June 11, 2020

Lee Oskar interview

Lee Oskar interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Harmonica Customiser Pop Harmonica Rock Harmonica

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

Lee also has numerous solo albums, releasing some of the most downright catchy harmonica melodies ever recorded.

On top of all this, he set-up his own harmonica company, leading the way with innovations such as replacement reed plates and different tunings

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

Lee Oskar website:
https://leeoskar.com

Lee Oskar harmonicas:
https://leeoskar.com/harmonicas/

Dreams We Share record label:
https://dreamsweshare.com

Teaching:

With Steve Lockwood:
https://www.leeoskarharmonicalessons.com

YouTube:

Lee Oskar Harmonicas 25th Year Anniversary Tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOXiJXHkiVA&list=PLJcbSv_zlUdyNXrAwkDwJi4XVhYCvqRrB

Lee Oskar Harmonicas YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/leeoskarharmonicas


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.com/

Support the show

01:20 - Lee's name and roots

01:36 - First harmonica and early influences

08:10 - Decided to move to the US

09:14 - Time in New York

09:39 - Met Eric Burdon in LA and forming of War

11:18 - How harmonica fitted into the band War and move into solo albums

16:34 - Low Rider song

17:51 - Jimi Hendrix last performance was with War

19:11 - Left band War

19:50 - First solo album

20:47 - Before The Rain album

23:33 - My Road, Our Road album

24:19 - Started playing in Japan and discovered Tombo, who manufacture Lee Oskar Harmonicas

26:37 - So Much In Love album

27:38 - What prompted Lee to start his own harmonica company

31:20 - Different tunings

32:32 - Tombo company

34:07 - Harmonicas have improved a lot in recent years

34:43 - Lee Oskar low tuned harmonicas and Melody Makers in new keys

38:20 - New Tremolo harmonica coming out

38:54 - Junior Wells buried with some Lee Oskar Harmonicas

39:15 - Interchangeable reed plates and new tool kit

41:15 - Teaching available through Lee Oskar website

42:21 - Singing

42:54 - Lee composes most of songs on solo albums

44:29 - Advice for upcoming bands or players

45:59 - 10 minute question

46:33 - Chromatic harmonica

47:19 - What harmonicas does Lee play

48:02 - Favourite key of harmonica

48:57 - Different tunings

51:05 - Overblows

51:48 - Embouchre

52:19 - Mics and amps

55:34 - Effects pedals

57:10 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:01.570 --> 00:00:05.697
Hi everybody, this is Neil Warren with episode 13 of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast.

00:00:06.338 --> 00:00:12.667
Thanks to my sponsor, the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more, designed for harmonica.

00:00:13.069 --> 00:00:16.475
Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:25.510
If you like the podcast, please remember to subscribe, and you can hear most of the songs discussed on the Spotify playlist.

00:00:26.210 --> 00:00:27.731
So Lee Oscar joins me today.

00:00:28.172 --> 00:00:39.029
Lee left his native Denmark to move to the US at the age of 18 and was soon enjoying phenomenal success with the rock funk band War, interweaving his soulful harmonica lines into the horn section.

00:00:39.329 --> 00:00:45.317
Lee has also had numerous solo albums, releasing some of the most downright catchy harmonica melodies ever recorded.

00:00:45.338 --> 00:00:52.829
On top of all this, he set up his own harmonica company, leading the way with innovations such as replacement replays and different tunings.

00:01:12.865 --> 00:01:14.769
Hello, Lee Oscar, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:15.129 --> 00:01:15.810
Thank you, Neil.

00:01:15.890 --> 00:01:17.212
Thanks for having me on board.

00:01:17.533 --> 00:01:19.736
Starting out with your name, Lee Oscar.

00:01:20.036 --> 00:01:22.680
I understand Oscar isn't your original name.

00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:23.700
It's Levitin.

00:01:24.162 --> 00:01:26.625
Well, my full name is Lee Oscar Levitin.

00:01:27.186 --> 00:01:29.829
In business, I go just by Lee Oscar.

00:01:30.751 --> 00:01:33.734
So you're originally from Copenhagen in Denmark.

00:01:34.536 --> 00:01:39.924
What was it like, or was the harmonica scene like in Copenhagen, your early influences that got you interested?

00:01:40.704 --> 00:01:41.305
My neighborhood?

00:01:41.486 --> 00:01:41.566
Yeah.

00:01:41.986 --> 00:01:42.968
You know, harmonica was more

00:01:43.007 --> 00:01:43.989
of a novelty thing.

00:01:44.010 --> 00:01:49.120
1954, I believe, I was six years old.

00:01:49.781 --> 00:01:52.688
That's when an American came to visit my family and I.

00:01:53.530 --> 00:01:54.912
He knew harmonica was the end thing.

00:01:54.953 --> 00:02:00.986
And so I got my harmonica and I was in love with it from the moment I breathed on it.

00:02:01.474 --> 00:02:01.933
Great.

00:02:01.953 --> 00:02:04.076
So six years old, that is an early beginning then.

00:02:04.137 --> 00:02:06.578
So had you heard any harmonica music at that point?

00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:08.200
Not really.

00:02:08.700 --> 00:02:11.283
You know, it's interesting how markets have changed.

00:02:11.324 --> 00:02:18.230
Like back then, the only thing I had to listen to musically was really just the radio.

00:02:18.670 --> 00:02:21.533
And radio didn't have different genres of music.

00:02:21.653 --> 00:02:22.555
It was music.

00:02:23.455 --> 00:02:25.798
And I don't recall anybody really harmonica.

00:02:25.837 --> 00:02:27.699
That was much later on.

00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:29.382
I learned about Larry Adler in that.

00:02:30.241 --> 00:02:37.272
As you grew up then and became a teenager, did you have any more influences then around harmonica music that you were listening to?

00:02:37.312 --> 00:02:38.254
No.

00:02:38.715 --> 00:02:45.747
I didn't have a record player or anything until I got in the United States and I got with Eric Burton.

00:02:47.088 --> 00:02:48.972
Up until then, I didn't even own a record player.

00:02:49.812 --> 00:02:54.039
So do you recall what were you playing in these early years of playing the harmonica then?

00:02:54.741 --> 00:02:56.903
Just make up whatever I was composing

00:02:56.963 --> 00:02:57.685
from the get-go.

00:02:58.306 --> 00:03:03.674
The only difference is back when I first started, I knew that I couldn't repeat the same thing.

00:03:03.713 --> 00:03:07.820
So I would just make stuff up and pretend I knew what I was doing.

00:03:08.782 --> 00:03:14.951
I read a quote that you were believed to be musically hopeless as a child and the harmonica saved you from that.

00:03:15.573 --> 00:03:16.715
Well, yeah.

00:03:16.995 --> 00:03:23.609
What I'm referring to is that I'm profoundly, I mean, I'm so into music, it livid.

00:03:24.068 --> 00:03:26.652
But I would have probably been considered musically hopeless.

00:03:27.174 --> 00:03:34.465
Putting myself down as being musically hopeless because the public in general refers somebody, if they can't play an instrument, they're musically hopeless.

00:03:35.507 --> 00:03:41.175
And that window that made me feel I could do music was the harmonica.

00:03:41.536 --> 00:03:43.098
There's no other window that was open.

00:03:43.361 --> 00:03:45.563
I mean, there's nothing else to this day I really play.

00:03:46.224 --> 00:03:49.407
I hear in my head cellos, violins.

00:03:49.467 --> 00:03:50.709
I hear arrangements.

00:03:50.829 --> 00:03:52.270
I hear so much.

00:03:53.312 --> 00:03:59.298
And finally able to apply it to this day, I would have been musically hopeless.

00:04:00.038 --> 00:04:05.903
So, yeah, harmonica was my window of opportunity to actually play rather than just feeling it and hearing it.

00:04:07.264 --> 00:04:09.106
So you didn't play any other instruments?

00:04:09.127 --> 00:04:11.889
You didn't have any lessons, piano lessons, anything like that when you were young?

00:04:12.322 --> 00:04:13.022
Not at all.

00:04:13.062 --> 00:04:15.586
Probably the worst thing that could have happened to me.

00:04:16.148 --> 00:04:19.913
Because if they thought I was musically inclined, they would have checked me off to harmonica.

00:04:20.454 --> 00:04:21.295
I always say that.

00:04:21.495 --> 00:04:26.723
And put me on what they thought would be a worthy instrument for someone potentially in music.

00:04:26.764 --> 00:04:28.646
And that would be a piano or a violin.

00:04:28.687 --> 00:04:38.742
And thank God that I was so far away from even being recognized in anything that was valuable in music that I was literally left alone.

00:04:39.841 --> 00:04:47.432
A lot of people I speak to on here, they drew a lot of early inspiration from listening to a lot of the classic blues harmonica players.

00:04:47.973 --> 00:04:49.836
Did you have that at some point in your teenage years?

00:04:49.875 --> 00:04:53.319
Did you start to discover other harmonica players and listen to them at some point?

00:04:53.880 --> 00:04:54.661
Not at all.

00:04:54.701 --> 00:05:02.473
My first introduction to, if it's harmonica playing specifically for blues, was in America, Little Walter.

00:05:03.213 --> 00:05:05.778
I just heard it and I thought it was amazing.

00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:08.862
But my first influence that I really...

00:05:09.281 --> 00:05:19.077
really really uh most inspiring in way i've always been playing like like making stuff up but they kind of like my it's my voice was when i heard ray charles

00:05:19.939 --> 00:05:25.187
absolutely it was fantastic of course she did the song uh song for ray as a tribute to ray charles

00:05:28.533 --> 00:05:28.574
so

00:05:42.625 --> 00:05:47.961
You play a great eclectic mix of styles and genres from your albums.

00:05:48.483 --> 00:05:57.629
Maybe that showed that because you weren't pushed in blues direction, which a lot of harmonica players are in the early days, that you were very open to playing all these different styles and genres.

00:05:58.017 --> 00:06:03.367
I think my influence basically in music is just like folks singing and playing.

00:06:03.427 --> 00:06:05.913
I mean, it's not a specific thing.

00:06:05.973 --> 00:06:07.716
I mean, you know, listen to radio.

00:06:07.757 --> 00:06:10.502
I mean, there was Bueling singing an opera.

00:06:10.521 --> 00:06:12.887
There was Perry Como, and that was one of my favorites.

00:06:13.447 --> 00:06:20.440
There was all kinds of things on the same radio, you know, and it was all just very, very inspiring, and I would always...

00:06:20.834 --> 00:06:23.939
I imagine myself as a conductor and playing.

00:06:24.358 --> 00:06:34.574
But the blues, the genre of blues that you're referring to, between the 1-4-5 changes, basically, and most of today's dominant chords, who doesn't like those?

00:06:34.595 --> 00:06:38.581
Those are amazing chord changes between the 1-4 and 1-4-5 or 1-5.

00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:41.125
I mean, you can't go wrong with that stuff.

00:06:41.745 --> 00:06:47.495
So it's been a canvas for a lot of music, different spins, that they have different genre names.

00:06:47.574 --> 00:06:49.257
But basically, those...

00:06:49.538 --> 00:06:52.923
particular motifs, I mean, you can't go wrong.

00:06:52.963 --> 00:06:54.105
You've got to love it.

00:06:54.206 --> 00:06:56.449
And I've always loved blues for that reason.

00:06:57.351 --> 00:07:01.598
As you say, Ray Charles, he's played a lot of, obviously a lot of horn players with him.

00:07:01.718 --> 00:07:09.572
So did that push you in the direction of, you know, trying to learn horn lines on the harmonica, which is something you definitely went on to do, go on to in a second?

00:07:09.952 --> 00:07:10.473
Not at all.

00:07:10.694 --> 00:07:14.721
I don't know where it came from, but it came from way when I was a kid.

00:07:15.233 --> 00:07:23.161
I would always visualize doing like what you might call horn lines, but it's basically, you know, I think of harmonica with the other brass.

00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:27.365
And I just was always wanting to play with somebody else, play a melody.

00:07:27.384 --> 00:07:30.346
I would come up with a melody and somebody played that with me, you know, that kind of thing.

00:07:31.007 --> 00:07:36.632
And so it was very exciting to think about saxophone and harmonica, flute and harmonica.

00:07:37.093 --> 00:07:41.216
You know, I didn't care who it was, you know, just somebody played his line with me.

00:07:41.257 --> 00:07:47.223
That was my way in the path of coaling and horn lines.

00:07:48.464 --> 00:07:55.314
So I was very fortunate when I finally got to exercise my dreams when I got with Eric Burton.

00:07:55.855 --> 00:08:06.690
He embraced my ideas, and me and Charles Miller, saxophone player from war, I mean, that was like a love affair, man, just to have harmonica and saxophone playing together.

00:08:06.711 --> 00:08:08.853
It was like, wow, it was just a dream come true.

00:08:09.634 --> 00:08:15.620
So you then made the decision at the age of 18 to move from Denmark to New York in America.

00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:18.882
Came to the United States in 1966, correct.

00:08:19.863 --> 00:08:21.526
So what inspired that decision?

00:08:21.565 --> 00:08:22.726
Was that a musical decision?

00:08:22.766 --> 00:08:23.708
Absolutely.

00:08:24.149 --> 00:08:27.552
In the 60s, I wanted to come to the United States.

00:08:28.353 --> 00:08:36.981
I mean, there was only two places in the world that seemed like there was like the music industry was the UK or England, particularly, and the United States.

00:08:37.889 --> 00:08:42.719
I mean, all ambition, just really, really, really wanted to be part of that.

00:08:43.119 --> 00:08:44.481
And there was nowhere else in the world.

00:08:44.562 --> 00:08:46.445
I mean, Denmark, are you kidding me?

00:08:47.005 --> 00:08:52.215
You know, you would have to be a profound jazz guy for them to even accept you to do something other than classical music.

00:08:53.076 --> 00:08:54.659
My sandbox was wide open.

00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:57.124
It wasn't anybody else's sandbox.

00:08:57.224 --> 00:09:00.350
And I just want to come to the United States and make it.

00:09:01.121 --> 00:09:07.653
So you moved to New York initially and you spent some time over there, but then you eventually ended up in Los Angeles.

00:09:07.673 --> 00:09:09.394
So what about that transition?

00:09:09.676 --> 00:09:13.402
Was there much happening in New York before you went west to Los Angeles?

00:09:13.542 --> 00:09:13.662
New

00:09:13.701 --> 00:09:15.424
York was very scary.

00:09:16.145 --> 00:09:17.989
It was scary, I think, to a lot of people.

00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:22.456
And on top of that, it was like I wasn't familiar with the culture.

00:09:22.657 --> 00:09:27.924
There were some people there that took interest, but I didn't know enough to...

00:09:28.865 --> 00:09:31.630
I knew that I need to go to Los Angeles.

00:09:31.831 --> 00:09:34.736
I mean, that's where the record industry was.

00:09:34.836 --> 00:09:37.280
And so I made it to the United States.

00:09:37.321 --> 00:09:39.024
I mean, I made it to L.A.

00:09:39.765 --> 00:09:44.192
So you went to Los Angeles and it's there that you met Eric Burden.

00:09:44.514 --> 00:09:46.618
And that was when things started taking off.

00:09:47.265 --> 00:09:52.692
That was the first, actually, reality of, like, feeling just amazed.

00:09:52.913 --> 00:10:01.164
Because I was, I mean, first of all, jamming with Eric Burton, and the whole scene there that I was, the door was always open for me to come in without having to pay.

00:10:01.205 --> 00:10:04.990
And I met Eric Burton, and he was a superstar.

00:10:05.009 --> 00:10:09.215
I mean, he was the same level of the animals as the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger.

00:10:09.235 --> 00:10:09.875
I mean, he was like...

00:10:10.297 --> 00:10:13.681
And we got to jam together with the Bank Hole Blues image, and...

00:10:14.562 --> 00:10:20.009
I was obviously looking, still trying to look for a deal or something to be part of.

00:10:20.489 --> 00:10:28.339
Here he comes along and embraced my playing, my energy and everything and was there with him and things involved.

00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:29.340
It was unbelievable.

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.724
And this then led on to the formation of the band WAR.

00:10:33.485 --> 00:10:41.053
Yeah, basically when I met Eric, he had already shut down the new animals, as he called it.

00:10:41.378 --> 00:10:45.263
and then did jamming in the same place I was playing, and we sat in.

00:10:45.802 --> 00:10:50.229
But then he wanted to form another band, and he really wanted me to be part of it.

00:10:50.749 --> 00:10:56.856
And we went to a club to check out this band that already were together, and they were called The Night Shift.

00:10:57.057 --> 00:11:04.346
And that same band, minus a few people, the nucleus of that band, I should say, and Eric and myself sat around in a swimming pool.

00:11:05.027 --> 00:11:08.150
After Eric and I went down to check out the band, I sat in and jammed with them.

00:11:08.591 --> 00:11:12.423
Next day, we were on a swimming pool in Hollywood, and But it was amazing.

00:11:12.787 --> 00:11:15.988
That's when we came up with the name WAR, and that's when it's part of

00:11:16.068 --> 00:11:17.256
something, my dream coming true.

00:11:18.337 --> 00:11:24.683
So war formed in the late 60s and went on some fantastic success through the 70s.

00:11:24.724 --> 00:11:35.832
So, you know, a real mixture of genres, you know, a kind of funk rock band playing R&B and jazz and rock and sort of Latin influences.

00:11:35.873 --> 00:11:39.155
So that suited your taste in harmonica.

00:11:39.196 --> 00:11:44.500
Yeah, it's funny because when I first got with Eric, I wanted blues.

00:11:44.561 --> 00:11:47.523
I mean, I just loved, like I said, those chord changes.

00:11:48.203 --> 00:11:50.547
My My roots, you know, I wasn't conscious of it.

00:11:50.647 --> 00:11:53.711
I'm a melody, I write, I compose melodies.

00:11:53.772 --> 00:11:54.633
I mean, that's what I am.

00:11:55.254 --> 00:11:57.057
But then you got to have the dirt and the other stuff.

00:11:57.157 --> 00:11:58.860
I mean, and I love all that.

00:11:59.561 --> 00:12:05.850
Everything we did as war, I felt that I was totally, I mean, I was like my family.

00:12:06.049 --> 00:12:06.990
I was totally low.

00:12:07.171 --> 00:12:12.258
Anything I created musically or anybody did, I felt it belonged to us as war.

00:12:12.678 --> 00:12:29.299
And I didn't really think about it consciously that most of the things we created as war was even if somebody would bring a great idea in, like Howard Scott's Cisco Kid or Slipping the Darkness, we basically embraced the stuff and we developed it in natural ways of jamming it and recording it.

00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:35.701
And so half of the stuff that we do is an arrangement of That really is part of the composition.

00:12:36.264 --> 00:12:42.717
When I would come into the studio and say, hey, I got this melody in that, and they would try, and I realized it didn't fit.

00:12:42.758 --> 00:12:51.797
That's when I decided I want to do my solo albums, and I hoped everybody else would do things that didn't fit within what we do together naturally.

00:12:52.289 --> 00:12:57.235
So they would be like, everybody would have their own albums out, including what we do together as War.

00:12:57.917 --> 00:13:01.360
That was an amazing dream that I wanted to see happen.

00:13:01.461 --> 00:13:03.543
And I did my own solo album for that reason.

00:13:03.583 --> 00:13:08.789
That's why the first album cover even has, on the harmonica, it has the name War on it.

00:13:08.929 --> 00:13:13.735
And even get guys credit, even though they didn't write any of it, because I wanted everybody to feel part of it.

00:13:14.256 --> 00:13:15.177
Then I realized...

00:13:15.457 --> 00:13:16.799
because I love playing blues and that.

00:13:17.181 --> 00:13:23.690
Then I realized people are going to be surprised when they, because they're going to expect when they hear me that, oh, Lioska's doing a solo album.

00:13:23.809 --> 00:13:26.693
So they expect it because of Harmonica, they expect it to be a blues album.

00:13:27.294 --> 00:13:29.958
And I had all these other things in me that I wanted to do.

00:13:30.379 --> 00:13:32.363
And nobody would ever expect that.

00:13:32.503 --> 00:13:37.570
Or even, it was even strange to the ears to hear Harmonic Minor, that first solo album I did.

00:13:38.110 --> 00:13:55.019
So I assume once, once they found that interesting and I got people embracing that, then eventually I would come out with a blues album and they would be surprised again and would love it, you know, instead of just being a blues album is just another ordinary thing because it's harmonica.

00:13:56.020 --> 00:14:22.219
And what I didn't realize is that in the meantime, the industry is forming more and more of a homogenized things with becoming categories and so blues has its own click and because I wasn't looked at as being a A blues harmonica player, once they heard my solo albums, I was totally, I don't want to say outcast, but it was like there's a wall right there where this cliche thing of what is blues and people would say, oh, Lee Oscar don't play blues.

00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:24.943
Well, you know, Miles Davis don't play blues either.

00:14:25.004 --> 00:14:26.606
Coltrane, no, they all play blues.

00:14:26.667 --> 00:14:27.548
I mean, that's what I am.

00:14:27.628 --> 00:14:28.370
I'm a blues player.

00:14:28.931 --> 00:14:32.115
But blues can be implied with more than just the one, four, five changes.

00:14:32.517 --> 00:14:33.938
It's the way you express.

00:14:33.999 --> 00:14:34.780
It's the attitude.

00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:35.501
It's the feeling.

00:14:35.778 --> 00:14:38.441
It's not just a form of a

00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:39.322
composition.

00:14:39.381 --> 00:14:43.446
So, yeah, War, again, they had great success through the 70s.

00:14:43.505 --> 00:14:51.094
You had the album The World is a Ghetto, which was on the best-selling album of 1973 in America on the Billboard chart there.

00:14:51.754 --> 00:14:55.298
And a lot of great harmonica on that album as well.

00:14:56.019 --> 00:14:58.100
You know, Where Was You At is one of the songs.

00:14:58.201 --> 00:14:58.301
And...

00:15:03.745 --> 00:15:17.697
your approach to playing harmonica in war just interested in that because As you say, you're interested in melodies, very much riff-based.

00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:19.701
There's a lot of instruments in war, isn't there?

00:15:19.740 --> 00:15:21.984
You've got various horns, a lot of different instruments.

00:15:22.024 --> 00:15:27.410
So how did you fit the harmonica in with all that, you know, the place of the harmonica in that band with so much going on?

00:15:27.932 --> 00:16:08.589
Well, it's back to my vision is to be part of a band and be, if I'm not soloing, be really in the motif as doing counterlines melody lines that I called and always with a saxophone as much as it works or without the sax but it's counterlines it's what I would call horn lines I've learned to understand myself and to explain something is that music is not filling in space music is creating space and I find what I'm good at is composing melodies or counterlines And it's basically, it's not sitting methodically.

00:16:08.649 --> 00:16:13.096
It's like if someone goes, plays a riff, I can react to it with a riff.

00:16:13.736 --> 00:16:14.918
And that creates more space.

00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:22.830
So counter lines are going to be just as strong as the melody line that the lyrics or without lyrics, you know, the main melody.

00:16:23.390 --> 00:16:24.493
It's just really that.

00:16:25.214 --> 00:16:25.995
And phrasing.

00:16:26.274 --> 00:16:29.720
I mean, there are two things in the music in creating space.

00:16:29.759 --> 00:16:31.503
It's your phrasing and the pocket.

00:16:32.203 --> 00:16:33.225
That's basically it.

00:16:33.325 --> 00:16:33.446
And

00:16:34.114 --> 00:16:47.572
So talking about your melodies, but we can't talk about you playing with War without talking about the song Low Rider, and you've created quite possibly the most memorable harmonica riff ever come up with on that song, Low Rider.

00:16:55.402 --> 00:16:55.581
Low Rider

00:17:11.938 --> 00:17:13.760
Charles Mill and I was out of the studio.

00:17:13.820 --> 00:17:16.806
We were out on the pier.

00:17:17.006 --> 00:17:21.292
By the time we gave up, it was like maybe 6 in the morning.

00:17:21.333 --> 00:17:29.226
We knew the guys were in the studio, and we went in, and they had just laid a track down that was for Lowrider.

00:17:29.767 --> 00:17:35.275
And Charles went in there, and he immediately started singing, Lowrider.

00:17:36.057 --> 00:17:39.241
And then I went, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

00:17:39.778 --> 00:17:46.425
You know, just where it comes from, just like anything else when we create or compose or whatever.

00:17:46.465 --> 00:17:48.489
That's pretty much it.

00:17:50.009 --> 00:17:53.714
There's an amazing thing happened in 1970.

00:17:54.536 --> 00:18:00.383
Jimi Hendrix's last performance before he died the next day was with War at Ronnie Scott's in London.

00:18:00.403 --> 00:18:01.324
Were you at that gig?

00:18:02.285 --> 00:18:03.046
Yes, I was.

00:18:04.067 --> 00:18:09.314
Jimi was standing right next to me, and I used to look forward to playing Mother Earth.

00:18:09.730 --> 00:18:11.811
which is a great blues tune.

00:18:12.653 --> 00:18:15.155
And I always look forward to doing the solo in that.

00:18:15.675 --> 00:18:21.602
And when Jimmy was on stage with us, you know, of course, I stood back and let Jimmy have that space.

00:18:21.682 --> 00:18:23.203
And it was amazing.

00:18:24.125 --> 00:18:32.432
Just to emphasize again, you know, that Jimi Hendrix played Saturn with you for the second part of your set that night and then sadly died the next morning.

00:18:32.492 --> 00:18:33.934
So you heard the news.

00:18:33.994 --> 00:18:36.917
I guess that was pretty shocking to the whole world when he died.

00:18:38.082 --> 00:18:38.583
It was.

00:18:39.303 --> 00:18:43.847
We were on stage playing, and he was leaning against the wall.

00:18:43.867 --> 00:18:47.571
I mean, he wasn't doing great, but he sounded amazing.

00:18:48.252 --> 00:18:53.578
And the next day, he was supposed to come back, and that's when Nicole came from Monique, his German girlfriend.

00:18:54.220 --> 00:18:55.039
They lived in London.

00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:59.204
Called Ronnie Scott, and so she did.

00:18:59.224 --> 00:19:03.209
And when we got off stage, then Eric split, and...

00:19:04.417 --> 00:19:09.746
myself and a friend we were just walking around london just in total shock you know

00:19:11.148 --> 00:19:29.518
so you you stayed you stayed with war well war the war the war was around until 1994 so as you say you were doing your own solo projects between that time so did you stay with war for all that time before you then formed the low rider band which is a some of the members from war you formed the low rider band

00:19:30.145 --> 00:19:32.888
You know, Neil, it's not so cut and dry.

00:19:32.930 --> 00:19:37.035
It's crazy how things got totally unseveral as a band.

00:19:37.494 --> 00:19:40.798
But then things started happening with the business and the legal stuff.

00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:47.167
And I just finally had to not be in a conflict with my harmonica company.

00:19:47.728 --> 00:19:49.230
I had to drop out.

00:19:50.811 --> 00:19:55.077
So you did a solo album in 1976, which was called The Oscar.

00:19:55.597 --> 00:19:58.382
The first three songs on the album are...

00:19:59.170 --> 00:20:06.659
or symphonies, you know, you've got the word symphony as part of the title song, so I remember home, symphony, isn't it?

00:20:22.818 --> 00:20:31.087
Those compositions, I remember home, The Journey, The Pest and Symphony, The Journey, The Immigrant, and Promised Land.

00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:35.011
Those are like three movements I composed, and I was going to do it with war.

00:20:35.053 --> 00:20:37.915
That's why I went in the studio and the ideas.

00:20:37.976 --> 00:20:46.566
And that's when I realized that some things creatively that is in within each of us may not be part of what marinates as war.

00:20:46.625 --> 00:20:46.705
You

00:20:47.846 --> 00:20:53.933
had Before the Rain in 1978, which if I've got this right, it was probably your biggest hit.

00:20:54.273 --> 00:20:54.955
as an album.

00:20:55.277 --> 00:21:04.645
And again, almost a kind of concept album in a way, because the song Before the Rain, you've got this section at the end where you've got like the rain sound for like getting on for a minute.

00:21:04.686 --> 00:21:04.906
Yeah.

00:21:04.946 --> 00:21:05.789
So it's great.

00:21:05.910 --> 00:21:06.593
I love that song.

00:21:06.633 --> 00:21:07.896
It's again, it's a long song.

00:21:30.082 --> 00:21:33.326
You've got this kind of long section at the end where Rain is playing.

00:21:33.385 --> 00:21:35.407
So what about that song and that album?

00:21:36.669 --> 00:21:38.570
Well, I'm always into sound.

00:21:38.832 --> 00:21:42.055
I love ambience and all that.

00:21:42.336 --> 00:21:49.784
And what inspired me to even get more into it was when I was hanging out with Mickey Hart from The Grateful Dead.

00:21:50.424 --> 00:21:54.209
And he was so into ambience and sounds.

00:21:54.588 --> 00:21:57.132
And I love that stuff myself.

00:21:57.231 --> 00:21:58.753
And so I got the right gear.

00:21:59.266 --> 00:21:59.846
to record.

00:21:59.987 --> 00:22:08.519
And matter of fact, that was in Mickey Hart's ranch when I recorded The Rain because there was like a metal roof so you could hear The Rain.

00:22:09.401 --> 00:22:10.061
I just loved that.

00:22:10.122 --> 00:22:10.942
It was just all to me.

00:22:10.982 --> 00:22:17.551
To me, everything I did musically, even with war, I always wanted it to be a journey.

00:22:18.493 --> 00:22:26.786
The fact that something's got to be only three minutes and 58 seconds back then to play on radio, that usually was a lot of edits.

00:22:27.778 --> 00:22:39.957
Just so you know, Neil, the fact that when we were one of the first bands as War Ambit to play live on television because they wanted to keep rock and roll, remember all that stuff out, we just jammed.

00:22:40.017 --> 00:22:50.534
And so when they were doing the test run before the actual video, just to get position with the cameras, we were into the tune, whatever tune it was, maybe Cisco Kid or something.

00:22:50.594 --> 00:22:55.261
And then 10 minutes later, you open your eyes and you can feel they've been trying to stop us.

00:22:56.130 --> 00:23:00.436
And they would say, no, your record is three minutes and 58 seconds.

00:23:01.259 --> 00:23:08.410
We never had the mentality after the fact, okay, we've got to edit this now and do this to make it a single.

00:23:09.291 --> 00:23:11.915
So everything is, in my philosophy, is about the music.

00:23:12.877 --> 00:23:14.701
And so that Before the Rain song, is that right?

00:23:14.721 --> 00:23:16.544
You're playing that on a D-flat harmonica?

00:23:17.125 --> 00:23:22.554
Yeah, I played first position, D-flat, and then when I solo, I just used second position, F-sharp.

00:23:23.041 --> 00:23:27.567
So then another successful album for you, the My Road, Our Road.

00:23:27.626 --> 00:23:29.308
Is that a movie soundtrack album?

00:23:30.509 --> 00:23:31.431
Yes, My Road.

00:23:31.570 --> 00:23:37.718
After I created it, My Road, I composed My Road and then produced that Our Road.

00:23:37.758 --> 00:23:49.109
There was a Japanese film director who loved My Road and he created a movie around that composition, My Recording.

00:23:49.506 --> 00:24:04.837
And that about a Japanese guy who comes to the United States and hitchhiking and the scenarios he goes to and all the cliches, you know, but for whatever it's worth, I mean, you know, it's made to seem like I composed that for the film.

00:24:05.338 --> 00:24:10.609
But the honest truth is I composed it and recorded and then they used it for a movie theme.

00:24:12.001 --> 00:24:15.926
Okay, yeah, so it sort of came after, because it suits that sort of sound, doesn't it?

00:24:16.047 --> 00:24:18.630
It's got that kind of movie soundtrack sound about it, that album.

00:24:19.751 --> 00:24:26.901
Well, then getting into, so 1980s, that album, then getting into the 80s, you did a few albums with bands in Japan.

00:24:26.941 --> 00:24:31.586
Was this the start of your journey to finding Tombow, to setting up your harmonica company?

00:24:31.606 --> 00:24:33.528
Is that the Japanese connection?

00:24:34.309 --> 00:24:40.116
Yeah, I mean, I was doing a lot of stuff in Japan, including composing and...

00:24:41.057 --> 00:24:44.482
for commercials, for TV commercials in Japan.

00:24:44.502 --> 00:24:52.794
I would come over there quite a bit to compose music for their commercials, you know, Budweiser, Mitsubishi, you name it.

00:24:53.453 --> 00:24:56.218
And I was also very tight with a Fusawa, the drummer.

00:24:57.138 --> 00:25:13.346
Whenever I would go out there on some tours, I mean, with all the locals, local musicians and all local places, from Hokkaido all the way down to Kyushu, Japan, Every little town, I would be playing with Japanese, so we called Lee Oscar and Japanese friends.

00:25:14.268 --> 00:25:24.165
And so all my activities there, I heard a harmonica playing down the hallway and knocked on the door and it was Kan Minaka playing a tremolo.

00:25:25.089 --> 00:25:28.055
invited myself in and looked at the harmonica and I saw the name Tombo.

00:25:28.095 --> 00:25:34.064
And I've been in a quest to collaborate with a factory that makes harmonicas for a long time.

00:25:34.124 --> 00:25:39.511
And so here was an opportunity that fortunately came true.

00:25:39.573 --> 00:25:40.914
I mean, they were fans.

00:25:41.154 --> 00:25:45.101
Now they're like 103 years old, Tombo Factory.

00:25:45.521 --> 00:25:47.243
So they're going on five generations.

00:25:48.105 --> 00:25:53.374
They were fans of my first solo album because it was big with Shiseido...

00:25:53.698 --> 00:25:55.224
women cosmetic commercial.

00:25:55.265 --> 00:25:58.598
So I was very fortunate that they already were aware of me.

00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:04.931
And then I told them I want to have my designs and ideas and with their expertise, uh, Dream come

00:26:04.971 --> 00:26:05.451
true again.

00:26:05.471 --> 00:26:07.773
So getting on to your harmonicas now.

00:26:07.814 --> 00:26:11.877
So first of all, I have a harmonica which is signed by you on the cover plate.

00:26:11.938 --> 00:26:16.202
So I won this harmonica in a competition at some point many years ago now.

00:26:16.702 --> 00:26:19.506
And I also received your album, So Much In Love.

00:26:19.926 --> 00:26:21.228
So I got sent this harmonica.

00:26:21.347 --> 00:26:23.990
And I've still got this engraved signature by you.

00:26:24.030 --> 00:26:30.157
And I changed the cover plate onto another one, which is in better condition because it was quite an old one at this point.

00:26:30.417 --> 00:26:34.061
So I do have a signed harmonica from you, Lee, which I've had for many years now.

00:26:34.369 --> 00:26:45.494
But just briefly before we get on to your thing, the album So Much In Love, that song, again, is another great example of such catchy melodies.

00:26:45.555 --> 00:26:51.288
I've been listening to your music over the last few days, and that song particularly, So Much In Love, what a catchy melody.

00:26:51.327 --> 00:26:52.230
I couldn't get it out of my head.

00:27:10.018 --> 00:27:10.659
Thank you, man.

00:27:10.679 --> 00:27:11.240
I appreciate it.

00:27:11.800 --> 00:27:16.769
Just on a side note on that, I'm just finishing producing other artists.

00:27:16.828 --> 00:27:18.050
I formed my record label.

00:27:18.852 --> 00:27:26.303
And then the album that is already released by Miyazaki, he's a Japanese saxophone player.

00:27:26.364 --> 00:27:27.105
He's amazing.

00:27:27.766 --> 00:27:32.553
He's doing all the other compositions that I produced, and he's doing a version of So Much in Love.

00:27:32.573 --> 00:27:37.800
That's even, to me, much better than the one that came from the album you talk about.

00:27:38.369 --> 00:27:44.016
Coming then to your, you know, you're very well known, obviously, for the range of Lee Oscar harmonicas.

00:27:44.537 --> 00:27:53.146
This came about from your own, you know, you were retuning harmonicas at this point yourself, yeah, so they could meet what you needed in the music that you were playing.

00:27:53.207 --> 00:27:56.770
Is that what started you off on the idea about creating your own harmonica company?

00:27:57.531 --> 00:27:58.673
It wasn't about the tunings.

00:27:58.712 --> 00:27:59.693
That would be part of it.

00:27:59.954 --> 00:28:09.361
I mean, with or without the tunings, it was literally, I was very frustrated with the quality of, Just basically what was available on the market.

00:28:09.401 --> 00:28:17.208
I would never, ever even think of wanting to be involved in manufacturing if I wasn't so frustrated with what existed.

00:28:18.009 --> 00:28:24.275
I mean, maybe one out of every ten harmonicas that was available in the market was only good.

00:28:24.295 --> 00:28:29.400
The other nine, I would have to tinker with and whatever to make it right.

00:28:30.221 --> 00:28:37.727
And I would never even have known how bad the quality of harmonicas were out there until after I got with Eric Burden.

00:28:37.987 --> 00:28:41.733
And every penny I got, I would spend on harmonicas.

00:28:42.174 --> 00:28:46.041
That's when I literally found out how bad the image of harmonica and the quality.

00:28:46.762 --> 00:28:53.595
The Rodis bring this huge case, the size of a big refrigerator with 12 drawers, bring it on stage even.

00:28:53.955 --> 00:28:54.737
I mean, it was heavy.

00:28:55.357 --> 00:28:58.547
And bring it on stage, it was just full of 12 different keys.

00:28:59.007 --> 00:29:01.990
And I would just go through it even while I'm on stage playing.

00:29:02.810 --> 00:29:04.352
So that's what led me to it.

00:29:04.853 --> 00:29:12.220
And then the tunings was always part of the thing that I always wanted to have available.

00:29:12.819 --> 00:29:17.464
Burt Bacharach hired me for a session, Burt Bacharach and Roberta Flagg.

00:29:18.326 --> 00:29:20.928
And I was so embarrassed.

00:29:22.028 --> 00:29:27.034
I even think if somebody's really good with overblows, they would not have made it with this session.

00:29:27.266 --> 00:29:40.465
Because, you know, passing notes with overblows is one thing, but to play pristine the note and lean on it as part of the melody, that's very, very difficult, even for people who really do well with overblows.

00:29:41.146 --> 00:29:48.238
And this beautiful tune, this beautiful song that Burt Bacharach and Roberta Flack were producing on Roberta Flack, I was hired.

00:29:48.798 --> 00:30:17.613
And I couldn't get that seventh, that minor seventh, you know, on a on the draw was just no matter how much I tried with my lack of overblow techniques but still were able to do it someone passing notes did not cut it and I I I was humiliated and embarrassed and that's when I decided um to start coming out with these different tunings because, you know, there was no room for me to sit there.

00:30:17.633 --> 00:30:18.634
I didn't have a tool kit.

00:30:18.673 --> 00:30:22.500
There was no room for me to do the stuff that I would be prepared since that bad experience.

00:30:22.961 --> 00:30:27.527
So had your harmonica range already come out and then you added different tunings later?

00:30:28.428 --> 00:30:39.070
Well, when I first started with tombo in the late 70s, you know, just preparing, I learned about manufacturing that there's no room for impulse.

00:30:39.171 --> 00:30:40.712
I mean, I had so many ideas.

00:30:40.732 --> 00:30:43.938
I had a list of so many different tunings and different things I wanted to do.

00:30:43.978 --> 00:30:49.365
And machines and setup and manufacturing, there's no room for all that.

00:30:49.665 --> 00:30:53.892
You've got to start small and you've got to decide exactly what you want to do.

00:30:53.932 --> 00:30:57.517
Whether it's equal tuning or temper tuning and whatever.

00:30:57.637 --> 00:31:03.365
So I came out with the Mage Lightonic Harmonic Minor and then soon after added the Natural Minor.

00:31:04.034 --> 00:31:11.505
And then I said, you know, even though you can use the natural minor to play the relative major, let's do what I decided to call the melody maker.

00:31:11.625 --> 00:31:20.118
And so all that was within, you know, a year from the time I came out to a year later, the melody maker.

00:31:20.700 --> 00:31:22.982
Yeah, so that must have been pretty innovative at the time.

00:31:23.403 --> 00:31:25.846
Harmonic minor was old.

00:31:25.906 --> 00:31:29.993
That was because of German music, symphonic stuff.

00:31:30.369 --> 00:31:31.151
It

00:31:31.191 --> 00:31:35.458
was a certain ten-hole, and it was literally a minor.

00:31:35.498 --> 00:31:41.647
But even my solo album and all that, that was all me tuning to make that.

00:31:42.209 --> 00:31:43.810
I remember home, that stuff.

00:31:44.571 --> 00:31:47.236
That's before I had the harmonicas.

00:31:47.978 --> 00:31:50.821
You do play different tunings on your solo albums, don't you?

00:31:50.862 --> 00:31:55.589
So is that information available anywhere around which tunings you play and which songs?

00:31:56.546 --> 00:32:03.961
The only thing that I played that was altered was what is a harmonic minor from a major diatonic, and that's a B harmonic minor.

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:06.046
Everything else was just straight major diatonic.

00:32:07.307 --> 00:32:10.013
Again, so your company, you came up and...

00:32:10.114 --> 00:32:11.936
You know, tremendous success.

00:32:11.957 --> 00:32:14.141
You must be really proud of what you've done with the Oskar harmonicas.

00:32:14.201 --> 00:32:16.445
Again, I think you've led the way with different tunings.

00:32:16.886 --> 00:32:21.355
And I think those harmonicas were very good quality harmonicas and have been for a long time.

00:32:22.115 --> 00:32:27.626
Like you say, that was probably one of your main drivers because of the lack of quality in some of the other harmonicas around at the time.

00:32:27.686 --> 00:32:31.374
So they stood up really well, didn't they, those Oskar harmonicas?

00:32:32.609 --> 00:32:37.494
You know, my needs and what I was on a quest for didn't give the answers.

00:32:37.555 --> 00:32:41.618
That was what I would settle with starting there.

00:32:42.298 --> 00:32:52.888
But the credit, unfortunately, was that Thumbo themselves, amazing, amazing loyalty to make the best quality.

00:32:52.949 --> 00:32:55.932
I mean, it's a commitment from the great-grandfather.

00:32:55.971 --> 00:33:01.237
I mean, their whole family and the generations and what they have been through.

00:33:02.114 --> 00:33:06.760
Nothing but respect and their quality control is next to none.

00:33:07.142 --> 00:33:09.104
And it's been an amazing ride.

00:33:09.164 --> 00:33:22.223
I mean, everything I've been in business doing since I started with Tombow, not just the quality of my product, even the business or the logistics of shipping and everything is just perfect.

00:33:22.744 --> 00:33:28.512
I've never had a headache in my relationship in business with Tombow, with the Mono family.

00:33:29.730 --> 00:33:30.691
It's funny.

00:33:30.711 --> 00:33:40.265
It's like I don't have to put fires out, and when somebody complains about my harmonica, I know, you know, usually it's the two and three draw, which is common difficulty.

00:33:40.944 --> 00:33:54.443
And I love the fact that I can even personally get on the phone, not just have one of our techs, but on the phone and walk them through it, and then they end up being more than happy because they learned, took the mystery out of harmonica, and they can appreciate our quality.

00:33:55.045 --> 00:33:57.929
And that's what I live for, is that it's not just honking on it.

00:33:57.949 --> 00:33:58.490
They can really...

00:33:58.913 --> 00:34:06.142
Once they understand enough about it, then they can really appreciate the subtleties of what makes a harmonica better than anything else I've ever had.

00:34:07.242 --> 00:34:11.067
I mean, over the last 10 or 20 years or so, the harmonicas have really revolutionized.

00:34:11.086 --> 00:34:12.528
The quality has really gone up, hasn't it?

00:34:13.909 --> 00:34:14.871
It certainly has.

00:34:15.572 --> 00:34:18.976
So, I mean, the Oscar is still going well, yeah, still going strong.

00:34:19.016 --> 00:34:22.940
You're still out there producing and selling well your harmonica range, yeah?

00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:26.643
We're about 30% of the market, yeah.

00:34:26.744 --> 00:34:28.126
That's pretty incredible, yeah.

00:34:28.641 --> 00:34:31.045
It's changing because things are online now.

00:34:31.204 --> 00:34:38.434
But as far as when it was brick-and-mortar stores and all that, it was basically, proportionally-wise, Horner and Lee Oscar.

00:34:38.554 --> 00:34:43.079
And I would say out of every 10, seven Horner and three Lee Oscars.

00:34:44.101 --> 00:34:45.202
And still going strong?

00:34:45.242 --> 00:34:47.284
I mean, you're still innovating.

00:34:47.364 --> 00:34:51.650
I think you've released some more low tunings in different keys, haven't you, quite recently?

00:34:51.690 --> 00:34:54.293
So you're still working on developments and innovations?

00:34:55.054 --> 00:34:55.536
Absolutely.

00:34:55.576 --> 00:34:56.737
We have added...

00:34:57.697 --> 00:35:29.317
four more low keys so we always had the low F but now we have low F sharp and low E low D and low C and the reason why we do a low F sharp is because a lot of people like to tune down a half a step on the guitar so there's the F sharp and a low E because a lot of people play straight harp and they play in key of E on the guitar and And, you know, normal E is a little on the high side unless somebody has really good tone, you know.

00:35:29.858 --> 00:35:31.259
And then, of course, low C and low D.

00:35:31.940 --> 00:35:36.224
But I do want to say that a few things we're coming out with.

00:35:36.804 --> 00:35:45.614
Well, right now we just came out with four more melody makers and four more keys because the melody makers are starting to do really, really well.

00:35:45.655 --> 00:35:51.422
A lot of people are starting to, you know, recognize and relying on that tuning.

00:35:52.065 --> 00:35:53.987
It's all a trademark in a sense.

00:35:54.047 --> 00:35:57.072
We don't want to make that tuning and we don't want to call it a melody maker.

00:35:57.092 --> 00:36:00.775
Now you've got another company copying us and it's called a melodic maker.

00:36:00.795 --> 00:36:00.896
I

00:36:01.998 --> 00:36:06.744
talked about that tuning on recent podcasts and talking to guys like Charlie McCoy.

00:36:06.764 --> 00:36:14.773
So the melody maker has got the A note in the bottom octave on the C harmonica and it's got the F sharp on the 5 draw.

00:36:14.833 --> 00:36:18.777
So you've basically got a second position major scale, yeah.

00:36:19.233 --> 00:36:26.786
Charlie McCoy's got the, you know, the typical, which is very important, so you can have both your seventh and your flattest seventh.

00:36:27.449 --> 00:36:33.278
And imagine like Charlie going to five draw, you know, if you're playing in second position, then you're playing a minor seventh.

00:36:33.860 --> 00:36:34.762
But by having...

00:36:35.266 --> 00:36:40.556
If it's a C-hop and the F now is on the five draw, it's an F sharp.

00:36:41.317 --> 00:36:43.099
Charlie McCoy has done that for a long time.

00:36:43.802 --> 00:36:50.855
The ray, like do-ray, you know, the second note in the scale, without half the bend, is very important to a lot of people.

00:36:50.954 --> 00:36:54.581
So when you play melodies in second position...

00:36:55.458 --> 00:37:01.528
You don't need the same note on the three blowers, the two draws, because you're not going from a one to a five chord.

00:37:01.568 --> 00:37:05.976
So do, re, so G, A on the three blowers and A.

00:37:06.436 --> 00:37:11.565
But the chord-wise is really important, too, because now you can play not just dominant.

00:37:11.806 --> 00:37:15.213
Now you can play a reggae, a clave, African.

00:37:15.293 --> 00:37:20.402
You can play so many things, starting from blow with an A minor seventh on that G melody maker.

00:37:21.153 --> 00:37:40.925
relative to the C or you can play the G major 7th so it opens up a lot of windows I've got letters from one student musician he was out of the UK when he got a hold of one he said he gave me a whole new career and I think that was pretty happy to hear that that was wonderful Right.

00:37:40.985 --> 00:37:45.771
So we came out initially because it takes time for things to catch on.

00:37:45.831 --> 00:37:51.219
We came out in the five keys, and that's based on the common keys guitar players play in.

00:37:52.541 --> 00:38:00.731
But now there's a lot of people who have found out about it and is loving it, and they want to have it in the keys that are more or less for the home players and all that.

00:38:00.791 --> 00:38:02.793
So we came out with B-flat, E-flat.

00:38:03.393 --> 00:38:05.456
high C because the normal C is low.

00:38:06.137 --> 00:38:11.643
So now the high C is like the F major diatonic as a high C melody maker.

00:38:12.304 --> 00:38:14.786
And it's also a B flat melody maker.

00:38:15.347 --> 00:38:16.047
People have been waiting.

00:38:16.088 --> 00:38:17.128
We're just getting them out.

00:38:18.731 --> 00:38:24.896
So we have the melody maker as the major diatonic, but we're also coming out with a tremolo that will hopefully be soon out.

00:38:24.996 --> 00:38:27.719
The idea has been around for quite a while with us.

00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:29.362
It's called the Hawaiian harmonica.

00:38:30.103 --> 00:38:31.784
And basically I look at the Germans.

00:38:31.824 --> 00:38:32.706
They got the Alps.

00:38:33.442 --> 00:38:39.509
And tremolo has been a very popular harmonica sound in the old days in Europe and still is in Asia.

00:38:40.449 --> 00:38:44.173
So I decided I want to come out with a tremolo and call it a Hawaiian harmonica.

00:38:44.355 --> 00:38:50.702
And it'll be a beautiful looking harmonica with Hawaiian islands on it.

00:38:51.242 --> 00:38:53.625
And that's going to be released hopefully later this year.

00:38:53.664 --> 00:38:53.684
I

00:38:55.146 --> 00:39:00.672
understand that Junior Wells is such a fan of your harmonicas that he actually was buried with a tray of them.

00:39:01.409 --> 00:39:02.952
That's what the rumor is.

00:39:03.092 --> 00:39:07.077
I know that they, I know some of the Oscar Monaco's were put in the grave with him.

00:39:07.617 --> 00:39:08.538
I guess it was a tray.

00:39:08.597 --> 00:39:08.938
I don't know.

00:39:09.018 --> 00:39:12.041
I was there, but I don't recall exactly how many.

00:39:12.782 --> 00:39:13.003
Yeah.

00:39:13.204 --> 00:39:14.545
He was, he was a great guy.

00:39:15.746 --> 00:39:28.862
I should also mention that we, you know, we have the interchangeable replays, you know, we were the pioneer of that stuff and, and it does well, but we stopped making the tool kit and, only because I was not happy with the quality.

00:39:29.083 --> 00:39:35.572
And I knew that high-quality stuff, people have to pay more money, and a lot of people really think tools are worth.

00:39:36.432 --> 00:39:38.655
But I still didn't want to keep it out there.

00:39:38.775 --> 00:39:43.181
And we're just working on now getting a new toolkit together that's going to be amazing.

00:39:43.762 --> 00:39:50.052
Even the tool we created is to put the nuts and bolts back, you know, so people, if they're all thumbs, they won't have a problem.

00:39:50.211 --> 00:39:51.273
So it's really a...

00:39:51.585 --> 00:39:54.789
I'm very much looking forward to get that out as soon as possible.

00:39:54.889 --> 00:39:55.750
Yeah, it's a good idea.

00:39:55.769 --> 00:39:58.032
A lot of people are now into doing their own maintenance.

00:39:58.251 --> 00:39:59.072
Certainly, I do my own.

00:39:59.132 --> 00:40:02.615
I do have one of your older toolkits, actually, but it's quite old now.

00:40:02.635 --> 00:40:05.717
I've lost a few parts, but yeah, it'd be interesting to check out the new one.

00:40:05.958 --> 00:40:08.300
And I think the low E is a really good idea as well.

00:40:08.360 --> 00:40:09.400
I don't actually have a low E.

00:40:09.420 --> 00:40:14.206
I have a few other low keys, but the low E is a very good idea, like you say, in first position.

00:40:14.465 --> 00:40:16.407
So yeah, lots of innovations.

00:40:16.427 --> 00:40:20.670
Like you said, the change in the replays was something else which you guys came up with first as well.

00:40:21.552 --> 00:40:26.137
Anything else you want to say about the manufacturing side before we move

00:40:26.958 --> 00:40:26.998
on?

00:40:27.018 --> 00:40:33.788
I just want to say that quality control is very, very important to us and Tombo.

00:40:33.907 --> 00:40:45.001
And I'm just very, very proud and happy, I can't emphasize enough, to have that collaboration and take the mystery out of the harmonica to a consumer and educate them.

00:40:45.346 --> 00:40:46.307
It's all part of it.

00:40:46.367 --> 00:40:50.835
It's not just making a good harmonica, but educating people and the quality and all that.

00:40:51.114 --> 00:40:52.416
There's so much potential.

00:40:52.597 --> 00:40:57.505
We have barely touched on what all the possibilities are.

00:40:57.686 --> 00:41:00.811
I feel like the harmonica world is just getting started, as you say.

00:41:00.851 --> 00:41:02.512
Things are being improved and all that.

00:41:03.094 --> 00:41:04.416
We're going to be there for a long time.

00:41:04.597 --> 00:41:07.702
So I'm definitely looking forward to the continued ride.

00:41:08.193 --> 00:41:10.836
Definitely some great harmonicas you've made there, so well done.

00:41:11.257 --> 00:41:14.702
You've certainly added a lot to the harmonica instrument.

00:41:15.744 --> 00:41:25.675
Just talking about teaching, so you do offer, through your website, there's a teaching section which is actually taught by Steve Lockwood on your website.

00:41:27.858 --> 00:41:31.523
Steve Lockwood is a brilliant harmonica teacher.

00:41:31.923 --> 00:41:36.230
Not only a really fine player, but his teaching is just wonderful.

00:41:36.610 --> 00:41:43.199
I've seen him do amazing things to people that have tried hard with other resources and couldn't quite get there.

00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:45.804
And so we endorse him.

00:41:46.625 --> 00:41:55.579
And we are also creating a product with him that will be amazing tools for teaching that we're in the middle of putting together.

00:41:55.619 --> 00:41:58.543
So have you ever done any teaching yourself?

00:41:59.465 --> 00:42:00.226
I don't think so.

00:42:00.246 --> 00:42:01.447
I have knowledge.

00:42:01.487 --> 00:42:05.293
I love doing workshops, but it's information.

00:42:05.762 --> 00:42:08.547
I can show somebody stuff and that, but I'm not a good teacher.

00:42:09.429 --> 00:42:14.900
So I would lean on more than I'm good for information, how to tune and anything like that.

00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:20.992
But to actually literally teach somebody to play and all that, it's not my cup of tea.

00:42:22.054 --> 00:42:23.898
You do do a little bit of singing, don't you?

00:42:23.938 --> 00:42:27.746
There's a few tunes that are known, like Why Can't We Be Friends.

00:42:28.097 --> 00:42:29.621
But I'm really not a singer.

00:42:29.943 --> 00:42:36.420
So I've always leaned on the music part and singing is kind of like, I appreciate it.

00:42:36.440 --> 00:42:40.110
I love my melodies when lyrics are written to my melodies and I can hear a song.

00:42:40.172 --> 00:42:41.054
It's beautiful.

00:42:41.153 --> 00:42:43.536
It's amazing when that is married, but no.

00:42:44.898 --> 00:42:54.047
I'd rather play my harmonica, play the melodies, and let Howard Levy or someone like that collaborate with me, and he does the solos, and I'll be the singer.

00:42:54.867 --> 00:42:57.150
Certainly something which stands out with your solo albums.

00:42:57.751 --> 00:42:59.873
There's some great arrangements on there.

00:43:00.393 --> 00:43:02.775
You've got strings on there, you've got horns on there.

00:43:04.197 --> 00:43:05.378
You talked about composition.

00:43:05.438 --> 00:43:08.262
Are a lot of the songs on your albums songs that you've written yourself?

00:43:08.802 --> 00:43:11.197
Pretty much everything I've composed myself, yeah.

00:43:11.458 --> 00:43:16.041
I mean, there are some fantastic compositions on there, like you say, and very catchy melodies.

00:43:16.581 --> 00:43:18.103
So does that include all the parts as well?

00:43:18.123 --> 00:43:20.746
Are you composing all the parts to all the songs, all the different instruments?

00:43:21.146 --> 00:43:28.092
The way in general I also love producing, half of the arrangement is the chemistry of the people I put together.

00:43:28.132 --> 00:43:38.882
As far as different destruction about counterlines, whether it's the violin, the cello, or the horns, a lot of that is countermelody lines I hear in my head.

00:43:39.121 --> 00:43:41.423
It's still keeping the magic of what somebody wants to compose.

00:43:41.423 --> 00:44:11.668
tribute I would sing the melody lines like he went on my road to Gene Page I would sing the different cello and violin parts and so he would take a tape recorder come to my home and record my counter melodies whether it's the cello or the viola or whatever and then he would take his expertise which is knowing about strings and So it's a combination, but it always basically starts with my maladies again, counter maladies, anything for someone to lean on, to embellish.

00:44:29.153 --> 00:44:34.300
I mean, obviously, you know, you've had a very successful career, lots of solo albums as well as The War and Law Rider.

00:44:34.882 --> 00:44:39.648
Would you have any advice for young bands or young harmonica players coming up today?

00:44:39.668 --> 00:44:49.382
Well, whether you're a harmonica player or just anything, I don't care if you're selling apples, pears, fish or harmonica.

00:44:50.023 --> 00:44:54.849
First of all, if you're in business, then know that it's not just how well you play.

00:44:55.585 --> 00:44:57.849
You also have to learn the business itself.

00:44:57.969 --> 00:45:02.094
So I always tell people, young people, you only earn what you know how to claim.

00:45:02.134 --> 00:45:08.762
And the other thing is, if you're going to be true to your art, then you must understand how business works.

00:45:09.362 --> 00:45:19.094
So you have to be honest, not just about your music, but also be honest about, as you're hungry for acknowledgement, you have to be honest about not agreeing to something until you understand it.

00:45:19.554 --> 00:45:23.541
Everything else is just your canvas, and I'm not going to tell somebody else how to paint.

00:45:23.601 --> 00:45:25.284
I'm not going to tell somebody else how to play.

00:45:25.324 --> 00:45:26.347
It's your thing.

00:45:26.728 --> 00:45:36.907
If you connect with your soul, your harmonica or whatever instrument, you connect with your soul as if it's one, then you're really connected to playing music.

00:45:37.329 --> 00:45:40.134
Until then, it's just a physical exercise.

00:45:40.614 --> 00:45:41.898
You hear somebody singing.

00:45:42.210 --> 00:45:45.494
And then they pick up the harmonica and play, or the guitar and play.

00:45:45.815 --> 00:45:52.603
If their phrasing on a guitar or a harmonica doesn't have the same persona as the way you sing, that tells me already that you're not in it.

00:45:52.844 --> 00:45:57.710
You're playing the instrument from thinking rather than just from your soul.

00:45:59.132 --> 00:46:05.943
So a question I ask each time is, if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:46:06.923 --> 00:46:07.625
You know, I think...

00:46:08.481 --> 00:46:13.246
It's good to play with good tone, play with phrasing, breathing.

00:46:13.286 --> 00:46:21.876
Take 10 minutes every day when you're starting off and just learn to play a pure tone on the two-draw or the three-draw.

00:46:22.376 --> 00:46:24.619
Because you've got to learn to play unconstricted air.

00:46:25.340 --> 00:46:26.960
You don't suck air, you breathe air.

00:46:27.541 --> 00:46:32.067
So 10 minutes, and it's good to practice getting a nice tone.

00:46:33.268 --> 00:46:35.150
Do you play any chromatic harmonica?

00:46:35.873 --> 00:46:39.619
The push-button harmonica, I don't hardly play anymore.

00:46:39.659 --> 00:46:43.085
That was my first harmonica when I was six years old that I got.

00:46:43.105 --> 00:46:54.824
As I evolved and found it very much better for me, the feel on the reed, instead of being four reeds on the harmonica, you know, there's a lot of air leakage.

00:46:55.244 --> 00:46:56.746
So I started leaning more on that.

00:46:57.246 --> 00:47:07.065
The occasional time I might pick up a push-button harmonica to do something, I can play partially chromatic by my tunings, the way it's set up, so I can get my blow bends.

00:47:07.927 --> 00:47:14.876
But I get by playing things with much more soul and feeling the way I play, relying on my ten holes, yeah.

00:47:16.199 --> 00:47:18.382
So we'll talk about gear now.

00:47:18.501 --> 00:47:23.469
So an easy answer for you is what brand of harmonic you play?

00:47:23.509 --> 00:47:25.371
I'm guessing you only play the Oscars.

00:47:26.152 --> 00:47:27.934
You had to ask me, right?

00:47:28.255 --> 00:47:29.757
Yeah.

00:47:29.954 --> 00:47:33.619
It sounds crazy, but that's all I use is Lee Oscars.

00:47:34.242 --> 00:47:45.541
If there was something I came across that I don't make and I would really need to use it for something musicality, I wouldn't deny myself of that possibility.

00:47:45.601 --> 00:47:49.789
But there's been no need for anything other than my product.

00:47:50.130 --> 00:47:52.833
Do you get specially made ones for you from the factory?

00:47:52.853 --> 00:47:53.596
That's the question.

00:47:54.356 --> 00:47:54.677
No.

00:47:54.717 --> 00:47:54.878
No.

00:47:55.137 --> 00:47:58.561
I use the same thing everybody else buys out of the box.

00:47:58.661 --> 00:48:01.543
Even when I alter something, I do it myself by hand.

00:48:02.585 --> 00:48:04.927
And do you have a favorite key of harmonica?

00:48:05.547 --> 00:48:10.552
I can say that whatever key that people are playing in, I got to play that, obviously.

00:48:10.592 --> 00:48:14.677
Different positions sometimes, there are different sweet spots.

00:48:14.737 --> 00:48:22.184
So my choice of what key harmonica is to play a certain position, it comes in to play at times.

00:48:22.543 --> 00:48:23.385
But in generally...

00:48:24.322 --> 00:48:25.184
It's tough to say.

00:48:25.224 --> 00:48:26.952
It's like, what's my favorite color?

00:48:27.052 --> 00:48:32.271
The sound to me of somewhere in the mid, you know, you know what?

00:48:32.353 --> 00:48:33.275
It depends on the tune.

00:48:33.858 --> 00:48:44.170
You know, you can play the same composition, the exact same notation, but the composition comes out differently depending on what key you're playing it in and what octave and what key.

00:48:44.251 --> 00:48:46.353
So it really is all over the map.

00:48:46.413 --> 00:48:50.398
Depends on what the melody is or what it's supposed to be about.

00:48:50.478 --> 00:48:53.041
I mean, some keys are very melancholy.

00:48:53.442 --> 00:48:56.806
Some keys are more happy and some keys can be sad.

00:48:57.601 --> 00:49:04.688
So another question which has got a pretty obvious answer to you, which I ask each time, is do you play any different tunings?

00:49:04.728 --> 00:49:12.257
So we know that you do play different tunings because you've got the four main tunings that the Oscar harmonicas provide.

00:49:12.297 --> 00:49:14.679
So are they all the tunings that you play?

00:49:15.860 --> 00:49:22.327
You know, there's some new compositions that I'm going to release soon, and the album is called Never Forget.

00:49:23.246 --> 00:49:25.630
And I've gotten into composing some melodies with...

00:49:26.114 --> 00:49:31.181
an altered tuning from a harmonic minor that is just, it'll tear your heart out.

00:49:32.103 --> 00:49:34.347
After you hear it for a little bit, then it almost seems normal.

00:49:34.827 --> 00:49:39.755
It's like just that musical, but it's a little, it's like double harmonic minor scale, basically.

00:49:40.675 --> 00:49:44.101
So there's some new stuff that I'm coming out with that will have that.

00:49:44.722 --> 00:49:48.527
But I wanted to mention something, you know, while we're talking about tunings.

00:49:49.048 --> 00:50:30.456
You know, it's interesting, with our system, which is tuned, designed to be very friendly to take the cover plates and change the reed plates it's all very simple airtight with just three screws you know holding the reed plates in because it's all precise and the system was designed so we can also mix and match reed plates so if somebody wants like the patty rector scale as they call it it's it's really weird why would i want to come out with harmonica called the patty rector when you can uh You can serve yourself well by just using the top reed plate from, let's say, a G Maldi maker and a draw reed plate from a C major diatonic.

00:50:31.197 --> 00:50:32.639
Then you've got a Patti Richter scale.

00:50:32.980 --> 00:50:42.514
And if you want to make a Dorian harmonica instead of the natural minor, just take the draw reed plate from, say, a G natural minor and top reed plate from a C major diatonic.

00:50:43.355 --> 00:50:45.398
And then there's all kinds of other options.

00:50:45.730 --> 00:50:58.768
That's what I wanted to take the mystery out of because it's a lot cheaper for the consumers and for any of us if we educate people like that rather than buying a harmonica called Patty Richter.

00:50:59.047 --> 00:51:04.476
When you already have reed plates for the Lyos harmonica system, then you just mix and match.

00:51:04.556 --> 00:51:04.795
Do you

00:51:06.177 --> 00:51:07.440
use any overblows?

00:51:07.500 --> 00:51:11.744
And again, maybe because of your tunings, you don't need them so much, but do you play overblows?

00:51:12.514 --> 00:51:14.416
I don't play old blows.

00:51:14.797 --> 00:51:18.963
I can sometimes do a passing note, and I hear a lot of people doing that.

00:51:19.565 --> 00:51:25.614
But for me, it's got the intonation, especially if I play harmonica with saxophone, it's got to be spot on.

00:51:26.195 --> 00:51:31.382
One of the things I love doing is, like I said, is flat down a semitone, the seventh draw.

00:51:31.722 --> 00:51:33.385
And that way I got the minor third.

00:51:33.907 --> 00:51:35.829
And I can still, from a blow bend...

00:51:36.673 --> 00:51:37.835
I can get my third.

00:51:38.235 --> 00:51:47.989
But to do overblows and overdraws as pristine to the melody or the melody line or whatever, I don't lean on that very much, hardly at all.

00:51:48.670 --> 00:51:49.891
And what about your embouchure?

00:51:50.452 --> 00:51:51.112
I do both.

00:51:51.273 --> 00:51:52.275
Mostly I curve.

00:51:52.896 --> 00:51:57.561
Sometimes I'll play the note, the reed for tongue blocking.

00:51:58.163 --> 00:52:00.865
To anybody outside, they may not know it's very subtle.

00:52:01.427 --> 00:52:06.353
But to me, it's a totally different, it's a warmer sound sometimes when you play with the tongue blocking.

00:52:07.041 --> 00:52:12.967
But most of my melodies, anything, individual notes are perched.

00:52:13.068 --> 00:52:17.012
And then in the middle of it, I might just hit the note and tongue block.

00:52:17.052 --> 00:52:18.934
So it's all over the map.

00:52:20.155 --> 00:52:21.016
What about amplifiers?

00:52:21.557 --> 00:52:23.579
People have to understand about applications.

00:52:23.960 --> 00:52:25.521
You can never add to sound.

00:52:25.983 --> 00:52:28.324
You can't take something and add to the sound.

00:52:28.344 --> 00:52:30.467
You can only take away to create the other sound.

00:52:30.907 --> 00:52:35.032
So microphone-wise, I use an M160 Bayer, for example.

00:52:35.253 --> 00:52:36.393
It's a double ribbon.

00:52:36.673 --> 00:52:40.277
So it's a very fast microphone that's very fast response.

00:52:40.617 --> 00:52:43.500
And it's very clean and warm at the same time.

00:52:43.539 --> 00:52:47.563
So that means the highs, the mids, and the lows are very even.

00:52:47.985 --> 00:52:51.847
And many microphones that are out there will spike the mids.

00:52:52.509 --> 00:52:58.514
And the only reason they're made like that is because we as human beings, most music we hear is in the mids.

00:52:59.135 --> 00:53:02.398
But however, harmonica is around 1k, 2k.

00:53:02.438 --> 00:53:04.519
It's the mids, the higher mids.

00:53:04.981 --> 00:53:06.262
And it can kill your ear.

00:53:06.594 --> 00:53:08.496
if you spike the mids with a harmonica.

00:53:08.817 --> 00:53:14.264
And so that's based on how you amplify it or what mic you're using.

00:53:14.284 --> 00:53:19.092
If somebody wants to have that dirty, you know, whatever, they call it a blues sound, which is silly.

00:53:19.152 --> 00:53:21.335
Blues has nothing to do with the sound, in my opinion.

00:53:22.016 --> 00:53:28.726
Then what they have to do is they have to start with a microphone that the mids are so out there that it can kill your ear.

00:53:28.746 --> 00:53:39.440
And then you take compression, like a tube amp, But with compression, and you take that mix that are poking way out there, and you pull it back.

00:53:39.960 --> 00:53:43.664
I mean, like, pull it back so it's even with the highs and lows.

00:53:44.425 --> 00:53:48.431
That means the mix is, like, freaking shaking like an angry monster.

00:53:48.992 --> 00:53:52.556
And that's what activates those tubes in the amplifier.

00:53:52.976 --> 00:53:53.697
And now you've got...

00:53:54.273 --> 00:53:59.846
That gnarly sound, but it's still smooth because it's even with the highs and the lows, the mids.

00:54:00.568 --> 00:54:04.898
That's basically the theory in how people should get that sound.

00:54:04.958 --> 00:54:07.262
And a lot of people don't understand that, and they're chasing after it.

00:54:07.824 --> 00:54:12.074
My sound, I like to have that high-end microphone, so it's like a great ear.

00:54:12.353 --> 00:54:14.275
And so I have much more to process.

00:54:14.356 --> 00:54:15.757
I can play to octave pedals.

00:54:15.836 --> 00:54:19.340
I can play to anything that they call guitar pedals, which is not.

00:54:19.481 --> 00:54:22.483
It's just an application that you can play harmonica through.

00:54:22.963 --> 00:54:30.952
But it'll track much better than some gnarly microphone that a lot of people use because my source is bigger and cleaner.

00:54:31.853 --> 00:54:35.317
So there's two different philosophies about how to apply there.

00:54:35.797 --> 00:54:40.641
The other thing is an amplifier, like the old days, is to feed the audience.

00:54:41.090 --> 00:54:42.693
And it sits and stands behind you.

00:54:43.074 --> 00:54:48.684
So I use my own monitor and it's called a powered speaker with my own device.

00:54:48.724 --> 00:54:55.137
So I can control my, with my device, I control my level in front of me with the power speaker.

00:54:55.637 --> 00:54:59.684
And then another signal out of my device into the sound, the house system.

00:55:00.226 --> 00:55:14.478
They can also give me another monitor with everybody else's instrumentation coming through so I can hear what they got out in the audience and my monitors that normally that I get to feed, plus my own monitor that can control my level with just me in there.

00:55:14.978 --> 00:55:19.342
That makes a lot more sense to me because it's in front of me and I can control my level and all that.

00:55:19.922 --> 00:55:33.416
I think a lot of people just buying the story that everybody else says is the right way and not getting very experimental and not really understanding enough about applications to justify why they're doing what they're doing and that's what people got to be educated about

00:55:34.056 --> 00:55:37.202
and so you mentioned effects pedals do you use any particular effects pedals

00:55:38.623 --> 00:56:02.052
for many years I lean on the landscape of sounds I lean on of course reverb I lean on an octave pedal and I lean on chorus a lot I mean I've done many other kinds of things in landscape of sounds but those are the three essentials and the order you put in so you go first to octave and then then to chorus, and then reverb.

00:56:02.733 --> 00:56:10.762
But I've been into where I want to, like I didn't have a steel drum, so I created a wrong sound with steel drum, with harmonica, but I just understand the logic.

00:56:11.141 --> 00:56:17.688
The octave that you get in that bottom of a steel drum pan, there's kind of that really low octave of resonance.

00:56:18.250 --> 00:56:20.112
So that would be an analog octave pedal.

00:56:20.592 --> 00:56:23.534
It feeds through, the next one would be an envelope filter.

00:56:24.056 --> 00:56:28.181
And the envelope filter, I want it to be like, so it's a staccato.

00:56:28.481 --> 00:56:29.081
Ding, ding.

00:56:29.762 --> 00:56:38.217
And if you play to an emerald filter that has the right range, then when you're playing staccato, just like on a steel drum, you're doing that.

00:56:38.697 --> 00:56:45.108
And you've got that low octave thing with it, with the peak of the emerald filter and some reverb.

00:56:45.449 --> 00:56:47.152
Now I can emulate a steel drum.

00:56:47.672 --> 00:56:52.221
There's so many creative things you can do rather than just saying, oh, that's a guitar pedal.

00:56:52.702 --> 00:56:54.826
And every brand makes many different pedals.

00:56:55.489 --> 00:56:59.556
And they all call it octave pedals, but every one of them is a different sound of octave.

00:56:59.596 --> 00:57:06.905
So, yes, I use it all at different times, and some things almost become the staple thing that I choose.

00:57:07.067 --> 00:57:07.206
But

00:57:07.987 --> 00:57:09.530
it's all about sound for me.

00:57:10.331 --> 00:57:11.233
Final question, Asif.

00:57:11.253 --> 00:57:12.474
Thanks very much for your time.

00:57:12.514 --> 00:57:16.139
So just any future plans you've got coming up at the moment?

00:57:16.661 --> 00:57:20.525
Well, most of the stuff that I'm getting ready to put out is almost done.

00:57:20.967 --> 00:57:23.110
I have a company called Dreams We Share.

00:57:23.329 --> 00:57:24.833
dreamsweshare.com.

00:57:25.313 --> 00:57:26.976
I've already released a few things.

00:57:27.416 --> 00:57:30.481
One is the Miyazaki album, Japanese saxophone player.

00:57:30.922 --> 00:57:35.050
Then Moses Conkers is a harmonica beatbox player.

00:57:35.190 --> 00:57:36.072
Amazing stuff.

00:57:36.211 --> 00:57:40.679
I mean, we have one tune on Dreams We Share and the video.

00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:46.269
The tune is something me and him played together at our European distributor that we recorded there.

00:57:46.530 --> 00:57:48.514
We jammed and we called it Moonshines.

00:57:49.409 --> 00:57:54.635
David Rotundo is an amazing entertainer, singer, songwriter, harmonica player.

00:57:54.974 --> 00:57:56.356
I just produced his album.

00:57:56.376 --> 00:57:57.737
It's called So Much Trouble.

00:57:58.036 --> 00:58:02.521
That'll be on our website and also on Spotify and that.

00:58:02.942 --> 00:58:04.603
And then I got two albums of my own.

00:58:05.003 --> 00:58:08.947
One is called Never Forget, which is very symphonic rooted stuff.

00:58:09.588 --> 00:58:11.849
And then the other album is called Leos and Friends.

00:58:12.269 --> 00:58:17.835
It has lots of fun, beautiful stuff going on from reggae to world beat, you name it.

00:58:18.195 --> 00:58:19.376
Array of amazing music.

00:58:19.376 --> 00:58:23.081
that I was really happy producing that's pretty much done too

00:58:24.043 --> 00:58:32.235
so well that's fantastic I look forward to hearing all those things sounds like you've been really busily so thanks so much for your time really appreciate you joining me on the podcast today

00:58:32.836 --> 00:58:33.898
well thank you for having

00:58:34.559 --> 00:58:52.925
me that's it for today folks final word from my sponsor the Longwolf Blues Company providing some great effects pedals and microphones all purpose built for the harmonica be sure to check out their website Lee plays out with some fine blues.