April 9, 2020

Paul Lamb interview

Paul Lamb interview

First up in the podcast I'm delighted to welcome a certain Mr Paul Lamb. Paul is a living legend of blues harmonica. He's been performing for over 45 years now, would you believe. He has a multitude of great albums to his name, and is inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame. Paul tells us how it all unfolded, meeting greats such as Junior Wells and his harmonica hero Sonny Terry along the way. With some tips on how aspiring harmonica players can try to emulate his tremendous success. The secret i...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Chromatic Blues

First up in the podcast I'm delighted to welcome a certain Mr Paul Lamb.
Paul is a living legend of blues harmonica.
He's been performing for over 45 years now, would you believe. He has a multitude of great albums to his name, and is inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
Paul tells us how it all unfolded, meeting greats such as Junior Wells and his harmonica hero Sonny Terry along the way.
With some tips on how aspiring harmonica players can try to emulate his tremendous success.
The secret is all in "playing what you feel, and feeling what you play".

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

Check out Paul's website for his tour schedule, to buy some of his great albums, and more:
http://www.paullamb.com/

Link to 'Harmonica Man', the chart hit from the 1990s:
https://bravado1.bandcamp.com/releases


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

02:31 - John Mayall influence

03:59 - First Harmonica

05:14 - Sonny Terry influence

08:14 - World Harmonica Championship

10:44 - First Band

12:10 - Junior Wells

13:53 - Sonny Terry style

17:19 - How Paul learnt harmonica

20:53 - Playing with Sonny Terry

24:42 - Paul's musical career

29:10 - Paul Lamb & the King Snakes name

32:56 - Advice for up and coming bands

34:58 - Awards

36:02 - Jimmy Nail

36:59 - American harp players

38:59 - Paul's albums

41:13 - Harmonica Man hit single

43:08 - Influential albums and songs

46:08 - Paul's playing style

48:08 - Blues Chromatic

52:36 - 10 minutes question

53:59 - Which harmonica does Paul play

54:59 - Favourite key of harmonica

56:38 - Amplifiers, mics and pedals

01:00:29 - Paul teaching

WEBVTT

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Hi and welcome to the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast.

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We've interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today.

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Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the songs discussed during the interviews can be heard.

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quick word from my sponsor now the lone wolf blues company makers of effects pedals microphones and more designed for harmonica remember when you want control over your tone you want lone wolf First up in the podcast, I'm delighted to welcome a certain Mr.

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Paul Lamb.

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Paul is the living legend of blues harmonica.

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He's been performing for over 45 years now, would you believe?

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He has a multitude of great albums to his name and is inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.

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Paul tells us how it all unfolded, meeting greats such as Junior Wells and his harmonica hero Sonny Terry along the way.

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With some tips on how aspiring harmonica players can try to emulate his tremendous success, the secret is all in playing what you feel and feeling what you play.

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Hello, Mr.

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Paul.

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Thank you.

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Welcome to the first in the series.

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So, yeah, I appreciate you giving me the time to do this.

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Yeah, it's an honour for me to do it, Neil.

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Thank you.

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So yeah, so let's start off just talking through a little bit about yourself.

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So you come from Bly, as I understand, the northeast near Newcastle?

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That's right.

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It's about 12 miles north of Newcastle, yeah.

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Yeah, a little sleepy town right on the seaside.

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What got you sort of into blues music, or if blues music was the first thing, playing the harmonica in Blythe?

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Was there a reasonable scene around Newcastle, and did you feed into that?

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No, not really.

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I mean, I was coming from a, well, a mining community.

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My father, my grandfather, all my uncles, they were miners.

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And, I mean, there wasn't much in the way of music apart from little four clubs and And my grandfather used to play a bit of harmonica, and the daughters, my aunties, they used to dance and play piano.

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But basically, that was it, apart from a bit of the radio and stuff.

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But then, I think I was about 13, 13 years old, I heard a friend of mine had borrowed an LP.

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It was The World of John Mayall.

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And he said, have a listen to this.

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and I was blown away with it.

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I'm cutting a long story short.

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I immersed myself in John's music.

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John Mill looked at his credits and he was playing stuff by Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, B.B.

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King, Muddy Waters, all that.

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I just delved into that.

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But I didn't, at first it wasn't, the harmonica wasn't the thing that I was after.

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It was, I was frustrated because I didn't play an instrument.

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And I was trying, I was looking, when I heard John's stuff, I was trying to think what I could do to express my feelings on something.

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So I tried a bit of piano, dabbled on the guitar, and then just the harmonica, the harmonica fell into place, you know.

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So did you have any lessons in piano or guitar before you took up that?

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Well, I had a few lessons on piano.

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I went to the piano teacher, a friend of mine, we both went.

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But we were just, we were wanting to play blues.

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You know, what she was, the piano teacher was teaching us was Bobby Shafto and all that sort of stuff, you know.

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And we wanted the short route into the blues, you know.

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So you bought your first harmonica.

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Do you remember what type of harmonica that was?

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Well, I didn't know what harmonica to get to play the blues stuff that John was playing.

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I hadn't a clue what it was, so I was just picking up anything.

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I mean, I endorse Horner now, the Horner harmonica, but I wasn't aware of Horner or the type of harmonica they use for blues, so I was just picking up a tremolo harmonica.

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All right.

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And, you know, which had double reeds and all that and had a bravo on it.

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Very different sounds, yeah.

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You could never, a million years, get a diatonic sound out of it, you know.

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And so I just fooled around with that.

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And then about a year later, I read in Sounds magazine, John Mayall uses, well, John Mayall, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan use diatonic.

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Echo Super Bambas.

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So I went straight down to the music store that we had then, and I purchased one, and I started fooling around with it.

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But I'd had no idea of keys or anything.

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I mean, this was a key of C or something like that.

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And the thing that got me really into the harmonica, and I just immersed myself into it, and that was it, was Sonny Terry.

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Yeah, sure, yeah.

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I heard in a, it was a little junk shop and there was an EP in there that was called Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry Sings.

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And it's the holy grail for harmonica players.

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I mean, it's all acoustic, obviously it's Terry Stale.

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But when I heard that, I thought, wow, what is this?

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Is that the album which has got Horton's Sorrow on and it's got John Henry?

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Yeah, John Henry.

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Yeah, it's got all that.

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It's on, it's on Folkways.

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Yeah, me and my friend really listened to that album a lot when I was young as well, so that's actually quite a big influence on me and another friend I played with at the time, getting into all the blues from one of his Was there one particular song on harmonica that really drew you to the harmonica?

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I'm thinking John Mayle, or was it not until you heard Sonny Terry that you really sort of felt, yeah, the harmonica's the thing for you?

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No, I think it was with John, because I had never heard Sonny then, you know.

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I mean, this was me just coming up, and I thought that he was the business.

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I thought he was the blues, you know, until I backtracked.

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I mean, it went further back than Sonny went back to the...

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the pre-war, well, Sonny was a pre-war player as well, but the straight players, you know, Lee Cannon, Cooksey, and Jed Devonport, and, you know, all them guys, you know.

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But John, I heard, well, I had all his albums right up to the 70s, or mid-70s, and I moved away after that, you know, but there was one called The Blues Alone, and he played a one called Sonny Boy Blow.

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...

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And it was a dedication, obviously, to Rice Miller.

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And I suppose that clicked me onto something.

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And there was one that John played with Paul Butterfield, All My Life, it's called.

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And Paul Butterfield was on harp.

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And I just...

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Paul was a stronger player than John, really.

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I mean, John, you know, he could play all the instruments, but he never fulfilled...

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all the instruments to perfect and i have a thought of perfection you know i'm not saying that against john but um you know seeing that wasn't well monica wasn't his main thing was it no no no no no so the one i know is room to move that's the kind of classic one i know of john now i mean i know a few of those but it's not something i've really dug into i believe you you won some competition in germany in 1975 is that right is that kind of your big break Well, I came second in the World Harmonica Championships.

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It was like, that was 75.

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It was Sounds Magazine.

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They said, all budding harmonica players, please send a cassette in to represent Great Britain.

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It was going to be chosen.

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And the guy that was on the panel, one of the judges, was a guy called Steve Rye.

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Well, he used to play with the Groundhogs back in the 60s.

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And there was a duo called Praga and Rye.

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And they were playing like, well, duo stuff of Sonny and Brownie, Yank Rachel and Sleepy John Estes and all them sort of guys.

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Pammy Nixon, that sort of style.

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And I recorded with a friend of mine up in the north.

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was for the cassette was Blues for the Lowlands which is a Sonny Terry Brownie McGee song an instrumental and I sent that in and straight away because he was a massive fan of Sonny and he knew them personally he used to stay at his house in the 60s and early 70s And when he heard that, he just said, oh, you're in, you're in.

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He says, you're coming down to London, which was at that time they were doing the Rocky Horror Show.

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And they were doing all that down there.

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And we had the hall there where we did all the competitions in there.

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And then I got through that, then went across to Germany.

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And then, I mean, I was just...

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I was quite a novice then, you know.

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Do you remember what song that you played in the composition?

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I think it was a John Lee Williamson.

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I think it was something like Good Morning Little Schoolgirl or something like that.

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And I did a Sonny Boy, the first one, Sonny Boy's Jump.

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That was the one, that was John Lee Williamson.

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I did two of them.

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A few years later, you formed the Blues Burglars band.

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Was that your first main band?

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Well, it wasn't the Blues Burglars.

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It was just, it was different names.

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It was just a bunch of guys who got together.

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And because when I come up, they heard about what I was doing.

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And these guys were into that Chicago style, obviously electric blues, you know, Elmore James, Muddy Waters.

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So my next thing was with that, because I was busy doing my work on Terry, trying to master his style.

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So I got into Big Walter Horton, Shaky Horton, and that was the style I brought in, which became the Blues Burglars.

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After all the bands settled down, we decided to call the band the Blues Burglars, which was a perfect name because we stole all the different songs from from all the different blues guys of the 50s and that.

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Were you based in London at this point?

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No, no, I was up in the North East and this was my time of the movement, you know.

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I was starting to get the bug.

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We were getting loads of, well, we were getting airplay as well and we were getting around a lot of the big places and we got signed up by Red Lightning, which is an old, well, basically a harmonica band uh label he was well into big walter horton and when he heard me playing that stuff he signed me up and i went down to london with the band and we opened up for junior wells and buddy guy And then I got friendly with Junior and Buddy and got a chance to play with them on different shows around, well, around the world, really.

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You know, because, you know, so me name was starting to get around, kicking around.

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That was, you know.

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Yeah.

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What was Junior Wells like?

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Yeah, he was great.

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Great.

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Oh, just a party man.

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He was wanting to just party all the time, drinking gin all day and what have you and just having a laugh.

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Spent some time talking about different things.

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And I remember one night he...

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We were playing in Dingwalls in London and we were in the dressing room and he had drank a bottle of gin or something like that and he left his shoes and he came out of the dressing room and walked bare feet.

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They invited him to the party somewhere around the corner or something.

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So we went round to this party and he had left his shoes in the dressing room, you know.

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And I looked at Buddy and Buddy just shook his head, you know, just like, well, that's Junior, you know.

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So yeah, Junior had quite a kind of sparse, way of playing, didn't he?

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He would play a kind of, you know, a no, and he kind of let it ring out.

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He came from the Sonny boys.

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Most of them, Chicago players, did Little Walter.

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I'm not sure about Big Walter, but I can tell in the early style that Little Walter, he's playing like, they're all playing like John Lee.

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And this is my, because we haven't gotten on to Terry yet, but he was the only unique guy Nobody played like him.

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His style was from the east, well, obviously the pediment area, you know, the tobacco, but which had a bounce in his sound, you know, a rhythmic pattern.

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And that's why I got off on that, you know.

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So let's talk about Sonny Terry now.

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You know, you're well known.

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I always joke when I talk about you that I think you do a better Sonny Terry than Sonny Terry.

00:14:27.192 --> 00:14:58.527
You know, obviously you've got the whooping songs really got that style down and it's a big feature of your playing so yeah maybe talk about that for us yeah yeah I mean for me I'm after tone I'm a tone player and that's that's what that's what everybody's after.

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It's like B.B.

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King.

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I mean, he doesn't play too many notes or whatever, but what he plays in their notes are killers, you know?

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And Terry, Big Walter, and Noah Lewis from Gus Cannon's Jugstompers, to me, they were the three of them big tone players and they had it all sewn up.

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That was all acoustic, bear that in mind.

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When they were playing acoustic, that was the sound they had, you know?

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You know, you can start and get on the amplifiers and microphones and then that's another...

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That's not a ball game, you know?

00:15:29.071 --> 00:15:41.644
We'll talk about that gear sort of stuff later, but yeah, exactly, on that question, that difference between playing acoustically and amplified, I mean, because so listening to you, I think you do both those things, you know, excellently.

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Well, I swap around with it.

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I mean, some of the, you know, we're playing electric, but I'm playing acoustic, and then I've switched to the amplifier or whatever it is, you know, chromatic on this, on that.

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My style, which I've adapted over the years is, is to fit the harmonica into the song, not the song fitting into the harmonica.

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The song is the most important thing, unless obviously if I'm doing an instrumental and it's all based on the harp or whatever.

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But most of our stuff is, you know, I've wrote quite a few songs over the years.

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You know, I've got quite a repertoire of songs that I've written and the harmonica fits into the song and that's the way I've always worked it, you know.

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Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:26.663 --> 00:16:31.149
So on Sonny Terry's style again, obviously a lot of people are interested in playing that sort of style.

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Any particular tips about how you get the Sonny Terry style down?

00:16:37.418 --> 00:16:38.200
Well, just listening.

00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.243
I mean, that's the only way.

00:16:40.302 --> 00:16:49.535
I mean, when I was a kid coming up, I mean, all I had was, well, I had some 78s by Sonny, which I never really played them.

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I kept them because I bidded for them at an auction.

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But I kept them.

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But I had LPs.

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And I just had an old Danceth record player.

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And all you had to do was keep on putting the needle over and over, which ruined the record, really, because you were trying to make it.

00:17:08.714 --> 00:17:13.586
Because you didn't have DVDs or videos or anything like that.

00:17:14.114 --> 00:17:19.202
I was sitting in an old colliery house playing this in my mother's bedroom, you know, so upstairs, you know.

00:17:19.303 --> 00:17:30.544
Yeah, I mean, on that, it's, obviously we're spoiled now with computers, you know, there's programs like Transcribe, where I've actually got my own website where I've done various transcriptions, including a couple of your records, which you'll let me add on to that.

00:17:31.404 --> 00:17:42.147
But, you know, the ability to be able to loop small sections, really slow it down, you know, to really break it down, you know, we're spoiled for that now, but I don't know, how do you think maybe that compares to the way you used to have to do it with a record?

00:17:42.208 --> 00:17:49.598
Maybe there was something about that which kind of made you soak it in a little bit more than this kind of ability just to be able to do it on the computer nowadays.

00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:50.881
Well, I'm not sure.

00:17:50.921 --> 00:17:52.743
I mean, because I didn't know about this.

00:17:53.424 --> 00:17:59.634
I didn't know about the technology then, obviously, so this is what I had, and that's the only way I thought it would work.

00:17:59.694 --> 00:18:06.505
And the way Terry used to do it, he used to go around on the medicine shows, and he would pick up tips of...

00:18:07.586 --> 00:18:14.273
Jay Bird Coleman, or they were on, you know, the only way to get any music was to go around and see it.

00:18:14.374 --> 00:18:33.739
Well, he couldn't see, but he would go, he worked on a medicine show, and some, on the travels that he did, because when I spoke to him, he used to say, you know, like I said, Jay Devenport, Dee Ford Bailey, who was a big star then, you know, of the harmonica, he really, you know, put it out there, you know.

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

00:18:38.721 --> 00:19:10.661
and he was seeing that and that's the only way he would get his tips from and mine was from a record by Sonny and going back and forth now for me it stuck stuck right in me that and I can relate to it today I think the kids of today because I've talked to them and they say um oh, yeah, you play like Terry Paul.

00:19:10.761 --> 00:19:12.324
He said, oh, yeah, I can do that.

00:19:12.344 --> 00:19:13.025
Yeah, I've done that.

00:19:13.105 --> 00:19:15.788
I said, oh, how long did you spend on that?

00:19:15.969 --> 00:19:17.731
Oh, about a couple of months or something.

00:19:17.892 --> 00:19:19.694
I said, oh, I did about 12, 40 years.

00:19:20.596 --> 00:19:24.241
And then I said, well, oh, let me hear you.

00:19:25.002 --> 00:19:27.547
And then they play it, and I go, oh, God.

00:19:28.167 --> 00:19:30.211
I said, you've got another 50 years to go on that, mate.

00:19:30.872 --> 00:19:32.994
I said, that doesn't sound like Terry at all.

00:19:33.576 --> 00:19:37.602
You know, all them players had little things that they put in that were...

00:19:38.049 --> 00:19:44.019
You think you had it, and you missed that little thing that was in there that's vital to that sound, you know?

00:19:44.540 --> 00:19:54.818
Oh, Monika, more than probably any instrument, it's got so many small subtleties to it, and it's just different in the breath, you know, very small bends just coming in and out very quickly.

00:19:55.539 --> 00:20:13.353
You know, there's tongue warbles, flurries, there's all sorts of little puckering things going on, and, you know, you kind of really, you know, you just, you know, when I'm teaching or stuff, I'm just showing how to, you know, the pursed lip or playing a tongue-blocking style, which that was new for me, calling tongue-blocking.

00:20:13.673 --> 00:20:14.694
It was always a chord.

00:20:15.115 --> 00:20:17.838
I mean, I played them in the early days, chords or vamping.

00:20:18.539 --> 00:20:26.469
My grandfather used to play vamping, was putting the tongue over the one hole and letting the two side fills come in, you know?

00:20:26.690 --> 00:20:37.909
But he would make like a Constantino sort of sound where his tongue would be fluctuating back and forth And it was like, you know, he'd be playing C shanties and stuff, and they were fantastic.

00:20:38.169 --> 00:20:39.691
Great, tuneful sounds, you know.

00:20:40.251 --> 00:20:40.452
Yeah.

00:20:40.772 --> 00:20:44.778
So are you, well, on that question, so are you mainly tongue-blocking when you play?

00:20:46.541 --> 00:20:47.343
I'm using both.

00:20:47.824 --> 00:20:52.431
I mean, I'm tongue-blocking, single notes, puckering.

00:20:54.453 --> 00:20:56.958
You got to play with Sonny Terry as well, I hear.

00:20:57.018 --> 00:20:57.499
Is that right?

00:20:57.538 --> 00:20:58.279
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:06.936
I went, well, Steve Rye took me You know, when Sonny was coming across, got into the dressing rooms with Terry and McGee.

00:21:07.178 --> 00:21:14.410
But at that time, the one getting on, Brownie was pretty cool.

00:21:14.750 --> 00:21:17.515
Well, they were both cool, but they kept their distance.

00:21:18.016 --> 00:21:20.279
I mean, I'm sure it would have worked better today for them.

00:21:20.299 --> 00:21:22.604
They would have kept their distance really far, you know.

00:21:22.624 --> 00:21:25.087
Is this when they were touring the UK?

00:21:25.568 --> 00:21:26.510
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:27.593 --> 00:21:27.792
And...

00:21:28.801 --> 00:21:34.488
There was one time I was down in, it was in Soho somewhere, and they played this little coffee bar or something, and I was in there.

00:21:35.449 --> 00:21:41.355
And Sonny took sick, and Brownie, well, I'd been travelling with him a little bit, and he got to know me.

00:21:41.994 --> 00:21:43.457
And he just says, jump up.

00:21:44.156 --> 00:21:46.480
He says, cover him up, you know.

00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:49.742
I mean, nobody took any, there wasn't any sort of footage of it.

00:21:50.604 --> 00:21:53.767
But that, I just was like, my legs were like jelly, you know.

00:21:54.208 --> 00:21:55.107
Oh, that's amazing.

00:21:55.229 --> 00:21:56.369
How old were you then?

00:21:57.057 --> 00:22:01.542
Well, I would have been about 20, 21.

00:22:01.643 --> 00:22:03.085
You're still pretty young then.

00:22:03.144 --> 00:22:05.186
That's a very daunting experience.

00:22:07.328 --> 00:22:10.452
Well, I had come back from Germany in 1975.

00:22:12.255 --> 00:22:15.999
That's when I had done the World Harmonica Championships.

00:22:16.078 --> 00:22:26.009
And that's how I got to know Steve Rye and stayed down in London with him because he wanted me to teach him to play the Terry Stare because I had him sewn up.

00:22:26.306 --> 00:22:38.156
well, not really sewn up then, but you can never, you know, when you're doing somebody's style, you kind of say that you've mastered them completely because they are the master themselves, you know.

00:22:38.561 --> 00:22:42.465
But you had him still down good enough to play with Brown and McGee at that stage.

00:22:42.566 --> 00:22:43.527
Oh, yeah.

00:22:44.047 --> 00:22:49.592
I played along with him in the dressing rooms and he knew what I was playing and Terry's eyes were all wobbling all over when I was playing.

00:22:49.652 --> 00:22:51.693
So, we got on, you know.

00:22:52.454 --> 00:22:56.739
So, did Terry show you particularly anything or did he give you some pointers?

00:22:57.339 --> 00:22:58.140
No, nothing.

00:22:58.760 --> 00:22:59.181
Not a thing.

00:22:59.221 --> 00:23:00.041
No.

00:23:00.221 --> 00:23:08.049
He just sat there and just, you know, we just talked about different things about people and, you know, what he did.

00:23:08.738 --> 00:23:18.729
And one of the great things that I saw one time when they were playing, they were wearing, both of them were wearing these big hats, brownie and sunny, and they had zips on the hat.

00:23:18.969 --> 00:23:22.211
And I thought, and they were really big hats, full, they looked full.

00:23:22.932 --> 00:23:24.894
And I thought, oh, I said, what's in there?

00:23:24.914 --> 00:23:26.576
You know, he says, come in the dressing room, boy.

00:23:27.137 --> 00:23:27.738
You know, like this.

00:23:27.778 --> 00:23:31.442
So I went in the dressing room, he unzipped the hat and he brought a bottle of whiskey out.

00:23:34.506 --> 00:23:36.448
And they're like whiskey and full cream.

00:23:36.607 --> 00:23:52.334
And on the other one, they had, um, like a like a jar of clotted cream and then they poured the cream out and poured the whiskey into that and they were drinking that so I had a drink with them I'd never heard that before cream and whiskey didn't know that was a drink yeah yeah was that a good drink?

00:23:52.954 --> 00:24:07.917
that was pretty good well I was in all of them too anyway so it didn't matter you know yeah yeah oh superb so yeah it's a great experience so you you basically got to spend some time with them when they were touring on the UK yeah yeah yeah did more than one tour did they around the UK?

00:24:08.385 --> 00:24:09.227
Yeah, they did a few.

00:24:09.468 --> 00:24:12.571
I mean, I didn't get to all of them because I had to get back up the northeast.

00:24:12.593 --> 00:24:16.479
And I had a, well, I had a, I was decorating, I was a painter and decorator.

00:24:16.499 --> 00:24:17.720
That was my job, you know.

00:24:17.740 --> 00:24:20.605
So, you know, I had to get back up there.

00:24:20.644 --> 00:24:25.051
But the harmonica by then was in full flow for me.

00:24:25.211 --> 00:24:27.275
And I had done the apprenticeship.

00:24:28.056 --> 00:24:33.765
So, and I had, I managed to get a little firm together up there doing work and stuff.

00:24:33.805 --> 00:24:40.188
But That harmonica, well, the blues, that music, the blues was calling me, so I had to make a decision.

00:24:41.128 --> 00:24:41.829
Yes, you did.

00:24:41.849 --> 00:24:45.334
So, I mean, congratulations on a very long, illustrious career now.

00:24:45.374 --> 00:24:50.619
You've been playing harmonica for, what, a good 30, 35 years or so.

00:24:50.660 --> 00:24:53.142
You've managed to have it as your career.

00:24:53.162 --> 00:24:56.726
So have you been pretty much a full-time musician during that time?

00:24:57.326 --> 00:25:03.012
Oh, yeah, yeah, since then, since I was about 30, 31.

00:25:04.097 --> 00:25:35.624
I became a professional professional musician then I mean I just just come back from Barbados so I was out there for me and my wife when we got married out there this just just gone last last month and and I get I get to play with a lot of people out there and in the church it's a very religious place and in the churches on a Sunday morning I think I'm the only white guy in there and and They play gospel, and they play it real.

00:25:35.804 --> 00:25:37.266
I mean, they're very religious.

00:25:37.685 --> 00:25:41.990
And I get up with the choir, play the harmonica and sing, and do a lot of gospel stuff, you know.

00:25:42.210 --> 00:25:45.133
Yeah, you've done a few gospel songs, haven't you, on some of your albums as well?

00:25:45.292 --> 00:25:46.233
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:46.253 --> 00:25:47.315
Yeah, that's appropriate.

00:25:47.355 --> 00:25:48.155
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:48.195 --> 00:25:48.435
Great.

00:25:48.455 --> 00:25:49.436
So, yeah, so, yeah, great.

00:25:49.457 --> 00:25:53.500
So moving on then to when you formed Paul, I'm the King Snake.

00:25:53.520 --> 00:25:57.124
So that's been your band since when?

00:25:57.144 --> 00:26:01.307
89, I would say.

00:26:01.327 --> 00:26:03.230
88, 89.

00:26:03.521 --> 00:26:13.637
I mean, it was the Paul Lamb Blues Band, and that's when I came down to London, and the Burglars, they didn't want to take...

00:26:13.698 --> 00:26:16.823
They all had decent jobs up north, so they didn't want to take the risk.

00:26:16.903 --> 00:26:17.683
I took the risk.

00:26:18.645 --> 00:26:20.448
And I came down with John Whitehill.

00:26:21.951 --> 00:26:26.357
Well, he was my sidekick, and we sort of formed...

00:26:27.170 --> 00:26:30.032
the Paul Lamb Blues band, we've got different people in.

00:26:30.573 --> 00:26:34.436
There was Jim McCarty in the beginning from the Yardbirds, he was on drums.

00:26:35.377 --> 00:26:39.422
There was loads of different people coming through it.

00:26:39.521 --> 00:26:47.250
One thing you've always had, certainly since that time, is your name in the band.

00:26:47.529 --> 00:26:48.730
It's a Paul Lamb band.

00:26:51.794 --> 00:26:55.357
But you haven't been usually the main singer, you sing on a few songs.

00:26:55.842 --> 00:27:01.048
I'm doing more singing now when I do a lot of acoustic folk stuff as well.

00:27:01.488 --> 00:27:10.238
But then the harmonica, it wasn't, I don't think it was used that much around that period.

00:27:10.317 --> 00:27:14.923
I mean, the 50s was the big time with Little Walt and all them guys and it slipped the 70s, 80s.

00:27:14.962 --> 00:27:16.765
I mean, it was all disco stuff.

00:27:17.266 --> 00:27:19.949
And for me, the harmonica was my whole life then.

00:27:20.009 --> 00:27:24.413
So I used that as the big feature in the band then.

00:27:24.961 --> 00:27:28.046
I mean, it was the voice of the band, really.

00:27:28.567 --> 00:27:33.011
I mean, it was, you know, answering and calling the voice, really.

00:27:33.573 --> 00:27:34.273
That's what I was doing.

00:27:34.334 --> 00:27:44.547
And that's one of the reasons I love your music, is, you know, obviously being a harmonica player myself, and a lot of people listen to this, you know, listening to your albums, there's plenty of harmonica, you know, great harmonica to enjoy.

00:27:44.626 --> 00:27:47.069
And so, you know, that's a real big attraction for me.

00:27:47.089 --> 00:27:48.051
So that definitely works.

00:27:48.071 --> 00:27:52.517
And obviously it's worked for you, you know, while you've been successful all these years, too.

00:27:52.798 --> 00:27:53.117
Yeah.

00:27:53.473 --> 00:27:56.398
The thing is, Neil, as well, it doesn't get in the way.

00:27:58.201 --> 00:27:59.704
It's not getting in that.

00:27:59.785 --> 00:28:00.326
It's the trick.

00:28:01.007 --> 00:28:04.272
A lot of harmonica players, they're in the way.

00:28:04.534 --> 00:28:12.488
They're not listening to the spaces, to where it should be put, to where it fits, to leave out, to come back in.

00:28:12.528 --> 00:28:15.834
They're just...

00:28:16.193 --> 00:28:18.837
they're being selfish, you know, they're just playing all around everything.

00:28:18.877 --> 00:28:23.365
They're not listening to a word that singer's doing or what's going on, you know.

00:28:23.404 --> 00:28:40.108
Yeah, we can ask you about that because, again, a distinctive part of your band's sound is that there's, you know, the harmonica's in there a lot and then you often play quite rhythmically and behind the singer but without getting in the way, as you're saying, you know, not stepping on the singer which a lot of harmonica players, as you say, can do.

00:28:40.209 --> 00:28:56.512
So, But getting back to the Burglars, well, the Paul Lamb Blues Band and the Kingsnakes, what happened was when the band, I got in John Dickinson, who's sadly passed away, and he was fantastic.

00:28:56.633 --> 00:28:58.515
I had Dave Stevens on upright bass.

00:28:58.535 --> 00:28:59.757
I had different drummers in.

00:28:59.876 --> 00:29:00.157
I had...

00:29:00.834 --> 00:29:05.199
Johnny Whitey on guitar, me on harp and backing vocals or whatever it was then.

00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:12.387
But the band, which I can relate to, they didn't want to just be called a blues band.

00:29:13.068 --> 00:29:14.490
You know, it was a Paul Lamb blues band.

00:29:14.530 --> 00:29:15.531
I said, well, what do you want to do?

00:29:16.333 --> 00:29:19.836
And they said, well, we'd like to have a bit of an identity, you know, like a name.

00:29:20.278 --> 00:29:23.682
I said, well, you call yourselves what you want, you know, whatever you want.

00:29:24.182 --> 00:29:28.027
As long as I'm, it'll be Paul Lamb and whatever it is, you know.

00:29:28.667 --> 00:29:30.410
And so they decided on the Kingsnakes.

00:29:30.978 --> 00:29:34.224
And that's what came in 1989.

00:29:34.285 --> 00:29:39.595
And we recorded the first Kingsnakes one called Hype and Woman.

00:29:40.257 --> 00:29:42.922
And that was the first one I recorded with the Kingsnakes.

00:29:43.001 --> 00:29:44.945
I had recorded with the Burglars before.

00:29:45.627 --> 00:29:50.557
And that came out in 1990 on Blue Horizon, Mike Vernon's label.

00:29:51.041 --> 00:29:54.287
And that was the first Kingsnakes one, yeah.

00:29:54.507 --> 00:30:02.880
So again, so you've always been the band leader, you know, you've been the guy who gets the musicians together, maybe sorts out a lot of the gigs early on before, maybe you have agents and things.

00:30:03.180 --> 00:30:05.784
So is that a role you played in the band?

00:30:06.005 --> 00:30:10.912
Yeah, I was band leader, manager, you name it, I was everything, you know.

00:30:11.692 --> 00:30:19.585
Until later on I got into, well, sort of, there was management came around and record companies, which I had to deal with that myself.

00:30:20.130 --> 00:30:21.811
getting deals with record people.

00:30:21.892 --> 00:30:24.675
I had some of the big ones as well.

00:30:24.695 --> 00:30:28.059
I did a show with Mark Knopfler.

00:30:29.221 --> 00:30:30.483
I was a guest.

00:30:31.023 --> 00:30:32.046
Mark invited me.

00:30:32.086 --> 00:30:38.534
He heard me playing and he invited me to the town and country that was then in 1990, I think it was.

00:30:40.135 --> 00:30:44.821
He got me to play on a little tour with him with the Notting Hillbillies.

00:30:45.343 --> 00:30:54.661
And There was a guy, Andrew Lauder, who used to work for Silverton and Point Bank, Virgin.

00:30:55.320 --> 00:30:57.202
They wanted to sign me up.

00:30:58.064 --> 00:31:03.409
And I put an album together called Shifting Into Gear, which was a great, great album.

00:31:03.429 --> 00:31:05.730
I recorded that out in Scandinavia.

00:31:06.392 --> 00:31:10.355
And they were going to buy that off me and sign me up.

00:31:10.395 --> 00:31:13.598
And I thought, I've made it.

00:31:13.878 --> 00:31:16.862
This is great to be signed up by Virgin Records.

00:31:17.346 --> 00:31:47.523
you know, that's a great, great accolade for me, you know, and what happened was John Wooler, who was the A&R guy then, he was the one that come and saw me, come and saw us at the 100 Club, come and saw me at the Mean Fiddler, all over the place, and he said, we're going to sign you up, Paul, he says, we've got this album, we'll love it, it's fantastic, we're going to put it out, and I rang John on the Monday, that was on the Friday when we spoke, and I rang John on the Monday, and he says, I got the bullets.

00:31:47.903 --> 00:31:49.065
He got the sack.

00:31:49.705 --> 00:31:51.367
John, he was moved somewhere else.

00:31:51.989 --> 00:31:53.631
And so it didn't go through.

00:31:53.651 --> 00:31:56.653
And I was gutted.

00:31:57.214 --> 00:31:58.836
So I had to chase around.

00:31:58.896 --> 00:32:00.239
I had an album on my hands.

00:32:00.798 --> 00:32:06.145
And CNN Records, they bought it from me.

00:32:06.506 --> 00:32:07.788
They were based in Belgium.

00:32:08.307 --> 00:32:09.849
And I was touring Europe a lot then.

00:32:09.970 --> 00:32:10.891
So it was pretty good.

00:32:10.951 --> 00:32:12.854
So I was selling a lot, you know.

00:32:13.346 --> 00:32:17.030
Indigo Records got a hold of me, Dale Taylor and Colin Newman.

00:32:17.631 --> 00:32:17.811
Yeah.

00:32:18.051 --> 00:32:26.102
And they signed me up and I recorded about 10 albums for them, which were fantastic.

00:32:26.603 --> 00:32:28.365
They were behind me.

00:32:28.625 --> 00:32:41.642
Then it would be when I was touring and when you did a tour, you would tell them you were in Germany or Belgium or Holland and they would stock over to the record stores if I was touring that area, you know.

00:32:42.465 --> 00:32:43.626
It's not like that now.

00:32:43.707 --> 00:32:48.751
It doesn't work like that now, but that's when it was, and I was selling a lot of CDs, you know?

00:32:49.313 --> 00:32:49.893
Yeah, brilliant.

00:32:49.913 --> 00:32:53.737
Yeah, through streaming now, that kind of revenue's been cut away, hasn't it?

00:32:53.936 --> 00:32:54.498
Oh, it's gone.

00:32:54.617 --> 00:32:54.938
It's gone.

00:32:55.618 --> 00:33:05.387
Yeah, I was going to ask about, you know, if you've got any advice for people who are, you know, maybe starting out with a band or, you know, in the early stages of a band, any advice?

00:33:05.407 --> 00:33:11.253
I mean, maybe things are so different now that it's hard to give that, but any advice you would give to those people?

00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:14.994
Well, I mean, you just do it yourself.

00:33:15.194 --> 00:33:17.199
You know, I think you save enough money off the band.

00:33:17.578 --> 00:33:21.645
I mean, I've always done it by myself.

00:33:22.227 --> 00:33:23.809
I've always been a one-man show.

00:33:23.829 --> 00:33:26.032
You know, I've funded it.

00:33:27.336 --> 00:33:32.284
If I was doing it for the band, I would pay for their costs.

00:33:33.125 --> 00:33:35.588
You know, the bands, they would get a session.

00:33:35.829 --> 00:34:15.219
Well, Indigo and these other bands, labels that I was working for they paid all that and I was getting an advance for that so but what I would say for anybody starting now is just like record if you're happy with it get it mastered get it done and if you're gigging just sell them at the gigs yourself and sell them online and if something comes up that's the beauty now I mean you know it's like what happened with Amy Winehouse she was just You know, doing it on, you know, getting different hits on YouTube and that, you know, and somebody picks it up.

00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:17.384
It could just become something for you.

00:34:17.443 --> 00:34:22.431
But other than that, with my music, it's just been, I've loved doing what I've done.

00:34:22.472 --> 00:34:35.353
And the money was the bonus, you know, because when I first started, I was just doing it for a beer or a couple of beers and a packet of crisps or something like that.

00:34:35.713 --> 00:34:35.994
Yeah.

00:34:36.014 --> 00:34:37.775
And it became a business.

00:34:38.036 --> 00:34:40.980
It became in love with the music.

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:46.746
And what came on the side was the bonus, you know, which became a livelihood for me, you know.

00:34:47.226 --> 00:34:52.873
Yeah, but I think it shows that, you know, like you said yourself, you've had to put a lot of work into that side of things, the business side.

00:34:53.092 --> 00:34:56.175
So if you want to be successful, you've got to do that side as well.

00:34:56.637 --> 00:34:57.458
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:57.898 --> 00:35:00.780
So you've won a Best Harmonica Player in...

00:35:01.601 --> 00:35:11.378
Well, we had from the 90s when it was in full flow, we had best band, best harmonica player, best album.

00:35:11.739 --> 00:35:12.681
They were going through right.

00:35:14.123 --> 00:35:18.873
The awards in the house are just, and then I've got loads of them from Europe as well.

00:35:19.634 --> 00:35:24.682
I mean, they're great, but I mean, it doesn't make my head go any bigger or anything like that.

00:35:24.742 --> 00:35:26.365
It's just, it's nice to have.

00:35:26.882 --> 00:35:29.405
It's nice to raise the profile as well when you get them.

00:35:29.726 --> 00:35:32.630
You were kind of monopolising the awards in the 90s.

00:35:32.690 --> 00:35:36.737
I remember your name getting those every year, very consecutive years in the 90s.

00:35:37.338 --> 00:35:38.260
Well, that's what happened.

00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:39.402
I was getting that many.

00:35:39.461 --> 00:35:46.572
I was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the likes of Peter Green and John Mayall.

00:35:46.612 --> 00:35:48.255
I got a chance to play with Peter as well.

00:35:48.635 --> 00:35:49.757
I knew Peter quite well.

00:35:50.465 --> 00:35:58.253
And you mentioned Martin Offler, but some of the other people you play with, so you have The Who and Rod Stewart and Jimmy Nail and some of these names.

00:35:58.333 --> 00:36:02.036
Any particularly more memorable stories from any of those other guys?

00:36:02.657 --> 00:36:05.581
Well, like I said, Jimmy Nail, he was a friend of mine.

00:36:05.621 --> 00:36:11.327
He's from the Northeast, obviously, you know that.

00:36:11.947 --> 00:36:13.528
Yeah, well, he had Alveda's own pet.

00:36:13.568 --> 00:36:17.913
And when I came down to London, it was the same time as Jimmy came down for Alveda's own pet.

00:36:17.932 --> 00:36:18.813
It was the same time.

00:36:19.521 --> 00:36:23.847
And Jimmy would come to some of my shows and get up, because he played a little bit of harmonica, not very good.

00:36:24.768 --> 00:36:27.952
But he was there at that show with Junior Wells and Buddy Guy.

00:36:28.672 --> 00:36:31.835
And he was trying to get up, and Junior said, no, you're not getting up.

00:36:31.856 --> 00:36:32.617
You know, that was it.

00:36:33.137 --> 00:36:42.248
But Jimmy got me to do a scene in, I think it was either Spender or Crocodile Shoes.

00:36:42.288 --> 00:36:45.692
He flew me up to Durham Prison.

00:36:46.733 --> 00:36:47.273
And he was...

00:36:47.617 --> 00:36:51.081
doing a film in there of Crocodile Shoes or Spender or something.

00:36:51.461 --> 00:36:53.262
And he got me to play the harmonica on that.

00:36:53.463 --> 00:36:57.027
And then he did an album and he got me on the album to play harmonica as well.

00:36:57.628 --> 00:37:00.170
You know, but I've known Jimmy for years, you know.

00:37:00.449 --> 00:37:07.516
And you're also a friend with some of the sort of big American names, you know, Kim Wilson, Rob Piazza and the like as well, yeah.

00:37:07.777 --> 00:37:09.278
So what about those guys?

00:37:09.318 --> 00:37:10.840
How did you meet them?

00:37:11.501 --> 00:37:12.141
Great players.

00:37:12.922 --> 00:37:16.164
A very good friend of mine is Jerry Portnoy who...

00:37:17.634 --> 00:37:26.726
I mean, when he was doing the Eric Clapton thing in the mid-90s, he would come across here and stay with me and whatever, have a bit of a laugh, go out for meals and stuff.

00:37:27.288 --> 00:37:29.572
And he flew me out for his 60th birthday.

00:37:29.612 --> 00:37:31.655
That was in 2003 to Boston.

00:37:32.235 --> 00:37:32.956
We were all there.

00:37:33.376 --> 00:37:38.103
All the Hall players, it was Kim, you know, William Clark.

00:37:38.284 --> 00:37:39.887
We were all friends with Bill.

00:37:40.146 --> 00:37:41.670
We were all great.

00:37:42.030 --> 00:37:43.152
Just having a laugh, you know.

00:37:43.192 --> 00:37:50.590
And the thing is, though, with those American guys like Rod, Kim, fabulous players.

00:37:50.630 --> 00:37:54.175
They had it on the doorstep, you know?

00:37:54.215 --> 00:37:55.376
Yeah.

00:37:55.577 --> 00:38:00.125
They could walk out in the street sometime and they'd see them in the club, you know?

00:38:00.666 --> 00:38:10.099
When Kim was down in Austin, Texas, or Rod was in, you know, where he was on the West Coast or whatever, he would see all the different players going, George Smith and everybody, you know?

00:38:10.621 --> 00:38:11.702
Talk through some of your albums.

00:38:11.742 --> 00:38:13.405
You've got quite a big...

00:38:14.177 --> 00:38:42.989
list of releases i think 19 albums i've counted from your website so uh one of one of them's a compilation your most recent one is that the live one at royal albert hall yeah i think that's the most that was the last one i did yeah um are you singing an old songs on that one i think i think so yeah yeah i'm doing a one um it's it's a sunny terry brownie mcgee one i think and i just put the band around it you know and Preaching the Blues, I think it is.

00:38:43.130 --> 00:38:43.911
I think it's up there.

00:38:44.452 --> 00:38:44.652
Yeah.

00:38:45.112 --> 00:38:45.773
Yeah, yeah.

00:38:45.793 --> 00:38:48.018
Like Nine Below Zero, I think.

00:38:48.097 --> 00:38:49.219
You know, one with Ryan.

00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:52.826
Ryan's just playing like acoustic guitar with me and stuff like that.

00:38:52.867 --> 00:38:54.028
There's a free one there, you know.

00:38:54.048 --> 00:38:55.431
And then Ida, that's the one I'm singing.

00:38:56.172 --> 00:38:56.373
Yeah.

00:38:56.833 --> 00:38:59.378
If you lose your money, please don't lose your mind.

00:38:59.978 --> 00:39:03.704
I've listened to a lot of your albums over the years and, you know, I've listened to a lot of your songs and...

00:39:04.706 --> 00:39:07.590
an album which provides a good overview for people.

00:39:07.690 --> 00:39:12.356
It's a Harmonica Man compilation because it kind of follows, it spans some of your career, doesn't it?

00:39:12.376 --> 00:39:15.699
So you get quite a nice view of your career on that.

00:39:15.739 --> 00:39:16.922
That's a double album, isn't it?

00:39:16.961 --> 00:39:19.865
So that's a really good one for people to check out, you know, you over the years.

00:39:20.927 --> 00:39:21.947
That was good.

00:39:21.967 --> 00:39:32.202
I got signed up for Universal, which was, that was a big label because Indigo, they closed down and they sold it out.

00:39:32.802 --> 00:39:36.688
And they only signed two artists from the Indigo.

00:39:37.108 --> 00:39:41.594
And that's a good, I like that album, but it's all deleted now.

00:39:41.875 --> 00:39:45.360
I mean, I've still got one copy in the house, but that was a good seller for me.

00:39:46.081 --> 00:39:50.827
Because it's a good repertoire of the band from the early days to what it was up to then.

00:39:51.088 --> 00:39:52.510
Yeah, definitely, yeah.

00:39:52.706 --> 00:39:54.186
It's still on Spotify, that album.

00:39:54.608 --> 00:39:54.947
All right.

00:39:55.027 --> 00:39:59.612
Streaming platforms, other stream platforms.

00:40:00.773 --> 00:40:05.918
So, yeah, and the album After Hours, which I think you did in 2016, you did that near me.

00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:08.740
I know Paula Riordan.

00:40:09.302 --> 00:40:10.202
Yeah.

00:40:10.282 --> 00:40:11.824
I live near Reading, so I know Paula.

00:40:11.844 --> 00:40:15.467
So you recorded that at her studio near Reading, didn't you, I believe?

00:40:16.007 --> 00:40:18.510
Yeah, we recorded that hole in the wall.

00:40:18.670 --> 00:40:22.273
That was the one before it was recorded in Paula's studio.

00:40:22.818 --> 00:40:43.050
studio we recorded that there and um after after we recorded the whole session we decided to um knock edgewood said oh we'll have a few drinks upstairs and she just put the ambience mic hanging And after hours, we just played what we felt on there, you know, we're just playing.

00:40:43.092 --> 00:40:45.657
And I really like that album, you know.

00:40:45.737 --> 00:40:47.621
Yeah, nice, really relaxed live to it.

00:40:47.641 --> 00:40:50.487
And yeah, like you say, just a kind of jamming kind of feel to it, isn't it?

00:40:50.507 --> 00:40:53.413
It's just loose, you know, we didn't even say what we're going to do.

00:40:53.492 --> 00:40:57.360
I just started something out or somebody would sing something, we'd just join in.

00:40:57.420 --> 00:40:59.806
And that was the way it was, you know, that's the way it came out.

00:41:13.153 --> 00:41:23.668
Another big one for you, again, I remember when I was at university in the early 90s, Harmonica Man came out, and me as a harmonica player, you know, I was delighted.

00:41:23.728 --> 00:41:28.193
I was out in the clubs at university listening to a harmonica coming out over the clubs.

00:41:28.213 --> 00:41:28.954
That was superb.

00:41:28.974 --> 00:41:31.478
So what happened with that Harmonica Man song?

00:41:32.077 --> 00:41:33.039
That was Paula again.

00:41:33.820 --> 00:41:34.862
Oh, was it?

00:41:34.882 --> 00:41:35.842
Yeah, she did that.

00:41:35.902 --> 00:41:36.864
She produced it.

00:41:37.425 --> 00:41:40.748
I was out there with her, and they were looking...

00:41:41.570 --> 00:41:46.617
Well, originally, what was going around was that Cotton Eye Joe, if you can remember.

00:41:46.838 --> 00:41:47.458
Yeah, yeah.

00:41:47.539 --> 00:41:50.282
We had a little spate of that sort of song, wasn't there?

00:41:50.382 --> 00:41:50.844
Yeah, yeah.

00:41:50.923 --> 00:41:53.266
Well, they actually stole it from us.

00:41:53.987 --> 00:41:58.114
And we were a bit late in getting it out on the thing.

00:41:58.153 --> 00:41:59.536
They had heard Harmonica Man.

00:42:00.016 --> 00:42:00.918
They got me in.

00:42:00.938 --> 00:42:01.800
Paula got me in.

00:42:02.059 --> 00:42:03.461
I had a backing singer called Betty.

00:42:03.963 --> 00:42:08.750
And then Paula played the keys on it and the backing stuff.

00:42:09.010 --> 00:42:11.112
And I played that part on the harmonica, obviously.

00:42:11.713 --> 00:42:13.496
And it was a huge, huge hit.

00:42:14.137 --> 00:42:14.818
It was massive.

00:42:14.838 --> 00:42:16.521
We were, I mean, I made a lot of money.

00:42:16.561 --> 00:42:26.574
I met up with, well, I met Taylor because obviously went down into Waterman's Studios in the West End and just, you know, hung out a bit in there.

00:42:27.114 --> 00:42:31.440
There was people interviewing me from all around the world saying, what's this new music, Paul?

00:42:31.460 --> 00:42:32.581
This new music you're playing?

00:42:33.242 --> 00:42:34.644
I said, this isn't new music.

00:42:34.704 --> 00:42:36.887
I was probably shooting myself in the foot when I said it.

00:42:37.528 --> 00:42:39.492
I said, what it is, it's street music.

00:42:39.972 --> 00:42:40.934
It's all of the hills.

00:42:41.313 --> 00:42:43.175
but I said, this is as fresh as a daisy to me.

00:42:43.797 --> 00:42:50.264
And I said, you know, I'm just playing an old style with a backbeat behind it, you know?

00:42:50.364 --> 00:42:52.286
Yeah, it was kind of new, wasn't it?

00:42:52.306 --> 00:42:56.911
It was kind of Sonny Terry with that kind of modern, like you say, backbeat, that dancey sort of track behind it.

00:42:56.990 --> 00:42:57.751
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:58.313 --> 00:43:01.275
All that sort of stuff, you know?

00:43:01.976 --> 00:43:02.197
Yeah.

00:43:02.456 --> 00:43:09.385
Talks about a few of the, a few of your instances early on, John Mayall and Sonny Terry, but just, are there any particular...

00:43:11.041 --> 00:43:44.262
favorite albums that you know beyond those or ones that you mentioned earlier on or any favorite uh so any a couple of favorite albums maybe albums which you think are worth checking out for harmonica players well obviously that one uh that that that's a must for getting that harmonica sound that beautiful marine band sound is uh brownie mcgain sunny terry sings on forkways another one that i i really liked was um a one by big walter horton the soul of blues harmonica And there's another one called Fine Cuts for Big Walter.

00:43:45.182 --> 00:43:46.643
That's a superb one, isn't it?

00:43:46.744 --> 00:43:49.086
That's the one with Laku Karachi on, isn't it?

00:43:49.146 --> 00:43:49.586
Yeah, yeah.

00:43:49.768 --> 00:43:51.710
Well, I do all that sort of numbers.

00:43:51.949 --> 00:43:53.391
Walter Swing on that album.

00:43:53.411 --> 00:44:05.644
I really love that song, Walter Swing, on that album.

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

00:44:11.585 --> 00:44:14.731
And there's another one, An Offer You Can't Infuse.

00:44:14.871 --> 00:44:17.193
That was on Red Light, the label that I was with.

00:44:17.675 --> 00:44:21.780
On one side is Big Walter, and on the other side is Paul Butterfield.

00:44:21.860 --> 00:44:25.806
But the one with Big Walter on is fantastic.

00:44:26.447 --> 00:44:27.708
It's just two of them playing.

00:44:28.170 --> 00:44:34.137
I think it's Robert Nighthawk's playing, and it's Big Walter on half.

00:44:34.358 --> 00:44:37.001
Any particular favourite tracks you want to pull out?

00:44:37.202 --> 00:44:39.326
You mentioned some of the albums there.

00:44:40.034 --> 00:45:12.016
there's a one it's called Blues for the Lowlands and I'm not sure it's on different albums and also Blowing the Fuses and my motto as well what Sonny always said to me is to Just play what you feel and feel what you play.

00:45:12.056 --> 00:45:15.181
And that's what them two did when I spoke to them.

00:45:15.282 --> 00:45:17.264
They never rehearsed in their life.

00:45:18.146 --> 00:45:20.047
One would start and the other one would follow.

00:45:20.869 --> 00:45:22.771
The other one would start and the other one would follow.

00:45:23.293 --> 00:45:24.735
And that's the way they did it, you know.

00:45:25.235 --> 00:45:34.608
And there's a bit that should be a bit of that in music today, you know, having a little bit of, I call it tight but loose, you know.

00:45:34.989 --> 00:45:36.831
And that's the way I play.

00:45:37.032 --> 00:45:42.980
I mean, all the lads in the bands there, they all say, yeah, Paul, that's Paul's motto, play what you feel and feel what you're playing.

00:45:43.019 --> 00:45:44.322
I can't say any better than that.

00:45:44.342 --> 00:45:54.148
You might not be fantastic in what you do, but you just, what you've got, you stick with it and play it the best you can and play what you feel and feel what you play.

00:45:54.228 --> 00:45:54.668
And that's it.

00:45:55.170 --> 00:45:55.731
Yeah, absolutely.

00:45:55.751 --> 00:46:02.643
I can see when you see one of your shows, you know, you really try and make it an event, you know, you can really see that and it comes across really well in that way.

00:46:02.663 --> 00:46:06.889
So, you know, it's an entertaining event as well, you know, it's just we're going to go and see some music.

00:46:06.929 --> 00:46:13.561
So some questions now around maybe your playing style and then a bit about, you know, talk a little bit about gear.

00:46:14.434 --> 00:46:17.056
Any particular way that you approach learning the harmonica?

00:46:17.177 --> 00:46:18.978
You've talked about it's about listening.

00:46:18.998 --> 00:46:22.661
That's a lot of the way I learned to play, was playing along with records.

00:46:22.742 --> 00:46:26.425
Any particular approach to how you learned to play the harmonica?

00:46:27.226 --> 00:46:28.106
Not really.

00:46:28.186 --> 00:46:31.471
It's the feeling aspect of it as well.

00:46:31.510 --> 00:46:36.476
You have to want to feel it, have it, to do it.

00:46:37.155 --> 00:46:38.297
That's the main thing.

00:46:38.476 --> 00:46:49.735
If you have that and you're inspired by one of them players, whoever it be, you'll find your route.

00:46:49.976 --> 00:46:50.717
You'll find it.

00:46:51.657 --> 00:46:55.364
You will find your way with it, you know, because you'll persevere with everything.

00:46:55.384 --> 00:47:00.010
Because I used to, I remember I used to throw the harmonica on the floor and virtually stamp on it.

00:47:00.650 --> 00:47:02.032
Well, that's when I used to pay for them.

00:47:02.735 --> 00:47:03.956
So, I mean, I didn't stamp on it.

00:47:04.016 --> 00:47:07.621
But anyway, you got frustrated.

00:47:08.289 --> 00:47:13.443
And you were trying to get this lick or riff or whatever it was, and you couldn't get it.

00:47:13.885 --> 00:47:17.414
And then you threw it down, left it for a couple of days and come back.

00:47:18.516 --> 00:47:21.063
And it started to come in again.

00:47:21.385 --> 00:47:21.766
You got it.

00:47:22.146 --> 00:47:23.269
And that's the way I worked it.

00:47:23.369 --> 00:47:24.652
You know, you would find it.

00:47:25.538 --> 00:47:27.480
And I think you're absolutely right what you're saying.

00:47:27.541 --> 00:47:33.067
It's what I always felt, is if you have that real passion for it, you know, and it just kind of burns inside, you know, you just want to do it.

00:47:33.086 --> 00:47:35.030
That's the way you really get good, I think, isn't it?

00:47:35.050 --> 00:47:39.615
You know, you really have that drive to do it and you just, you know, you don't want to do anything else.

00:47:39.635 --> 00:47:40.717
Well, I had to do it.

00:47:40.757 --> 00:47:41.657
I had to do it.

00:47:41.677 --> 00:47:43.601
I gave up everything for it, you know.

00:47:43.681 --> 00:47:50.789
So, I mean, I left a home up north to travel with this, well...

00:47:51.362 --> 00:47:53.364
I'm an entertainer, I call that as well.

00:47:53.585 --> 00:48:00.213
There's a thing about Big Bill Brunsey, and he never liked to call himself a blues man.

00:48:00.253 --> 00:48:01.655
He called himself an entertainer.

00:48:02.235 --> 00:48:06.802
I mean, I would say I'm a blues man, but with entertainment on the side, you know.

00:48:07.702 --> 00:48:11.447
And you do play, obviously, some blues chromatic as well, don't you?

00:48:11.487 --> 00:48:15.873
So any particular thoughts on that and how it differs from the diatonic?

00:48:17.094 --> 00:48:19.197
Well, I mean, the style I'm playing...

00:48:19.489 --> 00:48:27.579
In the chromatic, it's probably, well, it's the third position on the diatonic, really, in the chromatic scale.

00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:29.101
That's the way I'm playing it.

00:48:29.521 --> 00:48:32.945
It would be in the vein of, well, of George Smith, really.

00:48:33.485 --> 00:48:37.510
He was the pioneer of that big West Coast chromatic sound.

00:48:37.570 --> 00:48:38.891
That's what everybody was after.

00:48:51.297 --> 00:48:57.827
I mean, Little Walter was great, Big Walter, but for me, George was the best of the chromatic players.

00:48:57.887 --> 00:49:02.875
I mean, that's the way I base mine, but I try and I'll play like any of them.

00:49:03.215 --> 00:49:04.938
I can play like them all if I want.

00:49:05.038 --> 00:50:20.262
I can play it note for note if I want to go for Little Walter or Big Walter or any of the guys, really, because once you've mastered one style, it's easy, easier to get to the other style because they're all playing the same notes they're just phrasing it differently to put their own little brand on it and that's what it is and that's what I've done over the years I've mixed up Terry, Big Walter you know all of them, shuffled them all around and here comes Paul Lamb you know so I put my little brand on it and that's what everybody's striving for I see a lot of the bands they're trying to play note for note like Little Walter or any of the half players and basically little Walter he wouldn't even he wouldn't remember what he played the night before let me tell you that neither would Terry no they could not play the same way as what they did the night before yeah I think that's the way with some of those older guys you know we hear the records and you kind of think oh that's what they played like but you know if you actually saw them live it would be very different and a few of the live recordings I've heard of little Walter you can hear that the differences are definitely there aren't they Well, there's about four or five different versions of Duke.

00:50:21.043 --> 00:50:34.826
And all the Chess Brothers did, they used to play around Chicago, get drunk, bring them in at three in the morning and set the recording going, and they would get the best recordings out of them.

00:50:35.005 --> 00:50:35.646
That's what they did.

00:50:36.088 --> 00:50:39.193
And that won the classic of Little Walter Duke, which is the killer.

00:50:39.793 --> 00:50:43.981
I mean, you've heard different ones to it, and it doesn't even come close to it, you know?

00:50:44.782 --> 00:50:44.862
Yeah.

00:50:55.746 --> 00:50:57.628
And that's on the same session.

00:50:58.489 --> 00:51:06.036
So you can imagine they're just catching them at the right minute, the right time.

00:51:06.516 --> 00:51:07.978
And that's it.

00:51:07.998 --> 00:51:10.119
But there's one thing with Terry.

00:51:10.900 --> 00:51:13.382
I don't know if you've heard the thing of what Terry said.

00:51:13.422 --> 00:51:21.610
In the 40s, he was picked up to do a Broadway show, Ophinion's Rainbow.

00:51:21.771 --> 00:51:23.193
It was a big, big hit.

00:51:23.213 --> 00:51:24.514
It was a Broadway musical.

00:51:25.090 --> 00:51:27.612
And they got Sonny in to do it.

00:51:28.353 --> 00:51:33.298
And the big boss came in to see Sonny and said, hey, Sonny, you got the job.

00:51:33.358 --> 00:51:34.199
He says, thanks, man.

00:51:34.440 --> 00:51:37.704
He says, but you got to play the same way every night, you know.

00:51:38.364 --> 00:51:41.708
It's got to be exactly note for note the same way every night.

00:51:41.788 --> 00:51:42.909
And Sonny said, I can't do it.

00:51:43.530 --> 00:51:44.791
He says, I can't play like that.

00:51:44.871 --> 00:51:46.873
He says, I can just play the way I feel on that night.

00:51:47.514 --> 00:51:49.617
And he says, but you've got to play like that.

00:51:50.277 --> 00:51:52.039
Sonny walked away and he come in the next morning.

00:51:52.360 --> 00:51:54.121
I mean, this is one of Sonny's jokes he tells.

00:51:54.945 --> 00:51:59.871
And he comes back the next day and he sees the boss and he says, excuse me, sir.

00:51:59.911 --> 00:52:01.693
He says, how much are you paying me for this?

00:52:02.474 --> 00:52:03.617
And he told him the price.

00:52:03.697 --> 00:52:06.199
And Sonny said, oh, yes, I can play it the same way every night.

00:52:08.543 --> 00:52:10.324
The money was talking, you see.

00:52:10.405 --> 00:52:13.047
But he wouldn't have, the guy would not have known.

00:52:14.349 --> 00:52:16.472
Sonny would have played clever, you know.

00:52:16.492 --> 00:52:19.717
He would have had somebody pointing up to say, you're finished now.

00:52:19.896 --> 00:52:20.797
But he would have...

00:52:20.961 --> 00:52:23.405
it would have sounded pretty much the same.

00:52:23.445 --> 00:52:25.949
But he couldn't play it exactly note for note.

00:52:26.510 --> 00:52:27.030
No, no.

00:52:27.532 --> 00:52:29.614
So let me finish up this section on the playing.

00:52:29.735 --> 00:52:46.440
One question I'm going to ask each of the recordings of the podcast is if you had 10 minutes to work on the harmonica, and again, maybe thinking back to when you were starting out, or now, how you play, what would you practice on it?

00:52:46.460 --> 00:52:49.246
Or what do you recommend people would just play for 10 minutes?

00:52:49.634 --> 00:52:53.858
You know, just with the view that you pick it up and then that 10 minutes might extend longer.

00:52:54.318 --> 00:52:55.579
Just one of Sonny's rhythms.

00:52:56.380 --> 00:52:57.041
Yeah.

00:52:57.322 --> 00:53:02.166
That's what I would work on because rhythm is the main thing in harmonica.

00:53:02.608 --> 00:53:04.510
Just that sort of, if you can hear it on...

00:53:04.530 --> 00:53:30.650
Yeah! You know, just working, and they're a great breathing technique.

00:53:31.494 --> 00:53:33.023
It helps you with your breathing pattern.

00:53:33.697 --> 00:53:35.059
I mean, I wouldn't be out of breath.

00:53:35.119 --> 00:53:37.501
I could play that all day long and I wouldn't be out.

00:53:37.601 --> 00:53:40.184
Some people would think, well, you're just drawing and drawing and drawing.

00:53:40.224 --> 00:53:41.284
Your lungs are going to burst.

00:53:41.744 --> 00:53:44.067
But just that sort of rhythm.

00:53:44.407 --> 00:53:53.375
I think that illustrates as well, doesn't it, that the big sound you can get out the harmonica, the little humble diatonic harmonica by playing, you know, that kind of chord rhythmical stuff.

00:53:53.414 --> 00:53:56.478
It really shines, particularly in that big sound you can get out.

00:53:56.978 --> 00:53:59.760
Yeah, just moving on to Talking Gears.

00:54:00.141 --> 00:54:01.681
What harmonica do you play now?

00:54:01.722 --> 00:54:02.963
What's your active choice?

00:54:03.664 --> 00:54:06.668
Horner Marine Bands, always.

00:54:07.389 --> 00:54:13.096
Horner Marine Bands, Horner Chromatics, the 12-hole and the 16-hole, you know.

00:54:13.175 --> 00:54:15.177
You're endorsed by a Horner now, is that right?

00:54:15.197 --> 00:54:16.139
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:16.259 --> 00:54:20.063
So any particular of the Marine Bands, you know, deluxe or the crossovers?

00:54:22.567 --> 00:54:24.849
Well, I used to have the old ones.

00:54:26.152 --> 00:54:31.197
Just what I do, when they go out a bit, I send them to John Cook.

00:54:31.746 --> 00:54:34.889
who's the harmonica repair guy, you know.

00:54:35.431 --> 00:54:42.900
So basically, if I was purchasing now, it would just be the old-style marine band, you know, the original.

00:54:43.521 --> 00:54:51.291
There was a guy who used to do them for me, Tony Daniger, and he was bringing out, and he was sending me some stuff, and they were fantastic.

00:54:51.371 --> 00:54:56.318
And the second best of that would be the crossover, you know, that would be the one.

00:54:56.833 --> 00:54:59.057
that I'd go to next, you know?

00:54:59.277 --> 00:54:59.438
Yeah.

00:54:59.978 --> 00:55:02.804
So do you have a favourite key of harmonica?

00:55:03.465 --> 00:55:11.378
Well, for me, if I'm singing or doing Terry stuff, it would be a B-flat harmonica cross style playing an F, you know?

00:55:11.898 --> 00:55:16.445
Or sometimes the A-harp playing an E, you know, and then a F, you know, so...

00:55:16.994 --> 00:55:18.396
That range is nice, isn't it?

00:55:18.416 --> 00:55:26.005
It gives you that kind of fat sound, you know, the low bassy notes on that, and then there's something about those A's and B flats, isn't there, which are a particular sweet thing.

00:55:26.045 --> 00:55:26.865
But yeah, it's interesting.

00:55:27.646 --> 00:55:31.751
Do you play any different tunings, or do you stick to the traditional tuning of the diatonics?

00:55:32.472 --> 00:55:34.355
Most of them are the traditional.

00:55:34.755 --> 00:55:40.842
I play them all in three positions, you know, first, cross, and third.

00:55:41.364 --> 00:55:44.887
There is a couple of harmonic guys, a couple of guys sent me...

00:55:46.753 --> 00:55:50.981
and it's tuned like to the chromatic scale.

00:55:53.105 --> 00:55:59.255
There's a few things, you know, but I don't use minor tunings or anything like that.

00:55:59.856 --> 00:56:05.626
Just the normal harp, you know, in them three positions.

00:56:06.067 --> 00:56:12.496
Sometimes I might cross over, which I'm not sure that I'm playing in another position, which seems to work because that's what I've tried to do.

00:56:12.994 --> 00:56:42.686
making the harmonica fit into the song and if some I picked some harmonica up and like somebody sent me the the customised harmonica and I tried it and I wasn't too sure and then I just started phoning around and I started getting a few tunes out of it so there you go you know so but you know most of the time it's just in the straight keys and stuff like that you know and amplifier wise you still play a Fender Basin as your main main gigging amp do you?

00:56:43.074 --> 00:56:50.202
Well, if I'm traveling, it's either a Fender Bassman or I've got a Fender 410 Concert, which is 1960.

00:56:50.422 --> 00:56:52.244
That's a nice amp.

00:56:52.485 --> 00:56:59.253
And, you know, there's different mics there, which, as I would like to say once again, it's not the mic.

00:56:59.873 --> 00:57:02.898
It's the guy that's behind the mic that gives you the sound.

00:57:03.277 --> 00:57:05.460
So are your amps modified in any way?

00:57:06.101 --> 00:57:06.402
No.

00:57:07.010 --> 00:57:32.003
stock it's just set up for a guitar it comes out you know good tubes in there that's it using a static mic or you know different mics like that you know the only if I'm using I'll not really use any effects If there's any effect I won't use on it, it's probably I've got a delay pedal that I might use on there sometimes.

00:57:32.583 --> 00:57:36.949
Yeah, it's just the choice, isn't it, the delay pedal, just to fatten up the sound a little bit, isn't it?

00:57:36.969 --> 00:57:40.414
It seems to be the one default pedal that everyone goes for.

00:57:41.076 --> 00:57:50.530
But it's the dry sound, mainly that's what I do, just straight in, plug in to the normal channel, and then crank it a bit, and then run away, you know.

00:57:51.210 --> 00:57:54.315
Do you have a small amp that you might use in, you know, maybe smaller gigs?

00:57:55.458 --> 00:57:55.498
Um...

00:57:56.130 --> 00:57:59.793
There's a couple of little amps up at the top of the garden that I have there.

00:57:59.833 --> 00:58:02.596
There's a little DeVille.

00:58:02.996 --> 00:58:03.177
There's...

00:58:03.336 --> 00:58:05.199
I mean, I'm not a one for...

00:58:05.518 --> 00:58:07.900
You know, a lot of the half-plays are not everything.

00:58:08.161 --> 00:58:10.463
Oh, you should use this element in here.

00:58:10.824 --> 00:58:12.045
I'm not one for them, you know.

00:58:12.085 --> 00:58:14.248
If it sounds good after you hear it, that's pretty good, you know.

00:58:14.768 --> 00:58:18.371
But you do use a small amp sometimes, do you, when the gig calls for it?

00:58:19.052 --> 00:58:19.853
Yeah, I would use...

00:58:19.893 --> 00:58:20.773
Yeah, of course.

00:58:20.954 --> 00:58:24.657
But most of the time, if I'm playing a small gig, I'll just play acoustic.

00:58:25.313 --> 00:58:31.282
And me and Chad, my main singer, we go out as a duo.

00:58:31.882 --> 00:58:33.664
Yeah, absolutely, as a duo.

00:58:33.684 --> 00:58:34.766
Yeah, yeah, great.

00:58:34.987 --> 00:58:37.811
Yeah, and it's, there's nothing much there.

00:58:37.990 --> 00:58:43.077
I mean, as you can see, the PA, we sometimes don't even use it at a small club, you know.

00:58:43.579 --> 00:58:44.920
I just say, right, we don't need it.

00:58:44.960 --> 00:58:46.123
You know, we never use monitors.

00:58:46.682 --> 00:58:48.885
We just, because, I mean, why use monitors?

00:58:48.905 --> 00:58:50.047
We're sitting next to each other.

00:58:50.068 --> 00:58:52.672
We can hear what each other's playing, you know.

00:58:52.692 --> 00:58:54.494
People get a bit crazy about it, you know.

00:58:54.626 --> 00:58:58.791
Yeah, it's good to hear, like you say, a lot of the time the gear gets in the way, doesn't it?

00:58:58.831 --> 00:59:01.335
And it's a lot of hassle to lug around and set up.

00:59:01.416 --> 00:59:04.780
If you don't need it, it's better, isn't it?

00:59:04.920 --> 00:59:05.882
Well, I'm 65 now.

00:59:06.063 --> 00:59:09.668
I mean, it's all right when I'm, well, I'll not be in Europe for a while, I don't think.

00:59:10.268 --> 00:59:12.192
But we've got all books for tours and everything.

00:59:12.251 --> 00:59:17.739
But when I'm out there, it's all stuff hired in anyway, you know, guys looking after you out there.

00:59:17.780 --> 00:59:19.001
So it's pretty cool.

00:59:19.623 --> 00:59:20.885
Yeah, those basements are pretty heavy.

00:59:20.925 --> 00:59:22.367
Those offender basements are pretty heavy.

00:59:23.447 --> 00:59:24.510
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:24.737 --> 00:59:37.175
you've mentioned at the moment the whole COVID-19 thing that's obviously hit gigs pretty hard but have you got any gigs lined up for later in the year any tours coming up later in the year that hopefully you'll be back in action then that you're looking forward to?

00:59:37.876 --> 01:00:17.246
There is well all they've done is they're just holding them back all them gigs that I had for the springtime and the summer they've just put them on hold I've got them so you know there's all sorts of different places just check check the website out for when it when it all comes back into the group because I think music is the last thing that everybody's wanting well they want it a little bit for the rise of spirits you know raise the spirits up a bit but I mean people going out is going to be that's going to be still a scary, scary time for when it all blows over this.

01:00:17.887 --> 01:00:19.210
Yeah, it'll be interesting, won't it?

01:00:19.230 --> 01:00:20.492
But anyway, let's see what happens.

01:00:20.512 --> 01:00:22.414
Obviously, I'll add you to the gig list as well.

01:00:22.556 --> 01:00:25.619
Thanks for sending them through and make sure your gigs get on there as well.

01:00:25.659 --> 01:00:28.043
So you'll get plenty of gigs onto there.

01:00:28.545 --> 01:00:30.728
In the meantime, are you doing some teaching?

01:00:30.748 --> 01:00:31.628
Do you still do teach?

01:00:31.929 --> 01:00:32.550
Yeah, I do.

01:00:33.733 --> 01:00:37.398
But it'll have to be on Skype or something like that.

01:00:37.418 --> 01:00:46.871
I do them all, some in America, some for for Europe, you know, so, and even Hong Kong, you know, I've done a few for that.

01:00:47.331 --> 01:00:54.159
Well, I'll put the links to your website in the description so people want to get in touch and, yeah, as you say, as you're a bit homebound at the moment, it's a good time.

01:00:54.219 --> 01:00:57.925
If people want to get a lesson from you, then obviously, yeah, take advantage of that.

01:00:57.985 --> 01:00:59.847
That'd be, that'd be superb, yeah.

01:01:00.608 --> 01:01:07.155
I'm still selling produce from, from, from my, from my shop.

01:01:07.657 --> 01:01:08.657
It's on your website, aren't they?

01:01:08.717 --> 01:01:10.860
So, yeah, again, links to the, the link will be on.

01:01:11.181 --> 01:01:17.706
Just, just before, Have you got that one with Playing the Blues, me and John Dickinson?

01:01:18.226 --> 01:01:18.967
Have you heard that one?

01:01:19.849 --> 01:01:20.650
I don't think so.

01:01:20.690 --> 01:01:22.373
Is that the name of the album, Playing the Blues?

01:01:22.914 --> 01:01:23.454
Playing the Blues.

01:01:23.534 --> 01:01:24.615
It's me and John Dickinson.

01:01:24.936 --> 01:01:25.898
It's fantastic.

01:01:25.938 --> 01:01:27.840
That is a must.

01:01:27.860 --> 01:01:34.971
That is like, for me, my version of Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry Sings.

01:01:35.331 --> 01:01:38.757
I mean, it's not in the Brownie McGee style.

01:01:39.237 --> 01:01:41.961
It's all different styles, but it's pretty cool.

01:01:42.530 --> 01:01:43.612
Okay, no, that's super.

01:01:43.672 --> 01:01:44.914
Thanks a lot for taking the time.

01:01:44.974 --> 01:01:47.277
It's been, we could talk all day quite happily.

01:01:47.478 --> 01:01:48.358
Oh, easy, easy.

01:01:48.378 --> 01:01:49.440
I haven't even touched it yet.

01:01:50.161 --> 01:01:52.945
You know, again, congratulations on a very long and successful career.

01:01:52.965 --> 01:01:54.469
Lots of great recordings you've done.

01:01:54.509 --> 01:01:55.630
Thank you.

01:01:55.650 --> 01:01:57.393
You know, a lot of your songs are really loved.

01:01:57.413 --> 01:02:03.342
You know, One Evening Stone is a really, a song I really loved at one time, and yours, and Skin Jumps, another one.

01:02:03.864 --> 01:02:05.326
Yeah, so many of your songs.

01:02:06.027 --> 01:02:06.728
All the best, Neil.

01:02:07.068 --> 01:02:07.730
Thanks very much.

01:02:08.226 --> 01:02:09.568
That's it for today, folks.

01:02:09.929 --> 01:02:17.663
Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica.

01:02:17.983 --> 01:02:23.934
Be sure to check out their website.