April 25, 2025

Kim Field interview

Kim Field joins me on episode 133.

Kim’s 1994 book ‘Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument’ was the first book released on the history of the harmonica. And Kim has recently written the book: The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, telling the story of Billy Boy in his own words.

Ever on the lookout to meet and learn from the great players, Kim shares the time he spent with Deford Bailey and also when he played on stage with Walter Horton.

Kim has been in several blues bands, and a country band, and has just released a new album with his latest band, The Perfect Gentleman, featuring Kim’s harmonica, vocals and songwriting talents.

Links:

Kim’s website: https://www.kimfield.com/

Harmonica Northwest weekend, Oct 23-26, 2025: https://menucha.org/programs/harmonica-northwest

Kim’s life in music: https://www.kimfield.com/my-life-in-music

Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument book: https://www.kimfield.com/harmonicas-harps-and-heavy-breathers

PT Gazell review of Don’t Need But One album: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ModernBluesHarmonica/permalink/10162253953062225/

The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold book: https://www.kimfield.com/the-blues-dream-of-billy-boy-arnold

Videos:

James Cotton playing Blues In My Sleep live in 1967: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgS6FG2rtas

David Waldman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8EArw7peM

The Slamhound Hunters band - Lawnmower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjr6YLKKmqY

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

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

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

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:52 - Kim is the author of Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument, which partly inspired this podcast

02:10 - Is originally from Seattle

02:24 - Mother played violin and father played the drums

02:58 - Learnt the trumpet at school and had a great teacher who focused heavily on tone, which helped when switched to the harmonica

03:34 - The trumpet made Kim appreciate the advantage of the harmonica, where you breathe both in and out

04:33 - Was inspired to take up the harmonica after seeing James Cotton in concert in 1968

04:57 - Was exposed blues on the Seattle concert circuit

05:38 - The great band James Cotton when recording for the Verve label and Cotton was so vigorous on stage

06:16 - Cotton’s Blues In My Sleep was the song that really turned Kim onto harmonica

07:33 - Great section on Kim’s website where he writes about his life with the harmonica

07:56 - Kim’s ‘Heavy Breathers’ book was written before the advent of the internet, so all the research carried out was done either in libraries or by interviewing people

09:29 - The book was a great excuse to talk to many of his harmonica heroes

10:21 - The book is divided into the different genres of harmonica, and different want the blues to dominate the book

11:16 - The book just covers mainly American players

11:34 - Had to reduce the number of pages at the directive of the publisher

13:00 - Had a companion CD added to the book as wanted to introduce people to the music of the players

13:44 - Covers the early history of the harmonica with information on the instrument and players who are no longer with us, as well as interviews with contemporary players

14:20 - Free reed instruments (including the harmonica) were burnt when they first appeared in Germany in the 1820s

14:57 - The Hohner Little Lady harmonica was the first instrument in space taken surreptitiously by astronaut Wally Schirra, who played Jingle Bells at Christmas time, and he was disappointed not to be endorsed by Hohner after that

16:13 - Example of Kim’s great writing

16:39 - Did a minor update to the Heavy Breathers book in 2000, but has no plans to make further updates

17:20 - Moved from Seattle to attend college in New York, joining first band there including with guitarist Louis Erlanger

17:48 - Amazing harmonica scene around New York at that time, including David Waldman who recommended Kim take some lessons with Paul Oscher

19:03 - Other good harmonica players in New York at that time, included Sugar Blue

19:15 - In lesson with Paul Oscher he learnt about tongue blocking

19:46 - The time Kim met Deford Bailey

22:56 - How Kim eventually got Deford to play some harmonica for him

24:41 - The time Kim got to play with Walter Horton

27:50 - Sadly there was no recording made of Kim playing with Walter Horton

28:20 - Kim was in The Slamhound Hunter’s Band in the late 1980s in Seattle, and did a tour of Europe with them

29:50 - Interviewed chromatic player Charles Leighton, who then helped Kim get the Heavy Breathers book published

33:03 - After a break from music formed a band called Kim Field and the Mighty Titans of Tone

34:39 - An issue with harmonica is not being able to play chords properly in a band setting

35:24 - Was also in a country band, The Titans of Twang, with Kim having a real love of country music

37:28 - Now living in Portland and has formed the band: Kim Field and The Perfect Gentlemen and has just released the album: Don’t Need But One

38:17 - PT Gazell posted a good review of the album on Facebook

39:17 - The Perfect Gentlemen band is centred on Kim, the first time Kim has been in such a band

40:13 - Ten of the eleven tunes on the album are originals and four instrumentals

40:49 - The horn section used on the album, including Chris Mercer who has played with John Mayall’s band

42:15 - How to get hold of the new Perfect Gentlemen album

42:33 - The producer of the album was introduced to Kim by Ross Garren

43:22 - The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold book, which came together with the help of Mark Hummel

45:29 - Billy Boy Arnold was a huge John Lee Williamson fan and met him twice

46:55 - Due to Covid the 60 plus hours of interviews with Billy Boy were done over the phone and Kim wrote the book in Billy’s words, just piecing them together

47:23 - Billy Boy has been around the blues scene longer than any other living harmonica player

48:17 - The two times Billy Boy met John Lee Williamson before he was murdered

49:22 - Billy Boy was on the blues scene ten years before Muddy Waters and Little Walter hit the scene in the early 1950s

50:36 - Billy Boy is also a stone-cold ‘harmaniac’ too and met so many of the great harmonica players, including Little Walter

50:48 - Kim has written for various musical publications

50:58 - Ten minute question

51:59 - Harmonica of choice is the Hohner Marine Band

52:16 - Doesn’t perform using any overblows, but has tried them out, and overblows are a pucker technique, whereas Kim plays tongue blocked

52:58 - Doesn’t play much chromatic, but took some lessons with Magic Dick and there is a little chromatic on the new album

53:44 - Mics and amps: has a couple of vintage Fender Bassman’s and some vintage mics from Dennis Gruenling and a Bulletini mic

54:32 - Likes to use some effects pedals

54:52 - Urges all harmonica players to learn how to sing as it really helps with the tone on harmonica

55:41 - Effects pedals are another way to vary your sound. Uses some delay and reverb and uses the Sub ’n Up Octave pedal organ sound on one song on the new album

57:02 - Plans to tour the new album, playing outside Portland

57:09 - Is hosting the North West (USA) Harmonica workshops in October 2025

WEBVTT

00:00:00.130 --> 00:00:02.173
Kim Field joins me on episode 133.

00:00:03.875 --> 00:00:11.884
Kim's 1994 book, Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breavers, The History of the People's Instrument, was the first book released on the history of the harmonica.

00:00:12.625 --> 00:00:19.333
And Kim has recently written the book, The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, telling the story of Billy Boy in his own words.

00:00:20.274 --> 00:00:28.565
Ever on the lookout to meet and learn from the great players, Kim shares the time he spent with Defoe Bailey and also when he played on stage with Walter Horton.

00:00:29.634 --> 00:01:25.534
ZYDAL HARMONICAS Hello, Kim Field, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:26.593 --> 00:01:28.198
Neil, thanks so much for having me.

00:01:28.218 --> 00:01:29.121
I really appreciate it.

00:01:29.382 --> 00:01:30.707
No, it's great to have you back on.

00:01:30.727 --> 00:01:35.182
So, of course, you were on episode 100, The Little Walter Retrospective.

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Good to have you back on.

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Thank you.

00:01:37.227 --> 00:01:43.555
I also wanted to say at the outset that I just really appreciate the work you've done on these podcasts.

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You've amassed an amazing archive of very personal interviews with great players, and it's a huge resource for all of us.

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So thanks for that.

00:01:52.168 --> 00:01:53.108
Oh, many thanks, Kim.

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And I've been partly inspired by your own good work in this as well, and your writing, which we'll get into later.

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during the discussion but yes you've written a book called harmonica's harps and heavy breavers which was definitely part of an inspiration for the sort of format for this so yeah thanks for your work as well and and the other great stuff you've written about you then so you're um you've moved around quite a lot so we'll jump through your uh your quite varied um career and you've jumped around the u.s quite a lot so you're originally from seattle

00:02:21.485 --> 00:02:23.550
right i'm uh born and raised there

00:02:24.098 --> 00:02:31.329
And so you're talking about your early influences, your parents were into the music, I think your mother played violin, your father drums, yeah?

00:02:32.009 --> 00:02:42.485
Yeah, my mother played violin through college, and my dad worked his way through college playing drums in swing bands, basically, in those days.

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Neither one of them played after I was born, but we just grew up with a lot of music in the house, and we went to see a lot of music.

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And I have two siblings, and all three of us ended up playing instruments all the way through school.

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I chose the trumpet.

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That was my instrument through 12th grade, and it actually worked out quite well in terms of a shift to another wind instrument, namely the harmonica.

00:03:09.329 --> 00:03:19.099
So I had a really excellent trumpet teacher as a kid, And he was very, very focused on tone production and breathing from the diaphragm.

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And I had a lot of that drilled into me before I ever touched a harmonica.

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And it really, really helped out.

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I just have an affinity to wind instruments.

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I've tried to play guitar for 50 years and I can't get past first base on that thing.

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The trumpet's kind of notoriously difficult to kind of get the embouchure right and get the sound initially, isn't it?

00:03:39.205 --> 00:03:42.710
So, you know, how do you think that did help your harmonica playing when you picked it up?

00:03:43.361 --> 00:04:07.540
Well, it is really tricky, but it's well, actually, the trumpet made me very excited about the one incredible advantage that the harmonica has over any other wind instrument is that you can breathe while you're playing because trumpet playing is all about storing air in your lungs and taking quick little breaths out of the corners of your mouth when you need to.

00:04:08.193 --> 00:04:20.819
You have to learn circular breathing and all these crazy techniques, but the harmonica, you can just play and play and play and play, you know, grab an appropriate sort of convenient blow note and catch your breath at the same time.

00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:25.307
So I think that's, you know, having played another wind instrument, it's still...

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kind of gasses me that the harmonica can be played while you're breathing.

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It's really a huge advantage.

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So I believe your inspiration to take up the harmonica was seeing the great James Cotton play in 1968 in a concert in Seattle.

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Yeah, I can pinpoint the night.

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I had just started going, you know, I got my driver's license.

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I lived out in the suburbs.

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So that was your ticket to freedom and drive into the big city and see shows.

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And those were the late 60s, the days of the, you know, the Fillmore era down in San Francisco, and Seattle was on a circuit of West Coast venues for those shows during the rock era.

00:05:05.329 --> 00:05:09.494
And that was actually also the blues revival era, where B.B.

00:05:09.574 --> 00:05:12.076
King and people like that were starting to play at the Fillmore.

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The second show I ever saw was Albert King, which was an amazing experience and kind of introduced me to the blues.

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I kind of was making that transition that a lot of guys of my age made, starting with the Rolling Stones and and then the stones leading you to muddy waters.

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And I did that pretty quickly.

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My rock and roll phase was pretty limited, actually.

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And then I was searching for a different instrument than the trumpet.

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I went to see James Cotton.

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In 1968, he had that great band that's on a lot of those Verber records from the late 60s with Luther Tucker on guitar.

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It's just an incredible band.

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Cotton was probably 35 years old, so he was really young.

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He was the most vigorous, active performer I had probably ever seen on a stage.

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He just paced back and forth across the stage constantly.

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He had that big signature instrumental called The Creep He did that that night, and he did somersaults in the middle of it while he's playing.

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The moment that did it for me was he did this instrumental that's on one of those Verve records.

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It's called Blues in My Sleep, and it's in the key of D.

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And he cycles through all the positions during this instrumental.

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He plays first, cross, third, and then ends with chromatic.

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And it's kind of a reverb-laden, late-in-the-evening, slow blues, and it It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

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I just sat, well stood, everybody stood in the audience at that particular venue, and I was just awestruck.

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with the sound that he was getting.

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And I think it was probably the next day I went down and bought a sea marine band.

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I had no idea what to do, but that was the beginning of the end for me.

00:07:21.797 --> 00:07:27.607
Yeah, I saw James Cotton when I was probably around 20 years old in the UK.

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So yeah, he was very energetic then as well, and I loved him then.

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So yeah.

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what a player what a player

00:07:33.887 --> 00:08:02.413
so we'll go look through your uh your career now some of the bands you play with so on your website your kimfield.com website there's a section called my life in music where there's a great um biography of your career in in different years so i urge people to go and have a read of that if they want more detail it's um fantastically well written and lots of detail and uh yeah it's great stuff so and and of course a big part of your involvement with the harmonica is in your writing we've already mentioned the book uh that that you wrote.

00:08:02.733 --> 00:08:07.257
So writing's been an important part of your involvement with the harmonic as well, yeah?

00:08:07.538 --> 00:08:10.781
Yeah, I mean, I was an English major in college.

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I've always been an avid reader, and so I've had some nascent talents sort of in that direction.

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Basically, I really wanted just to write a book.

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I wanted to do that as an accomplishment.

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And so I know myself pretty well.

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The chances of me of actually completing a project as complicated as a book were pretty pretty slim and I needed to pick a topic that would carry me through.

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There was no book on the harmonica in terms of its history.

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I mean, there were instructional books and so forth.

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And so the thing I'm proudest of about that book is it was pre-internet.

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I

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mean, that book came out the first time in 94, just as the internet was sort of first appearing.

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That book is all based on a lot of grunt work of going to libraries and looking in books about musical instruments and books about about different players.

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And it was a lot of research.

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And I'm proud of the way I kind of stitched that story together.

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I'm a notoriously bad self-promoter, but I can be pretty persuasive.

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And somehow I was able to convince Simon& Schuster to publish a book on the history of the harmonica.

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So I'm not sure how I did that, but that was great to have a major publisher behind it in the initial printing.

00:09:29.605 --> 00:09:38.052
And again, it was really just a cheap excuse, frankly, to call up a lot of my favorite harmonica players and have a reason for them to speak with me.

00:09:38.072 --> 00:09:42.096
And I fooled around with that manuscript for about five years.

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and I was getting calls back from those players players I had interviewed saying, you know, Kim, you talked to me two years ago, where the hell is that book?

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And so they sort of shamed me into finishing it.

00:09:55.946 --> 00:10:05.394
Well done, like you say, having to go and do research pre-internet, because doing my research for the podcast, you know, I've got the luxury of doing it all on the internet pretty much, and it's a massive advantage.

00:10:05.434 --> 00:10:08.857
I can't imagine being able to put this together by going to libraries and things.

00:10:09.298 --> 00:10:11.899
So yes, a great, so it was published in 1994.

00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:15.864
Again, the title is Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breeders, the History of the People's Instruments.

00:10:15.943 --> 00:10:46.736
So a haven't read it I read this book quite a few years ago now so yeah I've still got the book and yeah it's a great book and a nice easy read because it's sort of broken into different sections you've tried to cover like different periods of the harmonica haven't you so you sort of go through harmonica groups and bands and then the sort of soloist Larry Adler folk music country music you look at the blues rock and roll soul music such as Stevie Wonder jazz toots and William Galison and Hollywood and classical so you've deliberately tried to cover the sort of old the genres.

00:10:47.017 --> 00:10:56.927
Again, a bit like this podcast where I tried to do a similar thing, but you didn't just want to focus on blues and it kind of goes chronologically through some of those different genres yet.

00:10:57.567 --> 00:10:59.549
Yeah, I went by genre.

00:10:59.570 --> 00:11:03.654
I decided to use that as the kind of organizing concept.

00:11:04.075 --> 00:11:05.677
I had to draw the line somewhere.

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The biggest challenge for me as a blues player was to not have the blues chapter completely run away with the entire book.

00:11:14.365 --> 00:11:15.567
That was very challenging.

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And then I also drew a line where I pretty much just focused on American players.

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I apologize to you and your fellow Europeans.

00:11:25.317 --> 00:11:30.143
Otherwise, I would have just written a 700-page book and it would never have gotten published.

00:11:30.383 --> 00:11:31.183
But yeah, no, that's fine.

00:11:31.203 --> 00:11:31.605
That's fine.

00:11:31.644 --> 00:11:32.264
We forgive you.

00:11:33.265 --> 00:11:33.547
All right.

00:11:33.626 --> 00:11:33.986
Thank you.

00:11:34.067 --> 00:11:35.548
But I mean, you mentioned 700 pages.

00:11:35.568 --> 00:11:38.951
I was reading that it was 650 pages and you had to cut it down.

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Is that right?

00:11:40.533 --> 00:11:40.934
Well, yeah.

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Actually, I learned how not to write a book on that project.

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The way you should write a book is you should write an outline and maybe one sample chapter and find an agent and then have that agent find you a publisher because no publisher is going to look at an entire manuscript it just doesn't work that way but I had been fiddling with that book on my own for six years and I had a huge manuscript and then I sort of through a happenstance a series of events I found myself an agent she actually sent the manuscript into Simon and she and they got back to me and they said, well, you know, Kim, we'd actually like to publish this book, but based on your manuscript, you've written a 650-page book on the harmonica, and that's not going to happen.

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We want a 350-page book.

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So I basically had to cut the book by at least a third, but it was actually a very good thing.

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It made for a much better book.

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You know, I had a level of detail that you and me and maybe 10 or 12 other people would have appreciated.

00:12:44.923 --> 00:13:00.419
Well, and I think you're right, because as I said earlier on it's very much a sort of pick up and you know pick out a section because you just read about one player you can read that section then go to another one you don't have to read it in order so it makes it very accessible sort of easy to read book because of that format doesn't it

00:13:00.820 --> 00:13:43.542
yeah I really worked hard to get a companion CD bound into that book with Rhino Records at the time because my whole thing really was like the book should make you want to go listen to these players right and so I hear a lot from people that as they read the book they do that with YouTube and so forth so that's great because it's all about turning people on to the music Peter Goralnik is the sort of to me the ultimate music writer and what I learned from Peter is that he just writes about music that he really loves he's not a critic he's not an analyst he's just a person that tries to get other people excited about the music that he loves and that's just that's the way it should be

00:13:43.874 --> 00:13:49.563
So you cover a lot of the earlier history, and then you do have interviews with live players, such as William Gallinson, for example.

00:13:50.225 --> 00:13:55.394
So, yeah, it definitely fills a gap in some of that history, especially the early history, doesn't it?

00:13:56.135 --> 00:14:00.143
Yeah, and I learned all that in the course of researching the book.

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I had no idea that the free read concept went back 3,500 years ago.

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Asia and how that concept traveled into Europe during the trade routes and so forth.

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So I do have a couple introductory chapters that kind of trace the history of the free read concept.

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I remember running across an article or a section in a music instrument book and they talked about the free read was not Totally well received by everyone in the public.

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Like the concertina and the harmonica and the accordion all showed up about the same time around 1825 in Germany.

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And there are contemporary accounts of local populations confiscating all the harmonicas, accordions and concertinas in town and burning them in big bonfires in the town square.

00:14:49.556 --> 00:14:54.981
So that was a quote I remember discovering that it was pretty, pretty interesting.

00:14:55.265 --> 00:14:56.547
It's not for everyone, Neil.

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So no.

00:14:57.668 --> 00:15:05.495
So a nice little fact we can pull out of the book is the first instrument in outer space, which was the, you can tell us, Kim?

00:15:06.095 --> 00:15:07.235
It was the harmonica.

00:15:07.296 --> 00:15:15.123
It was Wally Schirra, who was one of the original first seven Mercury astronauts to go into space.

00:15:15.163 --> 00:15:22.208
He did his own solo flight as a Mercury astronaut, but then later he was on a Gemini flight where they had three astronauts in the capsule.

00:15:22.730 --> 00:15:25.231
He was an amateur harmonica player since boyhood.

00:15:25.231 --> 00:15:32.381
and he smuggled a tiny little lady, you know, the little four-hole harmonic you wear in a chain around your neck.

00:15:32.422 --> 00:15:40.072
He smuggled one of those in his space suit, which was, you know, a completely, totally verboten by NASA.

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He was orbiting around Christmastime and he played Jingle Bells, you know, during a call back to Houston.

00:15:47.423 --> 00:15:49.407
I got a chance to interview him over the phone.

00:15:49.866 --> 00:15:50.808
He was a great guy.

00:15:50.828 --> 00:15:51.570
He was very funny.

00:15:51.730 --> 00:15:53.172
He was very upset.

00:15:53.211 --> 00:15:54.293
He thought he would get...

00:15:54.850 --> 00:16:04.118
free harmonicas for life from the Horner Company after doing that stunt, and he said he'd never heard from them, and he was completely stunned

00:16:04.457 --> 00:16:04.698
by that.

00:16:05.658 --> 00:16:06.159
Well, so great.

00:16:06.179 --> 00:16:09.842
So I don't think I've had that fact on the podcast before, so that's a fantastic one.

00:16:10.062 --> 00:16:13.265
The first instrument in space was a harmonica, so yeah, great stuff.

00:16:13.745 --> 00:16:15.687
Again, great writing, you know, you write really well.

00:16:16.048 --> 00:16:21.513
So here's a line, a short line extract from the book, which demonstrates that, I think.

00:16:21.533 --> 00:16:28.160
So, Howard Levy literally bent the instrument to his piano So a beautiful turn of phrase there.

00:16:28.861 --> 00:16:32.307
So you have written another book later, so we'll come on to that.

00:16:32.366 --> 00:16:33.368
But yeah, great work.

00:16:33.408 --> 00:16:38.715
And I definitely encourage people strongly to read the Harmonicus, Horps and Heavy Breavers book.

00:16:38.816 --> 00:16:40.618
So they're published in 1994.

00:16:40.658 --> 00:16:46.005
I think you told me before that you did an updated version in 2000.

00:16:46.594 --> 00:16:54.227
Yeah, and just to be honest, I don't have any plans to do a further updating, just sort of keep expanding.

00:16:54.369 --> 00:17:04.492
Like I said, I think what's grown up thanks to the internet, is a vast archive of harmonica-centric material that you and many other people have contributed to.

00:17:04.692 --> 00:17:09.797
And so I don't think it's a problem that I'm not continuing to expand that book.

00:17:09.876 --> 00:17:14.441
And it's mostly sort of about the history of the instrument and how it got established.

00:17:14.540 --> 00:17:16.442
And so it's all still valid.

00:17:16.943 --> 00:17:17.324
So great.

00:17:17.344 --> 00:17:20.026
So we'll go back to your life in harmonica.

00:17:20.046 --> 00:17:24.849
So after growing up in Seattle, as you say, you moved to New York.

00:17:25.270 --> 00:17:26.672
I think you went to college there, Ian.

00:17:26.672 --> 00:17:33.061
And you formed your first band, The Stingrays, which you made a splash on the college scene in New York.

00:17:33.102 --> 00:17:34.904
Yeah, we did pretty well.

00:17:35.204 --> 00:17:44.298
And the guitar player in that band, Lou Erlanger, ended up being the original guitar player for Mink DeVille, which was a pretty well-known band.

00:17:44.338 --> 00:17:46.321
Did three albums for Capitol.

00:17:46.903 --> 00:17:48.566
But we played around campus.

00:17:48.645 --> 00:17:51.590
And in retrospect, there was an amazing harmonica scene.

00:17:51.611 --> 00:17:53.854
I went to Columbia University once.

00:17:53.986 --> 00:18:29.557
mark wenner who later formed the nighthawks after he left columbia he was there he was a student at columbia he you know he played harmonica i used to see mark play all the time and uh dave waldman who is one of the greatest blues harp players ever has lived in chicago for many years He was also a student at Columbia, and he had a very big impact on me because I used to see him walk around campus.

00:18:30.138 --> 00:18:34.286
He was just this guy, every time I saw him, he was walking around playing the harmonica.

00:18:34.906 --> 00:18:36.630
So I, of course, noticed that.

00:18:37.332 --> 00:18:41.880
I'd see him two weeks later, and he'd be twice as good as he was two weeks ago.

00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:48.615
And that just sort of kept going on, and I finally stopped him and introduced myself, and I was like, who are you?

00:18:48.694 --> 00:18:51.616
And like, how are you making this kind of progress?

00:18:51.836 --> 00:18:55.140
And he said, well, I've been taking lessons from Paul Osher.

00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:57.521
Here's his number and you should get in touch with him.

00:18:57.682 --> 00:19:01.306
Paul, you know, was the first white member of the Muddy Waters band.

00:19:01.346 --> 00:19:03.928
And so Paul was living in New York too.

00:19:04.107 --> 00:19:06.450
Sugar Blue was living in New York at the time.

00:19:06.470 --> 00:19:11.994
There was a guy, Danny Russo, who was a really excellent player, recorder for Spivey Records.

00:19:12.035 --> 00:19:15.157
So there was this little sort of harmonica community.

00:19:15.258 --> 00:19:20.262
And I eventually did get a lesson with Paul And it was huge for me.

00:19:20.503 --> 00:19:25.069
I'd been playing for about three years and just playing puckered, not using my tongue at all.

00:19:25.289 --> 00:19:31.458
And he stood in front of me with no amplifier in the way or anything and played juke for me.

00:19:31.478 --> 00:19:37.586
And I heard the tongue-blocked octaves for the first time, and it just completely blew my mind.

00:19:37.665 --> 00:19:42.553
And he diagrammed out the first verse of juke for me, and it was all up to me after that.

00:19:42.833 --> 00:19:43.053
But...

00:19:43.682 --> 00:19:45.864
That was a really fantastic experience.

00:19:46.344 --> 00:19:51.388
You also met Deeford Bailey as well, I think, for part of your research for the Heavy Reelers book.

00:19:51.729 --> 00:19:53.671
Yeah, you know, I'm an introvert.

00:19:53.691 --> 00:19:55.551
I'm the world's worst self-promoter.

00:19:55.932 --> 00:20:01.477
But when it comes to things I'm excited about, I found the will to introduce myself to people.

00:20:01.617 --> 00:20:06.182
And the Deeford Bailey thing, there was a record store in Seattle that sold 78s.

00:20:06.261 --> 00:20:12.007
I bought an old 78 turntable, and I would buy any record that had Harmonica on the label.

00:20:12.467 --> 00:20:37.666
And I bought this Nike team 28 rc bluebird d4 bailey harmonica solo so i bought it i took it home and i was just completely mind-boggled by this guy's playing.

00:20:37.747 --> 00:20:39.490
I'd never heard anything like that.

00:20:39.971 --> 00:20:41.894
He's still, like, he's completely unique.

00:20:42.414 --> 00:21:27.790
And so then Nashville, traveling with a girlfriend, and I'm headed to Memphis, and I had read a book by Paul Hemphill on country music, and I had the address of the shoeshine stand that Dee Ford was now running, or had been when the book came out, and I realized, I saw the book in the Country Music Hall of Fame bookstore, and I looked at the chapter because I thought I was heading to Memphis next, and I thought I'd try to look up Dee Ford, and Dee Ford, of course, is a grand old Opry star, so he lives in Nashville, right where I am, and they gave a street corner where his shoeshine stand was that he set up after he retired from the Opry, and I just walked out of the Hall of Fame and hailed a cab and had him take me over the river to the black part of town.

00:21:27.871 --> 00:21:31.734
And he left me off at that street corner and there was no shoeshine stand.

00:21:31.955 --> 00:21:36.901
There was an old pharmacy that had been there for obviously forever and an elderly man behind the counter.

00:21:36.941 --> 00:21:38.522
And I asked him if he knew where D.

00:21:38.542 --> 00:21:39.584
Ford Bailey lived.

00:21:39.763 --> 00:21:46.250
And he said, yeah, it turned out they had torn the shoeshine stand down and built a public housing project on the spot.

00:21:46.371 --> 00:21:46.651
And D.

00:21:46.671 --> 00:21:48.692
Ford just moved right in and he was living there.

00:21:48.773 --> 00:22:10.457
And I went into the lobby and these were the days they had everyone's last name all the tenants in the in the apartment they lived in on a little board in the lobby and i see d bailey you know 8b or something and i just get in the elevator and i go up there and i knocked on his door it was just like stepping back into 1925

00:22:11.176 --> 00:22:14.280
did he have many harmonica fans knocking on his door saying hello

00:22:14.540 --> 00:22:23.151
no he did not the book i had read made him sound kind of bitter and reclusive and i had the total opposite experience, thankfully, with him.

00:22:23.191 --> 00:22:25.955
He opened the door and he was standing.

00:22:25.996 --> 00:22:28.480
He was probably about 4'10".

00:22:29.101 --> 00:22:29.981
He's a black man.

00:22:30.041 --> 00:22:31.664
He's sort of a hunchback.

00:22:32.105 --> 00:22:35.711
So he compensated by being an incredible clothes horse.

00:22:35.770 --> 00:22:46.901
He was dressed to the nines in a brocade shirt with a string tie and perfectly pressed black slacks and brilliantly polished you know, patent leather shoes.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:51.607
And I stammered out some kind of introduction, like I'm a harmonic player of Seattle.

00:22:51.627 --> 00:22:53.790
I've come all the way just to see you.

00:22:53.990 --> 00:22:56.315
And he welcomed me into his apartment.

00:22:56.894 --> 00:23:01.903
We chatted for a while and I was like, boy, you know, D4, I sure would like to hear you play that harmonica.

00:23:01.942 --> 00:23:03.965
He go, well, you know, I do play harmonica.

00:23:04.162 --> 00:23:33.998
guitar he goes off and he rummages around comes back with a guitar and plays he plays this incredible guitar upside down left-handed uh and sings which i had no idea he did and then we chat for a while longer i go you know i sure would love to hear you play that harmonica d4 i've come a long way and he said well i do play the banjo and i go really and then he goes off and he comes back with a banjo he's playing that upside down and he plays great and then I finally had an inspiration that I pulled out.

00:23:34.117 --> 00:23:39.385
I had an A harp and I pulled it out and I said, you know, Deford, I tried to learn your ice water blues tune.

00:23:39.645 --> 00:23:42.250
Let me play a little bit for you and you can give me some tips.

00:23:42.651 --> 00:23:49.260
And it worked like a charm because he was just squirming through my whole terrible rendition of it.

00:23:49.421 --> 00:23:52.766
And he just said, well, let me show you how it's done.

00:23:52.786 --> 00:23:57.472
And he picked up a harp finally and he played for like 45 minutes.

00:23:58.114 --> 00:23:58.173
Wow.

00:23:58.337 --> 00:24:06.095
And I knew less about how he did what he did after sitting right next to him than when I did coming in.

00:24:06.174 --> 00:24:08.240
It was just nothing moved.

00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:10.324
You couldn't see anything happening.

00:24:10.364 --> 00:24:14.854
He only held the harp with one hand and there was no movement at all.

00:24:14.953 --> 00:24:17.359
And all this incredible sound was coming out.

00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:17.961
It was just...

00:24:18.625 --> 00:24:20.327
He was really, really something.

00:24:20.508 --> 00:24:22.108
I'm so lucky to have met

00:24:22.309 --> 00:24:22.369
him.

00:24:22.450 --> 00:24:22.650
Great.

00:24:22.690 --> 00:24:24.111
And to sit there here and playing with him.

00:24:24.412 --> 00:24:24.791
Fantastic.

00:24:25.613 --> 00:24:30.877
So then you went back to Seattle for a couple of years and then to Austin in the late 70s.

00:24:30.958 --> 00:24:32.960
And then there you met with Kim Wilson.

00:24:32.980 --> 00:24:38.365
But then you went back to Seattle between the 1978 to 1990s.

00:24:38.404 --> 00:24:41.448
And there you played with Walter Horton as well.

00:24:41.548 --> 00:24:42.829
And I've got a reading here.

00:24:42.869 --> 00:24:45.011
This is your most memorable musical experience.

00:24:45.271 --> 00:24:46.913
What happened when you played with Walter Horton?

00:24:47.458 --> 00:24:50.303
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that's going to ever top that.

00:24:50.323 --> 00:24:54.029
I was playing with a guitar player named Brian Butler in Seattle.

00:24:54.371 --> 00:24:59.160
We both went to see Big Walter play at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle.

00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:00.682
It was right near my house at the time.

00:25:02.164 --> 00:25:10.740
I had seen Walter a lot when I lived in New York because he played Boston a lot, and I would hitchhike up to Boston just to see Walter because he never played in New York.

00:25:11.266 --> 00:25:16.089
So we went to see Walter at the Rainbow in Seattle that night, and he was just on fire.

00:25:16.289 --> 00:25:25.458
He had a band with Ted Harvey on drums and Left Hand Frank on guitar and Rich Molina on bass, and he just was incredible.

00:25:25.518 --> 00:25:29.902
Like, when Big Walter was on, I mean, there's nothing like that.

00:25:30.442 --> 00:25:36.748
The owner of the club jumps up on stage at the end of the night and huddles quickly with Walter and goes, well, ladies and gentlemen, I have great news.

00:25:36.867 --> 00:25:43.758
Walter had an off night tomorrow night, and we just worked it out, and he's going to play again at the Rainbow tomorrow night.

00:25:43.938 --> 00:25:45.340
We were like, oh, that's great.

00:25:45.402 --> 00:25:46.042
That's fantastic.

00:25:46.063 --> 00:25:48.327
And then Brian's like, well, wait a minute.

00:25:48.387 --> 00:25:49.490
That's our gig.

00:25:50.051 --> 00:25:52.217
Like we were booked to play the next evening.

00:25:52.801 --> 00:26:00.548
So we chatted with, I think, Rich Molina or something, and we just worked out a deal where, I mean, those were the days when you played all night.

00:26:00.669 --> 00:26:10.156
So we agreed that we would play the opening set, then Walter would play a set with his band, then we would play a third set, a short thing, and then he would finish out the night with a fourth set.

00:26:10.758 --> 00:26:16.442
So that day, I'm thinking, oh, my God, I'm going to be playing in the same room with Big Walter Horton.

00:26:16.502 --> 00:26:18.564
And I started to kind of freak out a little bit.

00:26:18.624 --> 00:26:22.387
And then by the time I got to the gig, I was like, Kim, there is no pressure on you.

00:26:22.768 --> 00:26:25.070
Nobody is expecting anything of you.

00:26:25.111 --> 00:26:26.653
They're all coming to hear Big Walter.

00:26:26.834 --> 00:26:32.162
So I was in a pretty good space and we played a solid first set and then Walter played.

00:26:32.221 --> 00:26:37.169
And then now I'm totally inspired after hearing Walter for 45 minutes.

00:26:37.470 --> 00:26:40.153
And so I got up and we did a good second set.

00:26:40.394 --> 00:26:41.816
And then I went and sat down.

00:26:41.895 --> 00:26:46.323
I had a friend saving a space for me at the front table with a couple of beers.

00:26:46.623 --> 00:26:50.829
And now I'm just going to sit at the feet of the master and just soak it all in.

00:26:51.233 --> 00:26:56.740
And Rich Molina taps me on the shoulder and he goes, Big Walter would like you to play this last set with him.

00:26:57.141 --> 00:26:58.102
And I'm like, what?

00:26:58.663 --> 00:27:02.106
I look up and Walter is beckoning at me from across the room.

00:27:02.146 --> 00:27:07.393
And I sort of floated over to him in complete, like a coma.

00:27:08.054 --> 00:27:13.961
And he goes, yeah, you get on stage and play through my amp and I'll play through the vocal mic on the floor.

00:27:14.121 --> 00:27:17.404
He just put a vocal mic down on the floor and stood in front of the band.

00:27:17.986 --> 00:27:39.346
and sang and i played through his amp with the band i think he gave me maybe at least one maybe two solos i basically just played fills in his vote in and out of his vocals and then he took all the solos but I came home that night to my little apartment and I bounced around the walls for a couple of hours.

00:27:39.406 --> 00:27:45.251
And then I just went out in the streets and walked around till like dawn, you know, like till the sun came up.

00:27:45.352 --> 00:27:50.195
I was so completely flipped out that I had done that.

00:27:50.576 --> 00:27:52.959
I don't suppose you've got any recordings of that.

00:27:53.439 --> 00:27:54.539
No, I have no recordings, no

00:27:54.960 --> 00:28:02.067
photos, but I do have a friend who was there that night and he's validated

00:28:02.346 --> 00:28:03.728
that that all happened.

00:28:03.728 --> 00:28:09.655
It's like these days, you know, you'd have a hundred phones pointing at you, recording you, but back then this didn't exist, right?

00:28:09.675 --> 00:28:12.440
So it's a shame for you, you don't have a recording of it, right?

00:28:12.900 --> 00:28:18.847
It's a shame, but boy, the memory is so beautiful that I just, I can totally live with that.

00:28:19.128 --> 00:28:19.528
It's great.

00:28:19.628 --> 00:28:19.930
Fantastic.

00:28:20.210 --> 00:28:26.439
So you're in the Slamhound Hunters band at this stage, and is this the band you were playing with there?

00:28:26.459 --> 00:28:28.682
And you released a couple of albums with them, yeah?

00:28:31.885 --> 00:28:31.965
Yeah.

00:28:44.513 --> 00:28:46.536
That was a little bit later after I played with Brian.

00:28:47.135 --> 00:29:01.868
My friend, Lou Erlanger, who I was with in college in that band, The Stingrays, he had gone on to Mink DeVille and they had done really well, but he, for various reasons, he left the band and I convinced him to move out to Seattle and he and I formed the Slam Out Hunters together.

00:29:01.888 --> 00:29:03.390
We had a good run.

00:29:03.430 --> 00:29:08.094
We had a really good band and we did a couple of records for a local label.

00:29:08.174 --> 00:29:20.711
We had kind of a decent FM radio hit one summer and we did a tour of europe at some point we just sort of lost momentum but we did do some nice recordings

00:29:31.041 --> 00:29:31.663
Hey, everybody.

00:29:31.682 --> 00:29:45.392
You're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas out of Clearwater, Florida, the best in custom harmonicas, custom harmonica parts, and more.

00:29:45.873 --> 00:29:49.981
Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

00:29:50.145 --> 00:30:01.498
And then you moved to Worcester, Massachusetts for a while and completed the book there and met Charles Layton, who you definitely speak highly of as one of the best chromatic players.

00:30:01.538 --> 00:30:03.099
And he helped you get the book published, yeah?

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:04.801
Yeah, he did.

00:30:04.842 --> 00:30:13.211
He actually was, he knew the editor of Town and Country magazine, which is a kind of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous magazine.

00:30:13.250 --> 00:30:18.087
He was talking to the guy and he said, I had interviewed him for this book.

00:30:18.248 --> 00:30:25.193
He told the editor of Town& Country Magazine that there was this guy who'd written a book on the harmonica, and he said, oh, that's interesting.

00:30:25.273 --> 00:30:32.079
I met a book agent at a party last weekend, and she was looking for a book-related, a music-related manuscript.

00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:34.942
And so that's how I found this agent.

00:30:35.282 --> 00:30:36.423
It was just kind of amazing.

00:30:36.463 --> 00:30:43.108
But meeting Charlie Layton was like another, you know, one of the great high points of my musical life, for sure.

00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:44.891
People should check him out.

00:30:44.931 --> 00:31:21.875
I've posted a few of things on youtube he was really the first great jazz player on the chromatic as a teenager he kind of came you know played in vaudeville as a teenager as part of you know those harmonica bands that were so big then but he was a featured like jazz soloist then he went out as a solo player after world war ii playing the supper clubs and so forth but television sort of killed the nightclub scene and he became a recording engineer in new york and then he did a whole album of classical material, which a friend convinced him to do, which is also phenomenal.

00:31:22.636 --> 00:31:32.154
As the guy who wrote the book on the history of harmonica, you really, and personally, I just steer away from, you know, the who's the best ever kind of discussions.

00:31:32.737 --> 00:31:40.351
It's not correct, but for me, the person with the best tone ever on the chromatic is Charlie Layton.

00:31:40.712 --> 00:31:48.401
And that speaks to my own biases as kind of like loving traditional sound, kind of beautiful vibrato.

00:31:48.897 --> 00:31:52.961
really beautiful traditional jazz, but just a phenomenal player.

00:31:53.082 --> 00:31:58.886
People should really check him out because if you think you're doing something on the chromatic, you should hear Charlie Layden.

00:31:59.146 --> 00:32:04.151
He also was important for the book because he was my entry into the chromatic genre.

00:32:04.932 --> 00:32:16.102
So he opened up his Rolodex, and when I left his apartment, I had Jerry Murad's phone number, George Field's phone number, all these great chromatic players.

00:32:16.561 --> 00:32:19.644
And he put a little cassette in my hand as I left.

00:32:19.805 --> 00:32:21.267
He says, here's something I recorded.

00:32:21.867 --> 00:32:27.775
And about a week later, I went through my luggage and I found it and I put it on and I was just completely stunned.

00:32:28.154 --> 00:32:39.088
He recorded himself in his studio at night playing along with these music minus one records, you know, where you have the whole background and you learn how to play solos by playing along with them.

00:32:39.368 --> 00:32:41.711
He did a version of In a Sentimental Mood.

00:32:41.731 --> 00:32:46.718
In a Sentimental Mood

00:32:48.961 --> 00:33:12.615
So then you moved back to Seattle in the mid-90s, and you were in a band called Kimfield and the Titans of Town, where you did quite a few originals that you wrote, and you recorded a few songs with them.

00:33:13.457 --> 00:33:16.740
Yeah, I was actually out of music for about 10 years.

00:33:17.473 --> 00:33:20.518
Before the Titans of Tone, I have two boys.

00:33:20.538 --> 00:33:25.244
They were growing up and I was working a really challenging day job.

00:33:25.665 --> 00:33:30.553
So I really only played sort of casual gigs for about 10 years.

00:33:31.554 --> 00:33:36.760
And then as the boys got into high school, things like that, I had a little bit more time.

00:33:37.162 --> 00:33:42.410
I formed a band, a tone band, and I did a recording project with them.

00:33:42.849 --> 00:33:46.414
It was a little bit rushed, but there's some decent stuff in there.

00:33:46.515 --> 00:33:49.920
And I did an album of all original material with those guys.

00:33:49.940 --> 00:34:09.909
It sort of set a pattern for me, like...

00:34:10.849 --> 00:34:19.760
I had worked in four-piece bands for a long time doing kind of the pseudo T-Birds thing with one guitar, bass, drums, and harp.

00:34:20.181 --> 00:34:28.291
And when you add that second guitar or that keyboard, there's just a whole other world of music you can tackle.

00:34:29.052 --> 00:34:35.119
And so the Titans of Tone was built on a twin guitar concept of two guitars playing parts.

00:34:36.099 --> 00:34:37.021
And you can get a...

00:34:37.985 --> 00:35:01.293
really big sound i mean one of the issues with the harmonica is it's not a rhythm instrument i mean you can play rhythmically and you can do i'm a big believer in playing backup harmonica and not just soloing all the time but you can't play chords on it in the way you can play chords on a guitar or piano so when the guitar player takes the solo in the four piece, you know, it's a little empty, frankly.

00:35:01.614 --> 00:35:07.139
So after Seattle, my return to Seattle, I did another weird stint.

00:35:07.179 --> 00:35:10.822
I got a day job offer that I couldn't really turn down in New York City.

00:35:10.882 --> 00:35:12.764
I went back to New York for about three years.

00:35:13.543 --> 00:35:17.086
And then I moved, fallen in love with a woman from Portland, Oregon.

00:35:17.307 --> 00:35:21.711
So I finally made my way back to the Northwest, this time to Portland.

00:35:21.751 --> 00:35:24.514
And that's where I've been living for the last 10 years or so.

00:35:24.914 --> 00:35:31.068
But before we get onto that on your later So you're also in a country music band, the Titans of Twang.

00:35:31.458 --> 00:35:36.041
Well, I've always been a huge, basically honky tonk country fan.

00:35:36.342 --> 00:35:45.690
Like we talked earlier about how I quickly moved from the Rolling Stones to Muddy Waters and as a teenager and about a year later, I was still in high school.

00:35:46.411 --> 00:35:55.358
I saw Graham Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers three or four times one summer at a couple of different rock festivals and I was really intrigued by them.

00:35:55.378 --> 00:35:58.862
I figured, okay, well, this is just like the Rolling Stones going to Muddy Waters.

00:35:58.942 --> 00:36:02.867
I need to go to the record store and get a real country western record.

00:36:03.389 --> 00:36:13.733
This was the summer of 69 and the big song was Oki for Muskogee by Merle Haggard which is a particularly obnoxious song but I like the voice.

00:36:14.273 --> 00:36:20.418
I said, well, I should buy a really obnoxious country record and see if I can like that.

00:36:20.458 --> 00:36:22.440
I'll get into country.

00:36:23.121 --> 00:36:27.525
And I got Merle's Live in Muskogee album, which is a phenomenal album.

00:36:27.545 --> 00:36:28.786
He cycles through his hits.

00:36:29.407 --> 00:36:32.789
And I became a lifelong Merle Haggard fanatic.

00:36:32.829 --> 00:36:36.672
So I've listened to as much country music as I have blues.

00:36:37.253 --> 00:36:53.574
I hooked up with a fantastic singer, Lisa Teo, who had a concept to do the great country western duets like George Jones and Tammy Wynette and Graham Parsons and Amy Lou Harris and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn and people like that and she needed a guy.

00:36:53.594 --> 00:36:57.581
So she recruited me for that band and it was a thrill.

00:36:57.641 --> 00:36:59.063
It was a fantastic band.

00:36:59.123 --> 00:37:05.614
The players were all like super high level players and I had a ball playing in that and singing in that band.

00:37:06.474 --> 00:37:21.059
You're gonna lose a loving heart that you're breaking I'm

00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:23.762
not totally through with country music yet, I don't think.

00:37:24.063 --> 00:37:28.349
There's some fantastic country players in Portland, so I'm going to try to take advantage of that.

00:37:28.909 --> 00:37:31.432
So as you say, you're now living in Portland, Oregon.

00:37:31.492 --> 00:37:38.583
So you are now in the band called The Perfect Gentleman, which is your current band, and you've just released an album, released on April 14th.

00:37:38.603 --> 00:37:38.882
The Perfect

00:37:43.849 --> 00:37:52.958
Gentleman um

00:38:04.130 --> 00:38:16.501
Yeah, you just got this out, a great album, you know, listening to it, very sophisticated sound, there's horns in there, complex arrangements, and I think you sing most of that, and you wrote many of the songs, you obviously play harmonica on there too.

00:38:17.442 --> 00:38:18.684
Our mutual friend P.T.

00:38:18.724 --> 00:38:36.876
Gazelle, a fantastic harmonica player out of Nashville, he posted a little pocket review of the record on Facebook, and it meant a lot to me, not only because he's one of the people whose opinions I most respect in the harmonica world.

00:38:36.896 --> 00:38:41.168
He thought the record was a primer on how to play harmonica in a band.

00:38:41.188 --> 00:38:44.938
And I thought that was a really good comment.

00:38:45.474 --> 00:38:52.463
I mean, in terms of my career and everything and how I approach music and harmonica, it's sort of like there's different ways you can go.

00:38:52.483 --> 00:39:02.016
I mean, originally, I just wanted to be a musician, even though I had more raw talent, I think, in writing and actually in art as well.

00:39:02.056 --> 00:39:04.079
When I was a kid, I just drew all the time.

00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:11.690
But I thought musicians were the coolest guys on the planet, and I just wanted to be one of them, you know, in some small way.

00:39:11.929 --> 00:39:14.333
And so I kind of crowbarred my way in there.

00:39:14.786 --> 00:39:22.675
with the harmonica and I've never had an act where the whole thing was built just around a focus on me.

00:39:22.715 --> 00:39:33.210
I've always felt like if you're the best player in the band, you should get into another band because bands are so educational and you should just keep moving.

00:39:33.250 --> 00:39:39.478
I'm proud of the fact that I'm 73 years old now and I have the best band I've ever had.

00:39:39.938 --> 00:39:40.318
I think.

00:39:40.639 --> 00:39:42.800

Kim Field interview

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