're playing are you playing more diatonic on this one

00:35:18.898 --> 00:35:40.677
yes it seemed like the material warranted more diatonic absolutely so and at that point i my diatonic skills were really accelerating fast because again i was i was constantly transferring uh what i was doing with the chromatic over to diatonic and i wanted to you know like with the sugar kings too i i I did a lot of diatonic.

00:35:40.978 --> 00:35:58.257
It's interesting because out there, if anybody knows me in the harmonica world, I'm so primarily thought of as a chromatic player, and yet my output of recordings, there's a lot of stuff that I did with the diatonic.

00:35:58.317 --> 00:36:04.123
So yeah, on that recording, I did a lot of diatonic, and on the Sugar Kings, there's a lot of diatonic as well.

00:36:04.543 --> 00:36:11.326
Yeah, the song Arthur and Brenda, there's a fine, fast run on the diatonic Thank you.

00:36:25.538 --> 00:36:31.342
And then you do a blues album with Papa John Colstead, who I've had another player who played with.

00:36:31.503 --> 00:36:32.043
Mike Turk.

00:36:32.344 --> 00:36:32.884
Mike Turk.

00:36:33.144 --> 00:36:33.925
Excellent player.

00:36:34.266 --> 00:36:36.947
He's quite a bit, ironically, quite a bit like me.

00:36:36.967 --> 00:36:37.047
Yeah,

00:36:37.467 --> 00:36:39.510
I had Mike on quite recently.

00:36:39.550 --> 00:36:41.891
You know, this is probably a full-on blues album, right?

00:36:41.931 --> 00:36:44.835
So, you know, you're showing that you can do the blues side as well.

00:36:45.235 --> 00:36:45.835
Right, right.

00:36:45.896 --> 00:36:51.179
Yeah, doing the, it's still mostly acoustic and pre-war for the most part.

00:36:51.260 --> 00:37:18.422
I mean, we're doing Lonnie Johnson tune, Scrapper Blackwell, you know, all that kind of stuff Basically, I'm following Papa John's repertoire and what he does.

00:37:18.463 --> 00:37:22.268
He was a 12-string player, so he's a lot like Lead Belly that way.

00:37:22.547 --> 00:37:24.269
And we had a great time.

00:37:24.990 --> 00:37:25.851
I loved playing with him.

00:37:25.871 --> 00:37:27.014
He's a really fun guy.

00:37:27.114 --> 00:37:33.581
And we did another album, too, with a band called the Hot Club of East Lake Street.

00:37:33.802 --> 00:37:36.445
And we did more swing in that group.

00:37:36.706 --> 00:37:41.070
And then in 2007, you released an album with the Clint Hoover Trio.

00:37:41.210 --> 00:37:43.592
So this is your first one as a band leader.

00:37:43.652 --> 00:37:45.914
So this is sort of jazz standards on this one.

00:37:46.213 --> 00:37:46.815
Yeah, right.

00:37:46.855 --> 00:37:53.661
I wanted to do something that was, you know, reminiscent of the, I'm a really big fan of the blue note era of jazz.

00:37:53.900 --> 00:37:59.105
You know, I wanted that idea of just going in and playing live in the studio and doing a session.

00:37:59.164 --> 00:38:05.391
That's why I call it On This Day and just getting some really good, a couple of good players that I played with out a lot.

00:38:05.690 --> 00:38:06.291
It's interesting.

00:38:06.311 --> 00:38:09.755
We didn't use a drummer, but we were just a trio without a drummer.

00:38:09.835 --> 00:38:14.923
But I kind of like that, actually, because it left a lot of space in there.

00:38:15.123 --> 00:38:18.268
We work with dynamics a lot as the three of us.

00:38:19.250 --> 00:38:25.277
Those are all just straight ahead jazz standards.

00:38:34.018 --> 00:38:42.144
And again, I did the thing where it's all chromatic, but I do this Horace Silver tune, Sister Sadie, with the diatonic

00:38:44.492 --> 00:38:46.157
harp.

00:38:46.177 --> 00:38:46.237
¦

00:38:55.297 --> 00:39:01.405
And then a little bit later, a couple of years later, in 2009, you played in a band called Eastside.

00:39:02.027 --> 00:39:03.369
Yeah, we did two albums.

00:39:03.489 --> 00:39:14.724
And kind of the idea was playing that blue note jazz, but combining it with a kind of a Brazilian type of tango nuevo sound on some of the stuff.

00:39:15.726 --> 00:39:15.806
Yeah.

00:39:24.257 --> 00:39:26.739
because we had this really good percussionist.

00:39:27.141 --> 00:39:29.262
So we did this, it was kind of a blend of that.

00:39:29.422 --> 00:39:38.570
The second album is called Astoria, and that's sort of a reference to Astor Piazzolla and that kind of music.

00:39:38.851 --> 00:39:40.992
That had a kind of a unique aspect to it.

00:39:41.012 --> 00:39:48.518
The guy I played with, Reynolds Flipsick, he wrote the majority of the tunes, an excellent writer and guitar player.

00:39:48.898 --> 00:39:51.300
And yeah, those were fun records to make.

00:39:51.882 --> 00:40:12.483
I think the first one is, I consider some of my best in-studio improvisation is on that the first Eastside album because again that was just live in the studio we did you do two or three takes of every tune and we were done and then it was mixed the same day boom you're done it doesn't take months of overlaying

00:40:12.943 --> 00:40:23.054
great and then more recently you played in a band called Jimmy Mack and the Attack which I think is pretty much full-on rock music isn't it you're getting some sort of rock harp on here

00:40:23.094 --> 00:40:25.521
yeah yeah full-on rock Rock and blues.

00:40:26.222 --> 00:40:28.190
Blues rock, I guess I would think of it.

00:40:28.250 --> 00:40:32.945
Although, yeah, it's definitely got some serious rock aspects to it.

00:40:47.458 --> 00:40:54.965
When I moved out to Pittsburgh, it took me a while to get into a scene out here, and I ended up kind of getting back into doing it.

00:40:54.985 --> 00:41:03.851
I hadn't done it for decades, doing highly amplified blues rock, classic rock kind of stuff, and just kind of having a gas with it.

00:41:04.032 --> 00:41:05.733
In a way, it's sort of fun to do.

00:41:05.853 --> 00:41:13.099
I updated all my gear on that, and I had a lot of fun with some of the newer things going on technologically.

00:41:13.260 --> 00:41:17.423
That's really, truly, again, a demo live.

00:41:17.423 --> 00:41:18.987
Live in the studio CD.

00:41:19.106 --> 00:41:22.132
So some of the vocals had to be overdubbed.

00:41:22.693 --> 00:41:24.215
And that's about it.

00:41:24.255 --> 00:41:26.418
It depends on the kind of music you're doing.

00:41:26.458 --> 00:41:30.585
But for that kind of music, again, I like doing it in terms of a live thing.

00:41:30.786 --> 00:41:35.514
There's just a freshness when you're soloing and stuff that's really nice about that kind of work.

00:41:36.034 --> 00:41:36.275
Yeah.

00:41:36.516 --> 00:41:40.822
And also, you do the song Why You Gotta, which I think he's played on a chromatic.

00:41:40.902 --> 00:41:42.465
Yeah, that's on a chromatic.

00:41:43.137 --> 00:41:46.440
So, yeah, it's a bit like the Fontana's where you mentioned earlier on.

00:41:46.681 --> 00:41:55.268
You're really driving the sound with a chromatic, which is, you know, probably quite an unusual use of the chromatic that you get in such a heavily sort of driven sound out of the chromatic.

00:41:55.349 --> 00:42:04.315
Yeah, I really worked hard on that idea of being able to get the chromatic to be really, you know, balls to the wall kind of a sound out of it.

00:42:04.856 --> 00:42:26.347
On that tune, the parts with the vocals and when I'm not soloing, all I do is take a chromatic solo, but the rest of is my diatonic, and I'm playing these kind of organ lines with the diatonic and using splits and running it through a Leslie pedal and with an octave drop.

00:42:26.407 --> 00:42:28.911
I'm really trying to be the organ player in the band.

00:42:28.931 --> 00:42:50.677
¶¶ So, but then I put down the diatonic and pick up the chromatic and turn off all the gizmos and just running through a little tube amp and just trying to get it to scream.

00:42:50.759 --> 00:42:52.922
I'm using a CX-12 on that, by the way.

00:42:52.942 --> 00:42:57.789
I like those for amplified chromatic.

00:43:09.538 --> 00:43:12.760
So then moving into some of the other stuff you do, you've done quite a lot of session work.

00:43:12.780 --> 00:43:14.862
You've done movies and commercials, TV.

00:43:14.882 --> 00:43:16.403
You've even done a TV news thing.

00:43:16.824 --> 00:43:18.045
What about the TV news thing?

00:43:18.105 --> 00:43:18.686
How did you get that?

00:43:19.166 --> 00:43:21.288
Well, it was, oh, that's a long time ago.

00:43:21.427 --> 00:43:21.909
Oh, gosh.

00:43:22.688 --> 00:43:30.615
That was just for this reporter who had a segment on the news program that was called On the Road Again.

00:43:30.936 --> 00:43:31.737
And he'd go around.

00:43:32.237 --> 00:43:33.938
And he was from England, too.

00:43:34.440 --> 00:43:39.423
And basically, they just wanted me to play the Willie Nelson tune, On the Road Again.

00:43:39.503 --> 00:43:39.804
And

00:43:41.146 --> 00:43:43.030
you've done some writing.

00:43:43.090 --> 00:43:46.498
Have you got a harp instructional book out?

00:43:46.577 --> 00:43:47.699
No, I do not.

00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:57.159
I've been involved in doing harp parts for different instructional books, like for Mel Bay and stuff like that.

00:43:57.199 --> 00:43:58.842
But no, I've never put out a book.

00:43:58.981 --> 00:44:00.585
I've thought about it.

00:44:00.865 --> 00:44:02.608
I've done a lot of teaching.

00:44:02.628 --> 00:44:04.893
I have a whole methodology.

00:44:05.614 --> 00:44:05.934
I don't know.

00:44:05.994 --> 00:44:17.014
It just seems, though, that the market for harp instruction is so heavy and there's so much out there that I don't know if it's worth the effort to do it, to be honest.

00:44:17.034 --> 00:44:19.960
And at my age, I tell you, I just want to play.

00:44:20.260 --> 00:44:25.130
I want to perform as much as I can while I can and play and record and do all that stuff.

00:44:25.230 --> 00:44:25.309
Yeah.

00:44:25.474 --> 00:44:31.469
Okay, so Clint, a question I ask each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:44:32.034 --> 00:44:42.043
probably if I have 10 minutes I would I would try to play a bebop head and then you know play it a number of times or maybe a couple of them those are such great warm-ups and that would

00:44:42.063 --> 00:44:44.905
be on the chromatic and diatonic or would you choose one

00:44:45.425 --> 00:45:12.630
yeah yeah I've got some bebop heads worked up on the diatonic in different positions and I'll do that I mean I can't do like Howard Levy does is play confirmation in all 12 keys as a warm-up I saw him do that at a at a workshop but in a way that's where i got inspired to do that as a quick warm-up is just run through something like donnelly or confirmation as a warm-up you know and uh and it gets you going for sure

00:45:12.650 --> 00:45:20.360
yeah and what about any sort of practice regime you know maybe you know now or when you were younger did you have any particular practice regime

00:45:20.599 --> 00:45:35.675
i really do a lot of scale exercises and arpeggio exercises i also do like transposing is a real big part of what i do like i'll take i'll I'll take some kind of riff, particularly in jazz, 2-5-1 riffs.

00:45:36.096 --> 00:45:42.063
I'll take a 2-5 riff and the ones that I particularly like, and I'll run them through all 12 keys.

00:45:42.983 --> 00:45:45.907
That's a really good warm-up as well, that kind of a thing.

00:45:46.226 --> 00:45:51.452
And that ability to quickly transpose is a really helpful thing.

00:45:51.833 --> 00:45:57.860
So I'll do things like that, scale exercises, transposing, riff, or a whole head of something like that.

00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:04.190
Then I'll get to repertoire, and I'll start working on repertoires and learn learning new tunes, all that kind of stuff.

00:46:04.670 --> 00:46:06.394
I still practice a lot.

00:46:06.856 --> 00:46:08.018
It's just something I do.

00:46:08.320 --> 00:46:09.923
It's what I do.

00:46:10.425 --> 00:46:11.708
And how old are you now?

00:46:11.728 --> 00:46:12.911
68.

00:46:12.990 --> 00:46:14.956
I am now 68 years old.

00:46:15.969 --> 00:46:17.190
And you're still practicing hard.

00:46:17.231 --> 00:46:17.771
Great to hear.

00:46:18.231 --> 00:46:18.853
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:18.893 --> 00:46:21.454
I mean, I think it helps keep me young, for sure.

00:46:21.474 --> 00:46:23.956
I mean, I look forward to practicing.

00:46:24.297 --> 00:46:25.858
I'm not happy if I don't practice.

00:46:26.478 --> 00:46:33.144
As Dizzy Gillespie said, he said, if you don't practice for a day when you're out on the bandstand, you notice.

00:46:33.525 --> 00:46:37.369
If you don't practice for a few days and you're out on the bandstand, the band notices.

00:46:37.768 --> 00:46:41.492
If you don't practice for five days or a week, the audience notices.

00:46:43.554 --> 00:46:45.755
That's a paraphrase of his that I...

00:46:45.936 --> 00:47:01.293
live by because i tell you yeah i i really like to be sharp for when i go out and play so

00:47:17.793 --> 00:47:20.625
So we'll get on to talking about gear now.

00:47:20.706 --> 00:47:24.722
So first of all, diatonic, what do you like to play?

00:47:25.644 --> 00:47:28.396
My preferred is Golden Melodies.

00:47:29.025 --> 00:47:34.655
And I have a lot of customized golden melodies from different customizers that I use.

00:47:35.456 --> 00:47:40.202
I get the compromised tuning on them because, you know, I want to have the chords to sound good.

00:47:40.943 --> 00:47:44.369
Because, you know, gold melodies, they're not temper tuned.

00:47:44.469 --> 00:47:46.211
You know, they're equal tuned.

00:47:46.632 --> 00:47:48.476
And so the chords can sound rough.

00:47:48.496 --> 00:47:55.166
So I retune them myself if it's a thing out of the box or I have customizers do it.

00:47:55.827 --> 00:47:55.987
Yeah.

00:47:56.007 --> 00:47:57.690
And which customizers do you like to use?

00:47:58.338 --> 00:47:59.621
Joe Spears.

00:48:00.202 --> 00:48:00.902
Joe Spears, yeah.

00:48:01.123 --> 00:48:02.567
Yeah, I use him a lot.

00:48:02.947 --> 00:48:06.855
I got Joel Anderson has done a lot of customizing for me.

00:48:07.516 --> 00:48:12.527
And right now I'm slowly getting a set of customized harps from the guy, Blue Moon.

00:48:13.188 --> 00:48:13.889
Tom Halchuk.

00:48:20.141 --> 00:48:20.222
Yeah.

00:48:20.802 --> 00:48:22.204
Hey,

00:48:22.224 --> 00:48:36.389
everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas out of Clearwater, Florida, the best in custom harmonicas, custom harmonica parts, and more.

00:48:36.869 --> 00:48:41.018
Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

00:48:41.826 --> 00:48:42.326
Great.

00:48:42.567 --> 00:48:46.989
So what do you see about the advantage of the customized harps?

00:48:47.010 --> 00:48:48.472
Worth the money,

00:48:48.492 --> 00:48:49.552
yeah?

00:48:49.793 --> 00:48:52.114
Yeah, they're worth the money, I think.

00:48:52.655 --> 00:49:01.663
Although I still have to, when I get a customized harp back, I still have to go through and do the offset myself because of how I play.

00:49:02.043 --> 00:49:03.565
They're not me.

00:49:03.605 --> 00:49:11.791
I'm not that good of a customizer, but I sure don't want to spend the time doing the bossing and read profiling and all that.

00:49:11.791 --> 00:49:41.623
stuff myself it's just like i would never practice again if i was doing all that myself and and i put a priority on practicing over harp repair and customizing for sure chromatics are a high maintenance instrument you know there's a lot you got to do with them as well and i that work i have to do myself you know replacing valves tuning and you're of course you're always having to take the slide and the mouthpiece apart and cleaning the slides and all that kind of stuff so

00:49:41.744 --> 00:49:44.567
So what about your chromatic of choice these days?

00:49:45.228 --> 00:49:47.469
Oh, geez, I've got so many.

00:49:47.489 --> 00:49:49.351
I don't even know what to say.

00:49:49.452 --> 00:49:53.536
But oh, by the way, the gold melodies I use are the old ones.

00:49:53.617 --> 00:49:55.038
I just want to make that specific.

00:49:55.438 --> 00:49:59.583
And also I do use I like rockets for blues rock.

00:50:00.043 --> 00:50:00.844
And I use those.

00:50:00.945 --> 00:50:07.492
Those are my beater harps that I take out when I'm playing out with like Jimmy Mack and the attack and stuff like that.

00:50:07.572 --> 00:50:10.974
They're very loud and they they can take a lot of abuse.

00:50:11.695 --> 00:50:17.943
So, but as far as my chromatics go, I come back a lot to the original 64X.

00:50:18.824 --> 00:50:29.855
I have customized versions of those with brass combs and I've had some other harps done like with the guy from China Wills Make.

00:50:29.934 --> 00:50:34.219
He will mill these bodies for you and stuff.

00:50:34.260 --> 00:50:36.322
And so I have a number of things like that.

00:50:36.503 --> 00:50:41.327
I like the CX-12 for, again, for super amplified work.

00:50:41.588 --> 00:50:45.974
Jay, Generally, until I moved out here, I didn't use a 12-hole lot.

00:50:46.014 --> 00:50:48.599
I was exclusively a 16-hole player.

00:50:48.699 --> 00:50:54.067
But for amplifying, the CX-12 works really well.

00:50:55.728 --> 00:51:01.117
Sometimes I do miss the lowest octave, but it's better for amplification.

00:51:02.018 --> 00:51:06.304
In the old days, back in the Fontanas, I used strictly a CBH.

00:51:06.786 --> 00:51:17.835
2016 cbh for that i found that those covers with the little slots in them allowed me to be able to cup down and get the kind of sound compression that you can on a blues harp

00:51:18.155 --> 00:51:19.936
yeah sure i've never tried one of those yeah

00:51:20.358 --> 00:52:12.110
yeah you know i don't play those acoustically i don't like the sound acoustically but an unintended consequence of those little slots in there for individual uh resonating cavities for the reeds was that when you're amplifying it you can really shut it down like for a full octave with your hands easily and you can get as much bass push and again sound compression that you can when you're cupping down on a blues harp so that was absolutely essential for me back in the for loud bands back in those days so I have East Top brass comb chromatic I really like I have Suzuki Fabulous that's sort of a Frankenstein that I have another brass comb for very nice So I kind of spread it out over a lot of different types of harps these days.

00:52:12.811 --> 00:52:16.353
You mentioned that you like to play, obviously, a chromatic just in the key of C.

00:52:16.695 --> 00:52:18.376
What about with the diatonics?

00:52:18.416 --> 00:52:19.737
Do you like to play different tunings?

00:52:19.998 --> 00:52:21.239
Yeah,

00:52:21.400 --> 00:52:29.268
I just kind of, you know, and I love all those tunings that, you know, particularly like Brendan came up with and all that kind of stuff.

00:52:29.568 --> 00:52:30.548
And they're really cool.

00:52:30.630 --> 00:52:31.289
But you know what?

00:52:31.429 --> 00:53:01.202
I mean, it's like I just log so much time on a Richter-tuned diaton and and getting getting good at the overblows and being able to get the overblows to bend and put vibrato on overblows and it's just like nope can't do it i just this point in my life i'm an old dog and i just stick with the richter tune diatonics and same with the chromatic i don't mess around with tunings and bebop tunings or anything like that so that's what i learned and that's kind of what i'm stuck with in a way

00:53:01.603 --> 00:53:14.322
and what about amplification again i think i've been reading that these days you like to play more acoustically because you feel it brings out the the quality of the harmonica better which i you know definitely agree with and you know you certainly get a you know that distinctive sound playing acoustically

00:53:14.523 --> 00:53:25.277
right well that's that's kind of an old uh whatever wherever that you pulled that from that's that's pre-going to Pittsburgh because now I'm back in amplified playing again.

00:53:25.378 --> 00:53:36.807
But I had pretty much abandoned doing amplified playing for many, many, many, many years after I was done with things like the Fontanas and my blues rock band.

00:53:36.867 --> 00:53:38.230
I was in the Blenders.

00:53:39.251 --> 00:53:46.237
All I wanted to do was play acoustic because I found dynamics of the harmonica are interesting.

00:53:46.777 --> 00:53:52.242
It doesn't have, of course, the dynamic range of certainly say like a trumpet or something like that.

00:53:52.262 --> 00:53:59.510
But within a narrower context of dynamics, it has a lot of subtleties of dynamics that you can work with.

00:53:59.891 --> 00:54:04.195
And so I was in a band for a while that was a crazy band.

00:54:04.275 --> 00:54:11.023
It was made up of bluegrass musicians and bluegrass instruments, you know, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and stuff.

00:54:11.204 --> 00:54:12.885
And we played straight ahead jazz.

00:54:13.306 --> 00:54:16.130
And that's where I realized, oh, I love playing acoustically.

00:54:16.610 --> 00:54:19.072
because of the narrower dynamics.

00:54:19.632 --> 00:54:23.976
It didn't get super loud, but within that, you could work with a lot of dynamics.

00:54:24.157 --> 00:54:27.980
And of course, then the tonal aspects of it is really nice too.

00:54:28.079 --> 00:54:33.744
But I've come back to doing a lot with the amplified harp and enjoying that as well.

00:54:33.824 --> 00:54:36.206
I'm a very eclectic musician.

00:54:37.668 --> 00:54:38.568
Yeah, definitely.

00:54:38.588 --> 00:54:40.990
So what amps do you like using these days?

00:54:41.331 --> 00:54:52.581
Well, my go-to amp since 1980 is just a simple Princeton blackface reverb, and I bought it for$120 back then.

00:54:52.663 --> 00:54:54.704
It's an early 60s model.

00:54:55.025 --> 00:54:57.166
You know, I have a custom amp.

00:54:57.407 --> 00:55:03.833
It's a Megatone amp, a separate head, and it's wonderful, you know, all hand-wired, the whole bit.

00:55:03.954 --> 00:55:04.715
It sounds great.

00:55:05.036 --> 00:55:11.121
It's got two 10s in it, wonderful for outdoor concerts and stuff like that, again, for highly amplified stuff.

00:55:11.382 --> 00:55:15.686
But my go-to amp is still a Princeton for anything like that.

00:55:16.367 --> 00:55:17.228
I'm just happy with it.

00:55:17.329 --> 00:55:20.612
You know, it just is a wonderful, seems to work really good.

00:55:21.233 --> 00:55:28.481
And for jazz, though, what I do is, you know, I play through a powered PA speaker.

00:55:28.521 --> 00:55:37.030
So I have my own sound, you know, it's a strictly, you know, it's a cupped mics through a PA speaker, because I don't want any distortion, right?

00:55:37.090 --> 00:55:38.311
I don't want any overdrive.

00:55:38.351 --> 00:55:43.237
I want it to be a pure sound on the harp, on the chromatic particularly.

00:55:43.637 --> 00:55:46.480
And so I use that for more of when I do jazz.

00:55:46.480 --> 00:55:47.121
as work.

00:55:47.501 --> 00:55:48.402
What about microphones?

00:55:48.963 --> 00:55:52.425
Yeah, I've played around with a lot of different stuff over the years.

00:55:53.286 --> 00:56:03.717
I think I recorded the Fontana's thing on a Shure Dynamic SM62 microphone, which was very, to say the least, not your typical harp mic.

00:56:04.619 --> 00:56:07.342
I've got a lot of different bullet mics and all that kind of stuff.

00:56:07.682 --> 00:56:11.045
I tend to not play a lot of bullet mics.

00:56:11.126 --> 00:56:13.168
I play a bulletini once in a while.

00:56:13.248 --> 00:56:13.809
I like that.

00:56:14.130 --> 00:56:53.795
But I keep coming back to uh just uh the fireball microphone biotics as what i keep coming back to all the time although however i am very interested in getting this buyer ribbon mic that's that's a ball mic and people are saying wonderful things about it i'm thinking of that and uh it's very expensive so i haven't bought it yet and i'm still just a working uh in the in the slugging it out in the trenches musician so i haven't really got around to buying that yet i used to I have the preferred mic that I still do that Howard Levy uses, the 442.

00:56:54.753 --> 00:56:55.954
Sennheiser?

00:56:55.994 --> 00:56:56.155
441.

00:56:56.175 --> 00:56:57.215
441, okay.

00:56:57.315 --> 00:57:04.902
In the Sugar Kings, I used to use that a lot and run it through a little tube preamp as well.

00:57:05.322 --> 00:57:10.847
But I was working on a stand with it because I wanted to have cupping effects and all that kind of thing.

00:57:10.927 --> 00:57:12.949
So I don't use that much anymore.

00:57:12.969 --> 00:57:15.972
I don't really have the opportunity to use it that much anymore.

00:57:16.092 --> 00:57:20.056
But I've recorded with it, and it's really good for recording too.

00:57:20.115 --> 00:57:20.757
So

00:57:20.817 --> 00:57:22.677
final question then, just about your future plan.

00:57:22.697 --> 00:57:25.661
I think you've said already you just want to get out playing as much as possible.

00:57:25.721 --> 00:57:28.123
So where can people see you playing these days?

00:57:28.384 --> 00:57:30.346
Well, mostly around the Pittsburgh area.

00:57:30.405 --> 00:57:31.047
I hate to say it.

00:57:31.086 --> 00:57:33.349
I'm not doing any touring or anything like that.

00:57:33.588 --> 00:57:37.333
I'm mostly just playing in the scene out here in Pittsburgh right now.

00:57:37.693 --> 00:57:39.175
You know, I'm a working musician.

00:57:39.235 --> 00:57:44.380
I'm playing out anywhere from two to four times a week, basically.

00:57:44.601 --> 00:57:52.630
And then supplementing that with my teaching, I do some teaching here locally in my studio and then online as well.

00:57:52.869 --> 00:57:55.193
You know, I'm always happy to take students online.

00:57:55.693 --> 00:58:00.338
And my plan is, I've been working on this idea for years.

00:58:00.478 --> 00:58:05.182
I really want to do a kind of a follow-up to the Dream of the Serpent Dog record.

00:58:05.202 --> 00:58:09.166
I think in some ways that was one of my best records.

00:58:09.688 --> 00:58:13.652
And I've been working on writing the tunes for it for a long time.

00:58:13.692 --> 00:58:14.833
I'm a slow writer.

00:58:14.853 --> 00:58:17.195
That's in the works for me.

00:58:17.295 --> 00:58:19.559
I wouldn't call it straight-ahead jazz.

00:58:19.759 --> 00:58:28.648
It's going to be more of a combination of some of my other influences in terms of style and production, but it's going to be an instrumental record.

00:58:28.987 --> 00:58:35.853
So thanks so much for joining me today, Clint Hoover, and your obsession with the harmonica through your life is definitely what we like to hear on the podcast.

00:58:36.233 --> 00:58:38.155
Yes, it's a total obsession.

00:58:39.697 --> 00:58:40.038
I love it.

00:58:41.119 --> 00:58:43.681
Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast.

00:58:43.960 --> 00:58:53.829
Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas.

00:58:54.690 --> 00:59:01.675
Thanks to Rob Sawyer for another donation, and thanks to Tom Halczak from Blue Moon Harmonicas for providing some sponsorship for the podcast.

00:59:01.996 --> 00:59:07.521
Tom is a lovely guy who has some excellent harmonica products, endorsed by the great Jason Ritchie himself.

00:59:08.001 --> 00:59:24.655
I'll sign off now with Clint playing us out with what he considers some of his best jazz improvisation from the Eastside album, with the title track, Eastside.

00:59:24.655 --> 00:59:50.820
Thank you.