Episodes

Robert Bonfiglio shares with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player. After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player, Cham Ber Huang, and another 12 y...

Steve Baker moved from his native London in his early 20s to become part of the vibrant music scene in Hamburg. His brand of punk folk won him recognition and he was soon a regular on the German session circuit, …

Son of Dave is originally from Winnipeg, Canada, where he enjoyed pop chart success for ten years with folk-rock band Crash Test Dummies. He then moved to London and pursued a solo career. After two albums he decided to quite...

Filip can be described as the complete harmonica player, being adept on the diatonic, chromatic and bass harmonicas, as well as being able to play numerous other instruments. He started out on diatonic, with a love of the blu...

Errol Linton is a south London boy, with roots in Jamaica. His brand of ‘Brixton Blues’ music merges his Caribbean heritage with his love for the blues to create a distinctive reggae-infused form of blues. Starting out buskin...

Fata Morgana are a Dutch harmonica quartet, who first formed in 1980 after meeting at the Eindhoven Harmonica Club. Two of the original members survive from that time, with the current line-up existing since 2001. The group h...

Greg Zlap hails from Poland, where he played along with black market blues records on his one harmonica. He moved to Paris in his late teens where he discovered the great French harmonica player, JJ Milteau. Greg started up a...

Donald Black is predominantly a tremolo player, using the instrument to great effect across the range of traditional Scottish music. He learnt many of the tunes he loves from accordion music, emulating the sound on the tremol...

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 harm...

British Chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26. Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musici...

Sugar Blue has certainly pushed the boundaries of the harmonica, with his rapid fire licks, lots of high end runs and gorgeous tone. It was perhaps his early jazz influences that shaped his distinctive sound, although there i...

Grant Dermody first picked up the harp in Alaska, where he emulated the greats before developing his own acoustic sound playing American roots music. He played as a session man on various albums before releasing the first of ...

Chromatic player, Antonio Serrano, is the current SPAH harmonica player of the year. And with good reason. Antonio’s father was a great influence on the fledgling harmonica player. And Antonio met Larry Adler at a young age, ...

Mark Feltham grew up with a love of country music and just knew he had to play harp when he heard Stone Fox Chase on the UK music programme, Old Grey Whistle test. As he entered the London music scene …

Mickey Raphael started out playing on the Dallas folk scene before meeting with Willie Nelson at a jam session. Forty six years later, Mickey has toured the world with Willie. Alongside that, Mickey has enjoyed great recordin...

Jerry Portnoy joins me on episode 20 of the podcast. Jerry grew up with the sounds of Maxwell street in his ears. It took him a few years to pick up the harp, but when he did he enjoyed a …

John is a harmonica repairer and customiser. Following years of experience as a toolmaker John moved into repairing musical instruments, initially for woodwind instruments, before tapping into a rich vein of work repairing ha...

Mick Kinsella started out as a drummer before moving across to the harmonica to pursue his love of traditional music. Skilled in the use of both the diatonic and chromatic, Mick played on numerous sessions before releasing hi...

Gregoire Maret is a chromatic player, originally from Switzerland. After studying jazz at the New School in New York, Gregoire went on to play with some of the biggest names in jazz: from Jimmy Scott to Cassandra Wilson, Pat ...

Rachelle Plas is a French player who learnt her craft at an early age in group lessons provided by Greg Zlap in Paris. She won various competitions at French music festivals which led on to her touring Europe and beyond …

Michael D’Eath is the President of the American harmonica organisation SPAH. He tells us what SPAH is all about and the many benefits it brings to its members. The SPAH convention is one of the biggest events on the harmonica...

Howard Levy is known to be the pioneer of overblows on the diatonic harmonica, but his music shouldn’t be defined merely by the use of this technical tool. Starting out as a piano player, he first started using overblows to …

Lee Oskar left his native Denmark to move to the US at age 18, and was soon enjoying phenomenal success with the rock funk band War, interweaving soulful harmonica lines into the horn section. Lee also has numerous solo album...

A grammy award winner, Peter Madcat Ruth has enjoyed a long career, from playing jazz with the Brubecks, to numerous solo projects and playing in various bands and duos and trios. Madcat has loved Sonny Terry from the start a...