April 13, 2021

Mark Hummel interview

Mark Hummel interview

Mark Hummel joins me on episode 36. Mark is a West Coast blues harp player who has put out some great harmonica songs in his catalogue of over 30 albums. A real connoisseur of the Blues, he has drawn inspiration from a wide range of the classic players. Mark felt a particular affinity with Little Walter early on, and received a Grammy nomination for his 2013 album, Remembering Little Walter. This was part of the harmonica blow out series, where he has put together numerous tours ...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Chromatic Blues Harmonica Author

Mark Hummel joins me on episode 36.

Mark is a West Coast blues harp player who has put out some great harmonica songs in his catalogue of over 30 albums. 
A real connoisseur of the Blues, he has drawn inspiration from a wide range of the classic players.  Mark felt a particular affinity with Little Walter early on, and received a Grammy nomination for his 2013 album, Remembering Little Walter. This was part of the harmonica blow out series, where he has put together numerous tours featuring some of the best harp players around.
Mark has been a hard touring bluesman for over forty years, and has written a book about life on the road. He’s currently working up a solo show as he prepares to get back out to playing live gigs once again.


Links:
Website:
https://markhummel.com/home

Mark runs his own podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-hummels-harmonica-party/id1570061845

On YouTube:
https://youtu.be/n4ZDGZjLDwY
https://youtube.com/channel/UCWn89o4gUADSxuZbcH8XWJw


Videos:

YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVJHnGpgUkKWdPHfd1hHoYA

Harpin’ By The Sea workshop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGbxkW2lkVg

Ricky Cool videos on adapting saxophone solos or riffs for harmonica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk87rhp596Q


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

01:24 - Moved to West Coast of US at a young age

01:37 - Mark first heard R&B music from Mexican babysitters

02:05 - Really got into music in High School and discovered Chicago Blues

03:02 - Saw Junior Wells in one of first blues concerts he attended

03:48 - Started playing harmonica around 1970

04:16 - A lot of blues artists played on West Coast as part of Blues Revival

04:59 - Mark was into Chicago Blues style

05:42 - Good blues scene on south side of Los Angeles

07:12 - Mark starting playing West Coast blues harmonica as that was the scene around him

10:13 - Opened for Junior Wells, and knew James Cotton

10:55 - Black clubs was the only place you could play blues, so Mark went to those

12:36 - Learning from the greats, and recent Harpin’ By The Sea online event

14:21 - Draws influences from many different players

15:01 - Started playing in a band at High School

16:05 - The importance of singing as a blues harmonica player

17:01 - Mark learnt his craft singing in the Blues Survivors band

19:24 - Record yourself as part of your practise

20:33 - Has made over 30 albums, and Mark’s approach to these

21:01 - Very interested in acoustic blues now, and also the history of the Blues

23:42 - Mark has recorded a lot of harmonica instrumentals, noticeably on his Harpbreaker album

25:17 - Remembering Little Walter album, which was nominated for a Grammy

27:57 - Mark felt an affinity to Little Walter from the beginning

29:39 - Has organised Harmonica Blowouts for many years now, with several live albums out from those

32:51 - Creeper Returns is a song which Mark is well known for playing

33:42 - Harmonica Party song

34:52 - Mark loves to play some chromatic

36:17 - Walking With Mr Lee is adapted from a saxophone song

38:22 - Latest album is Way Back Machine, of pre-war material

41:26 - Tough life being a Bluesman

42:44 - Mark has written a book about working in a touring band, something which he fears may

43:46 - Lot of musicians working solo these days, which Mark is considering

45:32 - 10 minute question

46:29 - Has been doing some live streams with other harp players

46:45 - Playing harmonica on a rack

47:41 - Mark is a Seydel endorser, and plays 1847 model

49:32 - Doesn’t use any different tuned diatonic, as uses chromatic for that purpose

49:47 - Doesn’t use any overblows

50:41 - For embouchre uses all tongue blocking

52:22 - Amplifiers of choice

54:19 - Mics of choice

55:50 - Effects pedals

57:06 - Future plans, including online at SPAH in 2021

WEBVTT

00:00:00.034 --> 00:00:02.037
Mark Hummel joins me on episode 36.

00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:08.630
Mark is a West Coast blues harp player who has put out some great harmonica songs in his catalogue of over 30 albums.

00:00:09.272 --> 00:00:14.121
A real connoisseur of the blues, he has drawn inspiration from a wide range of the classic players.

00:00:14.682 --> 00:00:23.018
Mark felt a particular affinity with Little Walter early on and received a Grammy nomination for his 2013 album, Remembering Little Walter.

00:00:23.553 --> 00:00:30.167
This was part of the Harmonica Blowout series, where he has put together numerous tours featuring some of the best harp players around.

00:00:30.207 --> 00:00:35.436
Mark has been a hard touring bluesman for over 40 years and has written a book about life on the road.

00:00:35.737 --> 00:00:41.189
He's currently working on a solo show as he prepares to get back out playing live gigs once again.

00:01:16.129 --> 00:01:18.375
So hello, Mark Hummel, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:19.638 --> 00:01:20.099
Hi, Neil.

00:01:20.138 --> 00:01:20.781
Good to be here.

00:01:20.820 --> 00:01:22.986
You were born in the east of America,

00:01:23.245 --> 00:01:24.368
but you moved to the west coast.

00:01:24.569 --> 00:01:31.185
My parents met in New Haven, Connecticut, and then we moved to, when I was about six months, they moved to California.

00:01:31.525 --> 00:01:36.987
I was raised in Los Angeles, and then I moved up to the Bay when I was about 17, 18 years old.

00:01:37.409 --> 00:01:39.813
So what got you interested in music in your youth?

00:01:40.192 --> 00:01:42.956
We had a lot of music, you know, just around us.

00:01:43.057 --> 00:01:47.905
I mean, you know, the babysitters and stuff that we had would play R&B in the car.

00:01:47.924 --> 00:01:52.391
I was raised in East LA, which is kind of the barrio, the Mexican barrio.

00:01:52.512 --> 00:02:04.569
And most of the Mexican-Americans listened to R&B back then, you know, and that was everything from Stax to Motown to some blues like Jimmy Reed or Slim Arpo.

00:02:04.834 --> 00:02:10.788
But it really wouldn't tell high school that I really kind of jumped in both feet into music.

00:02:10.868 --> 00:02:14.818
And that was mainly through the rock blues scene at the time.

00:02:15.019 --> 00:02:17.485
I got into it in 68, something like that.

00:02:17.525 --> 00:02:21.213
That's when I got into, you know, psychedelic music and jazz.

00:02:21.633 --> 00:02:24.198
Through that, I found the real blues.

00:02:24.638 --> 00:02:30.667
And that was just because I kept seeing Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf's names.

00:02:31.247 --> 00:02:35.293
And that made me curious because those were all the songs I liked, the ones that were penned by them.

00:02:50.497 --> 00:02:51.765
I mean my wife.

00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.657
My mother-in-law, she's always there.

00:03:00.705 --> 00:03:02.568
So we'll just keep on

00:03:02.587 --> 00:03:02.728
walking.

00:03:02.747 --> 00:03:05.189
I understand you saw a few players when you were younger.

00:03:05.210 --> 00:03:09.493
I think you saw Buddy Guy and Junior Wells first in concert, but then you saw some of the others.

00:03:09.514 --> 00:03:10.594
You like James Cotton.

00:03:11.235 --> 00:03:12.977
I know you're a fan of Paul Busfield.

00:03:13.556 --> 00:03:20.062
Yeah, I was pretty much a fan of anything harmonica at that point, especially blues harmonica in particular.

00:03:20.402 --> 00:03:28.750
But yeah, I saw Buddy and Junior first in 1968 and they were kind of doing more of a, I mean, that's when Junior was doing more of a James Brown kind of trip.

00:03:28.950 --> 00:03:36.520
So he wasn't playing as much harmonica So that didn't quite, I'm sure I'd love it now, but back then it was kind of, it went sort of over my head.

00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:44.853
I think I went to that concert to see Big Brother and The Holding Company with Janice and I missed both them and Albert King because they came on so late.

00:03:45.032 --> 00:03:46.594
It was like everything ran behind.

00:03:46.635 --> 00:03:48.117
It was like an all day thing.

00:03:48.481 --> 00:03:53.530
It wasn't really till 70 or so that I picked up the harmonica.

00:03:53.550 --> 00:03:58.957
And then I immediately went out and saw Brownie and Sonny at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.

00:03:59.258 --> 00:04:00.941
And then I saw James Cotton there.

00:04:01.001 --> 00:04:02.883
And then I saw Charlie Musselwhite there.

00:04:02.924 --> 00:04:05.687
And yeah, I saw Butterfield play at the Troubadour.

00:04:05.788 --> 00:04:10.294
I saw all kinds of people, Muddy Waters at the Whiskey A Go-Go, B.B.

00:04:10.354 --> 00:04:12.437
King at the Pasadena Civic.

00:04:12.770 --> 00:04:18.834
When we get into the blues revival stage, these guys were starting to come back and get gigs after a bit of a lull after the 50s.

00:04:19.235 --> 00:04:21.297
Yeah, it was definitely during the blues revival.

00:04:21.658 --> 00:04:41.694
The funny thing about Los Angeles growing up there was that I was pretty unaware of the actual how thick and heavy the blues scene actually was there because it was kind of relegated more to the ghetto clubs in South Central and kind of like jazzy places like the Parisian Room in South Central.

00:04:41.855 --> 00:04:55.750
You know, you could go see Louis Jordan, you could go see Charles Brown, Lowell Folson, T-Bone Walker, Big Jay McNeely, Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Creighton, George Harmonica Smith, Big Mama Thornton.

00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:58.031
All these people were playing on a regular basis.

00:04:58.293 --> 00:05:02.776
But to be honest with you, I got into the Chicago blues really hot and heavy.

00:05:03.117 --> 00:05:11.286
I was kind of more interested in the out-of-towners, but in retrospect, I mean, I saw most of the people I just mentioned, but they weren't my central focus.

00:05:11.346 --> 00:05:11.887
It was a little...

00:05:12.687 --> 00:05:13.329
The L.A.

00:05:13.389 --> 00:05:21.963
blues stuff was a little too jazzy for me at the time, and I was kind of just locked into just straight harmonica and slide guitar.

00:05:22.163 --> 00:05:24.067
I didn't like horns at the time.

00:05:24.088 --> 00:05:27.814
I mean, and I really changed all my viewpoints on all of that.

00:05:28.175 --> 00:05:32.541
Yeah, I mean, it's very much, I think, you know, like me and a lot of guys, I think you were getting into that.

00:05:32.641 --> 00:05:34.242
the blues harmonica, isn't it?

00:05:34.262 --> 00:05:37.086
You just want that raw harmonica sound, didn't you, at that age?

00:05:37.125 --> 00:05:38.567
And that's kind of what you're obsessed with.

00:05:38.586 --> 00:05:42.170
And like you say, if it didn't have harmonica in the blues, I wasn't interested in myself.

00:05:42.329 --> 00:05:46.673
But like you say, quite a lot of the guys, those older blue guys, they did move out to L.A., didn't they?

00:05:46.713 --> 00:05:47.855
There's quite a good scene there.

00:05:47.935 --> 00:05:51.197
Well, the South, there was a really strong Southwest blues scene.

00:05:51.257 --> 00:05:54.261
In other words, almost all the Texans moved to L.A.

00:05:54.581 --> 00:06:01.447
And a lot of the guys from, you know, like Lowell Folsom from Oklahoma and people like Percy Mayfield from Louisiana.

00:06:01.487 --> 00:06:10.675
Yeah, everybody was recording there and that was the reason because, you know, all the studios in the western part of the United States were in Los Angeles.

00:06:10.834 --> 00:06:16.480
So that's basically where everyone that was, you know, from that part of the country moved to was L.A.

00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.362
I just watched this documentary like yesterday again.

00:06:20.382 --> 00:06:28.630
I hadn't seen it for about 10 years and it just reminded me of what an amazingly rich scene was going in the 70s in Los Angeles.

00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:35.204
And like I say, I was gone by 74, I was gone, but I would come back and visit my parents.

00:06:35.305 --> 00:06:37.988
And so I did hear a lot of those same people.

00:06:38.088 --> 00:06:42.454
I mean, I saw George Smith quite a number of times in Los Angeles.

00:06:42.935 --> 00:06:44.538
I saw Clean Head Vinson.

00:06:44.637 --> 00:06:49.283
I saw Big Joe Turner quite a bit, Pee Wee Creighton.

00:06:49.303 --> 00:06:51.406
There's a number of people, Joe Liggins.

00:06:51.487 --> 00:06:53.509
There's a number of people I saw all the time.

00:06:54.110 --> 00:07:11.966
I didn't really realize how rich it was, I guess, in the sense of the horn-led guitar, based you know blues that was you know people like t-bone walker i mean i sure wish i could have seen him or lewis jordan god i kicked myself for not going to shows like that

00:07:12.346 --> 00:07:24.536
you you know you're associated with the west coast sound yeah and obviously there's a lot of famous uh west coast uh blues harmonica players you know rob piazza and william clark and then kim wilson so did you not so become part of that west coast scene

00:07:24.937 --> 00:07:52.841
oh i definitely was part of the west coast scene i mean you know guys like clark and rod i mean i heard about kim really early on they were all kind of devotees of george smith you know i followed george big time i remember you know trying to go hear people there was a club called rick's blues bar in venice beach and i remember trying to go there and i think by the time i actually was able to go and and check it out it was it had already closed sometimes my timing was just poor

00:07:53.401 --> 00:08:15.766
but i can definitely hear influences your sound certainly some sort of rob piazza sound those guys were a bit older than you yes yeah

00:08:15.927 --> 00:08:22.172
yeah i mean rod was definitely he was a lot of our senior I'd say Clark was closer in age.

00:08:22.452 --> 00:08:23.934
Kim was a little closer in age.

00:08:24.173 --> 00:08:26.076
You know, Musselwhite's definitely a senior.

00:08:26.475 --> 00:08:35.124
So, you know, I mean, I was definitely looking up to certainly Rod and Charlie because they were, you know, they'd been around for a lot longer than me.

00:08:35.563 --> 00:08:37.885
But you say, you know, you were into the Chicago Blues.

00:08:37.946 --> 00:08:43.070
So did you sort of work on that, developing that West Coast sound in the more sort of swinging up tempo?

00:08:43.551 --> 00:08:46.013
I really developed that once I got up here.

00:08:46.052 --> 00:08:47.374
That's the best way to put it.

00:08:47.594 --> 00:08:56.403
When I moved up to the Bay Area, I found out pretty quickly that if you're going to play blues, you weren't going to really meet Chicago-type blues players.

00:08:56.442 --> 00:09:03.750
You're going to meet guys that played in that more T-Bone Walker, Lightning Hopkins, Lowell Folsom, Big Joe Turner.

00:09:03.791 --> 00:09:08.596
That kind of style was much more what was happening in the Bay at the time.

00:09:08.817 --> 00:09:13.961
So that was eventually kind of what I adapted to because it was out of necessity.

00:09:14.001 --> 00:09:22.350
It was because there was really no one until I met Mississippi Johnny Waters and this guy Sonny Lane that started the Blues Survivors with me.

00:09:22.390 --> 00:09:24.533
And that was like 1976 or 77.

00:09:24.734 --> 00:09:30.240
Until I met them, there was really nobody to play with that played straight Chicago blues.

00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:36.546
It was guys like Sonny Rhodes, who was a guitar player and a slide, kind of a lap steel slide player later on.

00:09:36.807 --> 00:09:37.748
Or J.J.

00:09:37.788 --> 00:09:39.730
Malone, who was, you know, J.J.

00:09:39.769 --> 00:09:42.052
could kind of go either direction.

00:09:42.091 --> 00:09:44.335
He could play kind of more Chicago type stuff.

00:09:44.414 --> 00:09:49.360
But, oh, a guy named Charles Huff, Johnny Fuller lived here at the time.

00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:55.426
This guy, Cool Papa, that I worked with initially, you know, Little Joe Blue lived around here.

00:09:55.506 --> 00:10:00.511
So all these people, they're kind of more, they had a little bit more of an uptown flavor to what they did.

00:10:00.572 --> 00:10:06.979
In other words, they merged well with a saxophone, whereas, you know, you don't think of Chicago Blues as having a sax.

00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:11.864
But the fact is that, you know, Muddy and Little Walter both had sax players in their band.

00:10:11.943 --> 00:10:12.845
People don't know that.

00:10:13.105 --> 00:10:14.506
You met some of these guys as well, didn't you?

00:10:14.527 --> 00:10:19.312
I think I heard you say you'd sat in or you'd done an opening for Junior Well.

00:10:19.312 --> 00:10:21.614
show and I think you knew James Cotton and

00:10:21.914 --> 00:10:47.461
I knew James Junior I just opened for one time I didn't really I got to meet him and he was he was really nice he bought my record album off me and but yeah I mean that was that was a thrill you know it's a thrill when any of the older guys you know would patch on the back that was huge somebody like Albert King or Junior or Willie Willie Big Eye Smith or Calvin Jones guys like that you know when they would patch on the back that meant the world

00:10:47.662 --> 00:10:50.926
yeah and they were quite open to the you Well,

00:10:52.147 --> 00:10:52.607
they were.

00:10:52.648 --> 00:10:57.873
I mean, you know, when I first moved up here, the only place you could really play blues was in Black Club.

00:10:58.033 --> 00:11:04.580
There weren't really any white clubs other than the Fillmore or something, you know, where you had to be huge to play there.

00:11:04.760 --> 00:11:09.745
So, you know, there really were very few venues to play blues in except for Black Blues Clubs.

00:11:09.826 --> 00:11:10.807
So that's where I went.

00:11:10.866 --> 00:11:15.292
I went to, you know, North Richmond, where there were, you know, two or three blues clubs.

00:11:15.331 --> 00:11:19.216
There was Eli's in Oakland, a place called the Deluxe Inn that was a great place to play blues.

00:11:19.216 --> 00:11:21.097
great kind of juke joint place.

00:11:21.418 --> 00:11:27.625
And I was just jamming with friends and playing in bands and all that at that point.

00:11:27.884 --> 00:11:36.955
And for me, it was a real eye-opener because until I moved up here, I'd only played with guys my own age that were white guys or Mexican guys.

00:11:37.235 --> 00:11:43.162
And up here, it was like all of a sudden I was thrown in with black dudes that were 20 years older than me.

00:11:43.302 --> 00:11:47.046
So it was a real difference in getting an education in blues.

00:11:47.385 --> 00:11:52.892
And the thing I was thinking about the other day that was kind of interesting is it wasn't like everyone accepted you.

00:11:53.131 --> 00:11:55.014
Some people did and some people didn't.

00:11:55.053 --> 00:12:00.580
And there was horn players I remember were really resistant to kind of befriend a harmonica player.

00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:03.283
They thought harmonica players were pretty obnoxious.

00:12:04.985 --> 00:12:09.690
So, you know, it was usually guitar players and singers and maybe a piano player or something.

00:12:09.769 --> 00:12:23.144
But so it was an interesting deal because, you know, the people that would accept you were usually audience, older people from the South that were in the audience And they just liked seeing a white kid that was into blues.

00:12:23.504 --> 00:12:25.927
And there were, you know, there were a few of us, but not many.

00:12:26.047 --> 00:12:36.357
I mean, usually, you know, in those clubs, there'd be maybe either just me or maybe me and one or two other guys that were white musicians that were playing, but it was not very many.

00:12:36.698 --> 00:12:40.903
And so, you know, you've obviously paid your homage to the classic harmonica blues players.

00:12:40.923 --> 00:12:52.254
I saw your Harping by the Sea workshop early this year in February, where you play through all the different styles of all the great players, you know, Big Walt and the first Sonny Boy, Sonny Boy, Little Walter, etc.

00:12:52.416 --> 00:12:54.357
So, you know, you go through and play all those styles.

00:12:54.398 --> 00:13:02.005
So, I mean, what do you think about that, you know, about, you know, just knowing that, you know, knowing that language that they played, obviously, and putting your own spin on it as well.

00:13:02.025 --> 00:13:03.027
I think that's very important.

00:13:03.407 --> 00:13:09.514
For me, it was a necessary way to play because that was kind of how I built up a repertoire of licks.

00:13:09.894 --> 00:13:11.855
It was how I built up my technique.

00:13:12.317 --> 00:13:16.380
It was how I trained my ear to be able to listen.

00:13:16.782 --> 00:13:19.024
So, for me, it was a real necessity to be able to listen.

00:13:19.024 --> 00:13:25.490
able to kind of replicate the classic solos and the classic styles by these icons.

00:13:26.072 --> 00:13:33.799
Whenever somebody tells me that they got their own style and they can't name an influence, that tells me they probably can't play very well.

00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:36.162
You got to have something to build off of.

00:13:36.261 --> 00:13:49.976
I mean, everybody from James Cotton to Junior Wells to Lil Walter to Big Walter Horton, all of them had people that, you know, Jimmy Reed, they all had people that they kind of based what they did off.

00:13:50.758 --> 00:13:54.682
I know everyone's influences, you know, where they come from.

00:13:55.082 --> 00:13:57.784
Yeah, again, I'll put a link if people haven't seen that workshop.

00:13:57.804 --> 00:14:02.309
It's really interesting to hear you talk through that and, you know, the influences that they had on each other.

00:14:02.350 --> 00:14:09.577
So it's also interesting that those classic guys, everyone listens to those, but there's lots of great players, you know, who've come after that, like yourself, for example.

00:14:09.618 --> 00:14:13.481
You know, there's loads of great players around, but everyone listens to those classic players, don't they?

00:14:14.003 --> 00:14:14.202
Right.

00:14:14.283 --> 00:14:14.823
Good reason,

00:14:14.884 --> 00:14:15.004
but

00:14:15.303 --> 00:14:15.543
yeah.

00:14:16.125 --> 00:14:21.552
You know, and the thing is, I've always been drawn to pretty much Pretty much everybody from that era.

00:14:21.831 --> 00:14:25.898
In other words, I don't limit myself to just like, I'm just going to try to play like Lil' Walter.

00:14:25.957 --> 00:14:27.820
I'm just going to try to play like Big Walter.

00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:29.282
I listen to everybody.

00:14:29.341 --> 00:14:38.916
I listen to Jerry McCain, Snooki Pryor, Lil' Sammy Davis, Junior Parker, Buster Brown, Forest City Joe.

00:14:47.714 --> 00:14:59.245
I can name dozens of players that I listen to besides the classic guys.

00:14:59.385 --> 00:15:00.788
Sam Myers, you know.

00:15:01.761 --> 00:15:03.462
I mean, going back a little bit to when you started.

00:15:03.482 --> 00:15:05.225
So I think you did the usual thing.

00:15:05.264 --> 00:15:07.907
You know, you kind of met, you started playing with some of your friends.

00:15:07.947 --> 00:15:10.490
Yeah, you were playing on some harmonic and I think a bit of guitar.

00:15:10.509 --> 00:15:13.211
And that's how you got started playing in bands at that stage.

00:15:13.251 --> 00:15:13.873
Was it in high school?

00:15:14.113 --> 00:15:16.815
Yeah, it was in high school that I started playing in bands.

00:15:16.894 --> 00:15:27.985
And, you know, back in that time, it was kind of like the main guys I was listening to besides, say, Little Walter and Sonny Boy were Paul Butterfield, you know, Muscle White somewhat, Cotton.

00:15:28.284 --> 00:15:31.727
But, you know, I was also listening to, say, Magic Dick from Jay Giles Band.

00:15:31.727 --> 00:15:34.071
or Lee Oscar from War.

00:15:34.650 --> 00:15:41.057
Like I say, the high school I went to was a lot of Mexican-Americans, and so they were real big on war.

00:15:41.118 --> 00:15:44.000
They were really big on soul music.

00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:45.842
They were big on rock, too.

00:15:46.082 --> 00:15:50.707
So there was a lot of rock influence in a lot of the musicians that I played with.

00:15:51.009 --> 00:15:55.052
So I was kind of the least rock of all my friends.

00:15:55.273 --> 00:15:59.817
I was the one that was really into the older styles of blues more than anybody else.

00:15:59.898 --> 00:16:04.923
But to just play, I had to learn If someone wanted to do a war song, I'd do a war song.

00:16:05.224 --> 00:16:06.644
And were you singing at this stage?

00:16:06.905 --> 00:16:08.167
You know, I was starting to.

00:16:08.486 --> 00:16:11.750
I feel like I put more emphasis on my harmonica playing.

00:16:11.791 --> 00:16:13.893
I didn't really think that much of my voice.

00:16:14.192 --> 00:16:24.144
And it took me a while to really kind of get a grip on how to sing properly and how to sing, you know, phrasing wise and in pitch and stuff like that.

00:16:24.664 --> 00:16:34.575
And so a lot of my working on singing was when I moved up here and hanging around with a lot of these older blues guys, that was a huge influence.

00:16:35.296 --> 00:16:37.498
I knew so many great singers back then.

00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:39.880
They were stone blues singers, you know.

00:16:40.321 --> 00:16:44.806
Obviously, a lot of the well-known harmonica players, especially about the classic ones, a lot of them did sing.

00:16:44.985 --> 00:16:45.166
Yeah.

00:16:45.427 --> 00:16:48.490
What do you think about that, about the need to sing as a harmonica player?

00:16:48.629 --> 00:16:50.511
Oh, I think it's a necessity, yeah.

00:16:51.052 --> 00:16:52.975
And obviously, that makes you the band leader as well.

00:16:53.014 --> 00:16:55.918
You can choose the songs, nice harmonica-led songs.

00:16:55.957 --> 00:17:00.763
So is that something you really pushed then when you, so as you mentioned earlier, you got into the Blues Survivors, what, in the 1976?

00:17:00.822 --> 00:17:03.066
Were you you the lead singer in that band then?

00:17:03.446 --> 00:17:04.086
I was not.

00:17:04.307 --> 00:17:04.968
That was the thing.

00:17:05.028 --> 00:17:08.010
I mean, I started that band with these older guys.

00:17:08.030 --> 00:17:10.212
These guys were like probably 20 years my senior.

00:17:10.594 --> 00:17:13.636
Mississippi Johnny Waters and this guy Sonny Lane.

00:17:13.737 --> 00:17:17.661
Actually, initially, it was a guy named JJ Jones and Johnny Waters initially.

00:17:17.840 --> 00:17:21.644
But JJ left pretty quickly and then Sonny filled in.

00:17:21.965 --> 00:17:24.067
And Sonny and Johnny went way, way back.

00:17:24.127 --> 00:17:25.869
They went back 20 years as friends.

00:17:25.950 --> 00:17:30.575
And Johnny was just an absolutely awesome Chicago blues singer.

00:17:30.974 --> 00:17:37.942
And he could sing You know, Muddy Waters, he could sing Jimmy Rogers, Otis Rush, you know, Little Walter, he could sing all these things.

00:17:38.063 --> 00:17:47.633
So my attitude was, I'd rather back him and sing just a little bit and get some experience under my belt before I tried to front off the band.

00:17:47.732 --> 00:17:57.364
So for the first five years that I was working with him, I only sang maybe, you know, a third or at the most half of the night, and then he'd be the featured guest.

00:17:57.723 --> 00:18:00.646
At the time, I don't think I was a very good singer back then.

00:18:00.926 --> 00:18:01.488
Took me a while.

00:18:01.488 --> 00:18:03.410
to really get to be a better singer.

00:18:03.470 --> 00:18:08.454
I'd say it wasn't really till the early 80s that I started kind of getting a handle on my voice.

00:18:08.955 --> 00:18:14.882
And even then, you know, I started taking vocal lessons and just continually working on it.

00:18:15.163 --> 00:18:21.328
Yeah, because it kind of holds a lot of harmonica players, you know, they feel that they should sing, but don't feel they've got a very good voice.

00:18:21.388 --> 00:18:23.711
Like you say, is it something that is crucial?

00:18:23.751 --> 00:18:26.315
You know, is it something that people need to push themselves to do?

00:18:26.615 --> 00:18:38.867
I think they need to, you know, both take lessons for one, unless you're a golden thrower like Curtis Salgado or Kim Wilson or somebody like that, Sugar Ray Norcia, those guys just seem to have great voices from the get-go.

00:18:39.167 --> 00:18:44.634
Unless you're like that, I think you really got to put the time and effort into working on your voice.

00:18:44.953 --> 00:18:46.977
You know, instruction is really helpful.

00:18:47.076 --> 00:18:51.500
Having somebody that can kind of show you the path and warming up is really important.

00:18:51.862 --> 00:18:55.826
Getting your phrasing and your pitch together is so important.

00:18:55.885 --> 00:18:56.747
Those are huge.

00:18:57.067 --> 00:18:58.528
And knowing what you can sing.

00:18:58.548 --> 00:19:00.131
I mean, that's huge too.

00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:04.035
I mean, you know, I used to try to sing stuff that I had no business trying to sing.

00:19:04.194 --> 00:19:14.306
If I'm singing an Al Green song, it's like, you know, I thought I could do it or James Brown, but you know, I tried it for a while and then I kind of got rid of it.

00:19:14.685 --> 00:19:14.865
Yeah.

00:19:14.885 --> 00:19:15.686
But it's funny though, isn't it?

00:19:15.866 --> 00:19:17.568
As you say, that is something you really have to work out.

00:19:17.588 --> 00:19:20.772
I think a lot of people almost feel that you should be able to sing almost naturally.

00:19:20.873 --> 00:19:21.153
Yeah.

00:19:21.953 --> 00:19:23.756
That's a ridiculous thing to think.

00:19:24.096 --> 00:19:29.942
And I, and I mean, you know, the biggest thing for harmonica or voice or anything else is tape yourself.

00:19:30.083 --> 00:19:38.111
That was one thing I did for From the very beginning was I would tape myself and I would take gigs and I would take my practicing.

00:19:38.330 --> 00:19:46.119
And that way I knew what I actually sounded like, because until you know what you sound like, it's real easy to just BS yourself into thinking you're great.

00:19:46.460 --> 00:19:48.201
I mean, I'm learning guitar right now.

00:19:48.301 --> 00:19:49.943
Again, you know, I'm working on guitar.

00:19:49.983 --> 00:19:55.009
I've been messing around with guitar for years, but I don't touch it sometimes for 10 or 15 years.

00:19:55.088 --> 00:19:56.490
Now I'm really into it.

00:19:56.691 --> 00:20:01.236
And it's like one of the ways I'm getting better is to listen to myself play on a tape.

00:20:01.296 --> 00:20:04.138
We'll get into talking around about your recording career now.

00:20:04.398 --> 00:20:06.922
You've done, well, I think well over 30 albums, haven't you?

00:20:06.942 --> 00:20:09.003
You've got out there some great output.

00:20:09.044 --> 00:20:13.269
You've got an album coming out pretty much every year since the sort of early 90s.

00:20:13.288 --> 00:20:15.770
So yeah, loads of great recordings.

00:20:15.811 --> 00:20:19.015
I've been checking them out over the last week or two before talking to you.

00:20:19.095 --> 00:20:24.260
And you're known as a West Coast player, as we said, but you also like to definitely delve into other areas, don't you?

00:20:24.280 --> 00:20:28.285
There's Delta Blues, obviously Chicago Blues, a bit of swing, a bit of jazz thrown in there.

00:20:28.345 --> 00:20:36.634
And more recently, you've gone back to sort of 19, 20 1930s which we'll get on later so you know what about the recordings over all these years how have you approached it

00:20:36.913 --> 00:21:04.663
the main approach i've tried to have is to always come up with something that's a little bit different than what i did before i don't want to be one of these people that just kind of puts out the same album year after year and i've heard a lot of groups fall into that bag where they just kind of do the same record over and over and over i make a real point of trying to come up with new ideas that won't won't make the albums repetitive i I'm really into the acoustic thing over the last few years.

00:21:04.743 --> 00:21:11.651
I want to say in 2010, I did an album called Back Porch Music, and that was kind of one of the first acoustic things that I did.

00:21:11.730 --> 00:21:14.294
I even did some things on Heart of Chicago.

00:21:14.354 --> 00:21:16.215
I did three acoustic numbers.

00:21:16.455 --> 00:21:25.185
I mean, I've been doing acoustic stuff off and on for years, but now I'm getting more and more seriously into it the older I get, it seems like.

00:21:25.405 --> 00:21:31.372
For me, acoustic blues and the country blues, the delta blues, it gets into the source of what blues is.

00:21:31.752 --> 00:21:38.539
One of the things about me, I mean, I'm a harmonica player, yes, but I also am such a blues nut.

00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:44.405
I really, truly love all these different styles of blues, and I love jazz, too.

00:21:44.486 --> 00:21:48.730
I mean, there's all kinds of different types of music that I really am a fan of.

00:21:48.990 --> 00:22:00.022
For me, a lot of it is just kind of going back, and there's a musicologist in me somewhere, because I love that idea of tracing back where something comes from as close as you can.

00:22:00.042 --> 00:22:04.027
I've seen some of your Facebook posts recently where you're talking about documentaries.

00:22:04.186 --> 00:22:06.769
Obviously, it's coming through very strongly, that love you have in the history.

00:22:06.930 --> 00:22:09.252
To me, African-American blues is

00:22:09.712 --> 00:22:12.336
one of the real treasures of the United States.

00:22:13.017 --> 00:22:24.469
The way black people in this country have taken all the bad stuff that's happened to them and turned it into art, I think is just one of the most miraculous things in the world.

00:22:24.648 --> 00:22:27.392
What blues did is it was a language.

00:22:27.751 --> 00:22:38.243
You know, that was one of the great things about this documentary about LA guys, and it had Lowell Folson in there talking to Margie Evans and Lloyd Glenn.

00:22:38.284 --> 00:22:40.826
Lloyd Glenn was a piano player that used to play with Lowell.

00:22:41.067 --> 00:22:55.801
It was just amazing listening to this documentary where they were talking about how a lot of this stuff was code for, you know, how to describe things, whether it was problems with your girlfriend or problems with your boss or whatever.

00:22:55.842 --> 00:23:19.508
You know, at one point, Margie Evans says to Lowell something about, I never understood how, you know, blues singers would be talking about oh my lord you know and and the church would say that was blasphemy he goes well what else are you gonna say when you're looking at being just you know disrespected or or disgruntled you know what else you're gonna say you know who's the first person you're gonna you're gonna go to you're gonna go to god

00:23:19.528 --> 00:23:27.797
that's your recordings again and the early stuff one of the ones i i heard from yours is uh from your 94 album lost in the shuffle

00:23:30.920 --> 00:23:30.960
so

00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:47.409
A lot of things you do really well through all your albums is really great harmonica instrumentals.

00:23:48.034 --> 00:23:50.776
You know, I had a fascination with doing those instrumentals.

00:23:50.855 --> 00:23:58.843
And part of that is because when I first got into it, I mean, I did an instrumental record back a couple of years ago called Heartbreaker.

00:23:59.163 --> 00:24:08.571
One of the reasons I put that out is a completely instrumental album, because I remember when I first got into harmonica, even Lil' Walter, I didn't want to hear anyone sing.

00:24:08.672 --> 00:24:11.213
I just wanted to hear guys blow the harp.

00:24:11.433 --> 00:24:18.000
And I thought, well, I'll try to put out a record that's just, you know, harmonica instrumentals and see how that kind of response that gets.

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.403
And the other thing was I did an album that was not just blues.

00:24:21.604 --> 00:24:22.805
It was very jazzy.

00:24:22.865 --> 00:24:27.529
It had some acoustic blues on it, some Chicago shuffles.

00:24:27.789 --> 00:24:30.133
It had a lot of jazzier stuff on it as well.

00:24:30.333 --> 00:24:37.520
That was kind of my modus operandi on that was to do something that was strictly for harmonica players.

00:24:37.861 --> 00:24:39.423
Some great tracks on there.

00:24:39.522 --> 00:24:44.087
And you like this kind of play on that harp of ventilating that is a track.

00:24:44.107 --> 00:24:49.913
And you also do on that album Evan's Shuffle, which is one of my all-time My favourite track is Ghost Little World.

00:24:49.933 --> 00:24:50.775
I played that originally.

00:24:51.155 --> 00:24:53.317
So you do a great version of Heaven's Shovel.

00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:12.181
It's a great album, that one.

00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:15.986
Definitely recommend people checking out that one for lots of great harmonicas to listen to.

00:25:16.417 --> 00:25:17.279
Well, thank you.

00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:18.060
Yeah.

00:25:18.261 --> 00:25:21.208
And then we did the Lil Walter tribute thing on Blind Pig.

00:25:21.268 --> 00:25:29.624
And that was really fun to make that record, you know, with Charlie Musselwhite and Billy Boy Arnold, Sugar Ray, Narsha.

00:25:30.125 --> 00:25:30.465
James

00:25:30.486 --> 00:25:30.906
Harmon.

00:25:31.367 --> 00:25:32.289
Yeah, James Harmon.

00:25:32.834 --> 00:25:35.056
Yeah, I mean, fantastic getting onto that.

00:25:35.096 --> 00:25:39.519
So this was an album of the year and best traditional blues album.

00:25:39.539 --> 00:25:42.382
So you won some awards this one and was Grammy nominated as well, wasn't it?

00:25:42.722 --> 00:25:43.502
It was, yeah.

00:25:43.682 --> 00:25:44.644
That was a big thrill.

00:25:44.903 --> 00:25:46.766
So was it your idea to put this together?

00:25:46.806 --> 00:25:46.846
Oh

00:25:47.205 --> 00:25:48.227
yeah, yeah.

00:25:48.428 --> 00:25:49.508
It was from a tour.

00:25:49.749 --> 00:25:58.496
We had done a tour in January of 2012 and the tour had been Charlie and Billy Boy, Sugar Ray.

00:25:58.695 --> 00:26:05.041
And at the time we had Curtis on that tour, but then when Curtis couldn't do it, I asked James to do it.

00:26:05.142 --> 00:26:09.185
Curtis couldn't do it because Alligator wouldn't let him do more than two numbers or something.

00:26:09.326 --> 00:26:12.909
So, you know, he really wanted to do it, but Alligator wouldn't budge on that.

00:26:13.108 --> 00:26:15.510
So we ended up getting James to do it.

00:26:15.730 --> 00:26:17.772
And we did it like almost a year later.

00:26:17.932 --> 00:26:26.039
We ended up doing the album live down in San Diego instead of in the Bay Area because they had a really nice club down there that we could record at.

00:26:26.420 --> 00:26:30.503
And so you, well, you did Blue Light on there, which is one of the ones you chose.

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

00:26:33.473 --> 00:26:53.246
Thank you.

00:26:56.417 --> 00:26:58.038
Blue Light's one of your favorite of his, is it?

00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:03.824
Kind of chose that because, you know, little Charlie really liked that number and could play it really well.

00:27:04.125 --> 00:27:07.587
It was also one that had both chromatic and diatonic on it.

00:27:07.688 --> 00:27:09.209
That was the other reason I chose it.

00:27:09.348 --> 00:27:13.112
I mean, the funny thing is my set included quite a few different numbers.

00:27:13.212 --> 00:27:16.055
I had, well, I think I had recorded Rocker.

00:27:16.194 --> 00:27:18.576
I'd done I Gotta Find My Baby.

00:27:19.038 --> 00:27:20.739
You know, I did a bunch of other numbers on there.

00:27:20.778 --> 00:27:25.343
But unfortunately, the first set that we did that night got erased.

00:27:26.203 --> 00:27:26.384
Oh, dear.

00:27:26.384 --> 00:27:36.414
By accident, this guy walked by that was one of the monitor guys and he unplugged the tape recorder and completely erased the set off the computer.

00:27:36.535 --> 00:27:38.237
So we had to do the second set.

00:27:38.457 --> 00:27:40.078
That's what ended up being the album.

00:27:40.398 --> 00:27:42.101
Was the first set as good as the second set?

00:27:42.381 --> 00:27:46.846
I thought the first set was better, but, you know, because we had a bigger crowd.

00:27:46.925 --> 00:27:48.346
It was, you know, on a weeknight.

00:27:48.468 --> 00:27:50.990
So there was a sold out crowd for the first set.

00:27:51.109 --> 00:27:52.991
Second set had about a half a house.

00:27:53.192 --> 00:27:55.394
So you would have won that Grammy if you'd have done the first set.

00:27:55.595 --> 00:27:56.336
That's right.

00:27:56.336 --> 00:27:57.156
Exactly.

00:27:57.416 --> 00:28:00.200
There's lots of Little Walter songs dotted throughout your album.

00:28:00.259 --> 00:28:02.962
So Little Walter clearly is a massive influencer.

00:28:03.564 --> 00:28:05.665
I've heard you

00:28:05.846 --> 00:28:06.247
talk.

00:28:06.586 --> 00:28:12.993
Oh, he was massive.

00:28:13.914 --> 00:28:14.935
Yeah.

00:28:26.288 --> 00:28:28.029
head around the rhythms that he did.

00:28:28.069 --> 00:28:34.115
For some reason, Lil' Walter was just much more easy for me to kind of figure out.

00:28:34.436 --> 00:28:36.778
I just had an affinity for his music.

00:28:37.019 --> 00:28:39.241
I mean, I was just such a Lil' Walter nut.

00:28:39.442 --> 00:28:50.113
I would literally go to sleep as a teenager with the records on, you'd take the spindle off so it would just play over and over and over, and I would go to sleep to those records, you know?

00:28:50.354 --> 00:28:52.895
They'd play for like four hours while I was sleeping.

00:28:53.076 --> 00:28:56.240
You know, that stuff's just really in my DNA, the Walter stuff.

00:28:56.240 --> 00:28:56.400
Yeah,

00:28:56.861 --> 00:28:57.621
I always wonder that.

00:28:57.882 --> 00:28:59.824
Does that work if you listen to stuff when you're asleep?

00:28:59.864 --> 00:29:00.904
Does it seep into your

00:29:00.924 --> 00:29:14.619
subconscious

00:29:20.685 --> 00:29:25.371
somehow?

00:29:26.192 --> 00:29:27.573
guys together to record.

00:29:27.733 --> 00:29:29.895
Again, live shows, isn't it, in a similar vein?

00:29:29.935 --> 00:29:33.240
Is that where the idea of the Little Walter, remembering Little Walter album?

00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:35.301
Well, that was a harmonica blowout.

00:29:35.342 --> 00:29:38.945
They didn't want to call it that for some reason, but that's what it was.

00:29:39.425 --> 00:29:42.189
So, you know, what started you putting together these harmonica blowouts?

00:29:42.890 --> 00:29:51.038
I got the idea from a guy named Tom Manzolini, who did a thing called the San Francisco Blues Festival, and he did a show called The Battle of the Blues Harmonicas.

00:29:51.578 --> 00:30:00.368
And he started doing those, I want to say, about 1980, and he had me on the one in 1981, but then he never had me on another one.

00:30:00.548 --> 00:30:06.134
And it was kind of like I thought, well, if you're not going to have me on one, maybe I should start doing my own.

00:30:06.634 --> 00:30:08.096
And he stopped doing his.

00:30:08.156 --> 00:30:13.643
That was the big thing, was that I started doing mine on a real regular basis in 1991.

00:30:13.883 --> 00:30:23.333
And by that time, he'd really cut down on, he did his for about 10 years, I want to say, and then just kind of let it slide and kind of felt like he'd had everybody that he wanted to have.

00:30:23.532 --> 00:30:26.096
He didn't have Junior or Cotton, but he had everybody else.

00:30:26.096 --> 00:30:31.000
Guys like Sam Myers or Paul DeLay or Muscle White.

00:30:31.201 --> 00:30:35.385
Rod and Little Charlie's bands played almost every single one.

00:30:35.685 --> 00:30:42.053
So often maybe people are a little bit protective about themselves and maybe don't want other harmonica players because it's like competition.

00:30:42.252 --> 00:30:45.576
But you've sort of gone the opposite way and you've gone, yeah, let's get all these guys together.

00:30:45.916 --> 00:30:47.638
So were these really successful shows?

00:30:47.659 --> 00:30:49.421
People like seeing the different harmonica players?

00:30:49.721 --> 00:30:52.483
Yeah, they were successful from the very beginning.

00:30:52.503 --> 00:30:56.048
I mean, the very first time I did a show was in...

00:30:56.048 --> 00:30:58.611
91 at a little club.

00:30:58.671 --> 00:31:01.314
This was on a Sunday of Martin Luther King holiday.

00:31:01.354 --> 00:31:03.276
And so the next day was a holiday.

00:31:03.395 --> 00:31:06.439
So we had about 150 people show up on a Sunday night.

00:31:06.618 --> 00:31:11.664
And the club owner basically said to me, hey, you know, let's do this every year because this came out really good.

00:31:11.805 --> 00:31:15.388
So that was kind of what we started doing was doing it every year at his club.

00:31:15.449 --> 00:31:19.613
And then I'd add more clubs to it in different cities and towns.

00:31:19.752 --> 00:31:30.265
And it went from Berkeley to, you And gradually it just got bigger and bigger and it got to be longer and longer tours.

00:31:30.424 --> 00:31:35.751
You know, eventually it just became at least a 10 to 14 day tour up and down the West Coast.

00:31:35.872 --> 00:31:39.336
And we'd go all the way from San Diego up to, say, Vancouver, Canada.

00:31:39.596 --> 00:31:41.858
So that was the way it got going.

00:31:42.099 --> 00:31:48.887
And then eventually I started doing East Coast tours with it, you know, Midwest tours with it, occasional European things.

00:31:49.248 --> 00:31:50.890
So it just kind of grew on its own.

00:31:53.753 --> 00:31:56.574
Music Thank you.

00:32:09.410 --> 00:32:11.872
And you think this was down to the popularity of the harmonica?

00:32:11.892 --> 00:32:17.797
Obviously, a lot of the players are well known as well, but there's quite a dedicated audience to sort of get those harmonica fans out all the time, was it?

00:32:18.337 --> 00:32:21.119
Well, it was really important to have names on it.

00:32:21.220 --> 00:32:30.708
That's one thing I think a lot of harmonica players don't understand, that just because you're a good harmonica player doesn't mean people know who you are and that they're going to come see you and pay money to see you.

00:32:31.028 --> 00:32:38.575
And when you've got a$20 or$30 ticket, you know, or sometimes up to$50, you've got to have people that the audience recognizes.

00:32:38.674 --> 00:32:48.492
You know, in other words, it's It's got to be, say, a John Mayall or a James Cotton or Charlie Musselwhite or, you know, it's the old timers that seem to have the biggest pull.

00:32:49.094 --> 00:32:49.994
Yeah, so fantastic.

00:32:50.036 --> 00:32:50.797
Well done with that.

00:32:50.817 --> 00:32:56.968
And so a song you're well known for, as part of the intro, is Creeper Returns, which is a James Cotton song.

00:32:57.087 --> 00:32:59.933
No, that's actually, Creeper Returns is Little Sonny.

00:33:00.258 --> 00:33:00.798
Oh,

00:33:01.579 --> 00:33:04.282
is it?

00:33:07.488 --> 00:33:15.798
Okay.

00:33:30.273 --> 00:33:31.654
That's what creeper means.

00:33:33.115 --> 00:33:33.176
The

00:33:33.596 --> 00:33:34.778
midnight creeper, right.

00:33:34.817 --> 00:33:36.680
I think James Cotton even called one of his.

00:33:37.299 --> 00:33:38.560
Well, my babe, isn't it?

00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:40.803
She don't stand in that midnight creeping.

00:33:40.982 --> 00:33:42.284
Right, exactly.

00:33:42.744 --> 00:33:48.529
And another song I really love of yours, Mark, and I entered the National Harmonica League in the UK.

00:33:48.990 --> 00:33:54.275
We had a competition which I entered, and I won the blues category playing your song, Harmonica Party.

00:33:54.335 --> 00:33:55.276
Oh, really?

00:33:55.476 --> 00:33:59.618
And I remember the judge saying, they had everything, that song, and all the variety of the different things.

00:33:59.700 --> 00:34:00.240
So, yeah, really.

00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:20.922
well thanks yeah you know that's another one of those as rick estrin calls them eruptionals i took everything but the kitchen sink in that you know i put parts of the creeper in it i put parts of rocket 88 i put parts of whammer jammer i had all kinds of stuff in that one you know and the story on that one is it's not live oh is it

00:34:20.961 --> 00:34:24.166
not because there's like a little intro at the beginning isn't which is like the people talk

00:34:24.186 --> 00:34:28.831
yeah what it was was i brought in a bunch of friends and i had them clink glasses and talk real loud

00:34:29.630 --> 00:35:17.054
ah because i was going no ask because one of the comments i always notice on that is one of the guys says terrible service and i was always thinking well if recorded this in the club it's not very good advert for the club no that was me and then i think at one point i go these guys are really good yeah that's superb yeah oh that's good to hear because i listened to that song also yeah great and uh you mentioned blues chromatic earlier on you put you definitely play lots of blues chromatic i've got a song i'll put on this never know more from the retroactive album for example so

00:35:19.521 --> 00:35:20.862
I love blues chromatic.

00:35:20.882 --> 00:35:23.085
Yeah, I mean, I just love chromatic in general.

00:35:23.184 --> 00:35:31.411
And one of the reasons I got, I think, more and more into chromatic was that so few harmonica players really play in other keys.

00:35:31.532 --> 00:35:40.960
In other words, they just, most harmonica players tend to play everything in third position in D or maybe E flat with the button in, but they don't really use the button.

00:35:40.981 --> 00:35:43.922
They don't know how to play, you know, they only play minor.

00:35:44.583 --> 00:35:46.666
When they play third, they don't know how to play major.

00:35:46.925 --> 00:35:49.347
You know, I play in G, I play in C.

00:35:49.487 --> 00:35:52.371
I'm trying to learn things in all the keys, you know.

00:35:52.530 --> 00:35:57.516
For a while, they're like, when I did Never No More, that's got a, that's on a B flat and the key of C.

00:35:57.556 --> 00:36:04.923
So I'm still playing third position, but I'm using the button a lot to make it more of a major, major sounding third than a minor.

00:36:05.125 --> 00:36:07.387
So I'm like raising the flat of third on that.

00:36:07.748 --> 00:36:12.893
And an album you did in 2016, you seem to have a lot of success in your more recent albums.

00:36:12.913 --> 00:36:14.295
You got a music award.

00:36:14.355 --> 00:36:16.896
It's the Golden State Loan Star Review.

00:36:17.217 --> 00:36:18.699
Great song on there, Walking With Mr.

00:36:18.719 --> 00:36:20.702
Lee, which is an Another great one of yours.

00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:42.170
Yeah, now that song is not mine.

00:36:42.251 --> 00:36:46.998
That's one, again, by a sax player, Lee Allen.

00:36:47.297 --> 00:36:50.621
wrote that song and it was kind of a minor hit back in the 50s.

00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:52.061
Yeah, I just heard that song.

00:36:52.141 --> 00:36:54.985
I actually bought the 45 of that back in the 80s.

00:36:55.364 --> 00:36:59.387
I'd listened to it and the drum on the original really reminded me of Juke.

00:36:59.608 --> 00:37:05.092
The guy's got a bunch of slap back on the hi-hat and so it really reminded me of the drum beat on Juke.

00:37:05.293 --> 00:37:10.538
And the more I listened to the song, the more I went, man, this would really go well on the harmonica.

00:37:10.918 --> 00:37:15.161
And so I just learned all the licks and started doing it like that.

00:37:15.442 --> 00:37:19.626
It's a bit like Charlie Musselwhite Exactly.

00:37:19.726 --> 00:37:26.253
And I mean, there's been a lot of jazzier tunes that I've kind of adapted from saxophone songs.

00:37:26.873 --> 00:37:33.681
There's one from a long time ago I did called Joe Meets Peewee that I took from Joe Houston and Peewee Creighton songs.

00:37:33.782 --> 00:37:40.588
I took these two songs and kind of melded them together, you know, and they were mainly sax lines and a couple of guitar lines, you know.

00:37:40.648 --> 00:38:12.463
So to me, that whole thing of kind of being creative with borrowing melodies from other songs, is it's always a good thing for harmonica for harmonica players to look outside of just their instrument i mean little walter did that the whole time and and and actually all of those guys did that james cotton and big walter horton george harmonica smith they all took saxophone parts and worked them out on the harmonica so that it sound or sunny boy williamson i mean you know rice miller he he was doing that you could just hear it

00:38:12.742 --> 00:38:21.753
yeah there's a friend of mine in the uk called ricky cool who's doing that he's putting out some youtube videos at the moment doing specific Specifically that, he plays in that sort of swing and plays some saxophone and he's doing exactly that.

00:38:22.353 --> 00:38:30.722
And your most recent album is the Wayback Machine where you're doing these sort of recordings from the 19, well, the feel at least of the 1920s and 1930s.

00:38:30.762 --> 00:38:32.784
That was something I kind of

00:38:33.105 --> 00:38:40.333
sort of stumbled on and I don't mean stumbled on the music because I'd been listening to that music since I started almost.

00:38:40.672 --> 00:38:48.501
You know, some of the songs I was, you know, I'd been doing, you know, off and on for years and some of them I just kind of got into in the last five years.

00:38:48.722 --> 00:38:55.208
Back in about 2015, we did a blowout that was kind of centered around the Bluebird sound.

00:38:55.248 --> 00:38:56.951
This is when I was playing with Little Charlie.

00:38:56.990 --> 00:39:04.978
The Golden State Lone Star Band was initially a project that I came up with when I started already.

00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:12.726
I'd been working with Little Charlie Beatty for about a year when I started that band and called Anson Funderburg to come in on it.

00:39:12.847 --> 00:39:14.889
And we tried it out and it went well.

00:39:15.050 --> 00:39:22.458
So we just did it from like 2000 I think it was 2012 or the end of 2011 through, you know, 2016.

00:39:22.557 --> 00:39:26.802
So I'd been using Charlie Beatty on all the blowouts.

00:39:27.043 --> 00:39:37.333
And I think he might have come up with the idea of doing kind of a Bluebird older style kind of tribute to guys like, you know, the first Sonny Boy and Jazz Gillum.

00:39:37.454 --> 00:39:47.965
I was doing already doing a Jazz Gillum song, I think, with him and Tampa Red and Big Maceo and Bill Brunzi and all these all these different old timers that were from that era.

00:39:48.284 --> 00:39:51.969
That was kind of the impetus when I did Wayback Machine.

00:39:52.168 --> 00:40:01.699
And it's really an old style of, you know, there were guys like Washboard Sam that kind of would do the thing with all with the washboard and little symbols and stuff like that.

00:40:01.880 --> 00:40:05.583
And so he kind of did this kind of almost his own version of that.

00:40:05.804 --> 00:40:07.925
And that's all we do in that group.

00:40:08.086 --> 00:40:11.570
I mean, we do pretty much all that pre-war stuff.

00:40:12.010 --> 00:40:16.675
It's great for the harmonic as well as kind of lots of high end stuff, which is good for variety.

00:40:16.916 --> 00:40:19.822
But A real standout song is that breathtaking blues.

00:40:31.809 --> 00:40:33.534
MUSIC PLAYS

00:40:37.634 --> 00:40:39.536
Yeah, now that's in fourth position.

00:40:39.735 --> 00:40:41.958
And Breathtaking is a Rhythm Willie song.

00:40:41.998 --> 00:40:44.340
It's his adaptation of St.

00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:45.420
James Infirmary.

00:40:45.721 --> 00:40:54.288
So like, that's another guy I really want to get into his, that Rhythm Willie stuff, because man, he was such a great harmonica player in first position.

00:40:54.449 --> 00:41:00.032
But it's a really different way to, like, for example, if you're playing Jazz Gillum, you have to tongue block all your blow band.

00:41:00.193 --> 00:41:07.599
And I remember when I was doing that 2015 blowout that Estrin was on, me and him were both learning how to play that blow band.

00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:11.204
band stuff and it was like it was a bear learning to play like

00:41:11.244 --> 00:41:11.403
that

00:41:11.664 --> 00:41:14.628
it took some doing because i'd always lift those blow bands

00:41:14.927 --> 00:41:39.014
yeah no it's definitely uh tough that style isn't it you know a lot of people who can play quite well you know when you try to do that sort of style it's like well this is quite different isn't it it's quite a believe me man you can mess up real easy so a thing that comes through very strong with your albums and you're playing is you know that it's tough being a uh being a blues musician you're probably being a musician uh in general but it's up in a blues musician it comes through quite a a lot of your songs talk about this.

00:41:52.130 --> 00:41:57.315
You know, what's it been like being a gigging, touring blues musician for all these years?

00:41:57.376 --> 00:42:04.463
Well, I mean, I've been doing The road for 36 years or something, it's far from an easy life.

00:42:04.583 --> 00:42:26.882
You look at anyone that does the road, whether they're traveling in their own Learjet or if they're traveling in a van like we are, no matter what you're dealing with, it's a hard way to make a living because you're dealing with living in hotels, you're eating in restaurants every night, you're in a different place every day, you're not getting as much sleep as you would at home.

00:42:26.922 --> 00:42:32.047
It's a total adapter that you're doing with your life to live on the road.

00:42:32.248 --> 00:42:34.889
There's a certain toll that it takes the older you get.

00:42:35.371 --> 00:42:41.597
Your music history is littered with guys that have died in car wrecks or airplane crashes or whatever.

00:42:41.617 --> 00:42:43.980
It's a strange way to live your life.

00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:52.929
And on this life on the road, because you've written a book called Big Road Blues, so yeah, that's all about your life on the road, yeah, and all the tough living that involves.

00:42:52.969 --> 00:43:01.278
Well, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, especially in the day, I mean, the funny part of it that nowadays, I don't even know if that's ever going to come back.

00:43:01.518 --> 00:43:02.260
I really don't.

00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:06.744
I don't know that bands playing on the road is something that's going to continue going on.

00:43:07.025 --> 00:43:28.588
Because the way I see it is with COVID and with nightclubs at half capacity, or even if they become full capacity again, they've gotten used to musicians basically working for free almost on donations and working for the tip jar and doing their online live streams from their clubs for tip.

00:43:28.768 --> 00:43:32.110
Why are they going to start paying bands to play again?

00:43:32.393 --> 00:43:33.521
I don't know that they will.

00:43:33.793 --> 00:43:36.255
I mean, I've always gotten guarantees when I play.

00:43:36.416 --> 00:43:39.699
You know, I'd get an amount of money that I knew I could pay the guys.

00:43:39.818 --> 00:43:46.184
And so I just don't know what the future holds for touring musicians at this point.

00:43:46.425 --> 00:43:49.608
Yeah, and there's a lot more as well as, you know, all the stuff over the last year.

00:43:49.648 --> 00:43:52.809
But, you know, a lot more people are doing solo shows, aren't they?

00:43:52.831 --> 00:43:54.911
A lot of stuff at home, doing recording at home.

00:43:54.931 --> 00:43:57.414
You know, this idea of a band is becoming less and less.

00:43:57.494 --> 00:44:01.657
Well, I mean, I'll tell you, I'm learning to play with a harp rack and play guitar.

00:44:01.958 --> 00:44:03.760
You know, I'm not fooling around.

00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:07.563
I'm like, you know, I'm looking at it like, hey, you know, this might be the future.

00:44:07.603 --> 00:44:11.288
Maybe from now on, it's just me, me and my guitar and my harp rack.

00:44:11.628 --> 00:44:23.922
You know, I feel really fortunate that I've had a career and I feel really fortunate that I've had the chance to play music on a real regular basis on tour back when there were blues clubs.

00:44:24.021 --> 00:44:25.903
I mean, there's not blues clubs anymore.

00:44:26.143 --> 00:44:29.347
The blues club thing is a thing of the past from what I can see.

00:44:29.387 --> 00:44:30.248
Yeah.

00:44:30.268 --> 00:44:31.009
So the blues

00:44:31.048 --> 00:44:33.992
survivor, is the blues going to I

00:44:34.072 --> 00:44:34.492
don't know.

00:44:34.652 --> 00:44:35.713
I mean, it's hard to say.

00:44:35.773 --> 00:44:43.802
I mean, I think it'll survive because there's young musicians that are playing it, but I think it's got to grow an audience that's that same age group.

00:44:44.063 --> 00:44:49.708
Part of the thing about the blues is it's really popular with musicians because, you know, go to any jam, you know, there'll always be some blues.

00:44:49.869 --> 00:44:51.391
There's quite a lot of blues jams going on.

00:44:51.431 --> 00:44:56.036
The musicians like the blues, but, you know, it's almost like they're half the audience, isn't it?

00:44:56.056 --> 00:44:56.076
I

00:44:56.096 --> 00:44:57.998
mean, you know, that's kind of the reality.

00:44:58.077 --> 00:45:02.021
I mean, you know, the funny part of it is, you know, I do my blues harmonica blowouts all the time.

00:45:02.282 --> 00:45:03.664
You know, I mean, I do them every jam.

00:45:03.664 --> 00:45:07.268
And I do, like I say, attend a 14-day tour.

00:45:07.628 --> 00:45:14.014
The weird thing is I've noticed that it's not the harmonica players necessarily the ones supporting it.

00:45:14.275 --> 00:45:18.699
That's kind of disappointing to see that that's how it is.

00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:21.762
You know, people got to support other musicians.

00:45:21.943 --> 00:45:24.346
Musicians got to support other musicians.

00:45:24.365 --> 00:45:28.309
Until that happens, I don't know what's going to happen with the scene.

00:45:28.610 --> 00:45:32.094
Okay, well, let's hope it has a big rejuvenation soon when things open up.

00:45:32.193 --> 00:45:45.047
A question I ask each time mark is um if you had 10 minutes to practice you know uh what would you spend those 10 minutes doing and this is a kind of question about you know i guess how do you structure your own practice and you know what do you see is the most important things to work i

00:45:45.108 --> 00:46:36.742
mean i'm always changing what i practice i'm getting a larger and larger kind of practice repertoire together i mean now i'm playing guitar like at least 45 minutes a day i'm playing racked heart 45 minutes a day i'm playing sunny terry stuff say 15 minutes a day chromatic maybe 15 15 minutes a day I mean earlier during the pandemic I was playing a lot more chromatic and Sonny Terry stuff but because I'm playing the guitar now with the rack that's kind of my main focus you know recently I've been getting into playing just with a track like a backing track thing where I can blow like fast shuffles with the backing track that's the kind of stuff I'm practicing now building a repertoire solo if possible but I mean you know I love playing with other musicians you know we've been doing these online things, these live streams and stuff like that.

00:46:36.804 --> 00:46:45.032
We're doing another one of those on the 1st of May, like a little Walter tribute thing with Aki Kumar and Gary Smith.

00:46:45.432 --> 00:46:45.672
Yeah.

00:46:45.833 --> 00:46:47.635
So, I mean, what about playing on the rack?

00:46:47.735 --> 00:46:52.320
I've played that a little bit myself, but I always feel the harmonica, it's different playing on a rack, isn't it?

00:46:52.340 --> 00:46:53.121
You're not holding it.

00:46:53.161 --> 00:46:54.461
You don't have as much control.

00:46:54.481 --> 00:46:58.146
And the way that you play, you know, you're a very full-on, very energetic player.

00:46:58.166 --> 00:46:59.007
So how are you approaching

00:46:59.027 --> 00:46:59.067
it?

00:46:59.086 --> 00:47:11.099
Well, on the rack, I'm just trying to kind of do what I do when I'm playing with a mic which is just playing, say, Jimmy Reed style or Big Walter style or whatever with the rack.

00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:12.382
That's kind of what I'm doing.

00:47:12.882 --> 00:47:27.117
But the really tricky thing with rack playing is getting your guitar in sync with where your harmonica is or playing the high note Jimmy Reed stuff and not having the rack move on you, things like that.

00:47:27.617 --> 00:47:34.293
It's a real trying thing, being in sync with yourself and being in sync with the harmonica and the guitar being.

00:47:34.577 --> 00:47:35.324
But I love it.

00:47:35.465 --> 00:47:37.083
I mean, I'm really enjoying doing it.

00:47:37.346 --> 00:47:40.628
Getting on to the last section now and talking about gear.

00:47:41.009 --> 00:47:43.010
So you're a Seidel endorser.

00:47:43.210 --> 00:47:43.490
Yes.

00:47:43.751 --> 00:47:45.353
So which Seidel harps do you like?

00:47:45.472 --> 00:47:45.592
I

00:47:45.652 --> 00:47:50.077
play the 1847, the wood comb ones.

00:47:50.657 --> 00:47:52.599
What made you become a Seidel endorser?

00:47:52.759 --> 00:47:53.920
Were you playing them?

00:47:54.019 --> 00:47:54.280
Well,

00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:57.804
actually, Muscle White kind of turned me on to them back in 07.

00:47:58.083 --> 00:48:00.606
And he just said, hey, try one of these.

00:48:01.367 --> 00:48:04.248
He gave me one and I started playing it.

00:48:04.550 --> 00:48:06.010
And he asked me what I thought.

00:48:06.030 --> 00:48:07.833
And I said, man, I really kind like it.

00:48:08.213 --> 00:48:11.476
I'm getting into playing on these and he goes, well, call him up.

00:48:11.717 --> 00:48:13.518
I'm up here to get you an endorsement.

00:48:13.878 --> 00:48:15.581
Yeah, because he endorses them as well, doesn't he?

00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:24.610
Yeah, so he was able to get me hooked up with him and man, it's fantastic because I think me and Charlie are the last guys that get free harps.

00:48:25.050 --> 00:48:26.632
So that's pretty awesome, yeah.

00:48:26.733 --> 00:48:28.875
I've had a great relationship with those guys.

00:48:29.356 --> 00:48:34.101
Yeah, no, they're doing great and really helped push on the quality harmonicas, haven't they, when they came along?

00:48:34.141 --> 00:48:36.583
I think it made Hohner up the game, didn't it, when they came along?

00:48:36.782 --> 00:48:37.264
It really did.

00:48:37.264 --> 00:48:44.972
I mean, to be honest with you, the way I ended up going with them is I said, well, why don't you send me a set of harps and let me see how I like them.

00:48:45.152 --> 00:48:49.836
And so I put the side L's in my harp case and I had honers in there and I had side L's in there.

00:48:49.938 --> 00:48:51.398
And I'd play the honers for a while.

00:48:51.458 --> 00:48:53.161
I go, these just aren't as loud.

00:48:53.360 --> 00:48:57.025
They're not getting the kind of compression that the side L's are getting.

00:48:57.264 --> 00:49:01.670
And so I just found myself just gravitating to the side L's all the time.

00:49:01.869 --> 00:49:03.731
And that's what made me just go with them.

00:49:03.751 --> 00:49:07.215
I wasn't interested in playing the honers after that.

00:49:07.215 --> 00:49:09.438
a while but they did improve them for sure

00:49:09.619 --> 00:49:11.681
yeah are you playing the chromatic from them as well

00:49:12.041 --> 00:49:24.594
you know i have some of the chromatics but i'm pretty much still a honer guy on chromatic seemed to me i was playing the 12 hole ones and i still play those from sidle but the 16 holes seem to be the honers

00:49:24.954 --> 00:49:27.237
yeah so you mainly play 16 hole chromatic do you

00:49:27.358 --> 00:49:38.409
well i do both i mean you know if i'm playing a b flat those are pretty much always 12 and what about uh any different tunings i'm not really a tunings guy i mean i'm more More of a position guy.

00:49:38.429 --> 00:49:46.157
I mean, you know, when people, you know, talk about playing in a minor key, I'm always going to play third position or fourth position in minor.

00:49:46.617 --> 00:49:48.960
And what about any overblows?

00:49:49.201 --> 00:49:50.481
I don't really overblow.

00:49:50.561 --> 00:49:52.023
I mean, I can do it barely.

00:49:52.143 --> 00:49:59.811
But frankly, that's kind of how I started playing chromatic is, you know, I was playing chromatic way before overblows were even used.

00:49:59.911 --> 00:50:02.614
So I just figured I'll stick with the chromatic.

00:50:02.675 --> 00:50:07.019
I like just having the sound difference between a chromatic and a diatonic.

00:50:07.039 --> 00:50:07.119
Yeah.

00:50:07.119 --> 00:50:08.822
you know, because the tone is different.

00:50:09.001 --> 00:50:18.351
When I hear guys playing, you know, the overblows, it's real impressive to me, but it's never been something that really made me want to learn that sound because the tone is different.

00:50:18.572 --> 00:50:19.132
Yeah, definitely.

00:50:19.152 --> 00:50:19.233
Yeah.

00:50:19.253 --> 00:50:20.054
It's very much a difference.

00:50:20.094 --> 00:50:23.117
And again, I play a lot of chromatic and diatonic too.

00:50:23.157 --> 00:50:31.706
So I'm like you, I sort of think, well, I'll just play it on the chromatic rather than, but you appreciate that they do get very sort of fluid lines doing the overblows, don't they?

00:50:31.905 --> 00:50:32.286
Oh yeah.

00:50:32.527 --> 00:50:32.726
Yeah.

00:50:32.786 --> 00:50:35.851
But I mean, I can do, you know, pretty fluid stuff in third.

00:50:35.931 --> 00:50:38.873
And when I played Creeper Returns, that's in third.

00:50:38.914 --> 00:50:40.715
The original guy did it in second.

00:50:41.016 --> 00:50:42.818
And what embouchure do you use?

00:50:42.838 --> 00:50:44.440
Well, I'm using all tongue blocking.

00:50:44.679 --> 00:50:53.248
Other than some blow bend stuff on the high end and some triple tonguing on the mid-range, everything is tongue block.

00:50:53.650 --> 00:50:58.255
So yeah, like you're saying on the Wayback Machine album, you forced yourself to tongue block that.

00:50:58.275 --> 00:51:01.257
You weren't tempted to try and pucker that stuff at the top end there.

00:51:01.617 --> 00:51:07.284
Well, I mean, the only reason I pucker the blow bends is if I'm doing, say, Jimmy Reed's style.

00:51:07.324 --> 00:51:16.974
Like for example, in the rack, I tried to do tongue block blow bends on the rack because everything from nine down I could do, but I could not get that like on an A harp.

00:51:17.054 --> 00:51:26.184
If I was doing that on a rack, trying to get the 10 blow to get that blow bend there on the 10 on an A, it was really a struggle.

00:51:26.425 --> 00:51:29.248
So it just made more sense to really lift those.

00:51:29.867 --> 00:51:43.724
But if I'm playing like holding the harp, then I still do, you know, the blow bends, tongue block If I'm playing like that, you know, Rhythm Willie or Jazz Gillum style, I'm still, you know, tongue-blocking those.

00:51:43.903 --> 00:51:49.050
If I do Jimmy Reed, I don't tongue-block Jimmy Reed because I don't think he was doing it.

00:51:49.070 --> 00:51:51.293
I think he was blowbending while lipping.

00:51:54.336 --> 00:51:57.139
¶¶

00:52:06.945 --> 00:52:08.148
And same with little Walter.

00:52:08.168 --> 00:52:10.570
I think little Walter blow bent and big Walter.

00:52:10.610 --> 00:52:17.579
I think those guys were, I mean, you try to do like say hard hearted woman and try to tongue block your blow bends like that.

00:52:17.760 --> 00:52:19.443
I can't get it up to that speed.

00:52:19.782 --> 00:52:21.746
I can do it, but it's not that fast.

00:52:22.246 --> 00:52:23.807
And what about amplifier wise?

00:52:23.869 --> 00:52:26.652
I know you, you did have a sunny junior ample.

00:52:26.672 --> 00:52:27.653
Is that what you're still playing?

00:52:28.065 --> 00:52:30.668
Nah, I ended up selling my Sonny's.

00:52:31.068 --> 00:52:35.853
So I kind of got back into playing on a hand-wired basement.

00:52:35.893 --> 00:52:39.996
It was a basement kit is what I ended up buying from this guy.

00:52:40.376 --> 00:52:41.637
That amp sounds great.

00:52:41.918 --> 00:52:42.759
It sounds really good.

00:52:42.798 --> 00:52:46.481
And I still got an original 59 that is just unbelievable.

00:52:46.822 --> 00:52:48.543
But I've also found some other old amps.

00:52:48.563 --> 00:52:50.646
Like I found a Silvertone with 212s.

00:52:50.766 --> 00:52:52.246
It's just an amazing amp.

00:52:52.266 --> 00:52:55.690
I think it's like a 1437 or something like that.

00:52:56.010 --> 00:52:57.251
It's just a great amp.

00:52:57.811 --> 00:53:00.054
You have you got a small lamp as well you take out

00:53:00.313 --> 00:53:22.057
yeah i got a bunch of small lamps i got a princeton that i use i got an airline that i use i got one called a hurricane that's one my friend uh my late friend uh rock bottom turned me on to a long time ago and gave me this little lamp called a hurricane that's got like one eight and it just sounds killer it's it's been one of my favorite amps for like 25 years you know

00:53:22.518 --> 00:53:28.304
so have you just discovered the amps that you like as you sort of tried them rather than sort of going for a particular make or a model

00:53:28.605 --> 00:53:50.007
yeah i'm just always changing my mind on on amps i mean i got a concert i got a the basement the real basement and the basement kit and the uh i mean i had a magnetone i sold that you know i just kind of go through amps i mean i i was playing meteors for a while and i really liked those for a while i get tired of one sound all the time i got to change up my sound

00:53:50.327 --> 00:53:55.032
it's good as i say the different albums you need a new amp for all your different albums don't you can get a different sound on them

00:53:55.213 --> 00:54:18.717
well i mean the one i go back to all the time is the original bass basement on the albums because that thing sounds killer yeah it sounds so good i mean that's the album really for the last say 20 years that's been my main amp for for recording i think that golden state i did on the silver tone i did the one with walking with mr lee that's on the silver tone yeah most the albums on electrify have been um have been the basement

00:54:19.039 --> 00:54:20.579
your microphone of choice these days

00:54:20.739 --> 00:54:29.829
the way that usually works for me is that again i kind of don't like one sound all the time and And every room sounds different.

00:54:30.010 --> 00:54:36.958
So a lot of times what I'll do, I notice guys like Clark and Kim Wilson would always travel with a few different mics.

00:54:37.077 --> 00:54:44.164
They'd have maybe five different mics or something that they could get the sound of the club to match.

00:54:44.565 --> 00:54:46.847
And I found that was a really smart idea.

00:54:46.967 --> 00:54:51.652
So I started carrying at least three mics in each harp case.

00:54:52.074 --> 00:54:56.418
And that way I can match both the amp and the room and everything like that.

00:54:56.958 --> 00:54:58.541
I've got a few that are my favorites.

00:54:58.721 --> 00:55:06.068
Generally, I almost always use CMs or CRs and usually old ones like Black Label or whatever.

00:55:06.108 --> 00:55:08.291
And I'll put them in a static shell.

00:55:08.371 --> 00:55:10.514
I'll have my friend put them in a static shell.

00:55:10.713 --> 00:55:15.739
I got a real good harp tech, mic tech, a guy named Mark Overman that does mics for me.

00:55:16.059 --> 00:55:23.086
Yeah, I mean, he's made a number of custom, you know, JT30 shells with CM or CR elements.

00:55:23.387 --> 00:55:49.494
I do use, you know, Great Human did one biscuit mic for me with a really good cr in it you know i've got a t3 that that that popular one that people seem to be using but i don't use it all that often because it because it's got a brush element and the brushes are really easy to break and they're really you know sensitive to heat or or cold so on the road that kind of thing is a little nerve-wracking you know

00:55:50.356 --> 00:55:52.097
and uh do you use any effects pedals

00:55:52.599 --> 00:56:04.030
no i used to a long time ago i used to use a delay a real simple delay uh pedal but for an echo pedal but you know I just found that you know straight in is usually how I like to play.

00:56:04.471 --> 00:56:08.516
Recording wise do you use any particular setup or do you leave that to the studio?

00:56:08.715 --> 00:56:29.637
Well I mean one thing I kind of picked up on a long time ago and I think Rusty's Inn might have helped me with this idea was when you're recording in the studio to not just have one mic on your amp and don't have it necessarily just close but have one close one maybe three feet out or two feet out and then another one maybe five feet out.

00:56:29.818 --> 00:56:33.181
Or the other thing is recording in a hallway is a great idea for ambient.

00:56:33.460 --> 00:56:37.724
So yeah, those are setups that I've tried a number of different times.

00:56:38.045 --> 00:56:43.148
There was a point there where we used to record out in Pacifica and I'd always put the amp in the garage.

00:56:43.570 --> 00:56:46.492
Kit Anderson's where I do most of my recording now.

00:56:46.512 --> 00:56:52.757
A lot of times I'll put the amp in the washroom or in the hallway, put a couple different mics around it.

00:56:53.018 --> 00:56:56.181
Yeah, but you want something to try to give it an ambient sound.

00:56:56.260 --> 00:56:57.422
That's really important.

00:56:57.666 --> 00:57:01.248
Yeah, I've heard that from talking about quite a few Monica recordings to get that.

00:57:01.309 --> 00:57:04.911
People talk about recording in the bathroom and to get that reverb and natural reverb.

00:57:05.032 --> 00:57:05.293
Yeah.

00:57:05.733 --> 00:57:06.032
Yeah.

00:57:06.052 --> 00:57:06.474
Okay.

00:57:06.574 --> 00:57:07.454
So last question then.

00:57:07.514 --> 00:57:11.978
Obviously, it's been pandemic time and I see you've got a couple of shows on your website.

00:57:11.998 --> 00:57:16.242
You've got the one on May 1st, as you mentioned, about the Little Walter Birthday concert.

00:57:16.902 --> 00:57:17.682
That's an online thing.

00:57:17.702 --> 00:57:20.266
And the May 16th gig, is that a real gig?

00:57:20.425 --> 00:57:21.206
That's a real gig.

00:57:21.266 --> 00:57:22.086
That's outdoors.

00:57:22.387 --> 00:57:24.909
And that's a place we play in Berkeley called The Back Room.

00:57:24.969 --> 00:57:27.632
And they got, I think me and Bob Welsh did one.

00:57:27.632 --> 00:57:33.197
one back in, I can't remember if it was the beginning of November or the beginning of December, we did one there.

00:57:33.438 --> 00:57:34.539
And it worked out real nice.

00:57:34.579 --> 00:57:40.286
You know, I mean, it was, you know, people paid 20 bucks or something each and we had a nice turnout.

00:57:40.565 --> 00:57:41.746
We're going to do that again.

00:57:41.847 --> 00:57:47.592
And then we're also doing the spa in August, but that's going to be online as well.

00:57:48.153 --> 00:57:55.262
I don't mean to sound so negative, but I don't want to put the cart before the horse with all this because I just don't know what's going to happen.

00:57:55.581 --> 00:58:04.391
And I am booking the blowout for January 2022 and crossing my fingers that that all works out I just don't know what's going to happen so

00:58:04.791 --> 00:58:10.597
I'm kind of hoping that people are going to they've all been locked up for a year so they're all going to be desperate to go out so there might be a big

00:58:10.938 --> 00:58:12.480
oh that's what I think yeah

00:58:12.739 --> 00:58:26.434
but it might only last for a few months is the danger yeah but at least that first few months it's like yeah everyone wants to go out and enjoy themselves and yeah so I'm hoping that that's going to be a real boom time me too maybe everyone's used to staying in and watching Netflix now instead and that's

00:58:26.835 --> 00:58:30.338
it I think people are going to be very hungry for live music as soon as it's safe.

00:58:30.539 --> 00:58:34.322
I just think people got to be real smart about what they do and don't do.

00:58:34.643 --> 00:58:38.927
I think the idea of people jamming into a nightclub is a real bad idea right about now.

00:58:39.369 --> 00:58:45.574
And next year, I know you're supposed to be coming over to the UK to play at the Harping by the Sea event in Brighton.

00:58:45.835 --> 00:58:46.076
Right.

00:58:46.135 --> 00:58:48.639
Get down to that for sure and hopefully see you there in person.

00:58:48.838 --> 00:58:50.079
I'm really excited about

00:58:50.139 --> 00:58:50.300
that.

00:58:50.340 --> 00:58:50.460
That

00:58:50.501 --> 00:58:51.041
was so much

00:58:51.101 --> 00:58:51.380
fun.

00:58:51.581 --> 00:58:54.425
Yeah, no, it's always a great weekend now with Richard and the guys.

00:58:54.465 --> 00:58:56.847
So thanks so much, Mark Hummel, for joining me today.

00:58:57.108 --> 00:58:59.530
Well, thank you, Neil, for having me and it was a pleasure.

00:58:59.871 --> 00:59:01.413
That's episode 36 wrapped.

00:59:01.773 --> 00:59:19.934
Mr Mark Hummel, take us to that harmonica party.

00:59:26.594 --> 00:59:28.445
Thank you.