Oct. 26, 2020

Jim Hughes interview

Jim Hughes interview

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 musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show, Last Of The Summer Wine. Jim set up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, The World Harmonica Championship in Jersey, 1987, as well as involvement in other festival...

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Season 1 Chromatic Harmonica Classical Chromatic Session Musician

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 musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show, Last Of The Summer Wine. 

Jim set up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, The World Harmonica Championship in Jersey, 1987, as well as involvement in other festivals. He has several albums to his name and is a harmonica teacher who has helped guide some real star pupils to go on to achieve great things.

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


Links:
Roger Trobridge's Archivist site:
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk

Dror Adler Classical Music project info:
http://harmonica.uk/drorcp.htm

Franz Chmel
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/franz-chmel-1944-to-2016-the-archivist/

Ricky Cool:
https://www.rickycoolandtheincrowd.co.uk


YouTube:

Ronald Chesney Flight Of the Bumble Bee
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORYIpDQpDWk

Jersey World Harmonica Festival 1987
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3SaOL0cuXM

Philip Achille - The Story So Far, including a duet with Jim (4 mins in):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSbHkcipr8g

Jim playing at the NHL event Birmingham 1988:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGkzPBqpdJM

Audio recording Jim playing at a NHL concert in 1983:
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/jim-hughes-1983/

Harmonica Group Jim ran:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy4Fh2niOno

Hotcha Trio:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXuGlYa2wkA

Fata Morgana:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3XMePuGhZ8

My Funny Valentine, at Jim’s 90th birthday party:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_IGmCsFCM

Franz Chmel YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/user/franzchm/videos


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway

Support the show

01:17 - Jim has been playing professionally for 60 years

01:59 - First started playing in the army

02:23 - Larry Adler was Jim’s first inspiration

02:56 - Golden Age of chromatic harmonica

03:44 - Harmonica News magazine published by Hohner

03:57 - Entered a harmonica competition from Hohner and placed second

04:18 - Great Chromatic players of the past

05:03 - Jim was winning harmonica competitions in the 1950s

05:55 - Jim formed various harmonica bands

06:41 - Changed from being an ear player to learning to read music

07:20 - Took some ‘lessons’ from Tommy Reilly

07:55 - Started working for the BBC

08:33 - Jim’s first appearance on TV, playing a duet with Tommy Reilly

09:16 - Playing with Johnny Patrick and others, made thousands of broadcasts

10:04 - Started doing session work and become an efficient sight reader

10:52 - Last Of The Summer Wine

10:58 - The different harmonica players who recorded on Last of the Summer Wine

12:07 - The different harmonica players who recorded on Last of the Summer Wine

13:16 - How Jim developed his sight reading abilities

14:42 - Chromatic harmonica is Jim’s only instrument

15:33 - Jim organised the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey in 1987

19:14 - Jim met Dror Adler in Jersey

20:05 - Advised on setting-up a festival in Israel and teaching there for four years

20:52 - Jersey festival led to establishment of the regular Trossingen festival

21:52 - Jim is part of the museum in Trossingen

22:36 - Pari Passu album

25:19 - James Moody album his music for the harmonica

28:27 - Some of Jim’s star students: Julian Jackson, Adam Glasser and Philip Achille

28:57 - Jim held harmonica posts at two prestigious music colleges in the UK

31:21 - Album with Paul Lewis

32:42 - A Taste of Summer Wine album, containing swing jazz pieces

35:43 - Christmas recordings with Rob Janssen from Fata Morgana

37:20 - John Barry concerts

37:44 - Jim’s 90th birthday party last year

39:47 - Organised the Harmonica Orchestra of Great Britain

41:01 - How Jim developed his tone

43:50 - Franz Chmel

44:46 - Legato playing and tackling the multiple C notes

46:34 - 10 minute question

46:51 - Jim has written some Chromatic Harmonica exercise books

48:16 - What harmonicas does Jim play

50:10 - Only plays chromatics in key of C

51:09 - Does Jim play any diatonic?

51:37 - Has used customisers to keep his harmonicas in shape

51:56 - Embouchre

52:39 - Amps and mics

54:28 - One of Jim’s favourite current chromatic players

55:36 - How to keep people playing the chromatic harmonica

WEBVTT

00:00:00.098 --> 00:00:03.604
British chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26.

00:00:04.605 --> 00:00:07.229
Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years.

00:00:07.709 --> 00:00:20.210
From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show Last of the Summer Wine.

00:00:20.449 --> 00:00:30.504
Jim sets up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey in 1987, as well as involvement in other festivals.

00:00:31.083 --> 00:00:38.975
He has several albums to his name and is a harmonica teacher who has helped guide some real star pupils to go on to achieve great things.

00:00:39.375 --> 00:00:46.064
A word to my sponsor again, thanks to the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more designed for harmonica.

00:00:46.506 --> 00:00:49.670
Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:01:11.617 --> 00:01:13.597
Hello, Jim Hughes, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:13.730 --> 00:01:14.411
Hi Neil.

00:01:14.650 --> 00:01:17.653
You're a chromatic player who's been playing for a long time.

00:01:17.953 --> 00:01:21.697
Playing for about 60 years now as a professional.

00:01:21.977 --> 00:01:23.739
And you were born in Birmingham?

00:01:23.938 --> 00:01:27.121
Yes, I was born in Birmingham in December 1929.

00:01:27.221 --> 00:01:29.504
The harmonica must be good for you, eh?

00:01:29.703 --> 00:01:30.584
I think so, yeah.

00:01:30.805 --> 00:01:32.445
Well, the harmonica shaped my life.

00:01:32.807 --> 00:01:41.813
Everything that I do, everything that I am, and mostly, you know, all my friends, the whole thing can be related back to the harmonica.

00:01:42.015 --> 00:01:45.638
Because I didn't really become a person until I started playing harmonica.

00:01:45.897 --> 00:01:49.462
And then the whole world opened up to me and it was amazing.

00:01:49.542 --> 00:01:50.643
The best thing I ever did.

00:01:51.004 --> 00:01:55.588
Despite the fact that my father used to say to me, don't waste your time playing a mouthful.

00:01:56.069 --> 00:01:57.311
How wrong he was, Abe.

00:01:57.350 --> 00:01:59.052
I'm sure he's very proud now looking down.

00:01:59.373 --> 00:02:03.356
Looking back then on how you got started playing, so I believe you stepped up in the army.

00:02:03.496 --> 00:02:04.317
That's correct, yeah.

00:02:04.397 --> 00:02:08.141
I joined the army as a regular soldier, went into the Royal Engineers.

00:02:08.401 --> 00:02:12.667
I went to Germany and I was stationed there for almost six years.

00:02:13.046 --> 00:02:17.693
And it was there that I bought my first harmonica, you know, just played by ear.

00:02:18.115 --> 00:02:19.977
I really didn't know anything about music.

00:02:20.397 --> 00:02:22.099
I, in fact, wasted a lot of time.

00:02:22.281 --> 00:02:23.603
I could have gone with a teacher.

00:02:23.842 --> 00:02:37.263
So my first inspiration for the instrument came when I was very young, and I used to listen to the radio, and Larry Adler did a lot of broadcasts in those days, and it was just an exciting sound.

00:02:39.265 --> 00:02:39.485
piano plays

00:02:40.354 --> 00:02:48.542
Thank you.

00:02:53.346 --> 00:02:55.968
but it never occurred to me to want to play it.

00:02:56.329 --> 00:02:58.531
I mean, that was the golden age of harmonica.

00:02:58.871 --> 00:02:59.953
Oh, it certainly was.

00:03:00.052 --> 00:03:01.213
It certainly was, yeah.

00:03:01.794 --> 00:03:06.938
The other thing that was great to listen to was harmonica bands like Bonaminovich.

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

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

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

00:03:24.193 --> 00:03:30.694
Johnny Paleo, eventually the British Bams, and Morton Fraser, Morton Fraser Harmonica Gang.

00:03:30.814 --> 00:03:34.044
I used to take every opportunity to go and watch them live when I could.

00:03:34.105 --> 00:03:36.252
When I came out of the Army...

00:03:36.897 --> 00:03:44.629
In the early 50s, there was a tremendous harmonica movement going on, which I came into as a civvy.

00:03:45.030 --> 00:03:50.579
I remember passing a music shop and seeing this magazine, Harmonica News, which was published by Hohner.

00:03:50.859 --> 00:03:52.762
I bought it, full of excitement.

00:03:52.842 --> 00:03:54.585
I thought, there's something going on here.

00:03:54.604 --> 00:03:57.368
And I felt part of a family from then on.

00:03:57.609 --> 00:04:01.816
They were advertising a competition in London for chromatic players.

00:04:01.836 --> 00:04:05.981
I decided to enter, and to my astonishment, came second place.

00:04:06.081 --> 00:04:08.063
But I met all these great guys.

00:04:08.324 --> 00:04:11.806
There was a gang of our major players, all very competitive.

00:04:11.986 --> 00:04:16.130
But at the same time, you know, we had a great affinity with each other.

00:04:16.170 --> 00:04:17.791
It's an amazing instrument.

00:04:18.052 --> 00:04:25.658
So talking about some of the great players back then, obviously you've mentioned Larry Adler and Tommy Riley, of course, is a great player back then, and Willie Berger.

00:04:25.718 --> 00:04:29.802
And Douglas Tate was another English guy who went to the competitions with you.

00:04:29.903 --> 00:04:32.685
Yeah, I met at this first competition.

00:04:32.904 --> 00:04:35.548
And in fact, he was the best man at my wedding.

00:04:35.767 --> 00:04:38.872
But Another great player was Ronald Chesney.

00:04:38.891 --> 00:04:40.353
He was terrific.

00:04:40.793 --> 00:04:56.053
Our version of The Flight of the Bumblebee.

00:04:56.774 --> 00:05:02.502
These were all inspirational.

00:05:02.978 --> 00:05:06.461
I sort of made a name as an amateur in those days, in the 50s.

00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:16.430
I was winning competitions regularly and then I entered a competition in London run by Hohner, not dramatic, just jazz, harmonica jazz.

00:05:16.649 --> 00:05:20.512
And I entered several sections of this competition and won them all.

00:05:20.874 --> 00:05:24.697
And Ronald Chesney presented me with cup trophies for each one.

00:05:24.896 --> 00:05:28.940
And there was a big news item came out in the Birmingham papers.

00:05:29.281 --> 00:05:31.802
And from then on, everything started.

00:05:32.122 --> 00:05:34.966
I had music software were ringing me and saying, could you come and teach?

00:05:35.487 --> 00:05:38.329
I've got so many people who want to learn the harmonica.

00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:39.870
I said, I'm not a teacher.

00:05:40.291 --> 00:05:45.697
Anyway, they started me off and I remember the fees that I used to charge.

00:05:46.218 --> 00:05:49.622
It was seven and sixpence for a half hour lesson.

00:05:49.781 --> 00:05:53.326
Five shillings went to me and two and sixpence went to the shop.

00:05:53.786 --> 00:05:57.850
But anyway, it went on from there and I formed Harmonica Band.

00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:08.242
It was barely between four, five or six players and we had terrific fun and none of us had cars, none of us had telephones, but we arranged meetings.

00:06:08.742 --> 00:06:10.884
I used to go on the bus to each other's house.

00:06:11.105 --> 00:06:17.091
Sometimes, if we got together on a bus, we'd play much to the amazement of the passengers.

00:06:17.271 --> 00:06:18.132
It was great fun.

00:06:18.331 --> 00:06:21.776
You don't see that these days, the harmonica band playing on the bus thing.

00:06:22.137 --> 00:06:24.019
No, you wouldn't.

00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:26.380
So that was the five harmonics, wasn't it?

00:06:26.420 --> 00:06:28.283
Your first harmonica band you were in.

00:06:28.603 --> 00:06:29.865
No, the Debonairs.

00:06:29.904 --> 00:06:32.788
And then you were in another one called the Cardinals.

00:06:32.848 --> 00:06:33.208
as well.

00:06:33.629 --> 00:06:36.872
That was the same group, we just changed the name.

00:06:37.293 --> 00:06:47.002
Going back a little bit to, as you say, when you started developing your playing, so I know you mentioned that you played by ear quite a lot to begin with, but then you turned to starting to learn to read music.

00:06:47.242 --> 00:06:50.627
Yes, this is a very big thing in my life.

00:06:50.867 --> 00:06:56.954
I played in the army knowing absolutely nothing about music, but I had an affinity with the harmonica.

00:06:57.173 --> 00:07:36.158
I found I had time to play away, and I played everything in C or D flat, knowing idea there were different scales things like that and I thought I was good because I could play a few tunes well but when I got back to England and met other players I realised I've got to learn something about music and that's when I started and I've been learning about music ever since totally self-taught although I did go and see Tommy Riley for a few sessions who wasn't so much a teacher as a demonstrator an inspirational demonstrator because he was a fantastic player and I wish I could have had a teacher, you know, many years before.

00:07:36.177 --> 00:07:36.238
But

00:07:42.730 --> 00:07:52.850
from

00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:54.973
then, everything developed.

00:07:55.170 --> 00:08:03.456
And the most significant thing I ever did was I went to the BBC and auditioned both as a serious player.

00:08:04.038 --> 00:08:11.024
This was their idea, you know, to have two auditions, one for classical music and one for lighter music, as it were.

00:08:11.283 --> 00:08:15.266
And I passed these auditions and it was as if the floodgates opened.

00:08:15.567 --> 00:08:18.250
The BBC, as if they were waiting for me.

00:08:18.290 --> 00:08:25.016
And I had so much work thrust into a situation where I could play everything and anything, you know.

00:08:25.136 --> 00:08:26.658
It was very demanding.

00:08:26.677 --> 00:08:30.040
I had to give up my job as a street metal worker in a factory.

00:08:30.422 --> 00:08:32.344
I lived at the BBC in Birmingham.

00:08:32.384 --> 00:08:37.870
And I understand, did you open up ITV's channel in Birmingham by playing a song?

00:08:37.889 --> 00:08:39.951
Yes, in ATV that was.

00:08:40.331 --> 00:08:50.842
Tommy Riley was on the programme and a beautiful actress called Hazel Court presented the programme and he invited me to come and play with him a duet.

00:08:51.083 --> 00:08:52.044
It was Blue Moon.

00:08:52.485 --> 00:09:02.054
So I went along and that was my first appearance on and I remember they paid me the magnificent sum of five guineas, which is five pounds, five shillings.

00:09:02.255 --> 00:09:03.417
Was that a lot of money back then?

00:09:03.777 --> 00:09:04.357
It was.

00:09:04.518 --> 00:09:11.525
I mean, a week's work was about eight or nine pounds in those days, so to earn five guineas for one appearance was great.

00:09:11.846 --> 00:09:17.711
Yeah, and so, as you say, you were playing with the BBC, and you were playing with Johnny Patrick.

00:09:17.851 --> 00:09:19.955
Johnny Patrick Quartet, I was part of that.

00:09:20.115 --> 00:09:27.982
He's a great piano jazz player, and he formed the quartet, presented it to the BBC and they accepted the idea.

00:09:28.302 --> 00:09:32.687
And from then on, we were on nearly every day on different programmes.

00:09:33.089 --> 00:09:34.971
And this included the radio as well, didn't it?

00:09:34.990 --> 00:09:36.251
You were on the radio a lot too.

00:09:36.511 --> 00:09:43.460
It's no exaggeration to say I did thousands of broadcasts because from that, I did Johnny Patrick almost every day.

00:09:43.500 --> 00:09:50.947
Then I worked with the Middle and Light Orchestra and then with the Bob Potter Orchestra and then with a pianist called Harold Rich.

00:09:51.548 --> 00:09:53.409
Lots of different combinations.

00:09:53.450 --> 00:10:07.248
And then I started getting phone calls from different producers like could you come on my program come on this I wasn't really ready for it then you know I was totally inexperienced I drifted from this into session work.

00:10:07.609 --> 00:10:08.369
It all developed.

00:10:08.408 --> 00:10:09.830
People began to hear from me.

00:10:09.990 --> 00:10:12.972
I became a very efficient sight reader.

00:10:13.192 --> 00:10:20.299
I was never a sort of solo artist that got up on stage and did concerts and things, but I could read music.

00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:26.004
I got in with loads and loads of sessions in London, backwards and forwards from Birmingham to London.

00:10:26.264 --> 00:10:27.385
I did that many sessions.

00:10:27.405 --> 00:10:31.668
I just didn't know what I was going to do because you never rehearse, you know.

00:10:31.950 --> 00:10:35.894
They just bring you up and say, come do a session and so-and-so studio.

00:10:36.134 --> 00:10:36.794
Off I'd go.

00:10:36.875 --> 00:10:37.897
I didn't know what it was.

00:10:38.037 --> 00:10:39.578
It could be with a full orchestra.

00:10:39.698 --> 00:10:41.041
It could be a film score.

00:10:41.201 --> 00:10:44.787
It could be just me on my own or any combination.

00:10:44.826 --> 00:10:46.328
You never knew until you got there.

00:10:46.469 --> 00:10:49.913
And they just gave you the music and you dealt with it straight away.

00:10:50.095 --> 00:10:58.067
And that's why I kept getting booked because I ended up doing about 200 shows of Last of the Summer Wine, which was a great gig.

00:10:58.086 --> 00:11:03.134
¦

00:11:13.250 --> 00:11:14.572
still getting royalties for that.

00:11:14.871 --> 00:11:22.323
Some of the listeners are from other countries, including quite a few from America, so maybe just explain what lasted the summer while and what kind of show that was.

00:11:22.663 --> 00:11:31.418
It was a sort of light-hearted drama about three old guys wandering around the village and lots of banter, lots of silly situations.

00:11:31.457 --> 00:11:36.666
There was a sick tune and an exit tune and all bits in between.

00:11:36.686 --> 00:11:42.448
And we'd record up to 30 minutes for each session, a session being three hours.

00:11:42.809 --> 00:11:48.096
The great thing about it was that the band, we all had a sort of great feel between us.

00:11:48.336 --> 00:11:49.517
We never rehearsed.

00:11:50.018 --> 00:12:05.735
We never looked at the music until the boss came in, Ronnie Hazelhurst, and we had a sound check, and then we opened our music up on SightReddit, and almost every bit we did was first take, and it was a sort of pride thing, you know, with the orchestra.

00:12:06.115 --> 00:12:07.216
I loved doing that.

00:12:08.033 --> 00:12:38.721
course there were different harmonica players weren't there they would dictate some and Harry Pitch and even Tommy Riley did some as well Tommy Riley did a couple I'll tell you the story of Summer Wine I was booked to do the first one way way back before it became a series it was just a one-off pilot show and I was booked to do it just a few days before I caught a severe dose of bronchitis and I could hardly breathe and never mind play and that's when Harry Pitch was available and they got in on it.

00:12:39.140 --> 00:12:42.945
He did a lot of shows, you know, perhaps half the whole series.

00:12:43.186 --> 00:12:45.048
I think it was about 30 years of it.

00:12:45.288 --> 00:12:50.212
Then, eventually, Ronnie Hazlehurst, he rang me and said, could I do it?

00:12:50.493 --> 00:12:52.414
I did, and that was history.

00:12:53.135 --> 00:12:54.778
As I say, I did about 200 shows.

00:12:54.798 --> 00:12:57.059
Do you know what years you were playing it?

00:12:57.159 --> 00:13:06.750
I did all, I did the last years from about somewhere in 1995, maybe earlier, onwards, right up to the end.

00:13:07.191 --> 00:13:15.899
I've got no record But they're all out there, and these shows are being played everywhere, and on all sorts of TV goals.

00:13:16.321 --> 00:13:21.125
So this level of being able to sight-read is quite a skill, which obviously got you lots of session work.

00:13:21.145 --> 00:13:25.671
How did you develop that level of sight-reading, maybe, for people who are interested in getting to that level of sight-reading?

00:13:25.870 --> 00:13:32.638
I tweaked, as I started working with The Beeb, that I was mixing with high-class musicians all the time.

00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:34.120
Wonderful musicians.

00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:36.503
And I thought, this is a level I've got to get to.

00:13:36.543 --> 00:13:37.884
Never mind harmonica.

00:13:37.903 --> 00:14:15.683
that it's an unusual instrument it's just another musical instrument you know I felt quite inferior to be honest when I started but I knew that I've got to reach their level of competence which is mind-blowing you know gradually I did it I'd practice and practice I spent a fortune on music and I also in the early days I hired a pianist to practice with so that I was always doing something playing all sorts of music playing to the radio which wasn't sight reading but I knew that I'd I've got to learn arpeggios and scales, and I've got to be familiar with them so that I could play in any key without worrying about it.

00:14:16.184 --> 00:14:20.769
So I got myself into this state of competence, if you like.

00:14:20.950 --> 00:14:22.591
It's like any tradesman.

00:14:22.831 --> 00:14:29.178
I think a carpenter wouldn't go out and make a beautiful, fancy cupboard before he could learn to saw or plank the wood.

00:14:29.339 --> 00:14:32.042
You've got to really know what you're doing.

00:14:32.322 --> 00:14:38.735
And with music, the more you understand and the more you get into it, the more you realize you're known Nothing is...

00:14:39.042 --> 00:14:41.663
an art form on a terrifically high level.

00:14:42.245 --> 00:14:44.346
Your chromatic harmonic was your only instrument.

00:14:44.366 --> 00:14:45.648
You didn't learn any other instruments.

00:14:45.847 --> 00:14:47.308
No, my only instrument.

00:14:47.408 --> 00:14:47.990
Good to hear that.

00:14:48.049 --> 00:14:57.638
Lots of people, of course, say it's obviously useful to learn like a chordal instrument like piano or guitar to understand the chords, but you felt you could, you got to a really high standard by just on the chromatic, yeah?

00:14:57.918 --> 00:14:59.078
That's it, really, yeah.

00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:00.660
I mean, what about session work?

00:15:00.681 --> 00:15:03.082
I mean, again, that was the golden era of session work.

00:15:03.102 --> 00:15:04.624
It was wonderful to get in on that.

00:15:04.724 --> 00:15:28.369
That's when I really started to learn because the session guys in the music industry are the real cream you know and they use the best players they could get from any source that came from big named orchestras and I was mixing with musical royalty in a way you know and that's when I absorbed and learned so much from these experiences so I learned my trade as it were.

00:15:28.408 --> 00:15:42.003
Move on from the session work a little bit so we'll talk a little bit about the festivals that you were involved with so in 1987 you organized the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey which which is probably the biggest festival, harmonica festival that's ever been yet.

00:15:42.244 --> 00:15:51.312
Well, previous to that, Hohner used to sponsor a harmonica championship in most countries and eventually a world championship.

00:15:51.413 --> 00:15:52.333
And then they stopped.

00:15:52.654 --> 00:15:59.041
And I represented England on many of these in all different countries all over the world, well, Europe mainly.

00:15:59.422 --> 00:16:04.047
It was a great experience to do that, to meet all the international amateur players.

00:16:04.106 --> 00:16:40.125
But then they stopped doing it and a few years went by and I thought, what a shame that we don't have these harmonica championships and I thought well I was involved at that time in variety agency work I'd opened an agency and I was doing some work in Jersey on the island of Jersey I got together with a business associate over there called Delaney put the idea to him why don't we do a harmonica championship a harmonica festival here in Jersey and he agreed it was a good idea and we got together formed a company called Del Hughes that was two years prior to the actual event.

00:16:40.645 --> 00:16:44.789
And I then set about trying to advertise this forthcoming event.

00:16:45.250 --> 00:16:49.394
Did a bit of traveling, went to America, did a bit of interest there.

00:16:49.414 --> 00:16:51.417
Anyway, it's all costing money.

00:16:51.456 --> 00:16:57.384
At the end of the day, we put the festival on and we had about 33 countries involved.

00:16:57.803 --> 00:17:00.067
And ITV got interested in it.

00:17:00.386 --> 00:17:01.548
And we had a few meetings.

00:17:01.908 --> 00:17:03.931
Cable television had just come out then.

00:17:04.090 --> 00:17:39.008
And they said, we'd like to record this and put it out as like a fly on the wall documentary and I said great terrific from then on we were working towards this end and we had several meetings and I was looking for a sponsor and I got Listerine got involved said yeah we'll sponsor it the mouthwash company Listerine that's it wow yeah good for the harmonica yeah yeah so anyway it had to come through an agent but the ICV took it to Cannes where they have the film festival and I didn't know that they also they could put all sorts of ideas for would.

00:17:39.228 --> 00:17:40.950
Nobody was interested in cans.

00:17:41.191 --> 00:17:47.798
You know, they thought they were going to get, as it was going out on cable, that there'd be some interest, but there wasn't.

00:17:48.038 --> 00:17:50.440
So IJV dropped their interest.

00:17:50.760 --> 00:17:55.586
Listerine said, well, if it's not going to go out on television, we're not interested anymore.

00:17:55.786 --> 00:17:56.547
They dropped out.

00:17:56.586 --> 00:18:00.391
This was nearly a couple of months before it was actually going to happen.

00:18:00.611 --> 00:18:04.214
And we ended up with the most wonderful event that ever happened.

00:18:04.295 --> 00:18:07.057
It lasted a week, and we lost 100 grand.

00:18:07.979 --> 00:18:08.420
Wow.

00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:09.180
The company.

00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:11.923
I was penniless at the end of that.

00:18:12.143 --> 00:18:14.365
But, you know, your life picks up again.

00:18:14.685 --> 00:18:17.028
My wife got a good temp job.

00:18:17.368 --> 00:18:21.613
I intensified my teaching and did everything I could, you know.

00:18:21.712 --> 00:18:24.194
Gradually built everything back up again.

00:18:24.415 --> 00:18:24.976
Well, well done.

00:18:24.996 --> 00:18:26.778
That's quite a financial hit for you.

00:18:26.857 --> 00:18:28.279
So there's YouTube clips.

00:18:28.740 --> 00:18:32.063
There's a great YouTube clip of some of the recordings and it's got you playing.

00:18:32.344 --> 00:18:32.844
It's all...

00:18:48.834 --> 00:18:50.722
It's got Larry Adler playing.

00:18:50.864 --> 00:18:52.792
It's got Tom O'Reilly playing.

00:18:52.873 --> 00:18:55.365
It's got the harmonic arts playing, Peg of My Heart.

00:18:57.232 --> 00:18:57.374
Oh, yeah.

00:19:11.842 --> 00:19:42.769
got the Adler Trio we had all those on yeah that's when I met the wonderful Drew Adler he heads the Adler Trio but now he's gone on his own but he's a fantastic player and he plays all the harmonicas bass chords a lot and he has produced a recording which took him years and years to make where he plays every instrument and it's all heavy I say heavy it's all difficult classical music it's absolutely fantastic it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard it's mindful line what he does.

00:19:58.945 --> 00:19:59.727
Terrific guy.

00:19:59.926 --> 00:20:02.909
See, this is another wonderful thing about music business.

00:20:02.949 --> 00:20:05.372
You meet some good people, really nice people.

00:20:05.811 --> 00:20:10.256
Through Know and Draw, you went on to set up a festival in Israel, didn't you, in 1990?

00:20:10.336 --> 00:20:10.895
Oh, yeah.

00:20:10.935 --> 00:20:15.881
They invited me to go to Israel to advise them about having a harmonica festival.

00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:23.788
And I ended up going there four consecutive years and actually teaching at the conservatoire in Beersheba.

00:20:24.107 --> 00:20:25.888
And that was a nice experience.

00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:31.967
Mainly Russian immigrants because Israelis is made up of every nationality in the world.

00:20:31.987 --> 00:20:33.875
And there's a lot of Russian musicians.

00:20:34.337 --> 00:20:36.380
and they wanted to learn the harmonica.

00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:38.801
They already played mostly accordion.

00:20:38.961 --> 00:20:42.625
So I used to give sessions there and demonstrations and things.

00:20:42.644 --> 00:20:44.507
I had a really nice time in Israel.

00:20:44.826 --> 00:20:46.749
Music is very important to them.

00:20:46.989 --> 00:20:49.871
There was a festival there, wasn't there, for one year as well in 1990?

00:20:50.132 --> 00:20:51.772
We had a festival.

00:20:52.093 --> 00:20:58.499
As a result of the 1987 Jersey Festival, is it right that that's what started Trottingen running in Germany?

00:20:59.038 --> 00:20:59.480
Ah, yeah.

00:20:59.619 --> 00:21:07.567
They were quite pleased that I'd done this and they got me to organise and I was the next one in Trossingen, which was a couple of years later.

00:21:07.607 --> 00:21:30.372
That was a terrific success, and the sails of our monikers shot through the roof, and the manager there, he was absolutely over the moon, and we had a talk while I was there, and he said, I'd like you to continue with this, and you can run the whole thing, the world festival, forever, you know, and I thought, God, I'm landing myself a nice little job here, and he died.

00:21:30.412 --> 00:21:32.773
He had a heart attack and died, and that was it.

00:21:32.794 --> 00:21:35.958
At the end of my connection with Homer.

00:21:36.218 --> 00:21:40.261
You know, an opportunity gained and then lost in an instant.

00:21:40.482 --> 00:21:40.722
Wow.

00:21:41.222 --> 00:21:48.411
But again, you know, I think a lot of people wouldn't appreciate that, you know, what you did in 87 there was a forerunner for Trossingen, which is a very well-known festival.

00:21:48.671 --> 00:21:49.192
Oh, yes.

00:21:49.311 --> 00:21:51.534
So, yeah, your legacy is definitely there from that.

00:21:51.855 --> 00:21:52.695
Yeah, it is.

00:21:52.715 --> 00:21:58.561
Apparently, they've got quite a little stand featuring me in their museum in Trossingen.

00:21:59.323 --> 00:22:05.509
And also, I noticed in Jersey in the video, you're presented with a nice large plaque for your efforts for organizing.

00:22:05.548 --> 00:22:07.431
Have you still got that plaque at home there?

00:22:07.692 --> 00:22:09.413
Yeah, I think it must be somewhere.

00:22:09.894 --> 00:22:14.818
But going back to working as a session man, you get lovely opportunities.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:24.470
I had a friend who'll say there's a guy in Berlin who's doing a documentary film and he's using guitar, harmonica, and violin.

00:22:24.650 --> 00:22:25.891
So I got booked to do that.

00:22:25.931 --> 00:22:28.153
And he said, but it's not in Berlin.

00:22:28.193 --> 00:22:29.934
He's got a studio in Mallorca.

00:22:30.096 --> 00:22:31.356
So I thought, oh, that's a shame.

00:22:31.557 --> 00:22:33.298
Anyway, flew off to Mallorca.

00:22:33.679 --> 00:22:35.141
We worked in his studio.

00:22:35.580 --> 00:22:38.763
And then I met a guy called Richard Wright.

00:22:39.163 --> 00:22:41.086
And Richard is a wonderful guy.

00:22:41.125 --> 00:22:43.448
He plays guitar really well.

00:22:44.048 --> 00:22:45.589
And he's on the top session then.

00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:50.394
And our association there led to him arranging this music for me.

00:22:50.413 --> 00:22:51.835
And we did a record.

00:22:52.175 --> 00:22:53.517
It was all chamber music.

00:22:53.676 --> 00:22:56.318
Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schubert.

00:22:56.599 --> 00:22:58.922
And this is a record called Pari Passu.

00:23:21.826 --> 00:23:25.785
began a nice association for him to take the trouble to arrange all that.

00:23:25.964 --> 00:23:27.713
So I did a lot of work for this guy.

00:23:27.733 --> 00:23:30.085
His name is Arpad Bondi.

00:23:30.498 --> 00:23:37.384
He made documentary films, but he was also a great musician and composer, and he composed all the music for his films.

00:23:37.624 --> 00:23:42.828
He used to send for me regularly on different projects he was doing, television shows.

00:23:43.108 --> 00:23:49.433
And I said to him once, he got all these harmonica players in Germany, and he paid for me to come from England.

00:23:49.453 --> 00:23:51.296
He said, no, you're the one I want.

00:23:52.037 --> 00:23:55.680
Talking about that album a little bit more, it's a classical album, which is great.

00:23:55.700 --> 00:23:58.903
There's Schubert, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Gordon Jacob on there.

00:23:58.923 --> 00:24:41.525
So it's a great, really high quality album as well some fantastic playing by all the musicians not only your own playing it's a great album you see there you go this is the girl on there who played viola she's a top session musician wonderful musician as you can hear on the record her viola playing is something else And, well, a couple of the songs do the cradle song, which is a beautiful one from Jacob.

00:24:41.786 --> 00:24:42.287
Oh, yeah.

00:24:42.728 --> 00:24:45.755
That was the one that was sort of out of context with the record.

00:24:46.135 --> 00:24:48.981
Everything else was done by Richard Wright.

00:24:49.282 --> 00:24:50.265
He arranged it all.

00:24:50.405 --> 00:24:53.854
And then we added on this three to five pieces of Gordon Jacob.

00:25:17.602 --> 00:25:19.269
So yeah, talking through a few of your CDs.

00:25:19.631 --> 00:25:23.989
I did one earlier where I recorded music by James Moody.

00:25:40.450 --> 00:25:42.852
So quite a few Irish songs on there as well, aren't there?

00:25:43.173 --> 00:25:45.054
Well, James Moody was...

00:25:45.515 --> 00:25:50.400
He came into the harmonica scene as a BBC accompanist to Tommy Riley.

00:25:50.619 --> 00:25:58.708
When Tommy was working for the BBC, he got together with James, and James was like a resident appearing on all sorts of programmes.

00:25:58.928 --> 00:26:00.710
And he played a lot of ragtime music.

00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:01.810
He played everything.

00:26:02.151 --> 00:26:09.317
I could talk for hours about James Moody, but he got together with Tommy and realised there was no repertoire for the harmonica.

00:26:09.665 --> 00:26:16.663
So he started writing for it, and he wrote some wonderful stuff, including the amazing Toledo.

00:26:16.702 --> 00:26:21.673
It's like almost every harmonica player wants to play Toledo.

00:26:21.713 --> 00:26:22.998
Wonderful piece.

00:26:23.490 --> 00:26:26.034
When he died, I got to know him quite well.

00:26:26.474 --> 00:26:33.826
When he died, he left all his unpublished compositions to me to do with what I wanted, you know.

00:26:34.006 --> 00:26:34.807
So I got them all.

00:26:34.886 --> 00:26:39.213
They were all written in pencil, you know, and not exactly too clear.

00:26:39.493 --> 00:26:43.480
But I wrote them all out again by hand, believe it or not.

00:26:43.861 --> 00:26:49.789
I had been doing a bit of copying for the BBC, which made me a bit adept at copying music.

00:26:50.145 --> 00:27:04.105
But then I loaded them all out by hand, and then I bought a computer and got this music system called Sibelius, which most people will know about.

00:27:04.345 --> 00:27:14.478
I did them all again on Sibelius and realized I got some nicely presented music copies, so I started selling them to the harmonica fraternity.

00:27:14.939 --> 00:27:20.125
Yeah, I've got some of those James Weedy pieces I bought from you, so I've got some of those Irish...

00:27:24.930 --> 00:27:42.615
You also had John Brassington playing one of your students, wasn't he?

00:27:42.835 --> 00:27:44.958
He plays a duet with you on that one.

00:27:45.122 --> 00:27:48.409
Johnny Brassington, yeah, he was a good student.

00:27:48.509 --> 00:27:52.297
He was with me for years until he finally went to Australia.

00:27:52.577 --> 00:27:53.680
But he was a wonderful player.

00:27:54.141 --> 00:27:57.067
He was really, really very good.

00:27:57.307 --> 00:28:00.173
As you can hear on the record, you know, a very competent player.

00:28:27.362 --> 00:28:29.989
In fact, you've got me thinking about students.

00:28:30.289 --> 00:28:34.320
Julian Jackson, he's a player, a very nice jazz player.

00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:36.185
I've got a lot of time for him.

00:28:36.246 --> 00:28:43.806
I think he's a great guy.

00:28:57.442 --> 00:28:59.845
Adam Glasser was with me through time.

00:29:00.085 --> 00:29:03.849
Philip O'Shield, of course, you know, the phenomenon, Philip.

00:29:04.411 --> 00:29:07.074
Incredible to get a guy like him to teach.

00:29:07.434 --> 00:29:08.736
He was with me from the age of 11.

00:29:08.896 --> 00:29:10.638
He plays anything.

00:29:10.858 --> 00:29:12.981
Now he's into jazz in a big way.

00:29:13.001 --> 00:29:14.483
He's got his own band now.

00:29:14.844 --> 00:29:19.390
Yeah, I saw Philip playing with his band a year or two back, so I went to see him play in London, yeah.

00:29:33.857 --> 00:29:36.359
You got involved, didn't you, in some of the music colleges here.

00:29:36.539 --> 00:29:41.765
You held the professorship of harmonica at Guildhall's Guild of Music when you were helping Julian out there, didn't you?

00:29:42.164 --> 00:29:42.526
Yes.

00:29:43.006 --> 00:29:45.528
It all came about sort of by default.

00:29:45.847 --> 00:29:48.851
It wasn't that I approached a college and they employed me.

00:29:49.171 --> 00:29:50.352
I still work from home.

00:29:50.653 --> 00:29:57.077
It was the fact that my pupils went on to attend music colleges and they had to find a teacher.

00:29:57.238 --> 00:29:58.720
And they said, well, there weren't any.

00:29:58.859 --> 00:30:02.522
So they said, well, you'll have to continue with your former teacher, which was me.

00:30:02.563 --> 00:30:03.824
And that's how I got involved.

00:30:03.824 --> 00:30:05.711
I got on our books as a teacher.

00:30:06.032 --> 00:30:10.491
With Philip, he went to the Royal College of Music in London.

00:30:10.792 --> 00:30:12.820
They had to do two instruments and he took...

00:30:13.153 --> 00:30:44.020
saxophone and harmonica saxophone as a principal instrument and as again he wanted to continue with me as his teacher they said okay we'll appoint you as his teacher and you can become in effect a professor of harmonica which I thought was rather nice and I didn't have to do anything except just be told that that was it and then the great thing was that they rang me after he'd been there a few weeks and they said we realise that his principal instrument is not the saxophone to harmonica.

00:30:44.421 --> 00:30:48.846
So now you are really a professor of harmonica.

00:30:49.145 --> 00:30:51.229
And welcome to the fraternity.

00:30:51.469 --> 00:30:54.011
And I put my feet up.

00:30:54.031 --> 00:30:54.491
Fantastic.

00:30:55.712 --> 00:30:57.715
But Philip is phenomenal.

00:30:58.195 --> 00:31:05.364
It's unusual, and you won't mind me saying this, unusual to teach because he never asked a question.

00:31:05.443 --> 00:31:06.125
Can you imagine that?

00:31:06.484 --> 00:31:10.409
If you're teaching somebody, they'll ask you about something.

00:31:10.669 --> 00:31:14.012
Never ask the question in all your that I taught him.

00:31:14.253 --> 00:31:15.035
It obviously worked for him.

00:31:15.394 --> 00:31:19.320
It really worked, yeah, because he did what I asked him to do, you know.

00:31:19.560 --> 00:31:21.263
We got really deep into music.

00:31:21.805 --> 00:31:24.268
So, yeah, there's more CDs you've got out there.

00:31:24.327 --> 00:31:25.529
There's one with Paul Lewis.

00:31:25.569 --> 00:31:28.193
I started working for Paul Lewis on television.

00:31:28.574 --> 00:31:37.186
He was inspired enough to go away and write a complete album for me, you know, and that's all on that recording, which I'm very proud of.

00:31:37.287 --> 00:31:39.390
I think there's some nice stuff on there.

00:31:44.162 --> 00:32:01.070
So that's called serenade and dance.

00:32:01.372 --> 00:32:02.554
Serenade and dance.

00:32:02.614 --> 00:32:02.815
Yeah.

00:32:03.075 --> 00:32:07.643
So again, composed for the harmonica, and you've got nice strings on there, so nice arrangements.

00:32:07.843 --> 00:32:09.266
Yeah, we've got harp.

00:32:09.634 --> 00:32:11.057
strings, piano.

00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:13.244
Yeah, that's it.

00:32:13.286 --> 00:32:15.772
So there's a duet with a harp, which is really nice.

00:32:16.295 --> 00:32:22.334
T for three.

00:32:42.145 --> 00:32:49.134
And then after that, in 2007, you released an album, mainly a sort of jazz swing called The Taste of Summer Wine.

00:32:49.954 --> 00:32:50.375
Ah, yes.

00:32:51.056 --> 00:33:01.989
That was with the musicians from the Summer Wine band, led by Pat Hallings, who was the lead violinist, and his son, a singer called Carl Hallings.

00:33:02.329 --> 00:33:08.229
He and I were talking one day, and I said, I want to make a record called Perhaps you could get involved in a string quartet.

00:33:08.569 --> 00:33:12.134
And he said, well, I want to do a recording with my son singing.

00:33:12.494 --> 00:33:15.239
And from that came this record.

00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:19.826
All we did was standards, old standards, you know, the good old stuff.

00:33:20.066 --> 00:33:22.028
It's only the thing you've been able to swing.

00:33:35.713 --> 00:33:45.365
I think the result was quite nice.

00:33:45.746 --> 00:33:53.434
We got Ronnie Hazlehurst to write something for us, The Yorkshire Tale, which is lovely writing, beautiful writing.

00:33:53.734 --> 00:33:58.601
It's a medley of sort of English folk tunes, including the theme from Summer White.

00:34:02.746 --> 00:34:09.469
MUSIC Thank you.

00:34:17.634 --> 00:34:22.141
So this album, Taste of Summer Wine, you wanted to play some sort of swing jazz stuff, yeah?

00:34:22.221 --> 00:34:24.764
That's a genre you've been interested in for a long time.

00:34:24.844 --> 00:34:27.389
I love playing in that style, yeah, I love that.

00:34:27.730 --> 00:34:30.635
It's got a bit of a feel, I think, for swing, you know?

00:34:30.675 --> 00:34:36.945
While I'm not a great improviser, I have a go, you know, but I can play in a swingy way.

00:34:37.264 --> 00:34:38.666
Yeah, I love that sort of music.

00:34:38.947 --> 00:34:43.054
So is the playing on this from Rissa Music, or were you improvising on there too?

00:34:43.394 --> 00:34:45.077
No, it's all arranged.

00:34:45.442 --> 00:34:47.485
Every note is arranged.

00:34:47.846 --> 00:34:49.748
So did you sight-read that when you recorded it?

00:34:50.048 --> 00:34:50.329
Yes.

00:34:51.251 --> 00:34:52.353
That's all sight-reading.

00:34:52.753 --> 00:34:55.838
All the jazz phrases, which I learned when I worked with Johnny Patrick.

00:34:56.219 --> 00:35:03.469
He used to write everything out, and that's when I really learned about reading rhythm and getting the feel right.

00:35:04.652 --> 00:35:06.735
It was wonderful to have that experience.

00:35:07.155 --> 00:35:09.199
I wonder, do you have those arrangements still?

00:35:09.478 --> 00:35:11.422
Yeah, I think Pat Alling would have them.

00:35:11.617 --> 00:35:15.724
Because he ended up making it his project rather than mine.

00:35:15.764 --> 00:35:21.715
So I just became not the producer of the record, I became a player on the recording.

00:35:22.096 --> 00:35:23.297
Yeah, it's a great album.

00:35:23.318 --> 00:35:24.039
Yeah, some great stuff.

00:35:24.059 --> 00:35:29.949
I'm good to hear you playing that genre.

00:35:43.458 --> 00:35:47.146
And then you did another recording of Christmas songs with Rob Jansen.

00:35:47.847 --> 00:35:48.869
Oh, my goodness, yeah.

00:35:49.150 --> 00:35:50.413
That's a long time ago.

00:35:51.376 --> 00:35:53.239
That was done for America.

00:35:54.181 --> 00:35:55.864
Snowflake Records, I think it was.

00:35:56.289 --> 00:36:02.059
And all this guy produced was Christmas albums featuring different combinations of instruments.

00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:07.648
Well, I'd done an earlier one for him with a proper band, and then he got the idea of doing...

00:36:08.248 --> 00:36:10.251
Well, I offered it to him.

00:36:10.333 --> 00:36:12.356
I said, why don't you do one with Harmonica Band?

00:36:12.817 --> 00:36:18.445
Which we did, and I got Ivan Richards, who's another pupil of mine, a former champion, very fine player.

00:36:18.882 --> 00:36:26.057
Well, I got him, myself, and then we hadn't got a proper, decent sight-reading bass and chord player.

00:36:26.418 --> 00:36:33.153
So I got in touch with Robbie Anson, and we got him and his bass player to come across from Holland.

00:36:33.538 --> 00:36:35.860
And that was the result, yeah.

00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:37.282
That was a nice recording.

00:36:37.782 --> 00:36:40.186
And they're part of Fata Magana now, is that right?

00:36:40.306 --> 00:36:41.347
Fata Magana, yeah.

00:36:41.827 --> 00:36:41.987
Yeah.

00:36:42.128 --> 00:36:46.713
Who, I should add, is, I think, one of the finest harmonica groups ever.

00:36:47.454 --> 00:36:48.155
They are terrific.

00:37:00.110 --> 00:37:00.190
Yeah.

00:37:20.865 --> 00:37:37.498
another thing I think as a BBC thing you took part in the John Barry concerts that was at the Royal Albert Hall and played all John Barry's compositions film compositions and I actually met him there and I did the Midnight Cowboy That's nice.

00:37:37.539 --> 00:37:38.920
That's a nice thing to do.

00:37:39.239 --> 00:37:42.163
Phil did the original on the film.

00:37:42.603 --> 00:37:43.583
The amazing two.

00:37:44.043 --> 00:37:48.668
And a recent concert you had last year was your 90th birthday party, Jim.

00:37:48.728 --> 00:37:50.369
So congratulations on that.

00:37:50.550 --> 00:37:57.195
And then you got a few guests to come over and come with the people you'd mentioned there, Rob Jansen, Drew Radler, Philip DeShield.

00:37:57.215 --> 00:38:00.719
Well, the thing was, it was never meant to be a harmonica thing, ever.

00:38:01.039 --> 00:38:06.704
I mean, I just happened to be talking to Drew Radler on the phone, and it was just mentioned that I was...

00:38:06.704 --> 00:38:08.427
I was going to be 90 that year.

00:38:08.728 --> 00:38:11.675
He said, are you having a party or just a family thing?

00:38:11.896 --> 00:38:16.067
It wasn't meant to be anything to do with harmonica, just friends and family.

00:38:16.367 --> 00:38:18.753
And before I knew it, he said, I'm coming over.

00:38:19.233 --> 00:38:22.978
And then he announced, Rob Jansen's coming over as well.

00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:26.405
And I really couldn't refuse that.

00:38:26.585 --> 00:38:30.429
So they came, and of course, Philip was there, and they did a little session.

00:38:30.990 --> 00:38:31.952
And that was good.

00:38:32.112 --> 00:38:34.076
And I played a couple of tunes, and that was it.

00:38:34.295 --> 00:38:36.920
So still playing well at the grand old Edge of Ninety?

00:38:37.380 --> 00:38:39.744
Yeah, and the Over the Rainbow.

00:38:40.344 --> 00:38:44.972
I made an arrangement of that, featuring three tunes from the film.

00:38:45.291 --> 00:38:46.494
Quite pleased with that.

00:38:49.601 --> 00:38:50.045
Bye.

00:39:47.969 --> 00:39:50.311
You played in quite a lot of ensemble groups in the 50s.

00:39:50.652 --> 00:39:57.420
And you actually ran an ensemble group for several years where you had quite a harmonica orchestra.

00:39:57.440 --> 00:39:57.599
Yeah.

00:39:58.119 --> 00:40:01.844
I organized the Harmonica Orchestra of Great Britain.

00:40:02.045 --> 00:40:05.148
And at one time, we had as many as 20-odd players.

00:40:05.608 --> 00:40:09.873
Mainly my pupils got them together to keep the interest going, you know.

00:40:14.958 --> 00:40:15.038
Yeah.

00:40:28.865 --> 00:40:32.454
The difficulty is getting bass players and chord players.

00:40:32.894 --> 00:40:35.340
The Hotter Trio were amazing.

00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:45.501
We're going back to the 50s now, and their bass player was just mind-blowing.

00:41:01.826 --> 00:41:09.612
We're talking a bit now about your playing style, and obviously we've talked about your sight reading, but one thing you always get, Jim, is fantastic tone.

00:41:09.693 --> 00:41:12.614
So, let me talk about how you developed your tone.

00:41:12.976 --> 00:41:18.179
That was something I set out to do quite deliberately, because everybody's got their own sound.

00:41:18.219 --> 00:41:24.626
Every harmonica player, and all the top pros, you can know immediately, you know, that so-and-so, so-and-so.

00:41:25.025 --> 00:41:31.391
As I was learning to play, I was doing hours and hours of practice, and I found some notes sounded beautiful.

00:41:31.411 --> 00:41:35.043
I I usually play it in the bathroom, by the way, for the resonance.

00:41:35.947 --> 00:41:38.836
And some notes are beautiful and some weren't.

00:41:39.233 --> 00:41:43.898
So I thought, well, I've got to develop an overall quality of sound.

00:41:44.197 --> 00:41:45.498
And that's what I worked on.

00:41:45.780 --> 00:41:51.885
You know, I did it by thinking about the pressure of the wind pressure and the embouchure.

00:41:51.905 --> 00:41:57.510
And gradually I began to develop this universal sound, if you like, as I played.

00:41:57.550 --> 00:41:59.431
So it was always the same.

00:41:59.452 --> 00:42:02.693
And I got rid of hand vibrato totally.

00:42:03.135 --> 00:42:05.277
And I was in for a while.

00:42:05.317 --> 00:42:09.199
I played with an intense throat vibrato.

00:42:09.199 --> 00:42:13.625
which was way back, which was quite a disgusting sound to me.

00:42:13.824 --> 00:42:18.650
It was just too intense, too over the top, and it flattened the notes as I played.

00:42:18.911 --> 00:42:24.418
So I had to develop something that was partially that, partially the shape of my mouth.

00:42:24.717 --> 00:42:31.425
But I found that the softer I played and the more relaxed I was, the better the sound.

00:42:31.746 --> 00:42:39.972
And I had to sort of forget about volume altogether and just play in a natural way but very easily.

00:42:40.012 --> 00:42:43.076
I'll tell you what it's akin to, singing.

00:42:43.096 --> 00:42:48.884
If you sing, you sing in a way that you want to express emotion or whatever.

00:42:48.923 --> 00:42:55.873
And I applied the same sort of attack on the reed as I would if I was singing.

00:42:56.313 --> 00:43:04.726
Over years, and literally years, I've developed this sound, which I know is quite distinctive, and I'm quite proud of it.

00:43:05.121 --> 00:43:09.474
Yeah, you talk about playing soft, but you do get also quite a big loud sound out of it as well, don't you?

00:43:09.494 --> 00:43:11.440
I suppose I do, yeah.

00:43:11.742 --> 00:43:18.061
I suppose I'm thinking more of as you practice, you know, not to go over the top, to take it easy.

00:43:18.626 --> 00:43:31.007
You know, things develop, and it's hard to say exactly how you do it, but it's experimentation and becoming aware to be able to sort of stand outside yourself and listen to yourself.

00:43:31.507 --> 00:43:39.280
Because as you're playing, the sound that you hear is quite different to the sound you hear if you're listening to yourself from a distance.

00:43:39.762 --> 00:43:44.009
And so it just developed, and I'm very pleased with it, because there's too much...

00:43:44.449 --> 00:43:49.940
Han Vibrato and too much folk vibrato still goes on from amateur players.

00:43:49.980 --> 00:43:51.362
I'll give you an insight.

00:43:51.382 --> 00:43:58.255
I'm going to talk about somebody that I admired so much, that Frans Knell from Austria.

00:43:58.295 --> 00:43:59.536
He's dead now.

00:43:59.577 --> 00:44:01.820
He's a very young guy, and he died.

00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:07.150
His technique, and I would advise you to look him up on YouTube.

00:44:07.431 --> 00:44:08.632
You won't believe what you hear.

00:44:09.153 --> 00:44:17.322
But going back to the sound, he developed a technique as clean and as beautiful as you could imagine until he got on to his long note.

00:44:17.442 --> 00:44:19.023
And we had to play a long note.

00:44:19.403 --> 00:44:21.105
He put too much vibrato on it.

00:44:21.224 --> 00:44:22.045
It didn't work.

00:44:22.447 --> 00:44:25.168
He did like the Mozart clarinet concerto.

00:44:25.188 --> 00:44:46.730
¦Technically, it's quite a challenging instrument, isn't it?

00:44:46.750 --> 00:44:53.199
Well, this legato playing is on that serenade and dance, Paul Lewis's composition.

00:44:53.519 --> 00:45:01.052
This transition from a blow note to a draw note and making it sound as if it's one breath, did a lot of work on that.

00:45:01.452 --> 00:45:07.322
And I learned a lot about playing in that play from Tommy Riley, who was a great technician.

00:45:07.362 --> 00:45:10.005
This is one of the most difficult things to do.

00:45:10.045 --> 00:45:17.460
Talking about difficulties on the harmonica, The big stumbling block is the position of the note C.

00:45:17.481 --> 00:45:21.266
I mean, the C in hole 4 and then hole 5 and then hole 8 and 9.

00:45:21.608 --> 00:45:25.393
And then again, you've got your B sharp on draw 4 and draw 8.

00:45:25.795 --> 00:45:26.856
I had to get over that.

00:45:26.936 --> 00:45:31.623
That gave me a hell of a lot of trouble when I was really practicing scales.

00:45:32.144 --> 00:45:38.213
And each time you came to this bridge passage over the note C, it presented its own little problem.

00:45:38.655 --> 00:45:42.793
How you approached it, how you left it, I developed a general rule.

00:45:42.913 --> 00:45:45.556
I had to think about this and work on it a lot.

00:45:45.996 --> 00:45:49.039
Because players always said to me, which C do I play?

00:45:49.121 --> 00:45:50.081
Which C do I play?

00:45:50.161 --> 00:45:54.106
Some place, the high C on the way up, low C on the way down.

00:45:54.126 --> 00:45:54.867
I didn't know that.

00:45:55.307 --> 00:45:55.889
It doesn't work.

00:45:56.389 --> 00:46:03.197
I found that playing in hole five all the time, with a few exceptions, of course, was the best way to go.

00:46:03.239 --> 00:46:05.742
So that the C, I always...

00:46:06.081 --> 00:46:11.635
knew that the note in the same hole as C was going to rise like C to D.

00:46:12.117 --> 00:46:22.302
And the only thing on the harmonica, as you know, where the draw note is lower than the blow note, is in hole 4, 4 and 8, which makes it a strange thing.

00:46:22.498 --> 00:46:24.701
physical thing, always through me.

00:46:24.961 --> 00:46:30.951
So I find now that the scene I'll afford is the least played note on my harmonica.

00:46:31.192 --> 00:46:34.396
You have to know where you are, and especially at that point.

00:46:34.836 --> 00:46:40.365
A question I ask each time, Jim, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend that 10 minutes doing?

00:46:40.425 --> 00:46:44.552
Or if you were advising someone else to practice for 10 minutes, what would you spend 10 minutes doing?

00:46:45.032 --> 00:46:50.621
I'd play scales, I'd play slowly, and I'd play it off as you heard.

00:46:50.945 --> 00:46:56.038
I've written a couple of good exercise books which demonstrate a lot of things that I do.

00:46:56.418 --> 00:46:57.782
Yeah, I was going to mention those.

00:46:57.882 --> 00:47:03.134
So again, I've got those two books and I use them certainly for quite a lot of time and I do return to them periodically.

00:47:03.233 --> 00:47:10.110
So lots of great exercises around scales and I think a little bit based on Jerry Corker's famous book around patterns for jazz, isn't it?

00:47:10.498 --> 00:47:13.163
Yeah, this is a general, this is in book two.

00:47:13.204 --> 00:47:22.141
This is a general sort of standard idea of practice for jazz players, which means that whatever you do, you've got to do it in every key.

00:47:22.461 --> 00:47:28.474
And if you play an arpeggio, then play it again in another key and then in another key and keep changing key.

00:47:28.855 --> 00:47:31.681
That's going up one scale, down another scale.

00:47:32.161 --> 00:47:37.929
It certainly helped me a lot to get away from, you know, just playing in C, which, of course, lots of chromatic players are guilty of doing.

00:47:37.969 --> 00:47:40.632
And you said when you started out, you know, that's something you did as well.

00:47:40.652 --> 00:47:41.873
Absolutely.

00:47:41.954 --> 00:47:43.715
I mean, because I didn't know any difference.

00:47:43.916 --> 00:47:49.182
See, not knowing about music, not understanding quite what I should have done.

00:47:49.222 --> 00:47:56.483
I feel that although I played by ear for five years and sort of learned it, a sort of basic technique.

00:47:57.105 --> 00:48:00.869
I wasted that time when I could have been studying music.

00:48:01.251 --> 00:48:02.713
So everything's been late for me.

00:48:03.353 --> 00:48:04.094
Late developer.

00:48:04.474 --> 00:48:06.396
At least you didn't waste time playing computer games.

00:48:07.418 --> 00:48:11.043
So if we can just move on to the last section now.

00:48:11.063 --> 00:48:14.067
This is where I talk a little bit about equipment and things.

00:48:14.128 --> 00:48:15.889
So first of all, what harmonica...

00:48:16.130 --> 00:48:21.514
almost exclusively played the Hohner 270, 12-hole.

00:48:21.534 --> 00:48:23.416
I can't play the 16-hole.

00:48:23.536 --> 00:48:24.697
It doesn't fit with me.

00:48:25.157 --> 00:48:30.543
And then I got on to the silver concerto harmonica, which Tommy Riley developed.

00:48:30.722 --> 00:48:34.706
I think it cost me about£170 to buy at that time.

00:48:34.965 --> 00:48:36.327
And now there are 1,000.

00:48:36.527 --> 00:48:41.952
And then I inherited laterally the polystat, developed by George Polystat.

00:48:42.293 --> 00:48:56.146
Beautiful instrument, grossly overpriced at£5,000 and I never bought one but I did inherit one from Bill Stewart who in turn he'd inherited one from somebody he repaired for.

00:48:56.626 --> 00:49:02.813
I often wonder about paying that much for chromatics because in a way chromatics aren't really supposed to last forever are they?

00:49:02.853 --> 00:49:13.105
There's sort of reeds where you can retune them but it might be better that you replace them rather than spending so much so did you find that very expensive harmonica did last and was superior for a long time?

00:49:13.184 --> 00:49:23.456
Well it did last it was quite good but The best harmonica as regards lasting and creeping in tune is the Seidel with stainless steel reeds.

00:49:23.675 --> 00:49:24.277
I've got one.

00:49:24.336 --> 00:49:27.619
It's the latest one I bought about three or four years ago.

00:49:27.659 --> 00:49:29.081
I've got it on the internet.

00:49:29.101 --> 00:49:30.163
It's never been tuned.

00:49:30.342 --> 00:49:32.965
It's absolutely in tune all the time.

00:49:33.246 --> 00:49:35.568
It's a Seidel, and it cost me 200 quid.

00:49:35.929 --> 00:49:37.090
It's really amazing.

00:49:37.311 --> 00:49:39.974
Yeah, I know that stainless steel reeds are interesting, aren't they?

00:49:40.014 --> 00:49:42.295
They were developed by Doug Tate.

00:49:42.556 --> 00:49:46.000
He did the Renaissance, and he used stainless steel reeds.

00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:48.702
Crusadel did make a version of the Renaissance, didn't they?

00:49:49.043 --> 00:49:49.483
That's it.

00:49:49.664 --> 00:49:52.567
That's where the stainless steel came from, as far as I know.

00:49:52.586 --> 00:49:55.650
I may be wrong, but that's the impression I've got.

00:49:55.690 --> 00:49:59.974
That's not the model Crusadel you're talking about, because they were much more expensive, weren't they?

00:49:59.994 --> 00:50:00.074
Yeah.

00:50:00.094 --> 00:50:02.597
The Renaissance, I could never get to grips with.

00:50:02.777 --> 00:50:03.980
I hated that, to be honest.

00:50:04.460 --> 00:50:04.840
Oh, really?

00:50:05.081 --> 00:50:05.561
Okay.

00:50:05.722 --> 00:50:07.583
I really hated that instrument.

00:50:07.724 --> 00:50:10.206
But this is good, really good.

00:50:10.246 --> 00:50:13.349
Do you just play chromatics in key of C?

00:50:13.666 --> 00:50:14.666
Yes, only C.

00:50:15.628 --> 00:50:17.969
I can't play a harmonica set in any other key.

00:50:18.349 --> 00:50:23.313
I know exactly what the sound is going to be by what position I'm in on the harmonica.

00:50:23.635 --> 00:50:25.516
Even a G harmonica, I can't play it.

00:50:26.317 --> 00:50:27.677
I just go all over the place.

00:50:28.018 --> 00:50:40.528
This is why I'm so impressed with people like Brandon Power, who develops instruments to play certain tunes, and the settings, the reads are all in different distances.

00:50:40.588 --> 00:50:45.655
You know, it'll do a whole tone, or it'll develop something just for one purpose.

00:50:45.815 --> 00:50:49.018
But now he can remember where to blow a draw.

00:50:49.219 --> 00:50:49.760
God knows.

00:50:50.161 --> 00:50:50.641
So clever.

00:50:51.161 --> 00:50:54.226
Yeah, I've had Brendan on the broadcast and I've talked to him about that.

00:50:54.326 --> 00:50:57.931
And what he does is he uses, I think, as you say, a particular song.

00:50:57.990 --> 00:51:00.635
So he knows what to do on that song with that harmonic.

00:51:00.914 --> 00:51:03.539
That's how he gets his head around it, which is interesting.

00:51:03.798 --> 00:51:04.440
Yeah, yeah.

00:51:05.021 --> 00:51:06.422
Developing a technique.

00:51:06.442 --> 00:51:08.985
He develops a note formation.

00:51:09.005 --> 00:51:09.085
Yeah.

00:51:09.186 --> 00:51:11.007
And so obviously you're a chromatic player.

00:51:11.027 --> 00:51:12.568
Do you play any diatonic?

00:51:12.588 --> 00:51:14.210
Have you ever played any diatonic on one?

00:51:14.871 --> 00:51:17.894
No, and I must admit, I would love to.

00:51:18.275 --> 00:51:21.538
And I've actually said that I'm going to play diatonic.

00:51:21.557 --> 00:51:23.199
I'm going to buy one and have a go.

00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:27.103
I talked to Ricky, who I've known forever, you know, he's a great guy.

00:51:27.403 --> 00:51:29.887
And I said, I'm going to play one.

00:51:29.927 --> 00:51:32.929
He advised me what to buy, but I still haven't got around to it.

00:51:33.389 --> 00:51:35.431
I'll have to get one from the internet, you know.

00:51:35.753 --> 00:51:36.773
Love the diatonic.

00:51:37.282 --> 00:51:39.003
Talk a little bit about customization.

00:51:39.023 --> 00:51:42.827
So I know that you've used two customizers over the years, Bill Stewart and then Mark Potts.

00:51:42.887 --> 00:51:46.110
So is that something which, you know, you felt you needed to keep in good shape?

00:51:46.130 --> 00:51:46.369
Oh, yeah.

00:51:46.630 --> 00:51:53.795
I've been so lucky to have my own personal tuners, you know, Bill Stewart and then Mark Potts.

00:51:54.137 --> 00:51:55.538
A wonderful luxury that was.

00:51:56.639 --> 00:51:58.960
So talk about the embouchure that you use.

00:51:59.240 --> 00:51:59.842
What do you use?

00:51:59.922 --> 00:52:00.862
Tongue blocking?

00:52:01.182 --> 00:52:02.684
I prefer tongue blocking.

00:52:03.043 --> 00:52:06.748
I play to the right of my tongue and my tongue blocks a couple of holes.

00:52:07.088 --> 00:52:11.793
It's a very difficult to play a reiterated note using that method.

00:52:12.195 --> 00:52:13.335
That's the only drawback.

00:52:13.956 --> 00:52:16.219
I couldn't get a sound any other way.

00:52:16.521 --> 00:52:20.106
Yeah, so are you exclusively tongue-blocking or do you sometimes switch to puckering?

00:52:20.626 --> 00:52:22.568
No, very rare puckering.

00:52:23.150 --> 00:52:23.831
Very rare.

00:52:23.931 --> 00:52:25.974
Only in extreme circumstances.

00:52:26.402 --> 00:52:30.851
So it's, I would say, 99% tongue blocking, 99.5%.

00:52:31.413 --> 00:52:36.905
The only notes I don't use, it is on hole one, of course, which is what I use.

00:52:37.326 --> 00:52:38.688
My tongue is off the instrument.

00:52:39.309 --> 00:52:42.737
As to amplification, what amplification do you like to use?

00:52:43.659 --> 00:52:44.481
I don't use any...

00:52:44.802 --> 00:52:47.226
Particularly, I've never bought any amplification.

00:52:47.646 --> 00:52:49.289
I just use a microphone.

00:52:49.728 --> 00:52:54.376
All my work's done in studios, and I rely a lot on a sound engineer.

00:52:54.655 --> 00:53:00.304
And I guess this is why, when I'm recording, I play in a relaxed manner.

00:53:00.585 --> 00:53:02.847
I'm quite at ease in a studio.

00:53:03.228 --> 00:53:04.070
It's where I belong.

00:53:04.389 --> 00:53:04.891
I just love it.

00:53:05.271 --> 00:53:09.498
Are you aware of what microphones were used in the studio when you were recording the chromatic?

00:53:09.858 --> 00:53:11.840
No, I've never gone into that.

00:53:12.380 --> 00:53:14.902
I'm not a very technically minded person.

00:53:15.182 --> 00:53:16.744
Well, I mean, that's the beauty of a studio, isn't it?

00:53:16.764 --> 00:53:20.367
You've got all the sound guys sorting that out for you, so that's understandable, yeah.

00:53:20.847 --> 00:53:28.393
But when you're playing live, as you say, you're playing into a stand-up microphone, usually into the PA, so you would stand off the microphone, would you, rather than holding it?

00:53:28.753 --> 00:53:30.956
I don't like holding the microphone, no.

00:53:31.257 --> 00:53:35.480
I stand away from it so that both hands are controlling the instrument.

00:53:35.820 --> 00:53:43.827
Yeah, I mean, so just obviously then you can add more maybe effects and a bit of space between you in the microphone, but someone like Toots Teelmans, of course, he did hold the microphone.

00:53:44.007 --> 00:53:45.070
Yes, I know.

00:53:45.670 --> 00:53:48.532
And so was Philippe, you know, Philippe Achille.

00:53:48.813 --> 00:53:50.494
He holds the microphone.

00:53:50.715 --> 00:53:51.416
I can't do that.

00:53:51.856 --> 00:53:54.639
It's like to be more relaxed and free, you know.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:56.141
I think that's a hindrance.

00:53:56.661 --> 00:54:01.047
Microphone-wise, when you're playing live, is it just an SM58 or anything in particular?

00:54:01.407 --> 00:54:04.349
You see, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:54:04.650 --> 00:54:05.331
I really don't.

00:54:05.351 --> 00:54:10.717
I just hope that I'm going to be given a decent amplification cushion system.

00:54:10.876 --> 00:54:13.579
Yeah, you just get up and play and what's in front of you, which is great, yeah.

00:54:13.820 --> 00:54:19.646
So I assume then you haven't used any effects pedals then, again, whatever's there you'll use, like you're not adding reverb or anything like that?

00:54:20.047 --> 00:54:21.188
No, no, nothing like that.

00:54:21.748 --> 00:54:22.829
Yeah, brilliant, yeah.

00:54:23.289 --> 00:54:26.494
A pure sound and a beautiful sound you make with that as well, so.

00:54:27.074 --> 00:54:27.635
Oh, thank you.

00:54:28.695 --> 00:54:53.568
And talking about chromatic harmonica now, you know, we talked about obviously in the 50s and before, you know, the golden age of chromatic, also fantastic plays, Lariat, the Tommy Riley, all these great plays which inspired you and you went Well, one of my favourite players, and I don't know what instrument he plays, is Antonio Serrano.

00:54:54.128 --> 00:54:56.891
There you go, that's it.

00:54:57.373 --> 00:54:58.835
That's my favourite instrument.

00:54:59.235 --> 00:55:02.619
And in the old days, they used to make lovely instruments.

00:55:02.981 --> 00:55:03.501
Beautiful.

00:55:03.873 --> 00:55:10.840
I cringe when I think of how many I used to throw away because I had nobody to tune them up and I just wore them out.

00:55:10.880 --> 00:55:12.981
But they were beautiful instruments.

00:55:13.362 --> 00:55:15.403
And then the long slot came.

00:55:15.704 --> 00:55:18.146
That was just a longer reed which worked beautifully.

00:55:18.186 --> 00:55:27.074
But now the 270 with its wooden body, you had to make the sound and you could manipulate the sound and control it.

00:55:27.514 --> 00:55:31.378
And this is how I developed the tone by using that instrument.

00:55:31.597 --> 00:55:35.623
Some harmonicas, it's sort of built and you can't do much with it.

00:55:36.184 --> 00:55:43.541
And as to the future, the playing of chromatic harmonica, obviously the diatonic harmonica is probably much more popular than the chromatic now.

00:55:44.163 --> 00:55:45.326
Oh, yeah.

00:55:45.425 --> 00:55:46.467
Why do you think that is?

00:55:46.748 --> 00:55:50.878
What can you do to make sure the chromatic harmonica still is out there being played?

00:55:51.266 --> 00:55:55.956
Well, very simply, it's a very difficult instrument, the chromatic harmonica.

00:55:56.356 --> 00:55:59.143
I mean, really difficult to play properly.

00:55:59.163 --> 00:56:03.954
And I admire anybody that really gets down to it and masters the instrument.

00:56:04.235 --> 00:56:09.186
I think it's been developed as much as it can be with the layout and everything.

00:56:09.570 --> 00:56:12.833
Even though we get our two C's together, there's no avoiding that.

00:56:13.233 --> 00:56:20.519
I just like the soft, mature sound of the wooden lock on a harmonica, which the 270 has.

00:56:20.880 --> 00:56:32.889
I think it's made of pear wood, but when you hear people like Serrano that I've just mentioned, you see, he can get this wonderful, sensitive sound, which breaks me up, you know?

00:56:32.929 --> 00:56:36.652
I've got some of his records, and I just melt when I listen to him.

00:56:36.914 --> 00:56:41.735
I think he's the man right now for putting sensitivity and everything else.

00:56:41.956 --> 00:57:16.483
There are excellent players in the far east I know about that and I love their enthusiasm in Japan and China and Taiwan and Malaya the most enthusiastic players and they're achieving terrific stuff you know but they tend to get very technical I find and I like to listen to slow melodic stuff sensitive playing and I think to hear somebody play slowly is more indicative of their musicianship than that somebody rattling off no to the terrific rate, you know, which is just technique.

00:57:16.925 --> 00:57:17.585
Oh, it's lovely.

00:57:17.706 --> 00:57:21.510
I mean, looking back now, it's shaped my life totally.

00:57:21.911 --> 00:57:25.416
As I said at the beginning, it's everything I do I can relate back.

00:57:25.956 --> 00:57:28.201
So yeah, a great long career, Jim.

00:57:28.260 --> 00:57:33.106
Congratulations on all you've achieved and the amazing things and the legacy, as I say, of Chossingen still going on.

00:57:33.126 --> 00:57:34.710
So thanks very much for speaking to me today.

00:57:34.750 --> 00:57:36.152
That's an absolute pleasure.

00:57:36.172 --> 00:57:37.492
Absolute pleasure.

00:57:38.273 --> 00:57:39.755
That's episode 26.

00:57:39.875 --> 00:57:41.277
Thanks so much for listening again.

00:57:41.797 --> 00:57:51.065
If anybody wants to get hold of Jim's music, then email me at happyourharmonicapodcast at gmail.com and I'll be able to put you in touch with the family to sort that out.

00:57:51.585 --> 00:57:54.047
Got to say a massive thank you to Roger Trowbridge.

00:57:54.487 --> 00:57:58.771
He's helped me put together so much of the material for this episode, been a massive help.

00:57:59.092 --> 00:58:12.804
He runs an archivist website all about harmonica through the years, some tremendous stuff over there, especially around the golden age of the harmonica, which we talked about during the interview, so Roger's Archivist website is linked off the front page of the podcast.

00:58:13.364 --> 00:58:18.570
Also, a big thank you to Ricky Coole who helped me set up the interview, got it all arranged, so thanks guys.

00:58:19.150 --> 00:58:19.990
Couldn't have done it without you.

00:58:21.152 --> 00:58:26.677
Reminder again to my sponsor, the Longwall Blues Company, making great effects pedals and amps for harmonica.

00:58:27.217 --> 00:58:29.920
Check out their website, some great stuff to enhance the sound.

00:58:30.641 --> 00:58:33.244
Please remember, subscribe again to the podcast.

00:58:33.463 --> 00:58:35.606
I look forward to seeing you next time.

00:58:36.322 --> 00:58:39.047
Finally, Jim's going to play us out with Caprice.

00:58:39.527 --> 00:58:47.143
This is the test piece that we talked about earlier in the interview for the World Harmonica Championship in 1987, so a real challenging piece.

00:58:47.204 --> 00:58:49.487
So, Jim, over to you.

00:58:49.528 --> 00:58:56.222
MUSIC PLAYS