Nov. 27, 2021

Magic Dick interview

Magic Dick interview

Magic Dick joins me on episode 50. Magic Dick created one of the all time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whammer Jammer. But his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that. He started playing trumpet at age 9, and this instrument along with his love of jazz and rock and roll shaped his approach on harmonica. He was a founder member of the J Geils Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years. Magic Dick was an integral part of their sound with his har...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Jazz Chromatic Pop Harmonica Rock Harmonica

Magic Dick joins me on episode 50.
Magic Dick created one of the all time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whammer Jammer. But his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that.
He started playing trumpet at age 9, and this instrument along with his love of jazz and rock and roll shaped his approach on harmonica.
He was a founder member of the J Geils Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years. Magic Dick was  an integral part of their sound with his harmonica work central to their output of Rhythm & Blues, Rock, Pop and Soul.
After the J Geils band split in 1985 he took a break from playing before coming back with some session playing and then forming the band Bluestime with J Geils. More recently he has performed in an acoustic duo with Shun Ng.

Links:

Magic Dick's website:
https://www.magicdick.com/

Email Magic Dick for lessons:
magicdick@magicdick.com

Line 6 HX Stomp pedal:
https://uk.line6.com/hx-stomp/


Videos:

Southern Crossing with band Full Circle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEayO6DUn74

Whammer Jammer with Shun Ng:
https://youtu.be/QRygCpiW7mY

So What on Chromatic with Shun Ng:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtM9UGfwLm0

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag with Shun Ng:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxAZ3YyjtPg


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

01:01 - Where the name Magic Dick (and his Lickin’ Stick) came from

01:27 - Lickin’ Stick is a term used for harmonica in some parts of the US

01:46 - Mother sang in a choir and played duets with his brother

02:03 - First instrument was the trumpet and some saxophone later

03:07 - Started playing the harmonica age 21 after hearing Sonny Terry

04:16 - Then got into Sonny Boy Williamson and the great Chicago players who influenced his stye more

04:39 - The characteristic 10 blow bend played by Magic Dick and advice on how to hit it

06:01 - Always had an interest in physics and the acoustic sound qualities of the harmonica

07:23 - How vocal training has helped Magic Dick develop his harmonica technique

07:45 - Provides lessons, contact details on podcast page

08:14 - Studied the harmonica greats as part of his development

09:09 - More on how vocal training assisted harmonica playing

09:56 - What makes a successful harmonica player

10:17 - His deep research into music and producing good tone and how reeds work

11:21 - The formation of the J Geils band in 1968

12:00 - Plays a lot of chromatic harmonica now

12:06 - Commercial success of the J Geils band and dropping ‘Blues Band’ from their name

13:39 - Role of the harmonica in the different genres covered by J Geils Band

14:26 - How successful were the J Geils Band

15:02 - First J Geils band album and the song Homework played on a solo tuned harp in 3rd position

16:30 - Second album, and the birth of Whammer Jammer

19:04 - The famous live version of Whammer Jammer from the 1972 album Full House

20:43 - Composition of Whammer Jammer gives it great momentum

22:22 - Give It To Me song on fourth J Geils album had a lot of success in charts

23:30 - The band were enjoying success around the world and comparisons with The Rolling Stones

24:34 - Monkey Island album in 1977 contained the song I’m Not Rough

26:04 - Sanctuary song from album of same name

26:39 - Centrefold from J Geil’s band most successful album, Freeze Frame

27:05 - 1982 live album Showtime, including the song Stoop Down Baby, inspired by trumpeter Roy Eldridge

31:33 - The last J Geils band album was in 1984 before the band split up and he took a break from playing

31:56 - Started playing again a couple of years later and did some session recordings

32:40 - Patented the ‘Magic Harmonica’: which was a forerunner to the harmonicas now available in numerous tunings

35:07 - Formed the band Bluestime with J Geils in 1992

36:39 - Relation of singing to harmonica playing and singing in general

40:13 - Played with the Legendary Rhythm and Blues band

40:36 - Recorded an album with Shun Ng

42:41 - 10 minute question

43:42 - Harmonicas of choice

44:32 - Really likes the chord harmonica

45:07 - Likes to play ballads and iRealPro

45:48 - Chromatic harmonicas of choice

47:59 - Different tunings

48:51 - Overblows

49:29 - Embouchre

50:28 - Amp set-up with J Geils band

53:10 - Amp and mic set-up used now

55:42 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.034 --> 00:00:01.915
Magic Dick joins you on episode 50.

00:00:02.255 --> 00:00:10.483
Magic Dick created one of the old-time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whamma Jamma, but his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that.

00:00:10.682 --> 00:00:17.868
He started playing trumpet at age nine, and this instrument, along with his love of jazz and rock and roll, shaped his approach on harmonica.

00:00:18.269 --> 00:00:23.053
He was a founder member of the Jay Giles Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years.

00:00:23.474 --> 00:00:30.000
Magic Dick was an integral part of their sound, with his harmonica work central to the output of rhythm and blues, rock, pop and soul.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:39.347
After the Jay Giles band split in 1985, he took a break from playing before coming back with some session playing and then forming the band Blues Time with Jay Giles.

00:00:39.868 --> 00:00:54.281
Magic Dick also patented his Magic Harmonica, which is a forerunner to the various harmonicas now available in

00:00:54.301 --> 00:00:54.601
different tunes.

00:00:54.642 --> 00:00:56.444
Hello, Magic Dick, and welcome to the podcast.

00:00:57.265 --> 00:00:58.685
Hey, thank you very much, Neil.

00:00:58.881 --> 00:01:00.863
Kind of delighted to be your dog in here right now.

00:01:01.264 --> 00:01:03.625
I often like to ask people about their name.

00:01:03.706 --> 00:01:05.268
So you're called Magic Dick.

00:01:05.308 --> 00:01:06.709
So where did this name come from?

00:01:07.168 --> 00:01:08.370
It's kind of in the tradition.

00:01:08.450 --> 00:01:14.194
I wanted to have my name be in the tradition of some of the Chicago blues heroes that I love so much.

00:01:14.615 --> 00:01:16.697
I just felt like I needed a more special name.

00:01:16.878 --> 00:01:17.817
That seemed to come up.

00:01:18.078 --> 00:01:24.183
Danny, the bass player in the band, he and I were hanging out just thinking about names that I might use.

00:01:24.563 --> 00:01:27.367
And I'd have to credit Danny with coming up with that one, actually.

00:01:27.986 --> 00:01:32.311
So Magic Dick and licking stick as well so the licking stick is the harmonica is it

00:01:32.531 --> 00:01:40.260
that's right that's a term that's been uh around in the u.s for many many decades calling licking stick and it does rhyme

00:01:40.459 --> 00:01:45.185
yeah no cool i wasn't aware of that that was a that was a u.s term for uh the harmonica yeah great

00:01:45.346 --> 00:01:46.066
in some circles

00:01:46.447 --> 00:01:55.016
so yeah so talking about how you got into music i think your mother lived music didn't she sang in a choir and i think your brother played carinet so um you were surrounded in a young age with music

00:01:55.156 --> 00:02:05.001
yeah i was it was very fortunate that way and fortunate that my My parents, they were very interested in having me play an instrument, and I told them I wanted to play the trumpet.

00:02:05.281 --> 00:02:06.843
I loved the trumpet, still do.

00:02:07.123 --> 00:02:12.008
And my brother, my older brother, played clarinet, and the two of us would sometimes play these duets.

00:02:12.288 --> 00:02:13.528
But then my brother stopped playing.

00:02:13.549 --> 00:02:17.953
He stopped playing the clarinet during his teenage years, and I kept up with the music.

00:02:18.332 --> 00:02:20.115
So was trumpet your first instrument?

00:02:20.354 --> 00:02:20.594
Yeah.

00:02:20.996 --> 00:02:26.360
Like a lot of the people in the U.S., you sort of joined a school band, and you were playing the trumpet in the school band from quite a young age, yeah?

00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:29.143
I did, but I wasn't that into the school band that much.

00:02:29.423 --> 00:02:30.824
I would say I was more of a loner.

00:02:31.183 --> 00:02:35.228
But I loved jazz, and that's really what I was focusing a lot of my listening on.

00:02:35.247 --> 00:02:48.282
jazz and rock and roll very early exposure to uh all the little richard records you know all those great tenor sax solos you know the soulfulness of little richard's singing so that was a deep early influence on me

00:02:48.461 --> 00:02:56.250
yeah we'll get into how that's helped shape your music and your approach to the harmonica so so you played the trumpet i think you played some saxophone as well was that also quite a young age

00:02:56.491 --> 00:03:06.921
later on later on i started to fool around with the saxophone by later on i mean much later on i didn't probably really fool around with the saxophone much in until mid-70s.

00:03:07.401 --> 00:03:08.943
And when did the harmonica come into it?

00:03:09.364 --> 00:03:11.407
I started on the harmonica when I was 21.

00:03:11.567 --> 00:03:12.007
And

00:03:12.046 --> 00:03:13.269
what made you pick up the harmonica?

00:03:13.568 --> 00:03:17.973
I heard some recordings by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, which really kind of moved me.

00:03:18.274 --> 00:03:25.961
It's incredible the amount of people who say that Sonny Terry was the sort of first person they heard, you know, on the harmonica, and that's kind of what inspired them to play.

00:03:26.763 --> 00:03:29.265
He's definitely the number one in the people I talk to.

00:03:29.286 --> 00:03:31.388
There's a kind of first person they heard playing the harmonica.

00:03:31.487 --> 00:03:40.497
Yeah, partly because his recordings were around in a There wasn't that much of other harmonica player stuff to hear way back then.

00:03:40.938 --> 00:03:44.462
And was it one particular song, one album with Sonny Terry that grabbed you?

00:03:44.643 --> 00:03:45.223
Yeah, there was.

00:03:45.264 --> 00:03:52.472
There was a 10-inch LP on Folkways called Harmonica and Vocal Solos, Sonny Terry.

00:03:52.992 --> 00:04:01.181
Yes, he done took my sweet little woman And left me standing here

00:04:02.497 --> 00:04:13.366
That is what really inspired me, because everything that Sonny Terry was doing on that recording was just him, just his voice, just him on the harmonica, and his foot tapping, foot stomping.

00:04:13.647 --> 00:04:14.649
He had great rhythm.

00:04:14.748 --> 00:04:26.459
But his style was, you know, it wasn't too long after that exposure to Sonny Terry that I got into Sonny Boy Williamson and all the great Chicago blues harp players, which is a rather different style.

00:04:26.658 --> 00:04:33.105
And it was that different style from Chicago that I utilized a lot more in my approach with Jake Giles band.

00:04:33.225 --> 00:04:39.190
Although some of the stuff from Sonny Terry, including some of the high note things that I do, that kind of came from him too.

00:04:39.430 --> 00:04:42.415
Yeah, you've got that great bend on the 10 blow, haven't you?

00:04:42.454 --> 00:04:44.437
Which is a real characteristic of your sound.

00:04:44.576 --> 00:04:46.418
Yes, it is for better or worse.

00:04:48.540 --> 00:04:53.225
Whilst we're on that, I think a lot of people do struggle to get that blow bend on the 10 blow.

00:04:53.286 --> 00:04:54.067
Any tips for that?

00:04:54.528 --> 00:04:57.411
Yeah, you have to focus on it and practice it a lot.

00:04:57.571 --> 00:05:05.399
The main tip that I would give is it takes a lot more air pressure up there to do those bands than playing stuff lower down on the harp.

00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:09.125
You just kind of have to wind up for it and let it rip.

00:05:09.404 --> 00:05:16.254
It takes a considerably focused intensity in the lips, keeping the connection to the instrument up there.

00:05:16.434 --> 00:05:26.807
And there's a lot of movement inside the mouth with the tongue as far as changing the shape, changing the resonance of the mouth cavity and the throat cavity, the sinuses, the pharynx.

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

00:05:35.074 --> 00:05:37.096
Going back a little bit again to your musical journey.

00:05:37.115 --> 00:05:40.038
So you say you didn't really pick up the harp till you were 21.

00:05:40.057 --> 00:05:45.322
So were you still playing the trumpet, you know, and sort of playing jazz stuff up until that age?

00:05:45.343 --> 00:05:49.446
Or, you know, when did you sort of, you were still very interested in musical for your teens, were you?

00:05:49.687 --> 00:05:51.468
I was always really interested in music.

00:05:51.627 --> 00:05:55.552
And ever since third grade, I started on trumpet in third grade.

00:05:55.771 --> 00:06:03.117
Third grade was the beginning of so many things for me, because that's also when I realized that I was deeply interested in science and painting.

00:06:03.137 --> 00:06:07.341
I either wanted to be like a scientist or a painter, you know, some kind of artist.

00:06:07.682 --> 00:06:10.646
And in some respects, I wish I had stuck with that feeling.

00:06:11.045 --> 00:06:20.836
I got kind of diverted into the idea of becoming a physicist, which I'm still really interested in, and utilize a lot of those principles of acoustics, sound production.

00:06:20.877 --> 00:06:22.879
I don't mean production in the studio.

00:06:23.059 --> 00:06:28.564
I mean the production of sound, you know, instruments that create sound and how do they do it.

00:06:29.125 --> 00:06:32.870
Like horns, for example, you know, obey certain laws of acoustics.

00:06:33.209 --> 00:06:34.632
Harmonica is less so.

00:06:34.812 --> 00:06:42.860
Harmonica Harmonica is kind of more like a piano, you know, in the sense that every note has a string, a separate sound producing element.

00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:48.146
Most of the notes on the surface of the harp without getting into bending and all of that technique.

00:06:48.487 --> 00:06:52.370
So have you looked into the, you know, the kind of physics of how reeds work and harmonica?

00:06:52.391 --> 00:06:53.252
Have you gone to that level?

00:06:53.673 --> 00:06:54.434
Yeah, some.

00:06:54.814 --> 00:06:58.077
I don't want to give the impression that I'm expert in that because I'm not.

00:06:58.562 --> 00:07:15.422
But what I am totally aware of is how volumes of space about the size of what you can encompass in your hands or your mouth, that size and shape of a container, if you will, By changing those shapes, you can really affect the sound of the harp a great deal.

00:07:15.701 --> 00:07:17.103
That's what I'm really interested in.

00:07:17.264 --> 00:07:22.988
And that's something that one discovers, not so much theoretically, but by actually doing and experimenting with it.

00:07:23.449 --> 00:07:29.173
You know, I've heard you talk about how vocal training really helps with your harmonica playing and, you know, about shaping those sounds.

00:07:29.814 --> 00:07:32.697
So you've put a lot of thought into really getting the different sounds.

00:07:32.737 --> 00:07:36.100
Obviously, the harmonica is, you know, it's a very personal instrument, isn't it?

00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.163
Sounds, you know, everyone sounds different because vocally they sound different.

00:07:39.202 --> 00:07:39.343
Yeah,

00:07:39.622 --> 00:07:40.122
definitely.

00:07:40.244 --> 00:07:51.295
And they talk different the whole basis of this vocal approach which i teach by the way i'm doing quite a bit of teaching these days they can reach me at magic dick at magic dick.com

00:07:51.735 --> 00:07:55.079
yeah i'll put a i'll put your contact details on the front of the podcast page as well

00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:57.281
yeah i really enjoy teaching i like it a lot

00:07:57.482 --> 00:08:00.625
are you doing mostly online stuff or face-to-face as well

00:08:01.086 --> 00:08:02.086
online privately

00:08:02.547 --> 00:08:11.396
so going back again so when you started getting to harmonica was this you know you heard the harmonica you heard sunny terry you started then like you said getting into some of the chicago players Little Walter.

00:08:11.416 --> 00:08:12.557
I know you're a big fan of it.

00:08:12.737 --> 00:08:13.139
Who isn't?

00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:13.939
Yeah.

00:08:14.220 --> 00:08:14.980
It was this time, wasn't it?

00:08:15.021 --> 00:08:18.283
You started really exploring the harmonica plays and some depth in.

00:08:18.584 --> 00:08:18.985
Oh, yeah.

00:08:19.225 --> 00:08:20.206
As much as possible.

00:08:20.425 --> 00:08:22.127
I listened to everybody that I could.

00:08:22.247 --> 00:08:29.516
But I also rather quickly made some sort of preliminary decisions about who I really liked and who I was going to study the most.

00:08:29.875 --> 00:08:33.961
Little Walter and both Sonny Boy Williamson's were the primaries for me.

00:08:34.221 --> 00:08:40.668
And Junior Well's early stuff up through that period of time when he recorded that live album, It's My Life, Baby.

00:08:40.687 --> 00:08:42.855
Somebody better come here right now.

00:08:43.216 --> 00:08:50.302
Look at him.

00:08:55.809 --> 00:09:00.153
Walter Horton was another one that I liked, but I never liked Walter Horton as much as Little Walter.

00:09:00.474 --> 00:09:02.576
It was an advantage to me to focus.

00:09:02.895 --> 00:09:09.081
I'm always into this thing of focusing one's attention and effort on what's essential.

00:09:09.361 --> 00:09:12.323
That's why the vocal training that I got really helped me.

00:09:12.565 --> 00:09:23.254
Those were tremendous exercises in focus and attention and working on those aspects of things which could be worked on on a daily basis without being all that theoretical.

00:09:23.474 --> 00:09:34.243
And the thing about the singing is, and this part of my teaching with the harp, is that everything is really based on what you already really know how to do, like talking.

00:09:34.443 --> 00:09:43.051
There is so much in speech itself, the impulse to talk, the connection between the brain and the voice, and your intention to communicate.

00:09:43.250 --> 00:09:48.635
When you're in a performance mode, in a mode to project something, that's how we need to practice.

00:09:49.115 --> 00:09:51.938
And the thing that comes closest to that is just talking.

00:09:52.458 --> 00:09:55.682
Focus on how you work the air when you just speak.

00:09:56.097 --> 00:10:10.049
So one of the main things I like to bring out the podcast and talking to all the great players I've been lucky to interview is, you know, what's made them successful in the harmonica world, you know, and how can some people can play the harmonica for 40 years and not get that great.

00:10:10.149 --> 00:10:13.994
And, you know, and other people like yourselves, you know, do great and have great successful careers.

00:10:14.014 --> 00:10:17.777
And I think what really comes through from looking into you is that you've really worked at it.

00:10:17.956 --> 00:10:32.501
Yeah, I mean, I've really researched a lot of the aspects of it to the point of actually reading a good deal of a book called On the Sensations of Tone by Hermann Helmholtz, who is a famous German physicist.

00:10:32.783 --> 00:10:40.946
He is the guy who is credited mainly with understanding of the physiology of the ear and how music works with the ear.

00:10:41.250 --> 00:10:42.770
I became very interested in that.

00:10:43.131 --> 00:10:49.657
And in the process, I learned quite a bit about organ reeds, free reeds, like in the harmonica.

00:10:49.836 --> 00:10:50.977
Some of them were free reeds.

00:10:51.178 --> 00:10:56.482
Some of them are called beating reeds, where the reed actually beats against the reed plate.

00:10:56.702 --> 00:11:06.211
There were lots of pictures of reed profiles, which I was interested in at the time because of the problems that was happening with the manufacturer of the harps back in the 70s.

00:11:06.692 --> 00:11:11.216
So I learned a good deal of it and use that information today, but not like on a daily basis.

00:11:11.216 --> 00:11:12.397
basis or anything like that.

00:11:12.677 --> 00:11:17.201
What I do on a daily basis is focus on playing music and practicing the instrument.

00:11:17.543 --> 00:11:33.139
So when you started playing seriously in the harmonica at age 21, not long after that, I think you were studying at Worcester Polytechnic in 1968, and this is when you met two of the members of the Jay Giles band, which you obviously went on and had a great success with through the 70s and the early 80s.

00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:33.840
Yeah.

00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:37.403
So you'd only been playing the harmonica for a couple of years at this stage, did you?

00:11:37.604 --> 00:11:39.706
Yeah, about three and a half years, I think it was.

00:11:40.187 --> 00:11:47.455
So I think you know, you decided then that music was the life for you, yeah, and you abandoned your studies and then gave yourself over to the music, yeah?

00:11:47.615 --> 00:11:48.095
That's right.

00:11:48.216 --> 00:11:49.976
There's nothing like diving in.

00:11:50.017 --> 00:11:53.041
That's the fun of it for me, and the new discoveries.

00:11:53.341 --> 00:12:02.931
I never stopped thinking about what the harp is capable of doing, both in terms of the tuning of the harp, you know, meaning the tone layout, you know, and I play a lot of chromatic harp now.

00:12:03.071 --> 00:12:05.573
That's really where a lot of my focus has gone.

00:12:06.095 --> 00:12:15.001
So playing with the Jay Giles, rhythm, blues, rock and roll, so it wasn't a full-on blues band, but a certainly with blues elements in there and you know you you sort of helped add to that

00:12:15.283 --> 00:12:15.645
yeah

00:12:15.809 --> 00:12:17.451
But, you know, commercially successful, yeah.

00:12:17.471 --> 00:12:27.480
I mean, of the people I've spoken to on the podcast, lots of them have had great, successful careers, but there's not many like yourself who've had this sort of commercial success with a band like Jer Giles.

00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:27.840
Right.

00:12:28.061 --> 00:12:39.610
So, you know, so how was that, you know, playing in, you know, more of a commercially successful band than a sort of straight-ahead blues band or, you know, jazz or, you know, other sort of traditional genres of people who play the harmonica generally?

00:12:39.630 --> 00:12:47.238
Well, for me, what it was like, it was very challenging because, first of all, you have to understand that all the rest of the guys in the Giles band.

00:12:47.418 --> 00:12:48.760
We were all harmonica freaks.

00:12:49.162 --> 00:12:52.427
We were all little Walter fans, Sonny Boy Williamson.

00:12:52.687 --> 00:12:53.808
We loved that stuff.

00:12:53.950 --> 00:12:57.294
So I had a tremendous amount of support there from everybody.

00:12:57.655 --> 00:12:59.778
Did the others play the harmonica, or was that just you?

00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:01.061
No, it was just me.

00:13:01.923 --> 00:13:03.445
Peter plays a little bit of harp.

00:13:04.097 --> 00:13:13.311
You know, we'd already seen what happens when, you know, when you call yourselves a blues band, you are unnecessarily limiting what people might expect of you.

00:13:13.490 --> 00:13:21.503
We dropped the title blues band from the early days of, before Peter came into the band, before Peter and Stephen Blatt on drums.

00:13:21.962 --> 00:13:25.668
Just letting people know that Peter Wolfe was the main singer, yeah.

00:13:25.989 --> 00:13:26.450
That's right.

00:13:26.750 --> 00:13:28.152
But at first it was just me.

00:13:28.292 --> 00:13:31.998
You know, the Jay Giles Blues Band was me fronting this thing.

00:13:32.385 --> 00:13:35.750
But we dropped the name after a little while, a blues band.

00:13:36.009 --> 00:13:36.951
It was just too limiting.

00:13:37.172 --> 00:13:38.913
And we weren't just interested in blues.

00:13:39.193 --> 00:13:40.475
We loved rhythm and blues.

00:13:40.875 --> 00:13:41.657
We loved soul.

00:13:41.897 --> 00:13:42.738
We loved pop.

00:13:43.019 --> 00:13:44.039
We loved rock and roll.

00:13:44.340 --> 00:13:45.621
And I loved all of that, too.

00:13:46.022 --> 00:13:49.966
What about the role of the harmonica in this type of music?

00:13:50.006 --> 00:13:54.993
Like you say, you're playing rhythm and blues, a bit of soul, jazzy stuff.

00:13:55.332 --> 00:13:59.077
Quite a lot of different styles, didn't you, within the set?

00:13:59.361 --> 00:14:07.635
What I was digging about the whole thing was that it was allowing me to take on a role that was sort of bigger than just being a harmonica player.

00:14:07.916 --> 00:14:20.557
This allowed me to be the one who was creating this kind of a style where I took the elements of Chicago blues and injected it into this rock and roll and pop, R&B, soul.

00:14:20.756 --> 00:14:25.727
I was finding ways to utilize what I'd already studied with this music and make it work.

00:14:26.208 --> 00:14:28.532
So how successful were the Jergals band?

00:14:28.851 --> 00:14:30.433
Well, we were pretty successful.

00:14:30.855 --> 00:14:37.903
We eventually became number one band in the land, but that was much later on with a hit single called Centerfold.

00:14:38.144 --> 00:14:39.725
With a great harmonica riff.

00:14:46.413 --> 00:14:46.494
Yeah.

00:14:53.826 --> 00:14:55.188
Really central to the song, that riff,

00:14:55.831 --> 00:14:55.990
isn't it?

00:14:56.011 --> 00:14:58.477
That's harmonica and organ together.

00:14:58.658 --> 00:15:00.943
If I remember correctly, it might be guitar, too.

00:15:01.504 --> 00:15:02.206
Yeah, cool.

00:15:02.488 --> 00:15:05.836
So the first album you had out was called The Jagals Band, yeah?

00:15:05.996 --> 00:15:09.625
And a song on there, which you're so well known for, was Homework.

00:15:11.070 --> 00:15:11.230
Homework.

00:15:19.265 --> 00:15:23.611
That was a cover of a kind of a famous or what became a famous Otis Rush tune.

00:15:23.692 --> 00:15:35.628
The thing that's noteworthy from a harmonica perspective about homework is I played that tune on a honer harp called the Soloist, which is, at least that's what it was called in the US.

00:15:36.509 --> 00:15:40.914
And it's the same tuning as the slide chromatic, but without a slide.

00:15:41.215 --> 00:15:44.139
You can get solo, what they call solo tuned harps now.

00:15:44.178 --> 00:15:44.359
Yeah.

00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:45.841
Which sounds like it's the same.

00:15:45.902 --> 00:15:46.121
Yeah.

00:15:46.542 --> 00:15:46.923
Yeah.

00:15:47.082 --> 00:15:50.331
It's just the same setup as, That's the slide chromatic.

00:15:50.770 --> 00:15:53.854
So anyway, it turned out that, and homework is in D minor.

00:15:54.114 --> 00:16:05.403
So playing that particular harp in third position, if you will, meaning the draw one is the key of the, when you draw on the first hole, that's the key of the tune, D.

00:16:05.965 --> 00:16:29.407
And so it allows you to play a lot of that Chicago blues, little Walter kind of stuff, and to be able to bend the notes with a diatonic sound to the bends, rather than the way bends sound on a valve slide chromatic you know and then and also to be able to play rhythmically the the d minor chord to be able to play rhythm pattern on the d minor chord just seemed to work great i always enjoyed playing that

00:16:29.466 --> 00:16:45.543
tune your next album uh your second album the morning after in 1971 so the first song i think is the first song on here was uh was whamma jamma so uh let's just get whamma jamma out the way i'm almost feel apologetic having to ask you again about whamma jamma but how do you feel about the song whamma jamma

00:16:45.844 --> 00:16:52.917
i feel lucky to have it whamma jamma kind of came about because During the shows that we were doing, sometimes things would go wrong, technically.

00:16:53.278 --> 00:16:59.474
We needed something to keep the entertainment going, so to speak, you know, while a repair was made or something.

00:16:59.754 --> 00:17:04.115
So Peter would often call on me to play something Call me to the vocal mic.

00:17:04.154 --> 00:17:09.799
That was kind of the beginning of developing this idea of, hey, let's actually really do an instrumental.

00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:11.922
It became every show.

00:17:12.142 --> 00:17:14.624
I don't think I've ever done a show without doing Weimer Jammer.

00:17:14.923 --> 00:17:21.309
So like you say, many ways, you know, to have such an iconic, you know, it's the one of the iconic harmonica songs, isn't it?

00:17:21.369 --> 00:17:25.933
So, you know, you know, great, fantastic thing to have on your belt, but also a bit of a curse.

00:17:25.993 --> 00:17:28.496
Yeah, you've always got to play, but it sounds like you're very grateful for that.

00:17:28.536 --> 00:17:32.880
But one thing you're very keen to get across when people hear the clips is, of course, you've done lots of other greats.

00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:38.445
So I know that,

00:17:38.885 --> 00:17:45.113
again, listen to it.

00:17:45.212 --> 00:17:52.101
I know

00:17:53.122 --> 00:18:01.369
that you kind of were inspired a little bit by Sonny Boy Williamson playing with the Yardbirds and the kind of rhythm in the first part of the song when you're playing solo.

00:18:02.751 --> 00:18:02.832
Yeah.

00:18:02.832 --> 00:18:12.045
That's

00:18:12.125 --> 00:18:12.346
right.

00:18:12.385 --> 00:18:15.470
That was really the inception for it.

00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:19.095
The fact that Sonny Boy could play that kind of rhythm, that's what I really like.

00:18:19.276 --> 00:18:23.662
So yeah, it did come from what Sonny Boy is doing on the beginning of that.

00:18:23.905 --> 00:18:29.371
Yeah, and I understand you used to be played second last in the set and all the Jagals gigs.

00:18:29.790 --> 00:18:30.352
That's right.

00:18:30.692 --> 00:18:36.116
When it came time to do Whamma Jamma, it was pretty much at the end of the set, second to last tune.

00:18:36.376 --> 00:18:41.080
So I'd already done a whole lot of playing, beyond two hours probably at that point.

00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:48.406
And also, and this is quite crazy antics, you guys were active on stage, you were jumping around and you had this big crazy hair as well.

00:18:48.446 --> 00:18:49.929
Yeah, this is real 70s stuff, yeah.

00:18:50.328 --> 00:18:54.311
Yeah, I still can't believe it sometimes when I see photos of myself from then.

00:18:54.532 --> 00:18:57.836
It's like, how did I manage that hair,

00:18:58.297 --> 00:18:58.356
man?

00:18:58.376 --> 00:19:01.759
So earlier on today, I played Wham-A-Jammer about five times in a row.

00:19:01.840 --> 00:19:03.021
I had a great time doing it.

00:19:03.481 --> 00:19:04.163
Which version?

00:19:04.262 --> 00:19:05.443
That's what I was going to get onto.

00:19:05.483 --> 00:19:12.731
So the version, which is probably the more famous version, is the version from the 1972, the live Full House album, isn't it?

00:19:12.771 --> 00:19:15.015
That's the really famous version of the song,

00:19:15.035 --> 00:19:15.394
isn't it?

00:19:15.414 --> 00:19:17.436
Yeah, I think it's a much better version.

00:19:17.517 --> 00:19:21.622
The studio version on The Morning After is much slower.

00:19:21.882 --> 00:19:26.145
The studio version on The Morning After was our first recording of Whammer Jammer.

00:19:26.366 --> 00:19:35.737
As is typical with a lot of bands, you know, the first recording that you make of something, especially if you haven't been playing it all that long, it tends to be a little more studied and slow.

00:19:35.896 --> 00:19:40.442
But after performing it for so many times live, the tempo got bumped up a lot.

00:19:40.642 --> 00:19:42.344
And I think J-Gals were a great live band.

00:19:42.423 --> 00:19:46.667
I think that's what your strength was in playing live, because you have quite a few live albums out, don't you?

00:19:46.769 --> 00:19:47.028
Yeah.

00:19:47.769 --> 00:19:53.776
And of course, that live version is the one where Peter Wolfe does that fantastic introduction before you start playing.

00:19:53.776 --> 00:19:56.200
which just builds up the energy before you start.

00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:56.661
That's right.

00:19:57.060 --> 00:19:58.703
It is a fantastic introduction.

00:19:58.864 --> 00:20:01.949
Couldn't ask for a more happening introduction.

00:20:26.018 --> 00:20:31.935
Did he use the same introduction all the time, or was it just that one, that gig?

00:20:32.297 --> 00:20:35.906
He would do something like that every night, but it wasn't always the same thing.

00:20:36.107 --> 00:20:39.277
Peter was really good at improvising that jive.

00:20:39.970 --> 00:20:46.816
I think that the best thing about Where I'm a Jammer, from my perspective, is that as a composition, it has great momentum.

00:20:47.076 --> 00:20:51.400
It's like each new chorus that comes along, there's an inevitability about it.

00:20:51.420 --> 00:20:55.482
It just all really connects and it builds and it has this momentum.

00:20:55.743 --> 00:20:58.266
I think that's part of what people like about it.

00:20:58.506 --> 00:20:59.366
It's like a ride.

00:20:59.527 --> 00:21:02.328
Once you get on that ride, you're on that ride until the end.

00:21:02.690 --> 00:21:03.770
It's a difficult piece.

00:21:04.070 --> 00:21:05.491
To meet my standards, it is.

00:21:06.232 --> 00:21:07.713
I've heard lots of people try.

00:21:07.753 --> 00:21:09.315
You've really got to be on your game with it, haven't you?

00:21:09.355 --> 00:21:09.816
That's for sure.

00:21:09.875 --> 00:21:13.642
I'm Have you ever fallen flat playing it or has it always come out good for you?

00:21:13.762 --> 00:21:16.667
I've often gotten derailed or, you know, made a mistake.

00:21:17.048 --> 00:21:19.633
It's easy to forget the order of the verses.

00:21:19.972 --> 00:21:21.516
It's easy to get them mixed up.

00:21:21.695 --> 00:21:31.933
And so, like, if I mixed it up, that would mix up what Jay's call and response thing is with the, you know...

00:21:32.289 --> 00:21:34.152
Sometimes we didn't have that all together.

00:21:34.412 --> 00:21:36.192
And more often than not, it was my fault.

00:21:36.493 --> 00:21:41.097
So you hear quite a lot of people say, oh, Little Walter probably never played the same solo twice.

00:21:41.137 --> 00:21:43.519
But with Whamma Jamma, did you always try to play it the same?

00:21:43.559 --> 00:21:46.702
Because it was a set instrumental, like you said, which kind of built up with that momentum.

00:21:46.722 --> 00:21:50.286
And so, you know, you wanted to play it the same each time rather than improvised parts of

00:21:50.346 --> 00:21:50.405
it.

00:21:50.506 --> 00:21:50.705
Right.

00:21:50.846 --> 00:21:53.087
No, I definitely wanted to play it the same each time.

00:21:53.367 --> 00:21:59.073
Also, a big part of it was Whamma Jamma is probably never completely fulfilled.

00:21:59.333 --> 00:22:09.541
The technical aspects of playing that piece are so demanding to be able to keep the time steady through it, to put in all those stop times and to have it hold together.

00:22:09.582 --> 00:22:16.548
There were times I would vary certain things, but I would always try to keep it close to the main idea because this thing needed to be tight.

00:22:16.669 --> 00:22:19.211
You don't want to do stuff that's going to throw the band off.

00:22:19.530 --> 00:22:21.692
I think that the Life Full House was your third album.

00:22:21.732 --> 00:22:27.557
So the fourth album, 1973, I think there's a song called Give It To Me, which had a lot of success in the U.S.

00:22:27.617 --> 00:22:28.038
charts.

00:22:39.586 --> 00:22:42.568
But at this stage, this is where you were starting to get real hits, yeah?

00:22:42.588 --> 00:22:42.788
Yeah.

00:22:42.949 --> 00:22:45.171
Even before that, the songs were successful, were they?

00:22:45.351 --> 00:22:49.174
Yeah, but Give It To Me was a highlight, I think, at that point.

00:22:49.414 --> 00:22:54.359
And, of course, it's got harmonica, because not all the Jay Giles songs have got harmonica on them, but probably most of them do, don't they?

00:22:54.660 --> 00:22:54.961
Correct.

00:22:55.520 --> 00:23:00.685
Was there any discussion around which songs, you know, would have harmonica, or did it just sort of fall naturally into place?

00:23:01.185 --> 00:23:03.228
It would sort of fall naturally into place.

00:23:03.689 --> 00:23:11.896
The thing about Give It To Me is that at that particular time, when we came out with Give It To Me, They wouldn't play it on the radio because of the lyric.

00:23:12.278 --> 00:23:17.761
Yet, at the same time, they were playing Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-Ling.

00:23:17.953 --> 00:23:22.157
so that's the kind of stuff sometimes that you contend with

00:23:22.298 --> 00:23:25.740
but it still made it to the top of the charts despite they weren't playing it on the on the radio

00:23:26.040 --> 00:23:30.105
well they were playing it on am radio am radio at that time was big

00:23:30.724 --> 00:23:37.490
and were you having success around the world you know in other countries charts as well at this point on touring around in you know in all the different countries yeah

00:23:37.711 --> 00:23:45.397
we were starting to at that point yeah i think we had also we'd been to europe maybe and and or uk and we'd been to japan

00:23:45.657 --> 00:23:49.541
you know we live in the life of rock stars it's this sort of mid-70s period.

00:23:49.701 --> 00:23:49.882
Yeah.

00:23:50.262 --> 00:23:53.005
I don't know if I'd say we were living the life of rock stars.

00:23:53.365 --> 00:23:54.446
We were rock stars.

00:23:55.048 --> 00:23:55.248
Yeah.

00:23:55.407 --> 00:23:56.328
Whatever that means.

00:23:56.348 --> 00:23:56.368
I

00:23:57.029 --> 00:23:59.172
think you were compared to the Rolling Stones at one point.

00:23:59.211 --> 00:24:00.614
How did you like that comparison?

00:24:00.894 --> 00:24:01.994
I didn't mind it at all.

00:24:02.375 --> 00:24:06.019
I think some of that comparison comes from a sort of a wishful thinking.

00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:14.587
Now, there were certain similarities between Peter and Mick, you know, in terms of a certain degree of brashness and a lot of stage awareness.

00:24:15.148 --> 00:24:22.519
So in that sense, and some of the songs, some of the things we did were drawn from the same sources that the Stones drew from.

00:24:22.578 --> 00:24:24.501
Yeah, that blues sort of roots, yeah.

00:24:24.883 --> 00:24:28.689
Well, one thing for sure is you were a lot better harmonica player than Mick Jagger.

00:24:30.832 --> 00:24:32.654
So you can definitely claim that over them.

00:24:32.694 --> 00:24:34.238
So yeah, that's good.

00:24:34.698 --> 00:24:41.608
So an album you came out in 1977 probably has my favorite harmonica song from you, which is I'm Not Rough.

00:24:41.849 --> 00:24:42.109
I'm Not Rough.

00:25:04.993 --> 00:25:06.786
based on a Louis Armstrong song.

00:25:06.806 --> 00:25:07.993
And again, your love of the trumpet.

00:25:08.075 --> 00:25:08.557
That's right.

00:25:09.182 --> 00:25:09.463
Yeah.

00:25:09.866 --> 00:25:12.923
When I heard that song, I thought, you know, I'm going to bring this to the band.

00:25:13.144 --> 00:25:15.986
I think this is something that the band could really do well.

00:25:16.306 --> 00:25:18.888
And I didn't have to twist anybody's arm to do it either.

00:25:19.189 --> 00:25:20.690
Peter was definitely game for it.

00:25:20.730 --> 00:25:22.511
He could see how good it would be.

00:25:22.892 --> 00:25:32.641
The main thing about that tune that struck me, both when I first heard Louis Armstrong's recording of it, was that it starts out as a country blues.

00:25:33.101 --> 00:25:40.007
You know, as it goes by, about the last third of it, it kind of transitions into an urban sound.

00:25:40.247 --> 00:25:41.167
That's what I felt we could do.

00:25:41.167 --> 00:25:44.810
really do you know like and jay could play slide guitar on it

00:25:45.251 --> 00:25:48.994
no it's a great one it's mostly instrumental isn't although there are some vocals on it

00:25:49.316 --> 00:25:50.596
yeah peter comes in with it

00:25:50.676 --> 00:25:53.440
well i don't buy it i'm not rough and

00:25:53.640 --> 00:25:53.759
i

00:25:53.839 --> 00:26:03.128
don't buy it yeah a great song yeah great i really love that one and yeah the real sort of real jazzy elements to that and of course you're playing a standard tune diatonic on that yeah

00:26:03.288 --> 00:26:04.089
i am yeah

00:26:04.589 --> 00:26:24.817
so another really iconic song for jay giles was sanctuary Yeah, and again, a different sound for the harmonica.

00:26:24.836 --> 00:26:29.222
And again, you know, you're going to come up with these different sounds and, you know, these different sorts of songs.

00:26:29.522 --> 00:26:34.509
I remember playing in Holland at the Paradiso doing Sanctuary.

00:26:34.730 --> 00:26:37.874
I'm not sure if that was before or after we recorded it.

00:26:37.973 --> 00:26:38.855
Could have been before.

00:26:39.276 --> 00:26:40.738
We've touched on Centerfold earlier on.

00:26:40.778 --> 00:26:42.220
This was on your 1981 album.

00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:46.005
So was this the height of your fame, this Freeze Frame album in 1981?

00:26:46.244 --> 00:26:48.147
Yeah, I'd say it was.

00:26:48.288 --> 00:26:48.548
Yeah.

00:26:48.749 --> 00:26:50.490
There's some intense stuff on there too.

00:26:52.653 --> 00:26:52.733
Yeah.

00:27:04.417 --> 00:27:08.003
And then he did another really famous live album of yours.

00:27:08.085 --> 00:27:10.067
It was a Showtime album in 1982.

00:27:10.509 --> 00:27:13.554
But some great ones on this Showtime album.

00:27:13.614 --> 00:27:17.761
Again, another real favorite and another great song of yours is Stoop Down Baby.

00:27:18.122 --> 00:27:18.563
Oh, thanks.

00:27:18.623 --> 00:27:20.125
Yeah.

00:27:53.122 --> 00:27:54.085
Stoop Down was...

00:27:54.567 --> 00:27:57.095
That was one that I did on the heels of...

00:27:57.696 --> 00:28:02.875
We were recording in New York City for an extended period of time at that time.

00:28:03.336 --> 00:28:05.924
I had quite a bit of free time to myself, and I was...

00:28:06.402 --> 00:28:10.086
I was watching Roy Eldridge, one of my trumpet idols.

00:28:10.667 --> 00:28:18.438
The trumpet lineage is from Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge to Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis.

00:28:18.617 --> 00:28:19.619
I loved all those guys.

00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:24.086
But Roy Eldridge, he was a big idol of mine at the time.

00:28:24.465 --> 00:28:31.935
And I got to see him perform night after night at this little bar called Jimmy Ryan's on 54th Street.

00:28:32.256 --> 00:28:36.261
I would go there every night and record him and then have conversations with him.

00:28:36.481 --> 00:28:39.009
Got to know him, and he was really great to me.

00:28:39.329 --> 00:28:50.861
And it was so incredible for me to be able to stand within 10 feet or less of my idol and study him closely while he's playing the trumpet, watching how he breathes.

00:28:51.233 --> 00:28:54.457
and correlating the sound with what you see.

00:28:54.676 --> 00:29:00.961
That was a big part of it for me in terms of forming my ideas about technique and teaching, teaching myself.

00:29:01.242 --> 00:29:03.384
So Stoop Down Baby was based on one of his songs,

00:29:03.744 --> 00:29:03.865
was it?

00:29:03.884 --> 00:29:04.164
No.

00:29:04.444 --> 00:29:04.726
No, no.

00:29:05.105 --> 00:29:06.267
It was based upon...

00:29:06.747 --> 00:29:11.230
See, Roy had this way of playing that he could make the trumpet sound like a blowtorch.

00:29:11.652 --> 00:29:18.698
And there are times when he would play fast and fiery, even then when he was like his late 60s, early 70s.

00:29:19.077 --> 00:29:21.200
He could still blow like that when he felt like it.

00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:30.808
So it was through the influence of seeing this night after night and also collecting and listening to his recordings for a long time before I ever met him.

00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:36.355
That's really what I had on my mind when it was time for me to go in the studio and play Stoop Down.

00:29:46.164 --> 00:29:47.645
Stoop Down

00:29:52.642 --> 00:29:55.403
It's interesting that, you know, two of my favorite songs are yours.

00:29:55.423 --> 00:29:59.667
I'm Not Rough and Stooped Down Baby were kind of inspired by a trumpet sound, yeah?

00:29:59.827 --> 00:30:00.048
Yeah.

00:30:00.249 --> 00:30:02.150
Well, that's because I have trumpet brain.

00:30:02.951 --> 00:30:03.971
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

00:30:04.152 --> 00:30:05.973
I've not given up on the trumpet,

00:30:06.213 --> 00:30:06.634
by the way.

00:30:06.913 --> 00:30:07.714
You're still playing it then?

00:30:08.134 --> 00:30:10.176
I still think about it damn near every day.

00:30:10.196 --> 00:30:11.699
I don't play it all the time.

00:30:12.118 --> 00:30:20.226
But, you know, my basic feeling is like, anytime I divert into something like that, that's actually time taken away from the harmonica.

00:30:20.465 --> 00:30:22.607
And there's a lot more work to be done on that, yeah.

00:30:22.607 --> 00:30:23.328
for me.

00:30:23.588 --> 00:30:29.115
I just try to be sane and economical about how I'm spending my time and energy.

00:30:29.356 --> 00:30:30.096
Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:30.218 --> 00:30:40.170
So another song I've got to mention off the Showtime song, which me and my friends used to love, is Love Rap, which really showcases Peter Wolfe's fantastic vocal, which is basically just talking.

00:30:40.530 --> 00:30:42.933
It's just a vocal talking thing, isn't it?

00:30:43.134 --> 00:30:45.016
Yeah, the repute of the beauty rap.

00:30:45.176 --> 00:30:47.459
Let down your long golden hair.

00:30:48.500 --> 00:30:49.501
Yeah.

00:30:51.266 --> 00:30:53.648
He ordered the largest pizza he can get.

00:30:53.669 --> 00:30:56.152
And he put on mushrooms.

00:30:57.614 --> 00:30:58.796
He put on onions.

00:31:00.136 --> 00:31:01.880
He put on pepperoni.

00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:04.563
He put on sausage.

00:31:05.825 --> 00:31:07.146
He put on hot chili.

00:31:07.166 --> 00:31:09.509
He put on broccoli.

00:31:09.529 --> 00:31:12.173
He put on peanut butter.

00:31:13.193 --> 00:31:14.536
He even put on tuna fish.

00:31:14.675 --> 00:31:19.102
But no anchovies.

00:31:20.897 --> 00:31:23.727
Peter was really good at that stuff.

00:31:24.809 --> 00:31:25.933
Yeah, superb, yeah.

00:31:26.414 --> 00:31:32.775
I think having that amazing vocal, we'll get onto your vocals later, but having that amazing vocals makes such a difference, doesn't it?

00:31:32.795 --> 00:31:33.597
It does, yeah.

00:31:33.730 --> 00:31:39.035
Then in 84, the last Jay Giles Band album came out and then you split in 85.

00:31:39.095 --> 00:31:39.194
Yeah.

00:31:39.214 --> 00:31:42.498
And I think at that point, you know, this, you sort of took a bit of time out playing.

00:31:42.518 --> 00:31:49.083
You still did some recording, didn't you, with some of the people, but yeah, you took a bit of a break from the sort of 1985 for a few years.

00:31:49.564 --> 00:31:49.943
I did.

00:31:50.084 --> 00:31:51.806
I definitely took quite a long break.

00:31:52.625 --> 00:31:56.148
Longer on in 87, I started to get into it some more.

00:31:56.549 --> 00:31:56.869
So, yeah.

00:31:56.910 --> 00:32:01.913
So you, like you say, you took a break and, you know, you started getting back into playing then for a few years.

00:32:01.953 --> 00:32:09.825
You did, I've got a recording you play with the Full Circle Band playing Southern Crossings.

00:32:19.357 --> 00:32:23.183
So you did a few guest spots, did you, with bands during that time, yeah?

00:32:23.403 --> 00:32:24.665
That's right, yeah.

00:32:25.326 --> 00:32:26.868
Something with Debbie Harry, too.

00:32:40.481 --> 00:32:42.723
Was it earlier than this that you came up with the magic harmonica?

00:32:42.743 --> 00:32:44.546
Because you did play it with Jay Giles, didn't you?

00:32:44.806 --> 00:32:50.290
The first appearance of magic harps that I can recall on recording is on this tune.

00:32:50.711 --> 00:32:53.933
It was the last album that we did without Peter.

00:32:54.153 --> 00:32:59.679
The album was called You're Gettin' Even While I'm Gettin' Odd as a tag to one of those tunes on there.

00:33:00.098 --> 00:33:04.143
That's where I play a saxophone bebop-like thing.

00:33:04.323 --> 00:33:09.146
What I'm actually playing is a Charlie Parker composition called Blues for Alice.

00:33:09.586 --> 00:33:17.592
Bebop-a-dee And you can hear it fading out.

00:33:31.713 --> 00:33:34.016
So what was the concept behind the Magic Carmonica?

00:33:34.076 --> 00:33:36.077
I think all the draw notes you could bend, couldn't you?

00:33:36.218 --> 00:33:36.478
Yes.

00:33:36.538 --> 00:33:41.942
And so you see quite a lot of innovations in this line now, like you've got Brendan Powered in the same sort of thing.

00:33:41.982 --> 00:33:45.486
Will Ward's got his, you know, he's got lots of bends on the higher notes and stuff.

00:33:45.546 --> 00:33:47.688
You know, it sounds like you were ahead of your time doing this

00:33:47.847 --> 00:33:48.087
one.

00:33:48.107 --> 00:33:50.509
Oh, I think we were way ahead of our time on it.

00:33:50.670 --> 00:33:57.817
Plus we got a US patent on a large number of tunings all covered under one patent.

00:33:58.057 --> 00:33:59.438
That was a huge undertaking.

00:33:59.617 --> 00:34:03.102
Took a major amount of work an effort it was cool

00:34:03.382 --> 00:34:11.190
so what's the idea that you would play then lots of different tunings well you know as for different songs is that what you were you know thinking behind having the different tunings

00:34:11.389 --> 00:34:49.690
well the idea behind the different tunings was to take what we liked about the way a harp works like for example in chicago blues you know which is a combination of chord sounds and melody that work cool together and that's sort of like fit sort of a certain aspects of the genre that you want to play you know so like by having a different chords than than the standard arrangement by having different chords as the blow chord and different chords as the draw chord that would allow you to play different bags more easily and with greater with greater sonic groove like you get when you play the harp in chicago blues

00:34:50.032 --> 00:34:51.934
do you still play any of these magic harmonicas now

00:34:52.233 --> 00:35:03.045
i do when i choose to yeah the magic harps were fabricated by just using razor blades to retune the reeds on conventional Marine Band harmonicas.

00:35:03.545 --> 00:35:06.849
So it was really about all the different tunings that was the big focus, was it?

00:35:07.110 --> 00:35:07.590
Exactly.

00:35:07.831 --> 00:35:13.077
And then you reformed, you kind of reformed the Jay Giles Band by getting back together with Jay Giles.

00:35:13.197 --> 00:35:14.518
Was this in 92?

00:35:14.759 --> 00:35:20.445
Yeah, but this was really not a reformation of the Jay Giles Band by any means whatsoever.

00:35:20.646 --> 00:35:24.210
It was just myself and Jay, I was fronting the band.

00:35:24.490 --> 00:35:27.974
There was nobody else from the Jay Giles Band involved in any aspect of it.

00:35:27.994 --> 00:35:30.518
It was just me and Jay because we were always really tight.

00:35:30.818 --> 00:35:33.422
So you were the singer then, as you say, at this stage.

00:35:33.481 --> 00:35:33.762
That's right.

00:35:33.782 --> 00:35:35.405
And then you took over the singing duties, yeah?

00:35:35.565 --> 00:35:40.695
I think you had two albums out, 94 you had Blues Time, and then in 96 you had Little Core Blues, yeah?

00:35:40.875 --> 00:35:41.074
Yeah.

00:35:41.456 --> 00:35:44.902
So you had a couple of Little Walter songs on the Blues Time album.

00:35:44.922 --> 00:35:48.327
You've got the kind of Little Walter medley, Rollercoaster, Crazy Legs, I Got To Go.

00:35:48.347 --> 00:35:48.387
Oh,

00:35:48.728 --> 00:35:48.989
yeah.

00:35:49.548 --> 00:35:52.934
Yeah, so obviously showing your love of Little Walter with that one.

00:35:56.942 --> 00:35:57.021
Yeah.

00:36:06.594 --> 00:36:10.199
The second album, Little Car Blues, has got some good ones on as well, hasn't it?

00:36:10.420 --> 00:36:12.824
I think I like Little Car Blues as an album.

00:36:12.864 --> 00:36:13.806
I like that one better.

00:36:13.985 --> 00:36:20.697
I think my singing is better on it, too, because I think by that point, I had been singing longer and with better focus.

00:36:21.057 --> 00:36:21.898
I just think it's better.

00:36:39.554 --> 00:36:41.978
You know, obviously a lot of the great harmonica players sing.

00:36:42.018 --> 00:36:42.219
Yeah.

00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:46.385
So you, people feel that they're a bit of a bit part if they're not the singer and harmonica player.

00:36:46.445 --> 00:36:53.679
So you took on the singing for this, you know, I mean, you know, would you give some words of encouragement to people to, you know, to develop the singing so that they could do the same?

00:36:53.980 --> 00:36:54.280
Yeah.

00:36:54.561 --> 00:37:01.773
I encourage everybody who's interested in playing the harp to study singing if they can, even to invest in it.

00:37:01.954 --> 00:37:06.563
at least a starting degree, because it's so important to what you do with the breath.

00:37:06.782 --> 00:37:09.248
And breath control is behind everything with the harp.

00:37:09.588 --> 00:37:11.271
No breath control, no sound.

00:37:11.492 --> 00:37:14.418
The quality of your sound depends upon your breath control.

00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:20.409
And I mean like the real details of it, particularly the inception of your notes, the attack.

00:37:20.590 --> 00:37:21.972
There's so many aspects to it.

00:37:22.498 --> 00:37:27.963
If I'm not getting the result that I want, I take one step back and examine it vocally first.

00:37:28.342 --> 00:37:33.387
It's usually just a matter of like, explore what you're trying to sing by speaking it.

00:37:33.728 --> 00:37:39.032
Does that mean you like to sing your solos or, you know, do you sing solos and then play them on harmonica?

00:37:39.072 --> 00:37:40.172
Do you do that sort of approach?

00:37:40.474 --> 00:37:47.659
Well, when I practice, I practice singing arpeggios and certain basic things and I play them on the harp, sing them.

00:37:48.039 --> 00:37:50.742
But what really is behind it all is timing.

00:37:50.983 --> 00:37:53.706
You have to be able to count like a drummer.

00:37:53.965 --> 00:37:55.248
You have to be the drummer.

00:37:55.489 --> 00:37:57.592
I'm talking about when I'm practicing by myself.

00:37:57.833 --> 00:38:03.521
I practice these specific things because it makes a huge difference as to what comes out of the heart.

00:38:03.842 --> 00:38:07.548
So does that mean, do you practice with a metronome to do that or do you use your own time too?

00:38:08.010 --> 00:38:10.974
Sometimes I practice with a metronome, but not that much.

00:38:11.394 --> 00:38:13.137
No, it's like, you have to be the clock.

00:38:13.418 --> 00:38:19.791
You know, it's like one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

00:38:20.251 --> 00:38:24.257
You got to be able to keep that going like that for two, three minutes.

00:38:24.757 --> 00:38:27.380
Yeah, it's a great, great thing just to play by yourself.

00:38:27.420 --> 00:38:27.699
Yeah.

00:38:27.780 --> 00:38:30.884
Just solo without any backing tracks, you know, without any metronome.

00:38:31.103 --> 00:38:31.364
Right.

00:38:31.384 --> 00:38:33.266
And to do that, that's a good discipline, isn't it?

00:38:33.306 --> 00:38:34.126
Yeah.

00:38:34.146 --> 00:38:43.416
I work on this to the point of it's now, it's second nature for me now to have this emphasis on timing and this thing about starting a sound.

00:38:43.677 --> 00:38:46.860
It's hard to do better than just normal speech.

00:38:47.260 --> 00:38:49.733
Like, Hey, what are you doing to my car?

00:38:50.594 --> 00:38:50.833
Hey.

00:38:51.355 --> 00:38:55.161
Then the reverse of that is like somebody sneaks up on you in a room.

00:38:55.541 --> 00:38:56.523
You're focused on something.

00:38:56.543 --> 00:38:57.403
You don't know they're there.

00:38:57.443 --> 00:38:59.166
They put their hand on your shoulder.

00:38:59.347 --> 00:39:02.092
You're probably going to go, because you're startled.

00:39:02.391 --> 00:39:08.762
So it's those two basic gut level things that we do that we've done since we were children.

00:39:08.902 --> 00:39:09.963
This stuff is built in.

00:39:10.344 --> 00:39:14.030
And that's really at your service as a player.

00:39:14.242 --> 00:39:16.585
And it's also kind of what you need to do as a singer.

00:39:16.865 --> 00:39:28.762
Now, with the singing thing, I go even further in that I use what's called the ribcage expansion technique, which is a fancy term for an operatic type of use of the breathing apparatus when you sing.

00:39:29.121 --> 00:39:30.304
And it makes a huge difference.

00:39:30.684 --> 00:39:33.748
You've got big sound helping that, getting that big sound out of the harmonica as well.

00:39:33.929 --> 00:39:34.750
You do, yeah.

00:39:34.914 --> 00:39:47.344
But just to get that big sound, all you really have to do is examine your talking, examine the way you talk, examine the way you talk, what you sound like when you're communicating, like we're communicating right now.

00:39:47.786 --> 00:39:52.557
So the brain kind of subconsciously controls the flow of the air.

00:39:52.802 --> 00:39:55.186
So it's the quality of what's in your mind.

00:39:55.286 --> 00:40:02.978
It's the quality of your sonic conception is what actually drives and determines the action that the airstream takes.

00:40:03.217 --> 00:40:09.086
You know, it's like your brain gives the command, and once you've practiced this stuff enough, it's like you get the result directly.

00:40:09.206 --> 00:40:13.152
It's not like you're thinking about this in a technical way, but you've prepared for it.

00:40:13.554 --> 00:40:20.545
So yeah, just finishing off then about your recording career, you played with a legendary Rhythm& Blues review in the sort of early 2000s.

00:40:21.985 --> 00:40:28.445
guitar solo

00:40:36.034 --> 00:40:39.297
later on in the 2016 you did an album with shun inc

00:40:39.536 --> 00:40:39.956
yeah

00:40:40.217 --> 00:40:43.039
called about time was and this was an acoustic duo yeah

00:40:43.199 --> 00:41:06.260
that's right yeah shun uh yeah i'm really glad you you uh asked me about that because um that was the last project that that i did and then shouldn't had to make some changes shouldn't had to had to do some things and then this whole uh covid thing came along so i haven't seen shun in quite some time but i thought we were really on to some good stuff with that.

00:41:06.721 --> 00:41:08.204
Yeah, and there's some great stuff.

00:41:08.224 --> 00:41:10.628
And of course, you did a version of Whamma Jamma with me, of course.

00:41:27.905 --> 00:41:32.010
I heard you say you had a voice between Michael Jackson and James Brown.

00:41:32.070 --> 00:41:35.211
You do a version of Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, which is really great.

00:41:35.552 --> 00:41:36.172
Oh, yeah.

00:41:36.532 --> 00:41:42.619
And you're playing those kind of James Brown kind of horn lines on the harmonica as well, which is nice, isn't it, to get those out?

00:41:42.699 --> 00:41:48.384
Well, the thing I love about working with Shun is that we took a minimalistic approach to what we were doing.

00:41:48.443 --> 00:41:50.224
We really believed less is more.

00:41:50.405 --> 00:41:56.550
That's why, you know, to do this thing with Shun's guitar sound, acoustic guitar with acoustic harp.

00:41:56.851 --> 00:42:00.375
A complete contrast to what you were doing with Jay Gaugier, big stadium gigs.

00:42:00.494 --> 00:42:04.878
Yeah, and yet, in many ways, you can do more with the sound in that context.

00:42:05.219 --> 00:42:05.619
Yeah.

00:42:05.639 --> 00:42:07.601
So, I'm interested in doing more of that.

00:42:07.981 --> 00:42:09.903
He definitely gives you much more space to play.

00:42:09.963 --> 00:42:14.128
If you're in a bigger band, you know, the harmonica plays a certain part in the band, doesn't it?

00:42:14.148 --> 00:42:18.193
But in a duo, you know, you've got much more freedom, which is great.

00:42:18.313 --> 00:42:21.275
Yeah, and Shun's singing is just fantastic.

00:42:21.856 --> 00:42:27.262
Papa's got a brand new bag.

00:42:28.193 --> 00:42:35.619
Thank you.

00:42:37.474 --> 00:42:38.855
You've already mentioned that you like to teach.

00:42:39.034 --> 00:42:39.775
We'll put the link on.

00:42:39.815 --> 00:42:46.041
But one question I ask each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:42:46.302 --> 00:42:48.804
Well, it depends on what I was practicing for.

00:42:49.224 --> 00:42:53.748
If it was for a gig, that would be a tough time because I get pretty nervous about all that.

00:42:54.027 --> 00:43:04.456
But if I'm just practicing without any commitments coming up, I think the thing to work on, quite frankly, is for most harp players, most harp players need music lessons.

00:43:04.898 --> 00:43:07.260
I'm talking about the fundamentals of music.

00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:08.221
and counting.

00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:18.592
And in terms of practice, I think it's a good idea to try to copy, to emulate as best you can those players that you feel are superior players.

00:43:18.931 --> 00:43:20.514
You know, go according to your taste.

00:43:20.773 --> 00:43:23.137
But you don't want to make that your everything.

00:43:23.297 --> 00:43:27.561
I just think that it's good to try to reproduce some of the great things that you hear.

00:43:27.902 --> 00:43:29.963
A lot of players don't try to do that.

00:43:30.224 --> 00:43:37.867
And I find that's not very attractive because they don't seem to have the vocabulary that the instrument kind of needs.

00:43:38.369 --> 00:43:39.190
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

00:43:39.510 --> 00:43:41.211
So I'll move on to the last section now.

00:43:41.393 --> 00:43:42.494
So we'll talk about gears.

00:43:42.534 --> 00:43:44.474
First of all, your harmonicas of choice.

00:43:44.494 --> 00:43:47.117
I think you're a Marine Band player back in the 70s.

00:43:47.137 --> 00:43:48.298
They were the only harmonicas.

00:43:48.318 --> 00:43:50.880
And then you sort of, I think you moved on to the Golden Melodies.

00:43:50.920 --> 00:43:51.981
What are you playing these days?

00:43:52.302 --> 00:43:58.027
Yeah, I moved on to Golden Melodies because the manufacturer in the Marine Band at that time was just terrible.

00:43:58.206 --> 00:44:01.409
These days, you know, there's a lot of good harmonicas around these days.

00:44:01.670 --> 00:44:03.452
It's not like it was when I started.

00:44:03.871 --> 00:44:05.432
I still like Hohner the most.

00:44:05.753 --> 00:44:10.878
And I also play, I have a complete set of Lios I think that they're both really good.

00:44:11.239 --> 00:44:12.840
But Hohner, I've been playing longer.

00:44:13.161 --> 00:44:15.123
It's still my main harps.

00:44:15.543 --> 00:44:23.612
And I like the Marine Band series of Hohner's stuff, meaning the Marine Band, the Marine Band Deluxe, and the Crossover.

00:44:23.771 --> 00:44:25.574
I think you own most harps.

00:44:25.594 --> 00:44:27.777
I think you've got a chord harp and a bass harp and things.

00:44:28.478 --> 00:44:30.559
You love the harmonic and have them all, do you?

00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:31.740
Yeah.

00:44:32.101 --> 00:44:35.184
The chord harp I particularly love, the 48 chord harp.

00:44:35.284 --> 00:44:36.967
It's about 19 inches long.

00:44:37.266 --> 00:44:38.288
It's a great instrument.

00:44:38.288 --> 00:44:45.864
One of the things I like about that instrument is the demands it makes on breath control to clearly enunciate rhythm.

00:44:46.085 --> 00:44:50.213
This, you know, hoo-dit, hoo-dit, hoo-dit, as a simple example.

00:44:50.434 --> 00:44:54.119
It all comes back to vocal enunciations to begin with.

00:44:54.539 --> 00:44:54.920
Yeah, cool.

00:44:55.139 --> 00:44:59.445
And you mentioned earlier on that you're focusing a lot of your attention on the chromatic these days.

00:44:59.606 --> 00:44:59.987
Yeah.

00:45:00.588 --> 00:45:03.090
I think you're working on jazz on the chromatic, yeah?

00:45:03.351 --> 00:45:03.612
Jazz.

00:45:03.632 --> 00:45:13.405
Well, actually what I really like to play, what I find of greatest benefit, whether it's on the chromatic or the diatonic, is I like playing ballads, standards.

00:45:14.065 --> 00:45:20.213
I also like working with this app called iReal Pro, which you can get for your device or for your computer.

00:45:20.449 --> 00:45:21.831
It's a fantastic tool.

00:45:22.351 --> 00:45:30.800
I highly recommend that or something like it for everybody because it gives you a never-tiring band to practice to.

00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:39.407
Damn near any song you want or you can edit your own and you can choose what instruments you want to have play it, what tempo, what key.

00:45:40.369 --> 00:45:43.351
They didn't have anything like that when I was starting out, you know?

00:45:43.632 --> 00:45:45.173
No, it is incredible, yeah.

00:45:45.634 --> 00:45:46.295
So yeah, so great.

00:45:46.315 --> 00:45:47.856
So you're working a lot on the chromatic.

00:45:48.036 --> 00:45:49.398
What chromatic do you like to play?

00:45:49.826 --> 00:45:51.307
I have a bunch of favorites.

00:45:51.909 --> 00:45:59.599
Some of the best ones was the series of the Toots models that Hohner put out, Toots Thielman 12-hole chromatics.

00:46:00.101 --> 00:46:05.409
They were like a Hohner 270, but heavily chrome-plated, including the reed plates.

00:46:05.849 --> 00:46:06.971
And there were two versions.

00:46:07.050 --> 00:46:10.016
There's the melatonin and the hard bopper.

00:46:10.416 --> 00:46:11.137
I like them both.

00:46:11.650 --> 00:46:14.355
And so I've done a bunch of playing on them.

00:46:14.594 --> 00:46:20.606
More recently, I got a hold of the Hohner Super 64 Performance, which is a slide chromatic.

00:46:20.827 --> 00:46:22.530
I believe it's their most current model.

00:46:22.891 --> 00:46:24.293
You play a lot of the 16-hole, do you?

00:46:24.474 --> 00:46:26.717
I find you can navigate that one okay compared to the 12-hole.

00:46:27.239 --> 00:46:29.322
Sure, but I've been doing that for a long, long time.

00:46:29.643 --> 00:46:37.764
When I first bought my harps, you know, way back in the 60s, Probably by 1970, 71, I bought everything that Hohner had.

00:46:38.065 --> 00:46:44.902
So I had 12-hole chromatics, 10-hole chromatics, 16-hole chromatics, CBH models, all of that.

00:46:45.164 --> 00:46:50.717
I just, I really, really enjoyed the chromatic.

00:47:12.193 --> 00:47:17.663
I also like that there's a 12-hole 270, which is a low C 270.

00:47:17.682 --> 00:47:17.882
A

00:47:18.043 --> 00:47:18.724
tenor, yeah.

00:47:18.965 --> 00:47:19.726
Yeah, the tenor.

00:47:19.945 --> 00:47:20.927
Yeah, I like that too.

00:47:21.268 --> 00:47:25.333
But I also like, I have a full set of the Meister Class harps.

00:47:25.514 --> 00:47:27.637
People are surprised that I even mention those.

00:47:27.978 --> 00:47:36.371
But the thing that I have found is that if you're not too quick in your evaluation of a particular model, you know, you have to give it time.

00:47:36.592 --> 00:47:37.733
You have to adjust to it.

00:47:37.954 --> 00:47:39.114
and blow it properly.

00:47:39.514 --> 00:47:48.463
Then you'll find that there are several models that might really satisfy you and that to bring out what's best in them, you have to like spend time on.

00:47:48.643 --> 00:47:56.269
I also like to say that the diatonic harp is jealous of the chromatic and the chromatic is jealous of the diatonic.

00:47:56.469 --> 00:47:58.110
Both got their own strengths for sure, haven't they?

00:47:58.231 --> 00:47:58.632
They do.

00:47:59.012 --> 00:48:00.413
Clearly you play different tunings, yeah?

00:48:00.434 --> 00:48:03.416
Because you had the Magic Harmonica where you looked at different tunings.

00:48:03.456 --> 00:48:05.697
So is different tuning still something you play these days?

00:48:06.199 --> 00:48:18.130
Yeah, I have a few favorites of The thing about magic harps that my biggest contribution to the magic harp thing was those models that are fully chromatic by virtue of the layout.

00:48:18.351 --> 00:48:22.295
So that's what I like to play the most because I'm interested in playing a chromatic instrument.

00:48:22.394 --> 00:48:27.260
So most of what I play, if it's a magic harp, will be a chromatic one.

00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:29.623
And there are several models that are chromatic.

00:48:29.842 --> 00:48:34.789
But most of your stuff with the Jay Giles band is played on a standard tune, Richter, diatonic, yeah?

00:48:35.088 --> 00:48:51.264
Yeah, the Giles band stuff is on standard What

00:48:51.304 --> 00:48:52.166
about overblows?

00:48:52.347 --> 00:48:53.128
Do you use many of those?

00:48:53.429 --> 00:48:53.650
No.

00:48:54.114 --> 00:48:59.320
I can do some of them, and once in a while in a blues context, I might throw one in.

00:48:59.621 --> 00:49:08.572
But I'm not real fond of the approach of where you play a diatonic harp completely chromatically by the use of overblows and or overdraws.

00:49:09.054 --> 00:49:20.769
I would rather do it either on a magic harp, you know, that was more appropriate for the particular tune, or use the slide chromatic, which is basically the approach that I would take these days.

00:49:21.230 --> 00:49:24.014
I'm really into the slide chromatic as a horn.

00:49:24.130 --> 00:49:25.630
It is a horn to me.

00:49:26.452 --> 00:49:29.614
So what about your embouchure?

00:49:29.914 --> 00:49:33.378
I think you use a bit of both of tongue blocking and pursing.

00:49:33.898 --> 00:49:34.998
Yeah, I use both.

00:49:35.480 --> 00:49:41.385
I think when I first started out, I was using lip pursing for a rather brief period of time.

00:49:41.744 --> 00:49:43.646
Then I really got into tongue blocking.

00:49:43.887 --> 00:50:01.088
And then after a long, long period of time, or actually not that long a period, I fairly quickly developed this thing of using both because there were articulate tongue articulations that I was using that really needed, I felt that needed lip pursing to pull them off right.

00:50:01.608 --> 00:50:04.173
Do you play your top end stuff lip pursed?

00:50:04.594 --> 00:50:04.815
No.

00:50:05.215 --> 00:50:06.838
Not if they're bands.

00:50:07.298 --> 00:50:12.429
I do know of a young gentleman though who I met at a gig about four years ago.

00:50:12.469 --> 00:50:13.630
Very young kid.

00:50:14.010 --> 00:50:15.293
Great, great kid.

00:50:15.617 --> 00:50:18.840
who showed me, he was playing those high bent notes.

00:50:19.260 --> 00:50:22.143
He was playing Lee Oscar harps and he was playing them tongue blocked.

00:50:22.744 --> 00:50:23.025
Yeah.

00:50:23.304 --> 00:50:23.846
Cool.

00:50:24.186 --> 00:50:26.208
So what about amplifiers and mics?

00:50:26.268 --> 00:50:34.675
And maybe again, talking back in your days playing with the J-Gals and big stages and what sort of gear were you using then?

00:50:34.715 --> 00:50:51.512
Well, the best setup that I had from my perspective, probably not from the perspective of everybody else who had to hear it, but the best setup The best thing was I had these monitors that were being driven by two Fender Twin Reverb amps.

00:50:52.353 --> 00:51:05.710
I had these amps in a special, the amps themselves, the chassis of the amps, the amp itself, two of them were mounted in a specially made metal cabinet-like, not a cabinet, but an open structure.

00:51:06.050 --> 00:51:09.835
So I could get at the controls of these two twins easily.

00:51:10.394 --> 00:51:16.681
Each one of them was driving a speaker cabinet that contained four Electro-Voice SRO speakers.

00:51:17.222 --> 00:51:22.268
They were suspended from the lighting truss, aimed down at me.

00:51:22.668 --> 00:51:31.039
So it was a beam of sound coming from each of these large speaker cabinets, aimed right down at me.

00:51:31.059 --> 00:51:32.780
And we were a pretty loud band.

00:51:33.121 --> 00:51:36.905
Not loud compared to some, but we were pretty loud.

00:51:37.346 --> 00:51:53.485
So in order for me to be able to play in that environment, I needed the harp to be really loud and massive.

00:51:54.365 --> 00:51:59.813
And fortunately, the way this was set up, those speakers were opened back, if I remember correctly.

00:52:00.273 --> 00:52:05.728
So the They had more directionality to the sound, you know, coming from them.

00:52:06.489 --> 00:52:08.472
So it was a pretty controlled beam.

00:52:08.492 --> 00:52:14.842
So I had this area that I could stand on stage and still move around it where I could hear the harp really great.

00:52:15.063 --> 00:52:27.722
And so that rig was basically those two Twin Reavers, but those were driven by a Fisher, that's the brand, an old Fisher monophonic hi-fi preamplifier, a tube preamp.

00:52:28.382 --> 00:52:30.686
It had several 12AX7s.

00:52:30.914 --> 00:52:31.474
tubes in it.

00:52:31.856 --> 00:52:39.251
It's not necessarily that I was using a whole heck of a lot of gain in front of the twin reverbs, but I was using some.

00:52:39.612 --> 00:52:41.436
I didn't want the sound to get too thin.

00:52:41.456 --> 00:52:43.782
I wanted it to have some edge.

00:52:44.202 --> 00:52:47.268
And that was how I got the edge, was using this...

00:52:48.065 --> 00:52:50.710
monophonic hi-fi tube preamps.

00:52:51.231 --> 00:52:56.503
So it's the Fender Twins with the sound going out the front and the monitors were kind of just going at you.

00:52:56.724 --> 00:53:05.862
Yeah, I think the sound to drive the front, the sound that went to the PA was probably picked off a direct box.

00:53:06.463 --> 00:53:07.525
I think that's how we did it.

00:53:08.001 --> 00:53:09.664
And that worked well, too.

00:53:10.186 --> 00:53:10.467
Yeah.

00:53:10.487 --> 00:53:11.507
And what about nowadays?

00:53:11.528 --> 00:53:14.554
Do you have any particular preference for amps or microphones?

00:53:15.135 --> 00:53:15.376
No.

00:53:15.416 --> 00:53:18.981
Although I still experiment with some of that stuff.

00:53:19.463 --> 00:53:27.297
Were I to get into it today, I would probably, first of all, explore using a Line 6 HX Stomp.

00:53:27.713 --> 00:53:29.215
Do you know what I'm referring to?

00:53:29.255 --> 00:53:29.956
It's a pedal.

00:53:30.376 --> 00:53:32.159
Yeah, I've seen Line 6s before.

00:53:32.179 --> 00:53:33.659
I don't know if it's that one.

00:53:33.780 --> 00:53:35.561
I did have a Line 6 pedal at one point.

00:53:35.581 --> 00:53:37.523
I don't know if it was that one, but it's quite a while ago now.

00:53:37.603 --> 00:53:47.875
Well, the HX Stomp, this version that I have, which is a year and a half or two years old at this point, I haven't had a chance to use it live yet, but I've experimented with it a bunch here.

00:53:48.215 --> 00:53:53.820
It's this fantastic thing that allows you to play, like you could bring that to the gig and that's your rig.

00:53:54.260 --> 00:53:55.021
That's all you need.

00:53:55.362 --> 00:54:01.289
is your mic into this pedal, and you've got lots of EQ and effects and everything built in.

00:54:01.469 --> 00:54:05.233
Whatever you need, whatever you want, and you can hook it up any way you want.

00:54:05.414 --> 00:54:06.856
It's pretty impressive.

00:54:07.297 --> 00:54:08.177
Lots of different sounds.

00:54:08.318 --> 00:54:08.579
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:08.599 --> 00:54:10.000
A lot of people liking that option now.

00:54:10.019 --> 00:54:14.306
And they're sounding better and better, these sort of multi-effects pedals these days, aren't they?

00:54:14.646 --> 00:54:15.007
Yeah.

00:54:15.266 --> 00:54:23.313
But the other thing about all that is, as I was doing the duo stuff with Shun, I wasn't that interested in all that.

00:54:23.574 --> 00:54:28.021
What I wanted was a good, clean, acoustic sound that I could really work with.

00:54:28.382 --> 00:54:44.329
So, you know, I focused on the technique of doing that, which was basically using an SM58, a Shure SM58, in a handheld way or on a mic stand, but not cupped tightly like Chicago style, unless I chose to.

00:54:44.489 --> 00:54:47.414
And that was rare that I would do that with the stuff with Shun.

00:54:47.617 --> 00:55:01.619
I was going for a real open, clear acoustic sound that I could use hand wah-wah on if I chose to and do effective stuff with that.

00:55:11.615 --> 00:55:20.684
But basically the thing of refining the mic technique compared to what you would do with a static mic or a green bullet.

00:55:22.086 --> 00:55:26.277
These days, I would say I'm really not into equipment.

00:55:26.690 --> 00:55:35.777
What would make me be more into equipment is the situation where suddenly, okay, now I got to make some decisions about what am I going to perform through live?

00:55:35.797 --> 00:55:36.599
How am I going to do it?

00:55:36.739 --> 00:55:37.559
What do I want to do?

00:55:37.579 --> 00:55:41.302
I like to be free and unencumbered, you know?

00:55:41.342 --> 00:55:42.764
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

00:55:42.983 --> 00:55:45.867
So final question now, you know, what about any future plans you have?

00:55:45.887 --> 00:55:49.269
You know, you come out of the pandemic, what are you working on these days?

00:55:49.829 --> 00:55:51.251
Well, I'm working on a new project.

00:55:51.411 --> 00:56:02.023
There's not much I could say about it at this point other than I want to continue working in a minimum minimal group context, you know, like a duo or a trio.

00:56:02.384 --> 00:56:04.286
In the duo thing, I have some ideas.

00:56:04.385 --> 00:56:08.271
I might go even more bold than before, more stripped down.

00:56:09.072 --> 00:56:14.320
I like having it be like voice, harp, and some other instrument.

00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:15.581
Yeah, it's a nice combination.

00:56:16.041 --> 00:56:17.264
Well, hopefully it is.

00:56:17.284 --> 00:56:17.304
I

00:56:19.927 --> 00:56:20.628
look forward to that.

00:56:21.188 --> 00:56:24.893
So thanks so much for joining me today on episode 50, Magic Deck.

00:56:25.057 --> 00:56:26.380
Hey, thank you very much, Neil.

00:56:26.460 --> 00:56:27.822
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

00:56:29.143 --> 00:56:30.846
So that's episode 50 in the can.

00:56:31.447 --> 00:56:35.452
Wanted a big name for this milestone episode and they don't come much bigger than Magic Dick.

00:56:36.014 --> 00:56:42.963
Really fascinating to hear just how much thought he has put into producing the sound he makes from his harmonica and his whole approach to music.

00:56:43.284 --> 00:56:44.666
Thanks a lot for taking the time, man.

00:56:45.601 --> 00:56:50.007
Also, a shout out to Ben Carruthers, who made a generous donation to the podcast.

00:56:50.628 --> 00:56:53.413
Really grateful in helping me cover the cost of the podcast, Ben.

00:56:53.813 --> 00:56:58.521
If anyone else would like to make a volunteer donation, then you can find the link to do so on the podcast page.

00:56:59.322 --> 00:57:00.664
Any amount is more than welcome.

00:57:01.344 --> 00:57:09.376
And now, just to finish off episode 50, let's hear Magic Dick play us out one more time with the classic Wama Jama.

00:57:09.396 --> 00:57:10.557
Wama Jama