Sept. 15, 2023

Jason Ricci interview: part 1

Jason Ricci interview: part 1

Jason Ricci joins me on episode 93 (and on episode 94) In part one: Jason tells us how he started out in a punk band, with his bandmates suggesting he take up the harmonica. Of course, he took to it quickly, to become quite possibly the leading diatonic harmonica player of his generation. After initially developing his blues playing via the classic players, Jason moved to Memphis and developed his signature fast licks under the guidance of Pat Ramsey. Then, after getting into jazz and a...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Overblow Player

Jason Ricci joins me on episode 93 (and on episode 94)

In part one: Jason tells us how he started out in a punk band, with his bandmates suggesting he take up the harmonica. Of course, he took to it quickly, to become quite possibly the leading diatonic harmonica player of his generation. 
After initially developing his blues playing via the classic players, Jason moved to Memphis and developed his signature fast licks under the guidance of Pat Ramsey. Then, after getting into jazz and a brief flirtation with the saxophone, he started playing overblows, inspired by Howard Levy and the more blues based approach of Adam Gussow. 
Jason moved from Memphis for stints in various places, including Florida and jail, before settling in Nashville where he really made his presence known with his band Jason Ricci and New Blood.

To be continued...


Links:

Jason’s social media links::
https://mooncat.org/
https://www.instagram.com/jasonricci93/
https://twitter.com/jasonricci93

Patreon page:
https://www.patreon.com/jasonricci

Tip Jason:
PayPal.me/jasonricci

Bandcamp:
https://jasonricci.bandcamp.com/


Videos:

Jason's YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/jasonricci

Baby Scratch My Back with the Nick Moss band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSGrzkcdiM0



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

or sign-up to a monthly subscription to the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/995536/support

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

Support the show

01:45 - Significance of the number 93 to Jason comes from his previous interest in the occult

03:10 - Jason was born in 1974, and maybe isn’t the hot young thing of harmonica now

03:29 - Born in Portland, Maine

03:37 - Jason’s first played in a punk band at age 14, as vocalist with the other band members suggesting Jason add harmonica

04:00 - Jason had previously played guitar and his teacher also played some harmonica and Jason took to it quickly

04:30 - Uses guitar for songwriting

04:48 - How harmonica fitted into a punk band: spoiler - not very well!

05:19 - Started out learning the harmonica by listening to the classic blues players, and the nearby Boston blues scene

07:00 - Mother was into blues and took a young Jason to blues concerts

07:30 - Got serious about the harmonica age 17 or 18

08:07 - Started getting gigs while at college, and he was focusing more on the music

08:37 - John Nemeth lived close by to Jason around Idaho

08:59 - Jason moved to Memphis in 1995, which was the start of his musical career really taking off

09:20 - Started winning contests as soon as he moved to Memphis

09:36 - First saw Billy Gibson playing in a club in Memphis, followed by Pat Ramsey

11:28 - Jason was eager to learn the combination of fast licks and note selection from Pat’s playing

13:01 - Pat Ramsey had previously played with Johnny Winter, which led to Jason playing on a Grammy winning album with Johnny Winter (Step Back)

13:58 - Recorded harmonica for the Johnny Winter album in isolation, to scratch tracks

15:14 - How Jason approached learning to play fast, including studying Pat Ramsey

18:30 - Pat Ramsey was a father figure to Jason and the biggest influence on his playing

19:28 - First album release was the self-titled ‘Jason Ricci’, which Jason is pleased has fallen into obscurity!

19:51 - Believes a quality gate for releasing albums is a good thing, which may be one disadvantage of the internet these days

21:49 - Almost took up the saxophone after coming out of a rehab detention centre, where he wasn’t allowed to play harmonica or even hear any music whatsoever

24:56 - Fell in love with jazz, which prompted interest in the saxophone due to the limitations of the diatonic, but then discovered overblows

26:04 - Heard the album UFO Tofu with Howard Levy playing with Bela Fleck, which turned Jason onto overblows

26:47 - Jason doesn’t see a lot of valid comparisons between saxophone and harmonica

27:36 - Understanding chords, arpeggios and scales is the key to developing

27:42 - Dennis Gruenling (and Carlos del Junco) is the closest blues harmonica player to obtain a saxophone sound

28:50 - Overblows

28:58 - Adam Gussow was the first influence for Jason taking up overblows, from a blues context

29:22 - Have to really want the notes available via overblows in order to master them

30:53 - Is able to play without overblows when the music calls for it (such as straight blues)

32:47 - Overblow notes come out naturally during Jason’s playing

35:15 - Use of overblows during fast runs

35:27 - Learnt to set-up harmonica for overblows, especially before harmonica’s improved from 2011 onwards

36:33 - Need to play overblows to emulate Jason’s modern blues and jazz approach, but some aspects are possible without overblows

37:26 - Influence of Charlie Parker

38:03 - Doesn’t read music

38:20 - Left Memphis to move to Jackson, Mississippi, to Florida, North Carolina and then to Nashville

40:11 - Formed Jason Ricci and New Blood band in the early 2000s

40:33 - Continuous touring with New Blood for ten years

41:16 - Some of the challenges the band faced as they became more successful

42:18 - Jason made his name with New Blood

42:40 - Blood On The Road album and lyrics drawn from Jason’s life experiences

43:34 - Harmonica often overshadows Jason’s lyrics, which often mean more to him as they’re so personal

44:12 - Doesn’t want to sing old blues songs that aren’t related to his own experiences, and writing contemporary lyrics is more appealing to a younger audience

46:13 - Reasons for the success of New Blood

46:54 - Done With The Devil album was nominated for Best Blues Rock album award, and some jazz songs on that

48:05 - Classical influence on Jason’s playing coming from a fascination with the violin

52:55 - Also a fan of free jazz

53:14 - I have been learning the violin since the pandemic

53:55 - What Jason has learnt most from listening to the violin

54:04 - Jason created a harmonica caprice, inspired by the violin, and more classical inspired harmonica on his latest album

56:19 - No plans to release a solo harmonica album of caprices!

WEBVTT

00:00:00.802 --> 00:00:04.568
Jason Ritchie joins me on episode 93 and on episode 94.

00:00:05.391 --> 00:00:11.141
In part one, Jason tells us how he started out in a punk band with his bandmates suggesting he take up the harmonica.

00:00:11.762 --> 00:00:17.493
Of course, he took to it quickly to become quite possibly the leading diatonic harmonica player of his generation.

00:00:18.815 --> 00:00:21.722
After initially developing his blues playing via the Classic Players...

00:00:22.114 --> 00:00:26.500
Jason moved to Memphis and developed his signature fast licks under the guidance of Pat Ramsey.

00:00:27.199 --> 00:00:36.171
Then, after getting into jazz and a brief flirtation with the saxophone, he started playing overblows inspired by Howard Levy and the more blues-based approach of Adam Gussell.

00:00:37.033 --> 00:00:47.005
Jason moved from Memphis for stints in various places, including Florida and jail, before settling in Nashville where he really made his presence known with his band Jason Richie and New Blood.

00:00:48.033 --> 00:00:50.557
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:50.978 --> 00:01:00.310
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:17.754 --> 00:01:17.853
Music

00:01:20.162 --> 00:01:38.326
Hello, Jason Richie, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:39.007 --> 00:01:40.049
Thanks for having me, Neil.

00:01:40.990 --> 00:01:41.590
It's a pleasure.

00:01:41.831 --> 00:01:42.692
Great to get you on.

00:01:42.733 --> 00:01:45.176
Something that I've wanted to do for some time, of course.

00:01:45.796 --> 00:01:51.641
So, This is episode 93, and I understand the number 93 has got some significance for you.

00:01:51.661 --> 00:01:55.626
You've got it tattooed on your neck, and you also have some social media links ending in 93.

00:01:55.966 --> 00:01:57.989
So what's with the number 93?

00:01:58.010 --> 00:01:59.612
It's like old occult

00:01:59.832 --> 00:02:06.162
numerology from a type of numerology called Gematria or Gematria.

00:02:06.201 --> 00:02:14.473
The Greek words love and will add up to 93, and it goes back to an old...

00:02:14.913 --> 00:02:20.783
Alistair Crowley quote, love is the law, love under will, right?

00:02:21.324 --> 00:02:26.173
And so that was stuff I was into for a long, long time.

00:02:26.713 --> 00:02:28.956
And I'm into different stuff now.

00:02:29.437 --> 00:02:30.699
I've evolved, I think.

00:02:31.662 --> 00:02:31.741
Yeah.

00:02:31.906 --> 00:02:33.968
to something a little more simple.

00:02:35.129 --> 00:02:40.396
But yeah, I'm stuck with the 93 on my neck.

00:02:40.817 --> 00:02:49.848
And the tattoo artist told me, he goes, you know, he goes, if after I do this, he goes, for the rest of your life, every single day, somebody is going to ask what that means.

00:02:49.929 --> 00:02:50.729
Are you ready for it?

00:02:50.750 --> 00:02:53.092
And I was like, yeah, I'm ready.

00:02:53.152 --> 00:02:55.936
And I, you know, I, of course I, I wasn't really ready.

00:02:57.198 --> 00:02:57.277
Yeah.

00:02:58.562 --> 00:03:00.926
Well, it could be a lot worse than the number 93 on your neck.

00:03:01.828 --> 00:03:03.632
Yeah, I could have done something worse, yeah.

00:03:03.692 --> 00:03:04.193
Yeah, definitely.

00:03:04.614 --> 00:03:09.963
Yeah, so yeah, we'll get into that, your cult influence on your lyric writing later.

00:03:10.085 --> 00:03:10.324
Yeah.

00:03:10.806 --> 00:03:14.713
So you were born in 1974, a year after myself.

00:03:14.834 --> 00:03:18.000
So does that mean you're not the hot young thing anymore?

00:03:18.320 --> 00:03:20.645
That definitely means I'm not the hot young thing.

00:03:21.153 --> 00:03:21.854
Great.

00:03:21.895 --> 00:03:22.155
Yeah.

00:03:22.175 --> 00:03:26.879
So you're almost at the ripe old age of 50, which I reached myself earlier this year.

00:03:26.939 --> 00:03:27.721
So it's great.

00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:28.861
Congratulations.

00:03:29.423 --> 00:03:32.286
So you were born in Maine, in Portland, Maine.

00:03:33.026 --> 00:03:33.407
That's right.

00:03:33.448 --> 00:03:36.110
The epicenter of the blues, Portland, Maine.

00:03:36.510 --> 00:03:40.354
And playing, originally you joined a punk band when you were sort of 14.

00:03:40.395 --> 00:03:40.534
Yeah.

00:03:40.555 --> 00:03:42.217
That's how you first got into music.

00:03:42.698 --> 00:03:42.918
Yep.

00:03:43.318 --> 00:03:48.704
I understand you were the singer in the band and the kind of harmonica was suggested by them that you take it up.

00:03:48.764 --> 00:03:50.086
It wasn't something you chose yourself.

00:03:50.593 --> 00:03:51.574
That is factual.

00:03:52.455 --> 00:03:57.602
And so, well, how did you develop that relationship with the harmonica?

00:03:57.622 --> 00:04:00.405
Did you kind of quickly bond with it and say, yeah, this is for me or?

00:04:01.126 --> 00:04:01.545
Yeah.

00:04:01.566 --> 00:04:07.973
I mean, I had already been playing guitar, but they didn't want me to play guitar in the band and I wasn't good enough to play guitar in the band.

00:04:08.013 --> 00:04:13.118
So even in a punk band, but my guitar teacher also played harmonica.

00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:18.985
So one day I was going up the stairs and I heard him playing and I was like, Hey, can we do that?

00:04:19.185 --> 00:04:21.608
Like, This week or next week or something.

00:04:22.088 --> 00:04:26.716
And then, yeah, I just right away took to it a little better than guitar.

00:04:27.416 --> 00:04:29.660
And I felt like I could emote better.

00:04:29.899 --> 00:04:33.305
Guitar was always a vehicle for songwriting for me.

00:04:33.925 --> 00:04:35.108
And it still is, right?

00:04:35.208 --> 00:04:39.514
It was never how I wanted to express myself musically.

00:04:40.154 --> 00:04:45.862
I just wanted to sing and scream and strum it at parties and stuff.

00:04:47.745 --> 00:04:47.826
Yeah.

00:04:47.886 --> 00:04:47.966
Yeah.

00:04:48.353 --> 00:04:53.581
So when you were playing harmonica in a punk band, how did the harmonica fit into that music?

00:04:53.641 --> 00:04:54.663
Not well.

00:04:55.264 --> 00:04:56.685
Yeah.

00:04:56.706 --> 00:04:58.288
Yeah, it was a novelty, you know.

00:04:58.348 --> 00:04:58.608
Yeah.

00:04:59.048 --> 00:05:03.574
Like with Battle of the Bands, you know, the critique would say, love the harmonica.

00:05:03.615 --> 00:05:06.079
Surprised by the harmonica.

00:05:08.141 --> 00:05:08.221
Yeah.

00:05:18.946 --> 00:05:23.795
From there, you got into playing the usual kind of traditional blues harmonica stuff.

00:05:23.815 --> 00:05:25.560
That's how you initially learned.

00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:26.482
That's true.

00:05:26.521 --> 00:05:35.940
In New England, where I grew up, and later when I went to college in Boise, I was around a lot of mostly older men.

00:05:36.386 --> 00:06:00.346
Some women that were very, very serious about knowing the history of this music, in particular, the early chess recordings and chess recordings in general, but also just all the Slim Harpo and Cotton and Little Walter and T-Bone Walker and Freddie King and B.B.

00:06:00.427 --> 00:06:03.048
King and Albert King and all of that.

00:06:03.088 --> 00:06:05.271
It was all prerequisite.

00:06:05.310 --> 00:06:18.334
Albert Collins, Greg Growing up in New England with Ronnie Earle's influence coming out of Boston and bands like Sugar Ray and the Blue Tones, Sugar Ray Nortia and Roomful of Blues.

00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:25.488
Out of my mind.

00:06:25.509 --> 00:06:25.790
Out of my mind.

00:06:28.610 --> 00:06:33.576
There was a tremendous focus and influence on all of those early artists.

00:06:33.697 --> 00:06:43.451
Magic Sam is one I forgot to mention, but a lot of that stuff was heavy duty, Portnoy being not far away, all of that stuff.

00:06:43.531 --> 00:06:51.903
All those people were very, very vocal to me as a young guy about, look, this is what you listen to, and that's it.

00:06:52.725 --> 00:06:57.372
Well, you know, it's a good grounding, of course, to get all the rudimentaries of the blues harmonica down, yeah.

00:06:57.512 --> 00:06:58.153
I think so.

00:06:58.913 --> 00:07:00.057
I wouldn't change a thing.

00:07:00.298 --> 00:07:06.824
And then I understand your mother was quite into blues as well and she took you to blues concerts and she got you that grounding as well.

00:07:06.845 --> 00:07:07.988
Was that around Boston too?

00:07:08.353 --> 00:07:10.197
It was in Maine, yeah.

00:07:10.437 --> 00:07:15.004
I started traveling to Boston when I got my driver's license.

00:07:15.185 --> 00:07:20.452
But she brought me to my first four or five blues shows in Maine.

00:07:20.812 --> 00:07:28.144
It was Cotton, Muscle White, Buckwheat Zydeco from down here in New Orleans, and a couple of others.

00:07:28.665 --> 00:07:33.892
And so what age did you start getting really seriously into the harmonica?

00:07:34.254 --> 00:07:34.334
Yeah.

00:07:34.658 --> 00:07:47.449
I would say that I was starting to get serious about it when I was 17 or 18, where I started to play harmonica at parties instead of guitar mostly, just like little hippie parties.

00:07:47.490 --> 00:07:55.757
And I started studying, trying to play like Big Walter on certain songs and Little Walter on others.

00:07:55.858 --> 00:08:00.021
And Alan Wilson was an early influence, Butterfield.

00:08:00.041 --> 00:08:03.526
And then right around the time...

00:08:04.002 --> 00:08:12.115
that I was about 19 or 20, music was competing for time with college.

00:08:12.696 --> 00:08:17.584
So I was employed already, which was not a decision.

00:08:17.605 --> 00:08:19.166
It just started happening.

00:08:19.266 --> 00:08:20.550
I started getting gigs.

00:08:21.230 --> 00:08:24.735
I would go to jams and bands would hear me and then I would get hired.

00:08:25.177 --> 00:08:27.942
And then I was out late at night and I wasn't studying.

00:08:28.353 --> 00:08:30.896
And this was happening more and more and more and more.

00:08:31.456 --> 00:08:37.224
And this was in Idaho, which is the middle of nowhere in the United States.

00:08:37.303 --> 00:08:40.486
But incidentally, that's where John Namath was at the time, too.

00:08:40.947 --> 00:08:41.749
He was born there.

00:08:55.023 --> 00:08:57.326
And we kind of came up together.

00:08:57.697 --> 00:08:58.563
in that scene.

00:08:59.042 --> 00:09:01.524
And anyway, I moved.

00:09:01.764 --> 00:09:05.548
I moved to Memphis and that was in 95.

00:09:06.187 --> 00:09:19.740
So I would say that was the year that things became really, really serious because I made a decision to relocate, quit college, get a regular job waiting tables, follow Pat Ramsey.

00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:22.863
I won contests right away.

00:09:23.123 --> 00:09:30.089
Like as soon as I got down there, I started doing great, you know, musically, not personally, but you You know, I was doing well.

00:09:30.889 --> 00:09:31.711
Yeah, that was it.

00:09:32.251 --> 00:09:34.916
95, I would say, was the big jumping

00:09:35.035 --> 00:09:35.596
off point.

00:09:36.378 --> 00:09:39.741
You went down there specifically to study with Pat Ramsey, did you?

00:09:39.761 --> 00:09:41.423
Or did you just meet him when you were down there?

00:09:42.365 --> 00:09:48.312
I was passing through one time on my way home from Idaho to Maine driving.

00:09:48.774 --> 00:09:52.798
Decided to go down to see what Beale Street was like because I had heard about it.

00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:54.662
And so I just stopped in.

00:09:55.105 --> 00:09:57.133
It was a Tuesday night.

00:09:57.875 --> 00:10:00.845
I heard Billy Gibson, the harmonica player, playing.

00:10:07.245 --> 00:10:07.326
Yeah.

00:10:14.177 --> 00:10:15.558
And I walked into the club.

00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:17.081
I wasn't old enough to be in there.

00:10:17.160 --> 00:10:19.182
I didn't get carded, which was good.

00:10:19.562 --> 00:10:23.686
Billy was like my age, which at that time was really rare.

00:10:23.725 --> 00:10:30.011
And really, if you look back at that time period, there was really Billy, Dennis Grinling, and me, and John Namath.

00:10:30.792 --> 00:10:33.695
And maybe there were a couple others that didn't really make it.

00:10:34.115 --> 00:10:34.495
You know what?

00:10:34.775 --> 00:10:37.238
The name Rob Stone comes to mind, too.

00:10:37.398 --> 00:10:41.562
But anyway, at any rate, there was only a handful of us young guys.

00:10:42.022 --> 00:10:45.566
So I talked to Billy, and I just told him, I said, you sound great.

00:10:45.626 --> 00:10:46.788
And I love that number.

00:10:46.869 --> 00:10:49.312
And I've never heard anybody do that live.

00:10:49.613 --> 00:10:53.320
Kim Wilson had just covered it on Tiger Man.

00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:56.424
He said, well, if you think I'm good, well, wait till you hear the next guy.

00:10:56.644 --> 00:10:57.866
And that was Pat Ramsey.

00:11:06.581 --> 00:11:06.621
So

00:11:11.042 --> 00:11:19.755
So when Pat got down, I went and spoke to him and I told him, I said, I'm going to go home and I'm going to landscape and I'm going to get enough money.

00:11:19.775 --> 00:11:24.562
And I'm just going to move back here and come to every single gig that you do.

00:11:25.465 --> 00:11:26.966
And that's exactly what I did.

00:11:27.006 --> 00:11:34.077
So Pat Ramsey, the influence was his approach to you, to playing guitar.

00:11:34.337 --> 00:11:38.869
faster licks you know was that what really attracted you was that style attracted you at that stage

00:11:39.590 --> 00:11:55.475
yeah I wouldn't say it was so much the speed but the note choice combined with the speed because I mean obviously Coming up in my generation, I had heard John Popper and I had heard Sugar Blue and I had even heard Howard Levy.

00:11:55.937 --> 00:11:57.857
It was the choice of blue notes.

00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:05.705
So, you know, for the musicians out there that are listening, I'm talking about flat thirds, flat sevens and flat fifths.

00:12:06.285 --> 00:12:13.772
So in cross harp, that would be the three draw half step bend sequentially, two draw double bend and the four draw bend.

00:12:14.312 --> 00:12:25.407
So mixing in those things into fast playing hadn't really been done at that level other than Howard, but Howard hadn't done it in such a blues way.

00:12:25.868 --> 00:12:26.950
It was a revelation.

00:12:27.289 --> 00:12:34.500
And as Jack Nicholson said to Dennis Hopper, it was a devastating shock to my antiquated system, you know?

00:12:34.520 --> 00:12:42.673
And so hearing somebody play fast, which I was told by my heroes was definitely something you don't do.

00:12:43.009 --> 00:12:53.965
You know, I was told very specifically by very famous, established harmonica players that are mostly still with us today, don't do that.

00:12:54.644 --> 00:12:56.467
But I don't think they had heard Pat.

00:12:56.788 --> 00:12:58.831
And I think if they had, they'd have been scared.

00:13:01.313 --> 00:13:01.534
Yeah.

00:13:02.014 --> 00:13:02.255
Sure.

00:13:02.296 --> 00:13:02.515
Yeah.

00:13:02.596 --> 00:13:04.899
And so Pat played with Johnny Winterman.

00:13:04.958 --> 00:13:07.101
Is that who you were seeing him play with down there?

00:13:07.201 --> 00:13:07.582
Nope.

00:13:07.822 --> 00:13:08.825
That was in the 70s.

00:13:09.385 --> 00:13:12.692
And he was still doing some gigs, but he was playing under his own name.

00:13:12.932 --> 00:13:18.924
He was still doing a few gigs, maybe once every couple of years with Johnny Winter.

00:13:18.985 --> 00:13:27.721
But Johnny Winter was using different harmonica players because his management was choosing the harmonica players.

00:13:28.003 --> 00:13:29.566
And that's my understanding anyway.

00:13:29.985 --> 00:13:30.866
I could be wrong.

00:13:30.886 --> 00:13:34.192
And including your good self later on when you appeared on one of his albums.

00:13:34.552 --> 00:13:34.773
I was

00:13:35.033 --> 00:13:37.236
very, very privileged to be part of that.

00:13:37.336 --> 00:13:41.504
And if it hadn't have been for Pat, there's no way that Johnny Winter would have picked

00:13:41.524 --> 00:13:41.644
me.

00:13:41.663 --> 00:13:41.844
Yeah.

00:13:41.964 --> 00:13:50.937
And that's the album which won a Grammy and you played on one of the songs on that album.

00:13:50.957 --> 00:13:51.038
Yeah.

00:13:58.785 --> 00:14:00.668
Some big names in that, wasn't there?

00:14:00.988 --> 00:14:01.808
Eric Clapton and so on.

00:14:01.828 --> 00:14:06.832
Did you get to meet the other musicians or were you sort of recording your own separately to those?

00:14:07.192 --> 00:14:11.336
When I recorded the record, actually, everything was scratch except for me.

00:14:11.677 --> 00:14:16.360
So the harmonica was the only thing that remained on the track.

00:14:16.520 --> 00:14:28.751
So it was scratch vocals from another artist, not Johnny Winter, scratch guitar from another artist, not Johnny Winter, scratch drums and scratch bass from musicians that didn't end up on the track.

00:14:28.751 --> 00:14:38.488
up making it on the record so it was very very difficult to play over it because there was zero inspiration and the scratch tracks were uh marginal

00:14:39.009 --> 00:14:43.998
and that so yeah so johnny winter actually was added afterwards and your harmonica was that's right right

00:14:44.138 --> 00:14:52.785
i was the the first thing that remained on that track i did get to hang out with johnny winter that day And that was it.

00:14:53.067 --> 00:14:54.672
I didn't get to meet any of the other cats.

00:14:55.294 --> 00:14:58.947
Well, that's a good insight to a Grammy Award winning record and how they put it together anyway.

00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:01.095
It's very different than people

00:15:01.154 --> 00:15:02.038
think often.

00:15:02.318 --> 00:15:04.085
You know, sometimes it's what you think.

00:15:04.450 --> 00:15:09.594
you know, you're in a room with all your heroes, but, but other times, most of the time it's fairly lackluster.

00:15:11.176 --> 00:15:11.395
Yes.

00:15:11.956 --> 00:15:13.378
Surprisingly difficult.

00:15:13.538 --> 00:15:13.798
Yeah.

00:15:14.197 --> 00:15:14.359
Yeah.

00:15:14.418 --> 00:15:24.908
So we can talk a bit more about fast playing and we don't want to dwell too much on it because you certainly don't just do fast playing, but obviously you're known for that, you know, very soulful as well, very tasteful and all that great stuff as well.

00:15:25.408 --> 00:15:26.009
Well, thanks.

00:15:26.729 --> 00:15:34.416
I mean, I mean, so when you started learning with Pat, did you, you know, I've, you know, I've read about how you, you know, you practice scales and patterns and you would do that.

00:15:34.416 --> 00:15:38.081
Obviously, like you say, with blue notes rather than sort of major scales and pentatonic scales.

00:15:38.481 --> 00:15:40.365
Obviously, that's something specifically we're learning.

00:15:40.404 --> 00:15:45.091
Were you learning, you know, particular sort of rhythms like, you know, playing 16th notes and that sort of thing?

00:15:45.392 --> 00:15:47.414
You know, how did you approach the fast playing?

00:15:47.434 --> 00:15:50.899
Because it is something that a lot of people hear it and think, wow, I want to be able to do that too, yeah?

00:15:51.301 --> 00:15:51.541
Yeah.

00:15:51.941 --> 00:16:03.517
When I came to meet Pat and stuff, Pat wasn't much different than the old blues guys, meaning that he didn't, or wouldn't say what he was doing.

00:16:04.018 --> 00:16:14.370
I can tell you he was certainly not very aware of things like scales and certainly not arpeggios and those types of things.

00:16:14.792 --> 00:16:18.235
And he would balk if you brought up such names.

00:16:18.876 --> 00:16:20.259
And so I was sort of the same.

00:16:20.318 --> 00:16:28.769
So what I would do is I would go and listen to Pat and then go home and try to play what I heard that evening from memory.

00:16:29.186 --> 00:16:36.279
And finally, Pat put out a record, which was the first record under his own name called It's About Time.

00:16:48.465 --> 00:16:48.765
It's About Time

00:16:49.186 --> 00:16:53.613
And once the record came out, I could then pause and play and rewind.

00:16:53.874 --> 00:16:59.604
They were these little, I would say some of them are breathing patterns and some of them are not, but a lot of...

00:17:00.104 --> 00:17:07.557
And a lot of like really methodical like...

00:17:27.521 --> 00:17:28.522
A lot of that kind of stuff.

00:17:28.542 --> 00:17:31.746
So it was just really kind of mechanical way of moving around the harp.

00:17:48.342 --> 00:17:49.282
All that kind of stuff.

00:17:49.343 --> 00:17:51.965
That's

00:17:52.026 --> 00:17:55.589
very much like the solo that you play on Delta Nova.

00:18:05.826 --> 00:18:11.737
Oh, yeah.

00:18:11.856 --> 00:18:16.085
I mean, Pat's influence, that's one year into me knowing him.

00:18:16.105 --> 00:18:18.249
It's already seeping in.

00:18:18.269 --> 00:18:28.488
I would say that still, if there's a skeletal influence that is X-rayable in my playing, it's Pat.

00:18:29.028 --> 00:18:29.789
Yeah.

00:18:30.561 --> 00:18:31.823
I love him so much.

00:18:31.923 --> 00:18:33.585
I miss him terribly, Neil.

00:18:33.884 --> 00:18:34.645
I really do.

00:19:00.528 --> 00:19:03.755
Ha ha ha!

00:19:17.698 --> 00:19:18.259
Yes.

00:19:18.618 --> 00:19:19.980
And we all need those wise heads.

00:19:20.060 --> 00:19:20.281
Yeah.

00:19:20.982 --> 00:19:21.423
So great.

00:19:21.462 --> 00:19:27.491
So as you say, you released that album Down at the Duke a year after you met Pat.

00:19:27.692 --> 00:19:27.932
Yeah.

00:19:28.093 --> 00:19:28.753
And so that was early on.

00:19:28.794 --> 00:19:31.718
And you also released an album before that, which is called Jason Ritchie.

00:19:31.857 --> 00:19:32.098
Right.

00:19:32.118 --> 00:19:32.940
The first album.

00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:34.823
So these are both down in Memphis.

00:19:35.123 --> 00:19:35.343
Yeah.

00:19:35.824 --> 00:19:37.586
Is your Jason Ritchie album available?

00:19:37.606 --> 00:19:38.667
I couldn't actually find that.

00:19:39.328 --> 00:19:39.769
I don't know.

00:19:39.809 --> 00:19:41.873
I'm sort of glad they're

00:19:42.012 --> 00:19:42.693
hard to find.

00:19:42.733 --> 00:19:42.814
Yeah.

00:19:46.402 --> 00:19:51.181
Truth be told, I think I was prematurely recorded.

00:19:52.025 --> 00:19:55.238
As a matter of fact, I can make a comment on that.

00:19:55.458 --> 00:19:57.019
the current state of the music.

00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:06.968
I am glad that independent, the internet and the ability to press CDs and make CDs is available to all artists.

00:20:07.087 --> 00:20:10.851
And we've certainly seen some amazing talent come out of that.

00:20:11.412 --> 00:20:24.363
However, on the other hand, I think there's something to be said for some sort of label gatekeeping and an artist sort of proving themselves for a time period before getting recorded.

00:20:24.423 --> 00:20:26.685
Now, I'm not speaking Mm-hmm.

00:20:44.385 --> 00:20:49.212
was beyond qualified to record when he did.

00:20:49.772 --> 00:20:59.086
Had there been the ability to self-produce, self-publish, unquote, so to speak, I think we might have heard some substandard William Clarke, right?

00:20:59.145 --> 00:21:02.191
Or some, let's just say, unrealized, right?

00:21:02.711 --> 00:21:05.095
And I think that's the case with many

00:21:05.474 --> 00:21:06.696
of my early recordings.

00:21:07.298 --> 00:21:09.961
They were put together independently where they went through a record level.

00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:12.464
You signed later to a more major record level, yeah.

00:21:12.664 --> 00:21:13.205
That's right.

00:21:13.634 --> 00:21:16.960
But again, I mean, Down at the Duke, I think there's some great playing on there myself.

00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.663
Again, Delta Dips, another one I really love on that album.

00:21:19.683 --> 00:21:21.548
So I wouldn't knock that early playing too much.

00:21:34.509 --> 00:21:34.589
Yeah.

00:21:37.057 --> 00:21:37.337
No.

00:21:37.398 --> 00:21:40.763
And I think I learned from the process too, quite a bit.

00:21:41.105 --> 00:21:47.234
Like, you know, listening, having to listen back to your own music, it's like, can be painful in a good way, you

00:21:47.295 --> 00:21:47.415
know?

00:21:47.855 --> 00:21:48.416
Yeah, sure.

00:21:48.436 --> 00:21:48.557
Yeah.

00:21:49.439 --> 00:21:55.148
One thing I just wanted to jump back to is that I believe you almost took up the saxophone instead of the harmonica.

00:21:55.209 --> 00:21:56.371
What stage was this?

00:21:56.391 --> 00:21:57.092
That

00:21:57.132 --> 00:21:58.413
was in 98.

00:21:59.175 --> 00:22:02.763
So I, uh, was just getting out of jail.

00:22:03.163 --> 00:22:05.306
It wasn't really a jail.

00:22:05.385 --> 00:22:11.912
It was like a mandatory rehab where the doors were locked.

00:22:13.313 --> 00:22:15.714
Well, you could leave, actually.

00:22:15.755 --> 00:22:20.878
You could walk out of there, but there would immediately be a warrant issued for your arrest.

00:22:21.619 --> 00:22:26.183
So you're doing rehab time instead of jail time.

00:22:26.844 --> 00:22:28.885
And then there's a catch with that, too.

00:22:28.925 --> 00:22:34.892
If you failed in there or left, you would then serve your full sentence.

00:22:35.732 --> 00:22:37.855
So I was staring down 12 years.

00:22:38.355 --> 00:22:40.637
And the rules were very, very strict.

00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:43.020
So it was hard to make it through there.

00:22:43.461 --> 00:22:56.234
So I had made it through nine months of there into a one year and a day sentence, followed by five or six years of probation after that, and was moved to a work release program.

00:22:56.494 --> 00:23:01.438
When I got to the work release program, I had a boombox Yeah.

00:23:01.602 --> 00:23:09.209
that was given back to me, that was checked with my stuff prior to me being incarcerated.

00:23:09.669 --> 00:23:14.933
For the nine months that I was incarcerated, I didn't hear music or was not allowed to play harmonica.

00:23:15.354 --> 00:23:24.402
They did briefly give me the harmonica back to do a show for the governor, along with some other guys who did like poetry and singing and stuff.

00:23:25.142 --> 00:23:31.067
And I was allowed to practice like an hour a week for that show for like four weeks leading up to it.

00:23:31.107 --> 00:23:37.594
But for For a whole year, I didn't hear or play any music, no TV commercials, no radio, nothing.

00:23:38.134 --> 00:23:45.883
And I think that was a good cleansing for me and something that made me appreciate music better for the rest of my life to have it taken away.

00:23:46.403 --> 00:23:47.924
I think we take it for granted.

00:23:48.026 --> 00:23:52.089
And I don't think I've ever taken music for granted since then.

00:23:52.631 --> 00:23:57.895
So when I got to the work release program, I had this boombox that had been sitting in storage for nine months.

00:23:58.336 --> 00:24:00.459
It was infested with cockroaches, by the way.

00:24:00.878 --> 00:24:02.800
Cockroaches live love electronics.

00:24:03.281 --> 00:24:04.923
They like to get in there and hang out.

00:24:05.403 --> 00:24:11.009
So I'd be listening to it and they'd come out and crawl down the headphones and be on my face and stuff.

00:24:11.631 --> 00:24:13.593
That's how much I was into the music.

00:24:14.773 --> 00:24:20.519
And so anyway, there was a radio show that came on from midnight until six in the morning.

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:24.924
I had to be to work at like eight or nine in the morning, waiting tables.

00:24:25.766 --> 00:24:29.230
The show was called China's Jazz and Blues Hour.

00:24:29.910 --> 00:24:33.394
Or no, just show because it would go from midnight until six in the morning.

00:24:33.413 --> 00:24:34.555
So it certainly wasn't an hour.

00:24:35.055 --> 00:24:40.359
But there was this old DJ, China Valas, who had been around for, I think, 40 years at that time.

00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:41.520
He's since passed away.

00:24:42.162 --> 00:24:55.054
And I was exposed to Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker and Ben Webster and Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan and Lester Young and Toots Thielman's harmonica players.

00:24:55.173 --> 00:24:58.856
And I fell in love with this thing they call jazz.

00:24:58.936 --> 00:25:05.394
And in a way that, you know, it was reluctant at first, it was the closest thing to the blues.

00:25:05.914 --> 00:25:11.619
And then later it became, well, gosh, this, if this is not the coolest stuff I've ever heard.

00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:27.374
So I really wanted to be able to play that music and the diatonic limited, you know, the C harmonica or B flat harmonica, whatever, whatever, even with the bends down bottom, it wasn't going to accomplish it.

00:25:27.453 --> 00:26:03.719
I couldn't even play blue monk or, simple standard tunes that displayed any form of chromaticism so i became disillusioned with the harmonica i started experimenting with overblows right around that time trying to get it i think blue monk was the first number i was after so And then I got a saxophone and I got into that briefly.

00:26:03.739 --> 00:26:08.411
But then I heard UFO Tofu by Howard Levy.

00:26:26.465 --> 00:26:38.971
And that's when I decided to get serious about the overblows and not double on harmonica and have sax be my primary instrument, but just go after harmonica 100%.

00:26:39.554 --> 00:26:46.709
I sold the saxophone later for gas money from a gig in Nebraska to try to get to Colorado.

00:26:47.713 --> 00:26:51.498
So there's a lot of comparisons made between the saxophone and harmonica.

00:26:51.518 --> 00:26:54.942
You know, a lot of harmonica players kind of want to say they want to sound like a saxophone, right?

00:26:54.961 --> 00:26:58.605
So is that something you were aiming for, you know, playing jazzy lines or?

00:26:58.645 --> 00:27:01.950
No, I think I was just aiming for the melodies.

00:27:02.210 --> 00:27:11.221
I didn't care what instrument played it, whether it was Stefan Grappelli on violin or, or Wes Montgomery on guitar or anything like that.

00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:33.444
And I hear a lot of harmonica players say oh i listen to saxophone players and then they play right and it's like who who did you listen to yeah because that doesn't sound like a harmonica lick to me you know I think it's a nice thing to say.

00:27:33.464 --> 00:27:36.229
I think it doesn't matter what instrument.

00:27:36.388 --> 00:27:40.736
It comes down to arpeggios and getting inside of chords and scales too.

00:27:40.776 --> 00:27:48.365
But like, you know, I think the blues player that I've heard that sounds the most like a saxophone is probably Dennis Grundling.

00:27:55.296 --> 00:27:55.977
So

00:27:56.834 --> 00:28:07.007
And also some others, Carlos Del Junco, people that have played chromatically either by using different positions or overblows, but amplifying it.

00:28:07.288 --> 00:28:11.854
I think when we amplify it, we get more of that sax kind of sound.

00:28:12.434 --> 00:28:13.655
But I mean, it's arguable.

00:28:13.736 --> 00:28:20.925
I mean, I think, you know, on chromatic and stuff, we hear like William Clark on The Boss starting to sound like a B3.

00:28:21.026 --> 00:28:21.686
B3.

00:28:37.665 --> 00:28:38.953
And, you know, things like that.

00:28:39.296 --> 00:28:39.880
So I don't know.

00:28:40.121 --> 00:28:40.967
I don't know about all that.

00:28:41.288 --> 00:28:42.074
It's a harmonica.

00:28:44.865 --> 00:28:48.491
Great news that you focused on the harmonica for all of those harmonica fans, of course.

00:28:48.932 --> 00:28:50.935
God bless you all.

00:28:50.955 --> 00:28:53.259
So going back to, you know, going on to the overblows topic then.

00:28:53.299 --> 00:28:57.727
So you mentioned Howard Lever there, the king of the overblows.

00:28:57.807 --> 00:29:00.632
I know Adam Gusso was a big influence on you early on.

00:29:00.692 --> 00:29:04.397
I think, was it what you first heard, the overblows, being used more in a blues context?

00:29:04.898 --> 00:29:05.219
Right.

00:29:05.420 --> 00:29:07.844
That's where I got interested initially.

00:29:07.963 --> 00:29:11.490
But, like, I just didn't think I could do it.

00:29:11.938 --> 00:29:19.307
And I didn't have the motivation to do it until I heard China's jazz and blues show.

00:29:20.008 --> 00:29:28.378
And that, cause it took a lot of, you know, you have to, I think you have to really, really want those notes to get into overblowing.

00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:32.523
I actually think that's more important than the physical technique.

00:29:33.045 --> 00:29:49.488
I think hearing them and knowing where they're not and, and really sort of wishing that you could, Or, you know, I would say needing, needing to play it for the purpose of emotional self-expression.

00:29:50.449 --> 00:29:54.413
You know, that's really what I think it takes to do it.

00:29:54.554 --> 00:30:04.223
I encounter a lot of students that want to learn overblows, and it's almost like they want a karate belt, like they want to be able to say, I'm an overblower.

00:30:05.085 --> 00:30:14.170
And the ones that seem to take to it really, really well are are the ones that have a love of music that needs that to happen.

00:30:15.132 --> 00:30:24.567
And when they have an emotional connection with a major seven and they need that in cross harp, that's when you learn how to do it, I think.

00:30:25.048 --> 00:30:34.443
You know, the exception to that, I think, is children that are learning harmonica that don't know and nobody has told them that overblows are hard.

00:30:35.566 --> 00:30:35.645
Yeah.

00:30:35.905 --> 00:30:39.711
They seem to learn it pretty quick, whether they want it or not.

00:30:40.432 --> 00:30:40.791
Yeah.

00:30:40.912 --> 00:30:48.801
So, I mean, so your use of overblows, I mean, you know, some people will say that overblows, the sound of them, you know, kind of jumps out as being differently.

00:30:48.862 --> 00:30:53.126
I certainly don't hear that with you and some of the other good overblow players that you've mentioned already.

00:30:53.186 --> 00:30:58.354
So, I mean, how much percentage wise would you say you're using overblows if you can put it in that way?

00:30:58.913 --> 00:31:00.957
Oh, gosh, I don't know, Neil.

00:31:01.116 --> 00:31:04.981
I don't think, I mean, I can certainly play without them.

00:31:05.442 --> 00:31:17.112
Without thinking about it, if I'm in a genre of music, like if I'm in Little Walter mode, like sometimes, well, frequently I have to play traditional blues and I want to.

00:31:17.231 --> 00:31:18.133
I love it.

00:31:18.874 --> 00:31:30.364
And so if I'm like, like recently I played with Bob Mark Olin and John Primer and I fill in for Dennis occasionally with Nick Moss when Dennis can't make a tour or something.

00:31:35.307 --> 00:31:35.407
Music

00:31:35.407 --> 00:31:47.606
You know, in those kind of contexts, I don't think of overblowing.

00:31:47.646 --> 00:31:57.541
And now every now and then I hear one, you know, before it happens, like, you know, I'm playing and I hear the lick I want to hit and I'll allow it in.

00:31:57.953 --> 00:31:58.515
You know what I mean?

00:31:58.555 --> 00:32:01.618
Because I think it's necessary because it feels right.

00:32:02.019 --> 00:32:06.886
But mostly when I play in those types of contexts, I just don't think about them.

00:32:07.007 --> 00:32:08.528
I pretend they're not there, sort of.

00:32:09.069 --> 00:32:12.634
I don't know how I do it, but I think it's just from listening to all that little Walter stuff.

00:32:12.855 --> 00:32:22.488
Like, for example, when I listen to Kim Wilson or Gary Primich or any of my favorite traditional harmonica players that are alive today, like Steve Mariner.

00:32:26.453 --> 00:32:26.493
¶¶

00:32:29.250 --> 00:32:42.125
Right.

00:32:42.145 --> 00:32:45.589
I don't ever think, well, boy, they would sound better with overblows.

00:32:46.230 --> 00:32:47.412
It never occurs to me.

00:32:48.012 --> 00:32:58.726
But when I'm playing by myself or when I'm just playing music in general, particularly New Orleans music, I also don't think about them when I hit them.

00:32:59.137 --> 00:33:02.826
I see it as any other note on the harmonica, mostly.

00:33:02.846 --> 00:33:11.425
I sometimes still get nervous about the seven overdraw or the nine overdraw in third position.

00:33:11.746 --> 00:33:12.468
I might use that.

00:33:12.528 --> 00:33:17.960
I still get nervous about them coming up, but mostly I hit them.

00:33:18.701 --> 00:33:18.781
Yeah.

00:33:19.137 --> 00:33:23.202
But yeah, I don't think about it.

00:33:23.262 --> 00:33:30.251
When I pick up a harmonica, they're just going to come out unless I've made a decision ahead of time that I just want to play like in an old

00:33:30.352 --> 00:33:30.653
way.

00:33:30.853 --> 00:33:31.753
I mean, that's what we want, right?

00:33:31.773 --> 00:33:34.738
We want it all to be natural and to come out without thinking about it too much, right?

00:33:34.778 --> 00:33:35.959
I mean, that's when it's good.

00:33:36.579 --> 00:33:36.680
But

00:33:36.759 --> 00:33:45.974
yeah, like I knew right away, like I was never going to have the The background, musical background that Howard had coming into it.

00:33:46.855 --> 00:33:47.896
And

00:33:48.018 --> 00:33:59.711
I was a person that was scared of theory and scared of math and scared of arpeggios and chords and leading tones and diminished things and all these types of words.

00:33:59.790 --> 00:34:01.393
They scared me and I didn't like them.

00:34:01.553 --> 00:34:06.739
And initially, I tended to just try to make them really sound good.

00:34:07.118 --> 00:34:08.460
I wanted to bend them.

00:34:41.666 --> 00:34:42.847
So these little wavers.

00:34:46.152 --> 00:34:54.003
So I'm kind of, you know, adjusting the pitch in and out of being in tune, going sharp and flat and on pitch.

00:34:54.704 --> 00:34:58.769
And I noticed that they could be very effective for blues playing.

00:34:59.369 --> 00:35:07.561
And I really couldn't tell the difference between like a six draw bend tonally and a six overblow.

00:35:13.250 --> 00:35:24.485
really sounded pretty similar to me what about when you were you know going back a little bit to the sort of fast playing when you're practicing the fast licks we i take it you were practicing these kind of chromatic runs including the overblows as part of those

00:35:25.146 --> 00:35:51.072
yeah definitely it wasn't long after i learned how to set up a harmonica you know that was key especially in the 90s and early 2000s you know up and i would say up until like around 2011 or 2012 when Hohner and Suzuki and started making really good harmonicas because prior to that, you'd have to work on them a lot.

00:35:51.132 --> 00:36:11.079
So once I started working on them and adjusting the action or offset, as harmonica players call it, you know, the reed offset, that was when I was able to start playing not only fast, but bending them as well and putting them in seamlessly and practicing the scale techniques.

00:36:16.625 --> 00:36:16.806
Right.

00:36:16.826 --> 00:36:17.590
And all that kind of.

00:36:19.277 --> 00:36:19.358
Yeah.

00:36:31.202 --> 00:36:33.143
And all of that different stuff, you know.

00:36:33.443 --> 00:36:38.389
But if someone, you know, he wants to emulate your sound and obviously they can also have lessons with you.

00:36:38.409 --> 00:36:40.492
We'll get onto that later so you can really tell them what to do.

00:36:40.552 --> 00:36:44.695
But if someone who wants to emulate your sound, would you say they can't do that without doing overblows?

00:36:47.018 --> 00:36:51.643
I would say that you could get pretty close by, you know, to some of it by just studying Pat.

00:36:52.043 --> 00:36:57.530
But yeah, I mean, you're not going to get the real, the like modern blues and jazz influence.

00:36:57.889 --> 00:37:00.034
that I have in my playing without that.

00:37:00.094 --> 00:37:09.047
But rhythmically, you can certainly get some of my styles because there's places rhythmically where I definitely have, I think I differ from Pat quite a bit.

00:37:09.409 --> 00:37:13.275
I think that was the influence of bebop, you know, where Pat would play.

00:37:14.938 --> 00:37:15.478
And

00:37:15.539 --> 00:37:15.800
I would...

00:37:21.217 --> 00:37:22.599
And

00:37:22.619 --> 00:37:25.123
that just like, it wasn't a decision.

00:37:25.182 --> 00:37:41.684
It just sunk in just from listening to hundreds of thousands of hours of Charlie Parker, you know, just, just loving the way, not because I wanted to learn how to play like Charlie Parker, just because I loved how happy it made me and sat at the same time.

00:37:42.204 --> 00:37:49.114
Like it was, it's just the most remarkable musician I'd ever heard still to this day.

00:37:49.134 --> 00:37:49.213
Yeah.

00:37:51.170 --> 00:38:02.081
Well, I mean, he's certainly got the reputation about being the best improviser ever, right?

00:38:02.202 --> 00:38:03.385
It

00:38:03.425 --> 00:38:03.987
was so

00:38:04.047 --> 00:38:04.570
beautiful.

00:38:04.833 --> 00:38:05.253
And

00:38:05.333 --> 00:38:05.875
joyful,

00:38:06.094 --> 00:38:07.416
joyful, very joyful.

00:38:07.655 --> 00:38:09.697
Yeah, I've spent my time listening to Mr.

00:38:09.737 --> 00:38:10.338
Parker as well.

00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:11.039
Good.

00:38:11.539 --> 00:38:13.101
Did you learn from the Charlie Parker Omnibook?

00:38:13.621 --> 00:38:15.742
No, I still can't read music.

00:38:16.344 --> 00:38:16.623
Right, okay.

00:38:17.025 --> 00:38:22.389
Right, so going back to your timeline, so as you say, you left Memphis and went to Florida.

00:38:22.429 --> 00:38:28.815
As you say, you spent some time in your rehab center, and then you came out of Florida, and then you were touring a lot, playing a lot.

00:38:29.014 --> 00:38:30.936
You're kind of learning the trade there as well, yeah?

00:38:31.257 --> 00:38:32.057
You missed one thing.

00:38:32.137 --> 00:38:35.561
I left Memphis, I went and played with Junior Kimbrough R.L.

00:38:35.583 --> 00:38:36.967
Burnside and their kids.

00:38:37.548 --> 00:38:41.601
Then I went to Jackson, Mississippi, which is where I got in trouble.

00:38:41.621 --> 00:38:44.411
I went to rehab in Florida, got out of Florida.

00:38:44.672 --> 00:38:53.920
I spent I got out of jail, spent three years playing with a band called the Knuckle Busters down in Florida, and also Keith Brown, who is in France now.

00:38:54.260 --> 00:38:57.284
He's like a Kev Moe kind of guy, acoustic guy.

00:38:57.304 --> 00:39:04.972
And I was in a little trio with him, a house band at a famous club that's since gone called the Bamboo Room.

00:39:05.532 --> 00:39:37.369
And then I relocated briefly to North Carolina, where I worked at a treatment center as a detox clinician, and And then I got the job with Big Al, which put me in Nashville, where I remained for 10 years, 11, 10 or 11 years.

00:39:37.710 --> 00:39:37.789
Yeah.

00:39:38.561 --> 00:39:43.869
And so I think, is it in 2002, you formed the band with New Blood?

00:39:44.869 --> 00:39:46.893
Maybe then, maybe a little earlier.

00:39:46.913 --> 00:39:46.992
Yeah.

00:39:47.233 --> 00:39:48.675
Where were you based then?

00:39:49.516 --> 00:39:50.056
Nashville.

00:39:50.338 --> 00:39:52.621
I stayed in Nashville after I left Big Al.

00:39:53.442 --> 00:39:53.641
Great.

00:39:53.661 --> 00:40:02.753
And so I've got it here that you didn't release an album between Down at the Duke and then your first album with New Blood, I think in 2001.

00:40:02.793 --> 00:40:03.554
Is that right?

00:40:03.594 --> 00:40:05.478
You had a bit of a gap between releasing albums then?

00:40:05.858 --> 00:40:06.358
Yeah.

00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:09.126
I mean, I was in rough shape, you know?

00:40:09.427 --> 00:40:09.688
Yeah.

00:40:10.168 --> 00:40:11.152
You were busy of the things.

00:40:11.492 --> 00:40:12.054
Okay, great.

00:40:12.094 --> 00:40:18.329
So then you formed New Blood, which you had a great successful time with, you know, you released a lot of albums with Ed.

00:40:19.693 --> 00:40:19.773
Yeah.

00:40:20.610 --> 00:40:33.789
you

00:40:33.869 --> 00:40:39.777
toured i think you toured like 300 days a year i've read for 10 years that's right you know what was that like um i

00:40:41.760 --> 00:40:45.224
mean The beginning of it, I think, was the time of my life.

00:40:45.724 --> 00:40:50.489
Some of the happiest times I've ever had were back before the band was popular at all.

00:40:50.528 --> 00:41:04.481
And we were just kind of a bunch of kids in a Ford Econol line with dreams and sharing hotel rooms and sometimes no hotel rooms and oftentimes no hotel rooms.

00:41:04.581 --> 00:41:09.925
And we would camp and sleep on pool tables or at people's houses.

00:41:10.106 --> 00:41:28.344
And I think we were young and naive and it was still a lot of fun and really exciting then you know uh life happens our our drummer got deported and uh he's from argentina and uh We got signed to a record label and got on a bigger booking agency.

00:41:28.445 --> 00:41:35.512
And there was now money involved in BMI royalties and songwriting credit and festivals.

00:41:35.672 --> 00:41:44.338
And I think as wonderful as that was, and it's a necessary part of evolution, the naivety was starting to go away.

00:41:44.940 --> 00:41:48.262
And it became a job and it became serious.

00:41:48.422 --> 00:41:54.288
And there were fights and creative differences and girlfriends and boyfriends coming into the mix.

00:41:54.288 --> 00:41:56.893
and changing around dynamics.

00:41:57.114 --> 00:42:11.525
And then, of course, me and mental illness and addiction later resurfacing after 12 years sober, finding myself in 2010 back on drugs.

00:42:12.065 --> 00:42:17.474
Yeah, it was an amazing 10 years, Neil, and we had a lot of fun.

00:42:17.514 --> 00:42:20.237
And I think that's when I really made my name.

00:42:20.557 --> 00:42:21.980
And so I wouldn't change a thing.

00:42:22.059 --> 00:42:24.784
It was a wonderful, wonderful time period.

00:42:24.864 --> 00:42:35.898
I have so much affection for all of the musicians that played in that band, but namely Todd Edmonds, Sean Starsky, those two, the guitar and bass player.

00:42:36.340 --> 00:42:37.581
We had lots of drummers.

00:42:37.922 --> 00:42:40.264
Yeah, and you created some great music as well.

00:42:40.324 --> 00:42:45.708
And the first album I ever heard you was on the Blood on the Road album, which was a really great album.

00:42:46.028 --> 00:42:50.592
Some very memorable songs on there, such as My Head's a Bad Neighborhood definitely springs to mind.

00:42:50.612 --> 00:42:52.994
That whole album was recorded in six hours.

00:42:53.394 --> 00:42:53.675
Really?

00:42:53.775 --> 00:42:55.077
Yeah, it's a great album, that one.

00:42:55.117 --> 00:42:55.797
Love that one, yeah.

00:42:56.757 --> 00:42:59.481
So, you know, so what about some of those lyrics on there?

00:42:59.521 --> 00:43:02.764
Obviously drawing on some of your personal experiences, I'm sure.

00:43:03.043 --> 00:43:29.900
Well, my head is a sick and twisted place You write most of

00:43:29.920 --> 00:43:30.420
the lyrics?

00:43:30.920 --> 00:43:33.625
Yeah, I've always been into writing lyrics.

00:43:34.465 --> 00:44:02.429
I think I've, you know, in some ways the harmonica's kind of overshadowed you know that that's been the thing that's meant a lot to me on every record is making sure that i write stuff that means something to me i was always a fan of important lyricists and tried to i thought a lot about music from the very beginning it was always lyrics and my wife is the same way too much so really but yeah

00:44:02.818 --> 00:44:08.728
Well, I mean, as you say, the harmonica overshadows it, but definitely the full package is, you know, is the band and the sounds that you're creating.

00:44:08.768 --> 00:44:10.172
The lyrics are a big part of it.

00:44:10.211 --> 00:44:14.880
You know, they're often quite dark and, you know, it's definitely a modern take on blues, right?

00:44:14.940 --> 00:44:17.905
And it's not all blues that you play, but that's obviously really important to you.

00:44:18.086 --> 00:44:18.447
Yeah.

00:44:18.648 --> 00:44:52.414
I think I, being a white person and, you know, having lived with Junior and an RL and, and, and spent a lot, a lot of time immersed in black culture to the point where there were periods of time, sometimes as long as six or seven months where I didn't even see another white person or, or the only other white person I saw was Eric Deaton, you know, who is now with that, the black keys and, and another band called Afro Sippy, but he was really the only other white person I saw, but I think it became apparent.

00:44:52.673 --> 00:44:57.081
very apparent to me being with those guys that it was really important to be yourself.

00:44:57.902 --> 00:44:59.766
You know, we weren't going to be them.

00:45:00.606 --> 00:45:04.893
And that was really, really clear, like living in that environment.

00:45:05.514 --> 00:45:15.550
And I think there's a lot of white people that write songs or sing songs that were written by black people that don't really understand what they're singing about.

00:45:16.271 --> 00:45:21.902
And also, On a lighter note, I think some of the lyrics are just antiquated.

00:45:21.922 --> 00:45:30.059
I don't want to be on stage saying, I bought my baby a brand new choo-choo toy, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

00:45:30.119 --> 00:45:30.721
You know what I mean?

00:45:31.543 --> 00:45:36.673
It's just not who I am and what I'm going to say when I get up there.

00:45:37.275 --> 00:45:38.518
And I think that if more...

00:45:38.914 --> 00:45:47.842
Modern blues musicians, both black and white, wrote better lyrics that I think that this music would speak to a younger generation.

00:45:49.103 --> 00:45:52.786
Yeah.

00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:09.981
Yeah,

00:46:10.483 --> 00:46:15.911
and you were pretty successful in New Blood, right?

00:46:15.931 --> 00:46:17.594
You know, you were headlining at festivals.

00:46:17.936 --> 00:46:22.824
So I take it that was part of it, that you weren't just a kind of old, you know, you weren't emulating kind of old style blues.

00:46:22.864 --> 00:46:25.548
You were, it was new, modern, you were saying something.

00:46:25.869 --> 00:46:26.190
Right.

00:46:27.030 --> 00:46:33.181
Back then, everything was mostly, there was only a few modern artists and they were really rocky, right?

00:46:33.282 --> 00:46:34.985
They weren't like we were rocky, too.

00:46:35.045 --> 00:46:39.112
We had a rock influence, but we also had a heavy duty jazz influence, too.

00:46:40.414 --> 00:46:42.036
And I would say punk, too.

00:46:42.878 --> 00:46:44.320
You know, so like there was that.

00:46:44.440 --> 00:46:44.641
Right.

00:46:45.282 --> 00:46:53.998
And but there were I mean, we were listening to a lot of Sun Ra and and also New Orleans funk and a lot of that kind of stuff, you know, so.

00:46:54.626 --> 00:47:00.313
an album you did with, uh, with new blues is done with the devil, which is, uh, inspired by your interest in the occult.

00:47:00.333 --> 00:47:05.659
So, so again, some, uh, some lyrics about there, this one, the, uh, blues music award for best blues rock album in the,

00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:07.561
in it was nominated.

00:47:07.661 --> 00:47:09.143
It didn't win, but thank you.

00:47:09.804 --> 00:47:10.766
We'll say, we'll say it.

00:47:10.846 --> 00:47:11.045
What?

00:47:13.429 --> 00:47:22.018
So, uh, song on there is, is, you know, going back to the, to the jazz, uh, influences you Afro blues is on there and you, you quote my favorite things in your diatonic.

00:47:22.259 --> 00:47:22.460
Yeah.

00:47:24.302 --> 00:47:24.382
Yeah.

00:47:29.697 --> 00:47:39.275
And then we did Sun Ra's Enlightenment 2.

00:48:05.538 --> 00:48:10.170
And then you do a song on Down That Road, which is Harmonica Caprice No.

00:48:10.311 --> 00:48:13.601
1, which is obviously pointing towards a kind of classical music influence.

00:48:13.661 --> 00:48:15.806
So did you have any sort of classical music influence?

00:48:15.827 --> 00:48:17.030
You say you didn't really read music.

00:48:17.331 --> 00:48:18.072
Where did that come from?

00:48:18.514 --> 00:48:20.920
Yeah, a fascination with the violin.

00:48:21.409 --> 00:48:24.195
So I fell in love with violin music.

00:48:24.675 --> 00:48:29.125
During that time period, I took a kind of a hiatus from jazz.

00:48:29.806 --> 00:48:37.561
And just for my own pleasure, it's important for me to listen to music that I don't think about how would I do it.

00:48:37.954 --> 00:49:04.250
I think that the people that don't play music have a sort of wonderful childlike ability to hear things without thinking about what are they doing or how would I interpret this or could I do this or how long would it take me to learn how to do this or how come I can't learn how to do this, but I, I, I, I.

00:49:04.802 --> 00:49:07.244
is the thought process.

00:49:07.864 --> 00:49:14.472
So, I mean, when I initially started listening to jazz, it was just for pure joy of loving it.

00:49:14.572 --> 00:49:23.623
And then that ego, which is a necessary thing, and I'm glad it came in, but that, you know, could I do this started coming in.

00:49:24.003 --> 00:49:25.105
Like, I love it so much.

00:49:25.985 --> 00:49:26.927
Can I do it?

00:49:27.567 --> 00:49:41.429
So classical music was originally an escape from that constant, you know, study mode of, it was like, this is music I can listen to without thinking about how can I do it.

00:49:42.090 --> 00:49:53.585
And so, you know, I think I had seen a documentary about this New York violinist named Nadja Sonnenberg called Speaking in Strings.

00:49:54.226 --> 00:49:55.748
And she was sort of like me.

00:49:56.009 --> 00:50:02.237
She was kind of outspoken and a little crass and not really liked music.

00:50:02.434 --> 00:50:06.800
But more than tolerated, like booked everywhere in the classical music world.

00:50:07.262 --> 00:50:08.824
And I related to her personally.

00:50:08.864 --> 00:50:21.025
And then I just started kind of falling in love with the violin because like when they would bow the violin, like when a really good classical violinist is bowing in a certain way.

00:50:21.378 --> 00:50:23.521
It doesn't sound like there's a bow at all.

00:50:23.601 --> 00:50:25.905
It sounds like the sound is coming out of nowhere.

00:50:26.405 --> 00:50:27.668
There's no vibration.

00:50:27.748 --> 00:50:29.590
It's almost like a theremin.

00:50:29.612 --> 00:50:32.615
And I fell in love with that.

00:50:32.717 --> 00:50:36.842
And then, of course, later, the double stops and the actual bowing sounds of it.

00:50:37.184 --> 00:50:46.782
But then from her, I traced back to Oistrakh and Heifetz and started listening to more you know, established violinists.

00:50:47.202 --> 00:50:58.335
And then that led me into like Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Bach, and then my very favorite of the Romantic period composers, Sibelius.

00:50:58.896 --> 00:51:10.628
So when I finally discovered Opus 47 in D minor, Sibelius' violin concerto, by that point I was lost in it and it was irreconcilable.

00:51:16.514 --> 00:51:19.898
So then next thing you know, Paganini, right?

00:51:20.418 --> 00:51:23.181
And that's where you're going to go if you're a violin nut.

00:51:23.802 --> 00:51:26.326
And so I started listening to the Caprices.

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

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

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

00:51:53.025 --> 00:51:56.068
which were solo violin pieces later.

00:51:56.088 --> 00:52:05.617
Of course, in the beginning, you were not allowed to play them without a piano or a harpsichord because they were considered too self-indulgent sort of by many.

00:52:06.358 --> 00:52:09.800
And they sounded too much like exercises to people.

00:52:09.840 --> 00:52:12.123
They thought they were cold and reptilian.

00:52:12.722 --> 00:52:31.942
And I could certainly see how people would think that, but the amount of soul that goes into it just in sacrifice alone, the ability to play that, I think negates any standard Or coldness that one would think if you just listen to the music without thinking about, oh, is this too many notes or does it sound like an exercise?

00:52:32.242 --> 00:52:41.150
If you just listen to it and stop with that voice in your head that's making you judge it, usually out of fear, I find that voice comes into play.

00:52:41.711 --> 00:52:48.518
Fear and anger are the predominant emotions that come in judging things as good or bad.

00:52:48.539 --> 00:52:52.943
I think it's important for people to listen to music as much as possible.

00:52:52.943 --> 00:52:57.668
I'm a fan of free jazz as well.

00:52:58.409 --> 00:53:01.793
And I think that's a music that many people find unlistenable.

00:53:02.474 --> 00:53:05.978
And what I enjoy most about it is it forces me to stay in the moment.

00:53:06.018 --> 00:53:11.563
There's no predicting what's going to happen next, either harmonically or melodically or rhythmically.

00:53:12.103 --> 00:53:14.306
And I enjoy that unpredictability.

00:53:14.786 --> 00:53:15.307
Yeah, definitely.

00:53:15.327 --> 00:53:16.949
Well, it's interesting you should mention the violin.

00:53:16.989 --> 00:53:22.516
So during the pandemic, I started learning to play the violin and I've been going for violin lessons.

00:53:22.896 --> 00:53:23.628
It's hard.

00:53:25.121 --> 00:53:26.702
It's really, really hard.

00:53:27.184 --> 00:53:27.983
Really, really,

00:53:28.045 --> 00:53:28.565
really hard.

00:53:28.625 --> 00:53:31.827
I got one hanging on the wall, Neil.

00:53:31.847 --> 00:53:35.190
But I mean, I don't do it like, I mean, I've done it enough to pass my grade.

00:53:35.630 --> 00:53:38.253
I did a grade three, but I don't practice it like low.

00:53:38.293 --> 00:53:40.454
So I don't really practice it enough to get really good at it.

00:53:40.474 --> 00:53:41.576
But it's like, it's so hard.

00:53:41.615 --> 00:53:42.317
Yeah, it's so hard.

00:53:42.657 --> 00:53:51.985
But yeah, I mean, it's interesting that someone like you, and I'm probably surprising to harmonica players that you would draw on those influences and people might expect you to be a full-on harmonica nut, right?

00:53:52.005 --> 00:53:54.126
But it's great to hear that you have those other influences too.

00:53:54.146 --> 00:53:54.688
They're important.

00:53:55.007 --> 00:53:55.088
Yeah.

00:53:55.088 --> 00:54:03.599
Yeah, I think the greatest thing to come out of that was I started realizing what arpeggios were from listening to Paganini.

00:54:04.240 --> 00:54:10.289
So when you did your harmonica, Caprice, was that something that you wrote down or did you sort of just come up with it by ear?

00:54:10.329 --> 00:54:23.387
I

00:54:23.447 --> 00:54:24.650
was just practicing.

00:54:25.057 --> 00:54:26.378
minor triads.

00:54:26.960 --> 00:54:34.306
And then I, and then not accidentally, then I just tried blowing in third position, four draw, five draw, six draw.

00:54:34.666 --> 00:54:37.829
Then I just started blowing four blow, five blow, six blow.

00:54:38.429 --> 00:54:45.615
And then that, you know, that contrast between the minor triad and then the major triad was emotionally stimulating.

00:54:46.155 --> 00:54:52.641
So then I just found the B flat minor triad after that, and then the other one, and that's how it got written.

00:54:53.342 --> 00:54:58.835
So you also do a on your latest album, which we'll get onto a little bit later, but I just mentioned now on St.

00:54:58.856 --> 00:55:03.590
James infirmary, you sort of go into a classical thing at the end of that for quite a long time.

00:55:03.610 --> 00:55:05.476
So, you know, it's still something you're interested in.

00:55:05.516 --> 00:55:05.737
Yeah.

00:55:08.525 --> 00:55:08.606
Yeah.

00:55:26.465 --> 00:55:31.851
Yeah, I'm going to keep recording Harmonica Caprice on every record because it's growing.

00:55:32.271 --> 00:55:34.534
Like, I never stop working on it.

00:55:34.775 --> 00:55:36.496
It's not written yet.

00:55:36.976 --> 00:55:39.739
It's just being, it's an exercise.

00:55:39.880 --> 00:55:44.324
Like right now, like when I record it again, there'll be more octaves.

00:55:44.425 --> 00:55:44.626
Like...

00:55:52.954 --> 00:55:54.956
You know, so like going all the way up and stuff like...

00:55:57.634 --> 00:56:06.172
and

00:56:06.532 --> 00:56:18.115
oh man i'm messing up but anyway like you know just experimenting with uh getting all of the harmonica involved in that instead of just primarily the middle octave The easy octave.

00:56:19.277 --> 00:56:19.358
Yeah.

00:56:19.378 --> 00:56:23.003
So, Matt, we expect you're going to release a solo harmonica album of Caprices.

00:56:23.804 --> 00:56:24.385
Oh, no.

00:56:25.186 --> 00:56:25.768
Like a

00:56:26.429 --> 00:56:27.210
Paganini

00:56:27.289 --> 00:56:29.614
thing, yeah.

00:56:29.634 --> 00:56:30.554
No, I'm not that good.

00:56:30.956 --> 00:56:33.039
I'm just having fun.

00:56:33.079 --> 00:56:34.221
That's all I'm doing.

00:56:34.340 --> 00:56:37.606
Yeah, and it's a good way to practice because it's a good way to think.

00:56:37.987 --> 00:56:39.548
Like, hey, imagine going up.

00:56:39.730 --> 00:56:41.693
Like right there, I went up and then down.

00:56:42.414 --> 00:56:42.494
Yeah.

00:56:46.530 --> 00:56:49.894
So I'm going up on one and down on the other, but there's a million options.

00:56:49.954 --> 00:56:50.356
I could go.

00:56:57.126 --> 00:56:57.505
Right.

00:56:57.646 --> 00:57:00.510
So like, you know, it's just endless.

00:57:00.610 --> 00:57:01.371
It's endless.

00:57:01.431 --> 00:57:01.652
Right.

00:57:01.753 --> 00:57:02.353
It's endless.

00:57:03.195 --> 00:57:04.195
And it sounds great as well.

00:57:04.215 --> 00:57:07.882
You know, throwing that in, like you say, on a song like that, it just, it sounds fantastic.

00:57:07.961 --> 00:57:08.121
Yeah.

00:57:08.181 --> 00:57:10.985
And a nice variety than the usual, you know, harmonica sounds.

00:57:11.045 --> 00:57:11.226
Right.

00:57:11.527 --> 00:57:11.927
There's so

00:57:11.987 --> 00:57:12.809
much to work on.

00:57:12.829 --> 00:57:12.909
Yeah.

00:57:13.329 --> 00:57:13.550
Yeah.

00:57:14.110 --> 00:57:14.632
It's endless.

00:57:14.652 --> 00:57:14.871
Yeah.

00:57:15.032 --> 00:57:15.773
I never, yeah, it's

00:57:15.793 --> 00:57:16.094
endless.

00:57:16.994 --> 00:57:18.735
I'm never not inspired.

00:57:19.496 --> 00:57:24.744
I'm never in a place where I'm like, oh, what do I need to do next?

00:57:25.724 --> 00:57:30.170
Or I'm never in a place where I'm satisfied with what I'm doing, ever.

00:57:30.891 --> 00:57:32.313
I'm always searching.

00:57:32.592 --> 00:57:33.715
Always, always, always.

00:57:49.474 --> 00:57:52.157
Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast.

00:57:52.458 --> 00:58:02.329
Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas.

00:58:03.692 --> 00:58:05.853
That's the end of part one with the interview with Jason.

00:58:06.335 --> 00:58:15.887
Part two will be out in a week's time where we hear about Jason's career, Pulse, New Blood, his new band, Bad Kind, and other acts he has performed with as well as the usual gear section.

00:58:16.547 --> 00:58:18.269
Thanks again for listening to the podcast.

00:58:18.626 --> 00:58:22.614
If you haven't heard much of Jason before, first of all, where the hell have you been?

00:58:23.175 --> 00:58:28.083
Then please check out the Spotify playlist where you can hear most of the tracks that I've been using this episode.

00:58:28.605 --> 00:58:29.887
And be sure to tip Jason.

00:58:30.568 --> 00:58:31.992
The link is on the podcast page.

00:58:32.954 --> 00:58:40.809
Now let's hear Jason play us out with the song Ode to Billy Joe from the City Country City album.

00:58:40.829 --> 00:58:41.150
Ode to Billy Joe