Jan. 5, 2024

Neil Warren interview

Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101. Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn (with it’s 4000 holes). He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons for several years, and then folk music. Neil currently plays in two bands around his local area, an acoustic act playing blues and folk, and an electric band playing different genres, such as ska and funk and blues, including use of the DM48 midi chromatic. He has won three categories of c...

Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101.

Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn (with it’s 4000 holes). He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons for several years, and then folk music. Neil currently plays in two bands around his local area, an acoustic act playing blues and folk, and an electric band playing different genres, such as ska and funk and blues, including use of the DM48 midi chromatic.

He has won three categories of competitions at the UK National Harmonica League festival and helped organise the Chromatic Weekend festival for them for several years.

The discussion then turns to focus on the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast, how it got started, how he sources the people to interview, what the podcast tries to do and some of his own favourite moments from the first 100 episodes.

Links:

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

Contact podcast:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com/contact/

Transcription website:
https://www.harptranscripts.co.uk/

Harp Keys: showing key of harmonica used on over 1000 songs:
https://www.harptranscripts.co.uk/harpkeys.html

Rev John and the Revelations:
https://revjohnh490546051.wordpress.com/

Greg Mayston band:
https://www.folkbluesandamericana.com/

Harmonica UK (was National Harmonica League):
https://www.harmonica.uk/

Videos:
Roseanne soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSE51IAUZ3M

Dark Eyes at UK Chromatic Weekend:
https://youtu.be/fh664YnZcFc?si=mowTd5gPtJJdBvNc

Blair Athol (Scottish folk song):
https://youtu.be/eZ-FT48q05Q

Blowing The Family Jewels:
https://youtu.be/fnOZrIr7AE4

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

or sign-up to a monthly subscription to the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/995536/support

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

Support the show

01:33 - Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on the podcast

01:45 - Tom recently wrote an article on Neil Warren, and the podcast, which appeared in the Autumn SPAH magazine, Harmonica Happenings

02:04 - In the article Tom compares the podcast to the efforts of Rick Beato in the US, who is documenting musicians on his YouTube channel

02:42 - Neil is from Blackburn, Lancashire, in the north west of England, now living near Reading, not far from London

03:15 - First inspiration for playing the harmonica was Bruce Willis

04:00 - Then discovered blues harmonica from a low budget record label releasing albums on cassette tapes and started playing along to learn

05:01 - Played with my friend, Philip James, after he moved to the US and started playing guitar, while I learnt harmonica in the UK, and he came back to the UK and we played together

05:35 - No other harmonica players around in Blackburn when he started playing

05:51 - Decent blues scene in North West of England, with Colne and Burnley festivals

06:08 - Quite a good music scene in the pubs at the time (early 1990s)

06:14 - First inspiring live gig was by a band called The Harpbreakers

06:50 - Was also a big fan of Bob Dylan, and his not so great harmonica playing

07:34 - Discovered more blues harmonica players partly through a blues magazine series featuring different artists

08:24 - Started playing in a college band with friend who had returned from the US

08:31 - Joined second band after a visiting workman to the house heard me playing harmonica in my bedroom

08:52 - How became aware of the National League League (UK harmonica club)

09:49 - Played a little chromatic when younger, and took it up seriously from age 30

10:10 - Learned to read music a little when younger, then more seriously later

10:43 - Had lots of jazz harmonica lessons from the great UK jazz chromatic player, Julian Jackson

12:01 - Learnt diatonic initially by playing along with records, and had a small number of lessons on diatonic

12:25 - Always been a dedicated practiser, and follow the Deliberate Practise model now (Peak book by Anders Erikson)

12:39 - Started learning violin during pandemic, enjoying the classical approach to learning

13:07 - Also play mandolin (which is same tuning as violin)

14:02 - Like to play folk music too

14:38 - Plays in an acoustic blues and folk act, with Greg Mayston

15:10 - Other current band is Rev John and the Revelations, playing blues, ska, a little reggae and funk

15:53 - Always keen to show the versatility of the harmonica and not just play one sort of genre or sound

16:18 - Discovered the DM48 midi through the podcast interview with Erik Lekholm and Jason Keene

17:24 - Helped organise the Chromatic Weekend festival for the National Harmonica League in the UK

17:49 - Won three categories at the National Harmonica League competition: blues, jazz and diatonic melodic

19:08 - Gigging 3 or 4 times a month at the moment while having a day job

20:04 - Other bands played in, including a trio playing blues and quite a lot of gypsy jazz

22:02 - The current harmonica scene in the UK

23:07 - Ran a gig listing website for harmonica gigs in the UK, which allowed Neil to get to know lots of the UK harmonica players and was a precursor to starting the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast

24:40 - Podcast covers different genres, and not just be about blues harmonica

25:11 - How people are found to interview on the podcast

26:42 - Qualifications for people to interview on the podcast

27:38 - One of main reasons in starting podcast was my own extensive song collection of many harmonica players, and finding the ‘best’ harmonica songs

28:16 - HarpKeys page shows key of diatonic harmonica used on over one thousand songs

29:15 - Transcribing has been a part of Neil’s learning process, including for jazz

30:29 - How structured and pre-planned are the interviews?

31:18 - The plans to bring more of different aspects to the podcast, such as female players, and players from different regions

33:07 - Example of sourcing Marko Jovanovic, a German player with Serbia roots

33:53 - Podcast keeps away from the instructive side of harmonica, which is deliberate

34:55 - Jazz player Gregoire Maret and want to represent chromatic harmonica strongly in the podcasts

36:04 - Other research conducted for the interviews

36:43 - Some of own personal favourite interviews from the first 100, but learns something from every one

38:12 - Interview with Canadian Mike Stevens

38:36 - Juzzie Smith and juggling harmonica

40:29 - Seydel’s sponsorship of the podcast

41:07 - Interviews with Hohner and Seydel and the gear oriented podcast episodes

41:52 - Covering the topic of altered tunings and different approaches and development of the harmonica

42:31 - Learning from the harmonica stories and successes of the people interviewed on the podcast

43:45 - Podcast is documenting harmonica in our time, such as Los Angeles scene via Rod Piazza, and Piedmont style with Phil Wiggins

44:39 - Possibility of writing a book based around the podcast

45:34 - The podcast is a labour of love

46:16 - Talking to so many different players about the gear they use often results in wanting to buy the gear they talk about

46:59 - Harmonicas of choice

47:40 - Improvement in quality of harmonicas in recent years

48:14 - Does some basic set-up of harmonicas

48:24 - Plays a little bass and chord harmonica, with the chord always getting a good reaction from a crowd

48:42 - Chromatics of choice

49:12 - Has a gig bag with all harps needed for performing

49:41 - Amps used

50:47 - Mics used

51:31 - Pedals, including the Line 6 patches from Richard Hunter

52:14 - Acoustic mics of choice

52:27 - Plans to do more retrospective episodes, following the success of the 100th one on Little Walter

53:44 - Top the Little Walter episode by having an interview about me!

54:16 - The plans for the podcast

54:59 - How playing is effected by podcast interviews

56:31 - Spotify playlist is a key accompaniment to the podcast and other wider listening

57:36 - Now reached the age of 50, intend to play as much music as possible, and attend the SPAH conference

58:46 - Tom has been a great help behind the scenes of the podcast

WEBVTT

00:00:00.353 --> 00:00:03.096
Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101.

00:00:03.757 --> 00:00:04.317
Oh, that's me.

00:00:05.118 --> 00:00:09.542
Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn with its 4,000 holes.

00:00:10.122 --> 00:00:15.108
He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons for several years, and then folk music.

00:00:16.390 --> 00:00:28.821
Neil currently plays in two bands around his local area, an acoustic act playing blues and folk, and an electric band playing different genres such as ska and funk and blues, including the use of the DM-48 mini-chromatic.

00:00:29.346 --> 00:00:37.622
He has won three categories of competitions at the UK National Harmonica League Festival and helped organise the Chromatic Weekend Festival for them for several years.

00:00:38.585 --> 00:00:50.488
The discussion then turns to focus on the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast, how it got started, how he sources the people to interview, what the podcast tries to do and some of his own favourite moments from the first 100 episodes.

00:00:51.042 --> 00:00:53.569
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:53.990 --> 00:01:03.335
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:27.682 --> 00:01:30.727
Hello Neil Warren and welcome to your podcast.

00:01:31.590 --> 00:01:33.373
Thanks Tom, thanks so much for having me.

00:01:33.974 --> 00:01:44.996
Well it's a pleasure to be given the opportunity to interview you about this remarkable effort you've put forth to document harmonica players and what they are about.

00:01:45.665 --> 00:01:46.287
Well, thank you.

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And also thanks for the recent spa article, which we're following on nicely with this one.

00:01:51.995 --> 00:01:52.876
Well, you're welcome.

00:01:52.917 --> 00:02:29.628
And I think the spa article, one of the things I was trying to say there was that what you're doing, besides the fact that it's a remarkable singular effort on your part, I think one of the things that I was trying to do was to compare you in some ways to an American phenomenon named Rick Beato, who has taken kind of a similar approach to what you've been doing, and has become kind of a focal point and a very important person in documenting musicians and what musicians are about and what their music is like and what brought them into the business of being a professional musician.

00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:42.460
Neil, why don't we start this podcast with you telling us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, how you fell into your love of the harmonica and your interest in harmonica players, and then we'll proceed from there.

00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:43.480
Thanks, Tom.

00:02:43.561 --> 00:02:46.563
So I'm from England, as people probably know.

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So I'm from Blackburn in Lancashire.

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That's the place with the 4,000 holes from the Beatles song that I'm sure many of the U.S.

00:02:54.711 --> 00:03:00.036
and other international listeners will be aware of, knowing anything about Blackburn, which is where I'm from.

00:03:00.336 --> 00:03:06.001
I now live in the southeast of England, sort of west of London, near a place called Reading.

00:03:06.530 --> 00:03:10.753
So I got into playing harmonica when I was about 15 years old.

00:03:11.294 --> 00:03:23.485
As it mentioned, and you put in your sport magazine article, strangely, my first inspiration for playing harmonica was actually Bruce Willis, which I'm not sure how many other people that he would have inspired to get started.

00:03:23.544 --> 00:03:26.888
But I was a fan of the Moonlighting TV show.

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You know, Bruce Willis was a very charismatic guy.

00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:34.253
And so, yeah, I found some video, music video of him.

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And, you know, as people probably know, he does play the harmonic.

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and sings in the band.

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And he had a really good album called The Return of Bruno.

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It's a great song on there called Jackpot.

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So that's what I kind of first discovered harmonica and then I got into it.

00:04:00.449 --> 00:04:06.276
Started like many other people, sort of digging into finding, you know, the classic blues recordings.

00:04:06.336 --> 00:04:14.502
There was a record label, a cheap record label then, were actually cassettes where I bought the Deja Vu label, which were quite cheap.

00:04:14.603 --> 00:04:19.826
And I started buying, you know, kind of Little Walter and Muddy Waters albums and other blues greats.

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And that's how I sort of first started hearing the harmonica.

00:04:22.829 --> 00:04:30.358
So you're the first harmonica player I I've ever talked with or heard about who came to the instrument through a television sitcom.

00:04:30.658 --> 00:04:31.319
Very interesting.

00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:32.139
Yeah.

00:04:32.321 --> 00:04:35.444
Well, Roseanne had a good bit of harmonic on the soundtrack.

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I'm sure that probably inspired a few people as well, but yeah.

00:04:38.827 --> 00:04:39.088
Good point.

00:04:46.798 --> 00:04:46.877
Yeah.

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So from there, I started, you know, I started listening.

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And back then, like, again, many people have said on here, there weren't many resources, there weren't the internet like there is now.

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But, you know, I managed to find the recordings and started playing along.

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And that's basically how I initially started playing.

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But strangely, a slight link to the US is my sort of best friend then.

00:05:06.329 --> 00:05:12.235
He'd gone over to live in the United States for a little while, about the age 14, because his father was American.

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And so he went over there to live.

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And so while he was over there, he started playing guitar.

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and I was playing harmonica so we were sort of separately started learning and we were writing to each other and things.

00:05:24.728 --> 00:05:35.238
He sort of came back a couple of years later when we both had been playing for a year separately and then we sort of came together and we started playing together in a duo and then went on to my sort of first band with him.

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So when you started, were there other players that you met where you lived that you became part of a scene or were you working pretty much solo and completely on your own learning the

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instrument?

00:05:47.312 --> 00:05:48.894
That stage, yeah, I was on my own.

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I didn't know of any of the harmonica players.

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There was quite a decent blues scene in the northwest of England.

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So there was two quite large blues festivals in places called Colne and Burnley in Lancashire.

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So I went to those and I sort of think I saw some harmonica at those.

00:06:07.012 --> 00:06:12.639
So yeah, and then there was probably a decent scene in pubs then so you could play and things.

00:06:12.678 --> 00:06:14.341
So there was some music going on, but yeah.

00:06:14.661 --> 00:06:17.264
So when you went to the blues festivals, did you have...

00:06:17.264 --> 00:06:26.254
have one of those aha moments that a lot of harmonica players have when they get out and actually get to see some of their some of their idols and people that they've listened to many times

00:06:26.834 --> 00:06:43.173
yeah i remember seeing a band which was a british band and the harmonica player i forget the name of the band now but he sort of climbed on top of this massive speaker and he was you know kind of doing all those kind of tricks so that was probably the first you know really good harmonica concert i think i remember seeing

00:06:43.490 --> 00:06:50.555
And so were you just listening to blues or were you listening to rock and roll and pop styles that utilize the harmonica as well?

00:06:51.257 --> 00:06:53.559
I did get into listening to Bob Dylan.

00:06:53.579 --> 00:06:56.862
I was a massive Bob Dylan fan when I was probably about that age.

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And of course, I'm aware that Bob Dylan probably isn't the greatest harmonica player in the world.

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But nevertheless, I could hear harmonica.

00:07:03.547 --> 00:07:05.509
And of course, he had Charlie McCoy playing on them.

00:07:05.869 --> 00:07:07.310
But yeah, mainly blues to begin with.

00:07:07.771 --> 00:07:15.899
And the blues, did that grow out of your love of Bob Dylan and his use of blues musicians No, it

00:07:17.422 --> 00:07:22.088
was definitely the albums I bought were blues albums, you know, and then the blues.

00:07:22.149 --> 00:07:26.435
I think I probably wasn't that aware of who the blues harmonica players were initially.

00:07:26.754 --> 00:07:33.805
You know, I probably sort of bought various blues albums and I discovered which ones had harmonica on before I learned, you know, obviously about Little Walter and the rest.

00:07:34.466 --> 00:07:34.745
Right.

00:07:35.127 --> 00:07:37.348
And so how did that transition happen?

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I mean, I know in my own playing, I started listening to some harmonica players and then I would look at the composer credits on the songs.

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And, you know, it would say Willie Dixon or it would say Little Walter.

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And that led me on to dig further and dig deeper.

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Was your experience similar to that?

00:07:54.583 --> 00:07:55.223
Yeah, definitely.

00:07:55.264 --> 00:07:56.045
Yeah.

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As you say, you start digging deep and then you find the others.

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There was a magazine series which came out.

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It was a blues series.

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And I think probably that helped me as well by having articles about different players and things.

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How quickly then did you become part of the harmonica scene in England, which is, I think, a lot more developed and a lot more extensive than most Americans are aware of?

00:08:18.274 --> 00:08:24.319
Well, again, my friend who came back from the US, who's called Philip James, by the way, he's actually a professional guitar player now.

00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:25.761
So we started playing.

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We played at college, the college we were at.

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We started doing some gigs.

00:08:29.704 --> 00:08:30.526
Then we met some...

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Actually, in the sort of second band I was in after college, I was practicing harmonica at home.

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And this guy came around to fix something in my house and he heard me playing and he was in a band and he sort of asked me.

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So that's how I kind of got into that band.

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People say you never get discovered playing in the house, but I did that time.

00:08:50.985 --> 00:08:51.886
Yeah, that's funny.

00:08:52.408 --> 00:08:59.095
So when did you become aware of the kind of the harmonica scene in England?

00:08:59.115 --> 00:09:11.340
Not only the big scene and the organized scene with the harmonic organizations, but also kind of the range of harmonica players like Paul Lamb and some of the other guys that were so well known as English players.

00:09:11.778 --> 00:09:15.061
you know, I sort of discovered those as I went along.

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After college, I went to university.

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A little bit after that, I discovered the National Harmonica League in the UK, which is the UK harmonica club, sort of equivalent to spa.

00:09:28.211 --> 00:09:31.534
And yeah, that definitely helped me discovering a lot more.

00:09:31.875 --> 00:09:36.840
And they put on great concerts and, you know, the festival, the concerts and workshops.

00:09:36.860 --> 00:09:39.422
So you had lots of different, you know, styles of harmonica.

00:09:39.461 --> 00:09:49.539
They tried to represent, you know, chromatic and dietic and tremolo and folk and blues and different styles so that was definitely a really helpful and a really appreciative of what they did yeah Did

00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:57.836
you begin playing chromatic at some point and did the National Harmonica League have any did they influence the move towards the chromatic?

00:09:58.274 --> 00:10:02.759
To begin with, I definitely played diatonic and I did that for quite a long time.

00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:08.147
But then I did, when I was young, start playing the chromatic and I sort of tried to teach myself from a book.

00:10:08.687 --> 00:10:15.235
But then it wasn't until I was about the age 30, I'm age 50 now, by the way, born in 1973.

00:10:15.976 --> 00:10:20.341
It was about that age that I started getting more seriously into playing the chromatic as well.

00:10:25.808 --> 00:10:26.269
piano plays

00:10:29.985 --> 00:10:38.980
and did you read music at that time or were you learning to read music

00:10:39.561 --> 00:11:04.215
i learned a little when i was younger from the book but then i i had lots of lessons on chromatic with a fantastic jazz player here in england called julian jackson so And I had lots of jazz lessons with him.

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So at that stage, I was really seriously into learning jazz.

00:11:08.221 --> 00:11:10.504
I'm not quite so seriously into learning jazz now.

00:11:10.543 --> 00:11:17.092
I do still play some jazz on the chromatic, but I think to be a jazz chromatic player, you've got to devote everything to it.

00:11:17.793 --> 00:11:26.044
But now I'm interested in playing different genres, so I'm not the full-on jazzer that I was trying to be during that time.

00:11:29.730 --> 00:11:29.950
piano plays

00:11:34.625 --> 00:12:01.201
so when you were playing the diatonic was your method of learning buying the recordings and you know listening and playing back and listening and playing back or were you able to find someone to give you some some advice and give you you know some in-person lessons

00:12:02.081 --> 00:12:08.453
For the diatonic, initially, like, again, many people I've talked to on the podcast, I learned by playing along with records.

00:12:09.395 --> 00:12:16.210
But then, yeah, I had a few lessons on diatonic, not so many as I did on chromatic, just a small number.

00:12:16.610 --> 00:12:18.815
I'm quite a dedicated practicer.

00:12:19.215 --> 00:12:21.419
You know, I sort of practice music every day.

00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:24.284
And so, you know, I read things, listen to other podcasts.

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I've recently got into this whole idea of deliberate practice, which is where you have a very kind of focused, dedicated way to practice and, you know, you get feedback, you know, I'm teaching.

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I'm very dedicated to the practice side.

00:12:35.836 --> 00:12:37.576
So yeah, I definitely picked up on all those things.

00:12:37.977 --> 00:12:50.408
And in fact, during the pandemic, I started having violin lessons, not really to get great on the violin, but more just like the kind of formality of classical lessons.

00:12:50.508 --> 00:12:54.552
And, you know, that's kind of teaching structure that's available for the violin.

00:12:54.672 --> 00:13:25.745
isn't really available for the harmonica right so I just like that and I quite enjoy the sort of discipline of the classical side which is not something I ever did really when I was younger because you know the way that I learned and many people learn the harmonica so and also my interest in violin is because I play some mandolin as well so but I mean harmonica is absolutely definitely my thing the stringed instruments still feel kind of alien to me but I do kind of like the discipline and you know of learning a different instrument and understanding chords and that sort of thing so that's kind of why I do it but yeah harmonica is definitely my thing

00:13:26.246 --> 00:13:37.389
but your approach to the harmonica is still free form I mean it's not dictated so much by structure like most harmonica players find their playing is like

00:13:38.393 --> 00:13:48.885
well it depends what sort of music I'm playing I mean I definitely read music When I'm playing chromatic, especially, which is more suited to reading music, although a little bit on diatonic too.

00:13:49.547 --> 00:13:53.214
So yeah, I mean, I'm now I'm interested because, you know, obviously I learned blues.

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I studied jazz for a few years, as I said, had lots of lessons.

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So obviously that involves lots of theory and structure before you let yourself lose on improvising.

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And then I also like playing sort of folk music.

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Kind of old-timey music.

00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:10.905
There's quite a lot of old-timey music around where I live, which is an American form of folk music, as you probably know.

00:14:11.246 --> 00:14:15.753
So that is partly learning by ear and partly learning from written scores as well.

00:14:15.773 --> 00:14:16.693
So yeah, a bit of both, really.

00:14:17.195 --> 00:14:20.119
How did all this drill back down to your blues playing?

00:14:20.158 --> 00:14:28.049
And tell me a little bit about your band experiences that you've had and the types of music that your bands have played.

00:14:28.673 --> 00:14:34.803
Yeah, so as I said, my three main genres are blues, jazz, and sort of folky stuff.

00:14:34.844 --> 00:14:43.076
And I've played in a few bands, which I'll talk through, but my two current bands, one of them we sort of play folk and blues, more acoustic type.

00:14:43.977 --> 00:14:45.841
That's with a guy called Greg Maiston.

00:14:46.783 --> 00:14:48.445
So I perform around with him.

00:14:48.785 --> 00:14:53.793
So then I play some mandolin, mostly harmonica and the sort of blues and folk side of things.

00:14:53.813 --> 00:15:12.719
piano plays And then I'm in another band called Rev John and the Revelations.

00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:15.764
So we did quite a mixture of genres in there.

00:15:15.823 --> 00:15:22.775
Some blues stuff, but then also some ska and bits of reggae and sort of funk and these kind of different genres.

00:15:22.836 --> 00:15:28.104
And so in that, I actually used the DM-48 MIDI chromatic quite a lot.

00:15:28.325 --> 00:15:33.692
So I sort of used trumpet sounds and saxophone sounds and flutes from the MIDI chromatic.

00:15:47.490 --> 00:16:18.537
which I love and I think has got tremendous you know use and you know just to bring that variety I think probably like a lot of harmonica players got maybe slight conscious of the fact that the harmonica is you know maybe seen as being a little bit limited in what it can do so I think I've always been trying to push myself to sort of do different things and you know introduce different sounds and play different genres to sort of show what the harmonica can do and you know sort of make myself valuable and fitting into the bands really so I think try to do cover a Did

00:16:18.557 --> 00:16:32.072
you have an example of someone who was using that MIDI that attracted you to it, or was that something you kind of discovered on your own, just knowing more about the technology of microphones and effects and those things?

00:16:32.532 --> 00:16:39.860
Well, the MIDI I mainly discovered from doing the podcast interview with Eric Leckholm and also Jason Keen.

00:16:39.879 --> 00:16:42.363
I mean, I was aware of it, but I hadn't really tried it.

00:16:42.423 --> 00:16:47.408
But then I thought that would be a good topic for the podcast episode, and hence that interview idea.

00:16:47.408 --> 00:16:52.712
And that's what made me more interested in getting one and trying it out.

00:16:52.932 --> 00:16:54.033
So that's what I did.

00:16:54.094 --> 00:16:57.456
And yeah, it's not something you'd use entirely.

00:16:57.537 --> 00:16:59.619
It's just like something you can use in some songs.

00:16:59.658 --> 00:17:01.400
I wouldn't play it all the time.

00:17:01.461 --> 00:17:05.124
It's still obviously great to play harmonica and use a real harmonica.

00:17:05.144 --> 00:17:07.726
But yeah, it just adds more variety to your playing.

00:17:08.126 --> 00:17:08.787
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:08.807 --> 00:17:11.130
It's like adding a new instrument to the ensemble.

00:17:11.269 --> 00:17:12.170
That's really interesting.

00:17:12.411 --> 00:17:15.653
So tell us a little bit about your interfacing with...

00:17:16.193 --> 00:17:23.400
the harmonic organizations in england and your competition and the different levels of competition you've been engaged with

00:17:24.280 --> 00:17:47.431
yeah so the national harmonic league i got i got involved with those and i actually helped run the chromatic weekend which i helped run for quite a few years over the last 10 years or so and i was on the organizing committee so that was a little festival we put together where we you know was focused on the chromatic so i got that involvement and david hamley and and Hilvert as well.

00:17:48.226 --> 00:17:51.270
But yeah, basically, I went to the festivals.

00:17:51.310 --> 00:17:52.432
They had a competition.

00:17:52.471 --> 00:17:56.719
And a few years ago now, I entered the competition every year.

00:17:56.739 --> 00:18:00.744
I saw it as great motivation to practice and get a piece up to standard.

00:18:01.046 --> 00:18:03.269
And I did manage to win in the three categories.

00:18:03.348 --> 00:18:09.759
I won the blues category playing Mark Hummel's Harmonica Party song, which is a great instrumental.

00:18:10.339 --> 00:18:14.826
I also won the jazz category playing Sophisticated Lady, which is the Duke Ellington song.

00:18:16.930 --> 00:18:17.150
piano plays

00:18:17.602 --> 00:18:35.451
And

00:18:35.550 --> 00:18:41.039
then I also won the diatonic melodic by playing a folk melody.

00:18:41.780 --> 00:18:43.604
So what are those competitions like?

00:18:43.824 --> 00:18:44.224
Are there...

00:18:45.122 --> 00:18:46.844
musicians to accompany you like

00:18:47.163 --> 00:19:07.929
yeah there was a there's a piano well there was a piano player uh chris collis who would accompany people or you could use your own backing tracks but actually recently they've stopped having a live competition and they now just do it as an online submission but i haven't entered the competition since i've done that it's been a few years since i entered the competition now but that was a good few years back

00:19:08.450 --> 00:19:12.375
And so you said that now you're playing in a couple of different bands.

00:19:12.875 --> 00:19:14.637
So what does that translate into?

00:19:14.938 --> 00:19:16.681
How much gigging are you doing every month?

00:19:17.300 --> 00:19:18.041
Sounds like you're busy.

00:19:18.663 --> 00:19:21.507
Yeah, I mean, I entered the second band just over a year ago.

00:19:21.547 --> 00:19:24.471
And at the time, I was thinking, do I have time for a second band?

00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:29.297
But I'm glad I did it because I'm playing different sorts of music.

00:19:29.376 --> 00:19:31.880
So I'm not gigging all the time.

00:19:31.900 --> 00:20:06.420
I'm probably gigging maybe three four times a month at the most i do have a full-time job you know i devote much of my time to the harmonica and obviously the podcast that i'm very devoted to the music but yeah i'm not a full-time professional musician you know i have a day job so uh but my evenings are mostly taken up by by music so yeah playing in a band called Beggar's Belief.

00:20:06.500 --> 00:20:08.583
That was probably like 15 years ago.

00:20:08.682 --> 00:20:10.786
So a good set of guys.

00:20:10.826 --> 00:20:12.788
I still play with one of those guys on drums.

00:20:12.847 --> 00:20:20.458
And then about 10 years, I was in a trio with a guy called Stu Wietman and his son, Tom Wietman.

00:20:20.837 --> 00:20:24.122
Tom now lives in Austria and he's working full-time as a musician.

00:20:24.142 --> 00:20:24.823
So he's doing great.

00:20:25.123 --> 00:20:28.186
So in that, we did a mixture playing quite a lot of gypsy jazz.

00:20:28.807 --> 00:20:34.013
For example, playing Django Reinhardt songs like Nuage.

00:20:34.369 --> 00:20:47.027
That's

00:20:47.146 --> 00:20:52.795
kind of partly what got me into doing the jazz harmonica lessons because I was playing jazz with those guys.

00:20:53.695 --> 00:20:56.259
And then also blues, you know, lots of blues.

00:20:56.298 --> 00:21:02.748
So that was that combination mainly of playing jazz and blues with Stu and Tom in that trio.

00:21:02.768 --> 00:21:21.397
That's kind of partly what got me And then I was in another blues band called Three Book Shirt around Reading.

00:21:21.479 --> 00:21:34.238
I recorded on a couple albums with a folk guy called Jack Warshaw, actually another American who lives over here, so I did a bit of recording for him.

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

00:21:36.450 --> 00:21:45.373
And then around where I live, again, there's quite a lot of sessions, as we call them.

00:21:45.413 --> 00:21:47.198
I think you call them the same in the US, don't you?

00:21:47.980 --> 00:21:53.193
And that's where I got into the folk music.

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

00:22:02.145 --> 00:22:06.571
What is your perspective now on the harmonica in England?

00:22:06.692 --> 00:22:09.476
Is it still being aggressively played?

00:22:09.856 --> 00:22:13.382
Is the blues scene as big as it was, say, 15 years ago?

00:22:13.422 --> 00:22:15.424
Has it changed?

00:22:15.464 --> 00:22:16.987
Has it diminished or grown?

00:22:17.007 --> 00:22:21.513
Is there still a lot of interest in the harmonica from your perspective?

00:22:22.306 --> 00:23:07.451
so I mean yes there's a reasonably good blues scene but I think like everywhere there's not as many venues here as there used to be you know back when I started playing sort of in the early 90s you know there seemed to be a lot more live music venues but yeah there's a good scene I mean I live not far from London and there's quite a good blues scene there and there is a few bars there's like Ain't Nothing But which is a really good blues bar in central London which has harmonica gigs you know every week so it's not bad and obviously I've talked to lots of British harmonica players on the podcast.

00:23:07.471 --> 00:23:16.124
So one thing I ran, which is a bit of a precursor to the podcast, is that I ran a gig list, a harmonica gig list in the UK.

00:23:16.144 --> 00:23:16.924
Really?

00:23:17.486 --> 00:23:17.566
Yeah.

00:23:17.826 --> 00:23:30.737
This was something I wanted to do because I always wanted this thing about how do I find a good harmonica gig that I want to go and see, and I wanted to know what good gigs are, and particularly when there were good visiting players from the US and Europe.

00:23:31.198 --> 00:23:45.930
So I started this gig list, which I ran for a few years just before the pandemic, and that allowed me to get a lot of really good contacts in the UK, especially with the British players, and I would contact them and have them send me their gigs.

00:23:46.391 --> 00:23:53.980
And I ran this gig list for, as I say, probably for about two years until the pandemic hit and that kind of obviously all the gigs stopped.

00:23:54.141 --> 00:24:03.655
And then I didn't resume it after that, partly because I started the podcast and that took that time, but also it was quite hard work getting people to send the gigs in.

00:24:03.695 --> 00:24:08.982
So, but yeah, it was, you know, that was, as I say, a bit of a precursor to starting the podcast.

00:24:09.644 --> 00:24:16.094
You know, one of the things that I find most impressive about the podcast is just the variety and range of the players involved.

00:24:16.226 --> 00:24:26.153
that you have interviewed I mean, it really crosses so many different genres and the more unique the genre is to me, the more fascinating I find the interviews to be.

00:24:26.792 --> 00:24:28.314
How do you source the players?

00:24:28.394 --> 00:24:37.321
How do you find these people that are outside of England and many of whom are not common names among the harmonica community in the United States, for example?

00:24:37.843 --> 00:24:39.743
Yeah, it's a very good question.

00:24:40.045 --> 00:24:45.588
I mean, I do try to, you know, cover different genres and try to cover different countries.

00:24:45.730 --> 00:26:32.532
That's want it to be about blues although of course you know blues is definitely my first love on harmonica and probably most harmonica players right so blues is always going to feature heavily but I've got interest outside and I'm fascinated to hear what other people can do with the harmonica particularly in countries outside US and Europe where you know they have their own sort of you know traditions of music which they play so as to how I find people it's in various ways really quite often I'm directed to people from you know like for example you Tom have been very helpful in helping me source players in the US because obviously I'm aware of lots of players in the US but not everyone because obviously I don't live in the US so quite often people help in fact the first person I was directed to was to Billy Branch so Giles Robson who is a really good player in the UK and he's done exceptionally well and organizes all these amazing concerts in fact he's got a series with John Primer the classic Chicago guitar player and coming up in the UK now in January this year so he put me on to Billy Branch because he got Billy Branch over to do some gigs in the UK so I asked Giles if he could you know get me in touch with him so quite often it's people you know sort of help me out particularly in the early days Joe Felisco was really helpful he helped put me on to some people and he helped me get Kim Wilson which was fantastic so I don't think I'd have got Kim without Joe's help so quite often people helped in that way obviously I'm aware of the horrible Thank you very much.

00:26:42.306 --> 00:26:58.249
So do you have a set of qualifications that you feel necessary to, that warrant a podcast determined by, for example, the number of recordings someone has issued, or a personal recommendation from someone like Joe Felisco?

00:26:59.190 --> 00:27:00.111
Yeah, that's a good question.

00:27:00.151 --> 00:27:04.416
Obviously, I do want to have quality players on, but I don't always know...

00:27:05.153 --> 00:27:07.218
that much about the person I'm interviewing.

00:27:07.298 --> 00:27:15.432
So I do try to do my research beforehand and obviously pick people out who are of a good playing standard for sure is a kind of prerequisite.

00:27:16.032 --> 00:27:17.214
Some people, it's easy, right?

00:27:17.454 --> 00:27:18.636
They're professional players.

00:27:18.676 --> 00:27:20.079
They've got lots of albums out.

00:27:20.119 --> 00:27:21.142
They've got websites.

00:27:21.182 --> 00:27:25.188
So that makes it easy to see that they are very well established.

00:27:25.769 --> 00:27:30.718
What is your research like as you get ready to interview someone on the podcast?

00:27:30.913 --> 00:27:35.401
So a really big thing about the podcast before I answer that specific question.

00:27:35.662 --> 00:27:45.657
So one of the reasons I started the podcast, when I was learning in my early days of playing the harmonica, I built up this huge harmonica collection.

00:27:46.137 --> 00:27:51.467
I would listen to as many blues albums as I can, initially blues and then later different genres.

00:27:51.948 --> 00:28:04.571
And then I would sort of pick songs off the album that were my favourite, but also that I felt they represented different styles of harmonica or certain techniques, various things, not just that they were the best songs.

00:28:05.271 --> 00:28:16.342
And then I built up my own MP3 collection, which I then stored on my phone, and I had them all categorised into different keys, so all songs played on an A harmonica, C harmonica, etc.

00:28:16.882 --> 00:28:29.757
And so I have this big harmonic song collection of well over a thousand songs, which I've got Most of those available on the web on my Heart Transcripts website, which I'll put the link to the podcast page.

00:28:29.997 --> 00:28:36.066
So there's a page in there called Heart Keys, and you can see all these different keys of harmonica that these songs are played on.

00:28:36.105 --> 00:28:41.413
So I think the best resource of what harmonica is that song played on the web, I think.

00:28:41.730 --> 00:28:42.830
So I built all those.

00:28:42.911 --> 00:28:48.635
So I always had this mission to sort of find the best harmonica songs, right, and to help my own learning.

00:28:49.016 --> 00:28:51.478
And I would play along with these songs and try and learn from them.

00:28:51.498 --> 00:28:54.961
So that was a massive part of how I learned and built up this big collection.

00:28:55.642 --> 00:29:02.827
And so the idea for the podcast and what I do, which is that I profile the players, it is really an extension of that.

00:29:02.867 --> 00:29:04.829
You know, it's about listening to them.

00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:11.695
So part of my research is absolutely to listen to pretty much all the albums of the artists before I interview them.

00:29:11.695 --> 00:29:46.926
them so week or two before the interview I just listen to them exclusively and then I pick out my sort of favorite songs and hence I pick out the clips that I put into the podcast episodes so I can try and represent different things that they've done and you know different genres of playing you know the sort of best playing of what they've done so that's a big part of the research is listening and you know many people will say that you know listening is the most important thing talking to Dennis Groening recently he was definitely of that opinion too you know it's listening you can learn and so much from listening and playing along and transcribing people's music is such a key thing.

00:29:46.946 --> 00:29:49.576
So that's a really big part of what I'm trying to do with the podcast.

00:29:50.049 --> 00:29:55.335
interesting yeah so so have you done transcribing before has that been part of your learning process

00:29:55.835 --> 00:30:11.127
yeah for sure yeah the uh the website i just mentioned the heart transcripts i've done some transcriptions on there and they're available for people to use i use the transcribe software which um quite a lot of people know about so yeah absolutely done did some transcribing and and still do yeah

00:30:11.669 --> 00:30:14.371
and and did that apply to your jazz playing as well

00:30:15.092 --> 00:30:23.781
yeah yeah for sure yeah i'm gonna transcribe obviously some two solos and you know larry i'd their solos but also you know jazz musicians as well although that can be tricky

00:30:24.743 --> 00:30:50.201
you've developed such a reputation for high quality interviews but when i listen to them many times i feel almost like they're almost free form i mean there are some specific questions you always ask but it seems like the players once they get going they kind of open themselves up in a in a very different way in an unexpected way and provide a whole lot more information has Has that been one of the things you have noticed as the interviewer as well?

00:30:50.221 --> 00:30:51.163
Or is that just me?

00:30:51.682 --> 00:30:52.403
Yeah, I think so.

00:30:52.463 --> 00:30:56.507
I think once people get talking, then like you say, they open up.

00:30:56.647 --> 00:30:59.569
So I try not to get in the way too much of that.

00:30:59.609 --> 00:31:07.037
I've got, as people, regular listeners, I've got a sort of, you know, kind of a set of questions that I ask each time that are reasonably related.

00:31:07.076 --> 00:31:11.619
But yeah, I'm happy to let it flow in whichever way the person speaks.

00:31:11.681 --> 00:31:16.945
And I'll just bring a few topics into viewed more general topic into each episode.

00:31:16.986 --> 00:31:17.946
But yeah, happy to let it flow.

00:31:18.327 --> 00:31:26.479
So in this spa article that you referenced, one of the things that you said you wanted to do more of was to find women who were good harmonica players.

00:31:27.019 --> 00:31:28.961
Do you look at music in general that way?

00:31:29.021 --> 00:31:34.128
Do you think to yourself, for example, I'd really like to find more jazz players or I'd like to find more...

00:31:34.786 --> 00:31:39.190
blues players or more country players or more session musicians or whatever?

00:31:39.210 --> 00:31:51.701
Or has the podcast participation grown more organically and you find out about one player who tells you about another player and you kind of follow that path instead of trying to really organize things by musical style?

00:31:52.141 --> 00:31:54.143
Yeah, it's reasonably organic.

00:31:54.603 --> 00:31:58.967
I do try to have some sort of general plan about what I'd like to bring in.

00:31:59.567 --> 00:32:07.936
For example, you mentioned obviously more female players, but also players from other regions I recently had Vita Lopes from South America.

00:32:07.977 --> 00:32:08.597
So that was great.

00:32:08.617 --> 00:32:19.494
You know, I was thinking it'd be great to get some more South Americans and, you know, maybe some, definitely some more Asian players have had Rocky Locke, you know, that's some representation from Asia, but obviously it's a massive market there.

00:32:19.595 --> 00:32:25.924
So covering different styles, more classical players, because I haven't had too many classical players on.

00:32:25.984 --> 00:32:27.007
So definitely that.

00:32:27.086 --> 00:32:31.614
So I definitely have that in mind that I want to, you know, bring those different styles.

00:32:31.842 --> 00:33:03.189
things into the podcast I'm quite conscious that a lot of the people I interview are from the US and then obviously quite a few from Britain as well which is where I'm from and then some from Europe so I'm sort of torn on that to some extent because a lot of the US players are the most well known and probably do get the most downloads when I do an episode but I definitely don't chase ratings right I'm not I'm not here to sort of just have popular episodes that get lots of downloads but obviously I do want to do episodes that people are interested in listening to.

00:33:03.229 --> 00:33:06.792
So it's a bit of a challenge in between balancing those.

00:33:07.213 --> 00:33:10.297
So how did you find someone like Marko Jovanovic?

00:33:10.977 --> 00:33:19.886
That to me was, it was so illuminating to hear someone like that interviewed and playing that style of music is so far into my concept of what the harmonica can do.

00:33:20.626 --> 00:33:21.929
How did you discover that player?

00:33:22.489 --> 00:33:23.430
Yeah, he's great, isn't he?

00:33:23.450 --> 00:33:26.554
He played this sort of bulk music, which sounds amazing, doesn't it, on the harmonica?

00:33:30.798 --> 00:33:30.877
Yeah.

00:33:38.753 --> 00:33:42.866
So I was aware of Marco from his Berlin harmonica school.

00:33:42.906 --> 00:33:44.893
That's how I, you know, was aware of him.

00:33:45.515 --> 00:33:51.373
And I think, you know, in Europe and again for the National Harmonica League is something that was aware of through him.

00:33:51.413 --> 00:33:52.615
So that's how I found Marco.

00:33:52.656 --> 00:33:53.117
Yeah.

00:33:53.442 --> 00:34:05.405
You have obviously strayed away from the instructive approach that many of the podcasts and websites are featuring for young harmonica players, or really harmonica players of any ability.

00:34:06.048 --> 00:34:09.775
Was that by decision as well, that you decided not to pursue that because others were?

00:34:09.815 --> 00:34:14.824
Because you certainly had some of the greatest players to talk in detail about how they play.

00:34:15.297 --> 00:34:46.969
Yeah absolutely definitely avoid that topic in any depth because I feel as you say lots of the people do that and I know that lots of people I've talked to on the podcast for example you know sort of do that for a living right so it's almost like I don't really want to step on their toes but not just that I'd like to think that you know the podcast is different if you want instruction there's plenty of instruction out there to go and find on you know on YouTube and lots of lots of different sources and many of the people I've talked to as well so yeah definitely a deliberate Yeah.

00:34:54.050 --> 00:35:01.315
And so someone like Gregoire Moret, for example, I mean, he to me is one of the leading jazz harmonica players.

00:35:01.356 --> 00:35:10.264
I don't know whether he's inherited the toots mantle or not, but he certainly has played at a very high level, both as a musician performing with other bands and his own recordings.

00:35:10.864 --> 00:35:13.005
What drew you to interview him, for example?

00:35:13.507 --> 00:35:14.487
Because he's pretty unique.

00:35:14.507 --> 00:35:17.851
I don't think that many people in the harmonica world are really fully aware of him.

00:35:18.411 --> 00:35:25.077
No, I think like a lot of jazz players, they see themselves really more as a jazz player than a harmonica player.

00:35:25.117 --> 00:35:27.661
So I think you definitely find that in the jazz world.

00:35:28.121 --> 00:35:32.487
So I was aware of Gregoire because I was playing jazz harmonica.

00:35:32.927 --> 00:35:34.490
And so I was definitely aware of who he was.

00:35:34.530 --> 00:35:35.632
He's a Swiss player.

00:35:35.652 --> 00:35:36.914
So again, based in Europe.

00:35:36.954 --> 00:35:40.880
So maybe a bit more aware of him in Europe, although of course he lives in the US now.

00:35:41.621 --> 00:35:44.764
So yeah, I mean, I knew about him from my interest of jazz chromatic.

00:35:45.538 --> 00:35:51.351
Definitely want to, you know, make sure I represent the chromatic harmonica reasonably strongly in the podcast.

00:35:51.371 --> 00:35:56.684
You know, there's quite a lot of interviews with the chromatic players, as well as a few other sorts of harmonica.

00:35:56.963 --> 00:35:59.449
So yeah, that's what the reason, you know, it's a chromatic player.

00:35:59.469 --> 00:36:02.597
And obviously jazz is a key genre to cover as well.

00:36:03.170 --> 00:36:03.429
Right.

00:36:03.911 --> 00:36:09.876
So when you do your research, are you looking, I mean, obviously you're listening to recordings.

00:36:10.335 --> 00:36:18.143
Are you also digging like into the YouTube and these other sites where there are performances that you can

00:36:24.168 --> 00:36:24.367
watch?

00:36:33.135 --> 00:36:36.282
I will do as much research and cover

00:36:37.023 --> 00:36:43.836
as many areas as I can.

00:36:48.226 --> 00:37:01.177
installments of the podcast I mean are there a couple of players that you interviewed that stand out just from the standpoint of the interview was much more than you thought it would be or there was some very surprising aspects to it

00:37:01.818 --> 00:38:48.061
yeah so as you say I don't necessarily like to pick out favorites because in many ways genuinely it's been a pleasure to speak to everyone and I felt I've learned from speaking to everyone so but yes I mean the early episodes the sort of first 20 I did quite a lot of the big name especially the big American names you know I had Kim Wilson on there and you know I had Carlos you know various players then Rob Piazza is a massive favorite of mine so from that point of view those sort of early episodes were kind of you know those sort of big names were obvious choices and I love speaking to all of those but I've enjoyed you know digging and finding people from different countries as we've discussed and finding different genres and finding people who aren't maybe quite so well known but have done some amazing things I mean some of the greats it was talking to Charlie McCoy was fantastic what a gentleman he is and he's done so many amazing things you know probably the most recorded harmonica player ever with all the session work he's done Billy Boy Arnold was amazing because he really is he was around at the time as we talked about in the last Little Walter interview you know he was around at the time with Little Walter he was just a little bit younger so that was amazing to speak to him as surprising one of my definite favourites from that point of view which is something you helped me with Tom was speaking to Mike Stevens he was a great interview and he's just been travelling the North Passage I've been following him on Facebook and he's taken the harmonica up and he's travelled across the North Passage and he's taking you know the harmonica to all these indigenous people up there and he's given out loads of harmonica so he's done amazing things Josie Smith the Australian one man band that was he was great to speak to mainly because I love juggling myself and he juggles and plays the harmonica so um

00:38:48.193 --> 00:38:54.360
so so

00:39:17.954 --> 00:39:20.862
Thank you.

00:39:31.074 --> 00:39:58.818
these chukka chuks he used which are these percussion juggling bowls that he uses i actually have some of those but i haven't quite taken the time to master my uh juggling harmonica playing uh yet but uh uh but i do do i do love to juggle

00:39:59.217 --> 00:40:11.333
yeah the interview with him was fascinating and he He is, as a one-man band, he's both fascinating and kind of an anachronism in some ways because the one-man band, you don't see much of that.

00:40:11.373 --> 00:40:18.282
And he is so incredibly spectacular at doing it and doing it in a way nobody else does.

00:40:18.322 --> 00:40:23.568
That was one of my favorite interviews, actually, of the hundred that you've done.

00:40:24.418 --> 00:40:32.824
So it sounds like this has obviously been a labor of love for you, but the Seidel people have been, you know, very involved too.

00:40:32.864 --> 00:40:36.708
So can you tell me a little bit about that relationship and how they became involved with the podcast?

00:40:37.429 --> 00:40:42.253
Yeah, so they've been very kind enough to sponsor the podcast, which I'm very grateful for.

00:40:42.333 --> 00:40:47.938
I knew them because they came over to the UK to the National Harmonica League festivals.

00:40:47.978 --> 00:40:50.860
You know, they would bring over and tell their harmonicas and words.

00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:52.862
So I sort of knew them a little bit from that.

00:40:53.262 --> 00:41:07.518
And then, you know, know after the interview with um with honer and with with sidle yeah then we struck up this uh this sponsorship which helps me a little bit with the with the running costs of the podcast so yeah i'm very grateful and um those guys do a great job

00:41:07.717 --> 00:41:29.942
that interview with honer and sidle was that was also from my point of view very unexpected i had never seen anybody actually interview the manufacturers that you know that make the instruments that we play is your thought that you would pursue some of the different directions that those manufacturers are taking with their instruments and some of the new types of instruments with new tunings that they're introducing

00:41:29.981 --> 00:41:52.565
yeah for sure you know i've enjoyed the ones which have been more gear orientated recently the the green bullet interview was was really i really enjoyed that one a lot and i learned a lot about microphones myself from doing the research for that for that interview and of course we talked about the dm40a and so yeah i've really enjoyed the uh the gear type interviews and i'd like to do some more of those yeah

00:41:52.826 --> 00:41:57.672
yeah because it seems like they're you know the These altered tunings, it seems like there are more and more of them available.

00:41:57.811 --> 00:42:01.795
I know I've been messing around with the pentaharp, trying to figure out how it fits.

00:42:01.876 --> 00:42:04.858
And it's just a completely different instrument to play from a traditional

00:42:04.918 --> 00:42:14.929
diatonic harmonica.

00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:30.650
Lots of discussion about tunings and anything which, you know, as new approaches onto the harmonica is definitely of interest.

00:42:31.231 --> 00:42:37.619
One of the things that you mentioned to me at some point was that you found the stories behind these players fascinating.

00:42:38.181 --> 00:42:47.094
And, you know, you were real interested in how and why they became so devoted to the instrument and how and why they, you know, took up the professional route to play.

00:42:47.135 --> 00:42:51.541
Of the people that you have interviewed, I mean, who has been a surprise to you?

00:42:52.193 --> 00:42:55.677
in terms of why they took up the instrument why they became a musician

00:42:56.478 --> 00:43:45.063
I can't think of one specific person now but I'm definitely interested in that question about you know why people chose the harmonica and you know again it's partly selfish reasons so I can learn myself and I hope that teaches you know other people as well about how people have been successful with the harmonica you know what have they done to be able to forge a career with themselves with the harmonica you know and to have some success out of it and you know that definitely fascinates me and i've picked up many little clues along the way on how to do that and for most of the players as i say pretty much every interview i play along and i sort of pick out songs of theirs and i sort of i've learned something from everyone so and then to be able to talk to them about how their careers progressed and how they were able to succeed it's been uh it's been a yeah fascinating in pretty much every episode

00:43:45.344 --> 00:43:55.887
do you feel like you've become a documentarian in many ways because you have brought so much out about these personalities and about their history and their background.

00:43:55.947 --> 00:43:59.784
And many of these guys, I think Rod Piazza is the one that always comes to my mind.

00:44:00.257 --> 00:44:04.041
You know, they were part of a blues scene that had never really been documented before.

00:44:04.101 --> 00:44:09.585
I'd never heard anybody talk about the blues scene in Los Angeles until I heard your interview with Rob.

00:44:09.885 --> 00:44:12.688
Yeah, I think that's come out as mainly a happy accident.

00:44:12.708 --> 00:44:22.177
But as it's developed, then, yeah, I have this sense more of, you know, I mean, for example, the Phil Wiggins and he plays the Piedmont style of blues.

00:44:22.197 --> 00:44:27.762
You know, that's an example of exactly that, about really honing in on an area of the U.S.

00:44:27.842 --> 00:44:30.224
in this case, you know, and talking about that style of music.

00:44:30.224 --> 00:44:32.365
and how that scene grew up and everything.

00:44:32.385 --> 00:44:38.831
So yeah, I think it has come out like that and it's been a great joy to do that and yeah, I hope to pull it out more.

00:44:39.132 --> 00:44:46.318
So, you know, it's been many years since Kim Field put out his book, Harps, Harmonicas and Heavy Breathers, I think was the title.

00:44:46.378 --> 00:44:51.782
And of course, Kim was included in your 100th anniversary podcast about Little Walter.

00:44:51.802 --> 00:44:59.130
Have you thought at all about the possibility of transposing this from a podcast into some form of a book?

00:44:59.681 --> 00:45:01.744
Yeah, that's definitely crossed my mind.

00:45:01.784 --> 00:45:04.666
I'm still thinking about how to do that.

00:45:04.726 --> 00:45:08.168
But yeah, you know, I could write a book as the song goes.

00:45:08.228 --> 00:45:10.911
So yeah, at some point I would like to write a book.

00:45:11.152 --> 00:45:22.581
And anyone who has written a book like Kim are definitely high on the list to get interviewed because I think anyone who's taken the time and effort and dedication to do that deserves a lot of credit and recognition for putting the effort in.

00:45:23.161 --> 00:45:33.963
Yeah, I mean, I think you and Kim and a whole range of people who have continued to be very devoted to exposing the instrument and exposing the players.

00:45:34.505 --> 00:45:35.969
And it's all been a labor of love, right?

00:45:36.652 --> 00:45:37.074
Definitely.

00:45:37.175 --> 00:45:38.458
Don't do this for the money, Tom.

00:45:39.402 --> 00:45:39.583
Yeah.

00:45:40.025 --> 00:45:41.148
Thank you so much for doing it.

00:45:41.570 --> 00:45:48.579
So, Neil, let's have the conversation that all Harmonica players have with one another about gear and about equipment.

00:45:49.059 --> 00:45:58.853
I know having been exposed to all of these different players, and especially considering all the research that you've done on all of the players that you've worked with, you've probably often thought, what are they playing?

00:45:58.893 --> 00:45:59.974
What are they using?

00:45:59.994 --> 00:46:01.677
You know, all those general questions.

00:46:02.177 --> 00:46:03.378
So what about you?

00:46:03.418 --> 00:46:07.123
First of all, Harmonica's Are they tuned differently?

00:46:07.402 --> 00:46:08.543
Who manufactures them?

00:46:09.025 --> 00:46:13.228
Are you playing chromatic, tremolo, the variety of harmonicas you're playing?

00:46:13.248 --> 00:46:14.650
Let's start with the instrument itself.

00:46:14.750 --> 00:46:15.990
Tell me a little bit about what you're doing.

00:46:16.530 --> 00:46:29.603
Yeah, so before I answer that specific question, one of the pluses and downsides of the podcast is because I, as you say, talk to so many people and talk about all the things they use and different approaches and gear that they use, that I want to buy all this stuff, right?

00:46:29.643 --> 00:46:34.306
So I end up wanting all this different gear that I talk to these people and I research, right?

00:46:34.347 --> 00:46:56.711

Neil Warren interview

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