June 4, 2020

Peter Madcat Ruth interview

Peter Madcat Ruth interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Jazz Diatonic

A grammy award winner, Peter Madcat Ruth has enjoyed a long career, from playing jazz with the Brubecks, to numerous solo projects and playing in various bands and duos and trios. Madcat has loved Sonny Terry from the start and has really mastered the style, and gives some pointers during the podcast.

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

Madcat's website:
http://www.madcatmusic.net/index.html

Equipment:
Shaker microphones:
https://shakermicrophone.net

Seydel rack:
https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ViewObjectID=43096716&Currency=EUR

Tuition Videos:
The Ins and Outs of Rhythm Harp:
https://www.homespun.com/shop/product/the-ins-and-outs-of-rhythm-harp/

Crossing the Great Divide video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yzYq4Z1JbA&list=PLIFByKm0UhsSacA6MfePEZji8j_gSiTLU

YouTube videos:

Take Five:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzDS9Mous5o&list=PLIFByKm0UhsRNUvAbrJHd7oOGAEBi0n7Z&index=2

Harmonica & percussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukh3kayiz28

Sonny Terry Meets Jimmy Hendrix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVw51Fk1hvo&list=PLIFByKm0UhsTu1OYkZjEgnwXB8ZG8hho7&index=2

Madcat & Kane: Rollin & Tumblin’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRUd8kY3L70&list=PLIFByKm0UhsRBfF_sswS2WUrtaig9ehsk

Pandemic Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qonON7jl4vc&list=PLIFByKm0UhsTu1OYkZjEgnwXB8ZG8hho7


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

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

01:14 - Madcat name

02:44 - Growing up around Chicago

03:23 - First recordings that got Madcat hooked on harmonica

04:54 - Lessons with Big Walter

09:36 - Early recordings Madcat liked

10:23 - Ukulele was first instrument, then guitar

11:39 - First harmonica

13:23 - First bands

14:34 - Started playing with Brubeck brothers

18:02 - Playing with Dave Brubeck, including Take Five

19:51 - Rapidly switching harmonicas

21:20 - Overblows

21:25 - Madcat & Kane duo

23:12 - Performs regularly in Brazil

24:04 - Harmonica and Ukulele Project album

25:15 - Plays multiple instruments

27:07 - Current band

27:31 - Awards

30:30 - Advice for upcoming harmonica players

31:35 - Playing harmonica on a rack

35:00 - Teaching

35:56 - Playing harmonica at top end

36:52 - Ins and Outs of Rhythm Harmonica DVD

38:50 - Sonny Terry style

41:04 - Playing fast on the harmonica

42:48 - Singing

43:48 - Chromatic harmonica

44:17 - 10 minute question

45:02 - Reading music

45:44 - What harmonica Madcat plays

45:54 - Embouchre

47:08 - Favourite key of harmonica

47:38 - Different tunings

49:12 - Overblows

50:40 - Amp

53:16 - Sonny Terry meets Jimmy Hendrix song

54:52 - Effects pedals

56:19 - Mics

57:09 - Future Plans

WEBVTT

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Hi, Neil Warren here again and welcome to another episode of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast with more interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today.

00:00:09.949 --> 00:00:17.262
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the tracks 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.

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Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:00:33.465 --> 00:00:35.408
Peter Madcat Roof joins me today.

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A Grammy Award winner, Madcat has enjoyed a long career from playing jazz with the Brubecks to numerous solo projects and playing in various bands and duos and trios.

00:00:45.793 --> 00:00:51.564
Mad Cat loves Sumi Terry from the start and has really mastered the style and gives some pointers during the podcast.

00:01:08.953 --> 00:01:11.558
So hello, Peter Mad Cat Roof and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:11.906 --> 00:01:12.966
Well, thank you very much.

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I'm glad to be here.

00:01:14.129 --> 00:01:16.731
Peter Madcat-Ruth, where did the Madcat come from?

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Well, when I was in high school, I was a big blues fan.

00:01:21.216 --> 00:01:26.123
I was in this very large high school, but very few of us listening to blues.

00:01:26.703 --> 00:01:30.147
Our musician heroes had great names.

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Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Lightning Hopkins.

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They had these fabulous names, and so amongst this group of blues enthusiasts, we made up, we called them blues names, we made up these names for each other.

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It was just a joke amongst five or six people.

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There was Sunnyland Seidenberg, and there was Big Boom, and there was Mad Cat, and as I say, completely just a joke amongst friends.

00:01:57.007 --> 00:02:03.638
And then three years later, I joined a band, and the drummer in the band was named Peter.

00:02:04.066 --> 00:02:04.927
which is my name.

00:02:04.966 --> 00:02:10.052
So I joined this band, moved to another city where I didn't know anyone except the band members.

00:02:10.752 --> 00:02:13.637
And they said, well, we can't have two Peters in the same band.

00:02:13.657 --> 00:02:14.578
Do you have any nicknames?

00:02:14.677 --> 00:02:16.780
And I said, yeah, you could call me Mad Cat.

00:02:17.281 --> 00:02:25.530
So from right then, I guess that was 1969, I was introduced to everyone in this new town as, oh, this is Mad Cat.

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He just moved here from Chicago.

00:02:27.312 --> 00:02:32.657
That's when the name changed from being just a joke nickname to my stage name.

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Yeah, well, it's a good name.

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And it seems to suit your image with your kind of wild flowing hair as well.

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I think it works well.

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Yeah.

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So obviously you grew up or you're born in Illinois.

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You were around the Chicago area.

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So what was it like growing around there?

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And what sort of influence did that have on you in your early life and musical life?

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I grew up in this town called Park Ridge, which was just the northwest first suburb on the northwest side of Chicago.

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And great radio shows.

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I could listen to the radio and watch Almost everyone was listening to the top 40 radio stations.

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I was listening to the soul music radio stations coming out of Chicago.

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And they'd be soul music up till midnight and then blues from midnight till four in the morning.

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And that was my introduction to genuine, real Chicago blues.

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I was a big fan.

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I loved that stuff.

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Do you remember when you first heard harmonica, what was it that got you hooked on the harmonica?

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First harmonica player that really got me hooked was Sonny Terry.

00:03:32.897 --> 00:03:36.263
And I heard him on a, it was a folk music radio show.

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Every Saturday there was this show called the Midnight Special.

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They played three hours of folk music and I heard Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and it just blew my mind.

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I was 15 years old.

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I'd already been playing some guitar, but when I heard at age 15, I heard Sonny Terry playing harmonica.

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I said, oh man, I'm going to have to learn how to do that.

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And so for the first two years of playing harmonica, Really, the only harmonica player I ever listened to was Sonny Terry.

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And

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then 1966 or so, I started saying, well, I wonder who else is out there.

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And Junior Wells had just come out with Hoodoo Man Blues.

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That was one of the first records I got.

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And the Paul Butterfield first record came out.

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And I bought the best of Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson.

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And then the three records set Chicago the Blues today with Junior Wells, Big Walter Horton, James Cotton.

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From there on, I just dove in to listening to harmonica all the time.

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I believe you went on then to have a few lessons with Big Walter himself.

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So how was that?

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Mind-blowing.

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I was in this Unitarian Church youth group in 1966.

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I'd go down there because...

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These kids seem to have a different appreciation for blues than the kids in my hometown.

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And they wanted to put on a blues weekend.

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And they wanted to hire a genuine blues band.

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So we chipped in some money and$150 or something.

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And we sent one guy down to a store called Jazz Record Mart, which was also home of Delmark Records, and said, well, we have this much money.

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Who can we get to come to play in our church basement on a Saturday afternoon?

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And he sat down, Johnny Young, Big Walter Horton, and this young, skinny, white drummer.

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And at the time, I had no idea who he was.

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Later, it turned out to be Iggy Pop at this Saturday afternoon concert.

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I was just blown away because here's Big Walter Horton and Johnny Young playing together.

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right there in the church basement, and I'm sitting, you know, in the front row.

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And I already knew who they were because I had this record set, Chicago the Blues, today.

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So I was just blown away by this fabulous music.

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I heard Walter Horton tell someone else, oh, yeah, I give lessons.

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And I said, oh, my God, he gives lessons.

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And this was October.

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It took till the next April to get up my nerve.

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But he said, oh, yeah, I give lessons.

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Contact me through Jazz Record Mart.

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Went down there and said, how do I get all the big Walter Horton?

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And he said, well, call Lincoln's Grocery Store.

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He doesn't have a telephone, but call Lincoln's Grocery Store.

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and keep calling there because he hangs out there sometimes.

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So I did.

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I called and kept calling, and maybe the fourth or fifth time he was there, and we set up a time to take a lesson.

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I ended up taking three lessons with him.

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Well, that was fantastic.

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You're so lucky, first of all, to get him as your blues band that you saw and then to have some lessons with him.

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What was he like then as a person?

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Interesting.

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When you take a harmonica lesson these days, someone will say, well, yeah, you get out and you play hole number four and bend it down a half step and all this stuff.

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He would say absolutely nothing like that.

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He'd just get a harmonica out and go, you do it.

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So then I'd try to go, say no.

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And then he'd play it again.

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You do it.

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And after a while, he'd just point.

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He'd play something and just point at me, and I'd try to do it.

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And

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he'd say, no, or just give a sour look, you know.

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And that was the entire lesson.

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He'd tell me what key he was playing, and that's all.

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It was all by ear other than that.

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So did you feel you got good value for money from these lessons?

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Absolutely, because I was hearing– the possibilities of what could be done on a harmonica.

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You know, when you hear it on a record or something, you think, oh, well, maybe it's some studio trick, or they added extra reverb, or it was something other than what it really was.

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But he was getting this incredibly fabulous tones and sounds, and he was just on the other side of the kitchen table from me.

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So mainly, what I learned is that it was possible.

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And then by the next lesson, play.

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You

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do it.

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You know, I was getting closer.

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And by the third lesson, you know, he'd do something like.

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You

00:09:02.427 --> 00:09:04.251
know, and I'd be able to get the notes.

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I didn't have the tone.

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But I had the notes and I was working on the tone.

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Although I did say one of the most foolish things I ever said was what I, at the first lesson, he said, well, what do you want to know?

00:09:18.248 --> 00:09:20.710
And I said, I want to know how to play like Junior Wells.

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Because I had just been listening so much to the Hoodoo Man Blues record.

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And I really did want to learn how to play like Junior Wells.

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But it was kind of the wrong thing to say to Big Walter Horton.

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Do you remember any particular records which really grabbed you in the early days?

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Yeah, the three-record set on Vanguard called Chicago the Blues Today.

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It's fabulous.

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Any particular tracks?

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Well, there's one called Rock My Boogie or something with Big Walter Horton and Charlie Musselwhite playing second harmonica.

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That's a really great track.

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But

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all of this stuff on that record, the big Walter Horton with Johnny Young and the big Walter Horton with Johnny Shines, especially fabulous.

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So before then, when you were younger...

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Did you play any other sorts of instruments?

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Because you play quite an assortment of instruments now, which we'll get onto, but I think you liked singing initially, didn't you?

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I was crazy about the Kingston Trio when I was 11 years old, and the kid across the street had a ukulele that he got tired of, and he gave that ukulele to my brother.

00:10:47.802 --> 00:10:55.669
Then my brother got tired of it, and I took over the ukulele at age 11, and I started trying to play along with the Kingston Trio records.

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So ukulele was my first instrument.

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I played that a year and a half or so and asked my parents if I couldn't get a guitar, and they got me a guitar eventually.

00:11:06.340 --> 00:11:12.385
So then I took guitar lessons at a local guitar store, and I did that for a year or so.

00:11:12.446 --> 00:11:16.149
And then I learned about the Old Town School of Folk Music.

00:11:16.870 --> 00:11:21.434
So maybe when I was 14 or something, I started taking guitar lessons there.

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Guitar was my main instrument at that time until...

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age 15 when I heard Sonny Terry.

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And I continued to play guitar.

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I still play guitar.

00:11:31.941 --> 00:11:38.451
My guitar playing is pretty good, but my harmonica playing quickly surpassed my guitar playing.

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I hear that your first harmonica was one you got from your father.

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You had one buried in his sock drawer somewhere.

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That is absolutely correct.

00:11:48.846 --> 00:11:51.971
My father had a B-flat marine band.

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He'd play maybe 10 minutes a year.

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And he'd play just little melodies and stuff.

00:12:07.115 --> 00:12:07.735
Things like that.

00:12:07.755 --> 00:12:14.225
He wasn't particularly good at it, but I guess you don't get good at it if you only play it 10 minutes a year.

00:12:15.778 --> 00:12:19.923
But I got my first recording with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

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It was a collection of songs called Folk Music at Newport.

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And Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee had two songs on the record.

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So I got out the harmonica and I tried playing along.

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On one song, it sounded awful.

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And on the other song, fortunately for me, my...

00:12:39.265 --> 00:12:43.591
Sonny Terry was playing on a B-flat marine band exactly like what my dad had.

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So when I just chugged along, at least it was in the same key.

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And so that gave me hope for continuing to play.

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I

00:12:53.086 --> 00:13:00.798
also hear that when you were younger, just learning again, you used to walk around the street and even ride your bike playing the harmonica.

00:13:01.599 --> 00:13:02.460
Absolutely, yeah.

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Starting at age 15, I always had a harmonica with me and I I did a lot of playing while riding a bike, a lot of playing walking around, even in high school, between classes in school.

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I played the harmonica while walking from one class to another because

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I was hooked.

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I think your first concert was in a neighbor's house, in a house concert, and then you were in a church band before joining a blues band when you were 18.

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I started just playing solo, and then I met a kid that Played a lot of different instruments.

00:13:37.868 --> 00:13:40.309
And we had a band called the Petey Tweety Band.

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And it was ukulele and bongos.

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And he played some flute.

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I played some harmonica.

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And he played guitar, too.

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And so we had this eclectic little music band.

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I went to a year of college at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

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I put up a notice on the bulletin board saying, I'm looking for a band.

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I play harmonica.

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and got a call from a guy, and I joined his band.

00:14:08.238 --> 00:14:11.221
It was called the Stanley Moss Blues Band.

00:14:12.263 --> 00:14:15.006
I was also in, maybe this was even earlier.

00:14:15.047 --> 00:14:16.248
Yeah, I think it was even earlier.

00:14:16.268 --> 00:14:19.292
I was in a band called the Soulful Seven.

00:14:19.873 --> 00:14:20.953
We played soul music.

00:14:21.254 --> 00:14:28.322
There was bass, guitar, drums, and harmonica playing the saxophone parts that you'd hear on our soul music record.

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We had three singers up front.

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That was a good education, too.

00:14:34.658 --> 00:14:39.166
I think in the 1970s then, your career started really taking off.

00:14:39.225 --> 00:14:43.533
And what was one of your first real professional gigs playing with the Brubeck brothers?

00:14:44.216 --> 00:14:54.514
So for people who don't know, they're the sons of Dave Brubeck, the very famous jazz piano player who had the best-selling jazz single of all time, Take Five.

00:14:55.096 --> 00:14:55.615
That's right.

00:14:56.258 --> 00:14:58.100
So in 1968...

00:14:58.754 --> 00:15:02.878
I got a call from a friend, said there's going to be a jam session at his house.

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Why don't I come by?

00:15:04.158 --> 00:15:10.926
And there was a bunch of high school students from a music school called Interlochen Arts Academy.

00:15:11.966 --> 00:15:15.990
And they were in town to play a concert, a classical music concert.

00:15:16.932 --> 00:15:19.173
And they were being put up at people's houses.

00:15:19.274 --> 00:15:22.317
And this friend said, come on over and join the jam session.

00:15:22.356 --> 00:15:22.876
So I did.

00:15:22.957 --> 00:15:27.442
And Chris Brubeck was one of these kids, probably 16 years old at the time.

00:15:27.841 --> 00:15:29.004
We had this jam session.

00:15:29.063 --> 00:15:30.405
It went really well.

00:15:30.485 --> 00:15:44.607
And at the end of that session, he said, well, give me your address and phone number because a year from now, I'm going to graduate this school and I'm going to start a band and we're going to make records and I want you to be on it.

00:15:45.148 --> 00:15:47.532
Did you know he was the son of Dave Brubeck at this point?

00:15:48.092 --> 00:15:49.654
Yeah, I was told that.

00:15:49.956 --> 00:15:55.203
And I thought, okay, here's my name and address and I'll never hear from this kid again.

00:15:55.283 --> 00:15:56.605
But sure enough, a year later...

00:15:56.929 --> 00:16:01.417
I get a letter in the mail, and it says, I'm going to record our first demo tape.

00:16:01.476 --> 00:16:04.160
I want you to come to Michigan and be on it.

00:16:04.721 --> 00:16:11.150
So I joined his band called New Heavenly Blue, and that was in the spring of 1969.

00:16:12.452 --> 00:16:20.566
First demo record led to a second demo session, which led to our first recording on RCA record.

00:16:20.926 --> 00:16:23.289
Yeah, I was just a kid myself, but...

00:16:24.162 --> 00:16:30.510
I was in his band and recording in professional recording studios and on a genuine record label.

00:16:31.432 --> 00:16:35.297
You recorded a soundtrack for Jesus Christ Superstar as well during that time.

00:16:36.339 --> 00:16:50.577
Yeah, we never recorded anything for Jesus Christ Superstar, but the band, New Heavenly Blue, the rock band, playing with the Kansas City Symphony and the Dallas Symphony and performing the show.

00:16:51.105 --> 00:16:52.768
So that was kind of mind-boggling too.

00:16:52.849 --> 00:16:56.013
I'd never been on a stage with a symphony orchestra, that's for sure.

00:16:56.875 --> 00:16:59.839
And then you went on to play with Darius Brubeck as well.

00:17:00.299 --> 00:17:02.923
Yeah, it was a little bit later.

00:17:02.964 --> 00:17:15.261
After the first RCA record, we did another audition at Atlantic Records and were picked up by Atlantic Records and did our second New Heavenly Blue record on Atlantic Records.

00:17:15.394 --> 00:17:18.037
So then we started a third project.

00:17:18.076 --> 00:17:20.019
It was a band called Sky King.

00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:25.705
Some of the members of New Heavenly Blue started playing in this new band, Sky King.

00:17:25.946 --> 00:17:32.734
We put another demo out, sent it down to Steve Cropper in Memphis, Tennessee.

00:17:32.875 --> 00:17:36.318
He liked it, so we went down there and did some recording.

00:17:36.660 --> 00:17:39.202
And that project was sold to Columbia Records.

00:17:39.403 --> 00:17:43.468
So here I've only been playing harmonica less than 10 years.

00:17:43.907 --> 00:17:45.130
I've been on RCA.

00:17:45.473 --> 00:17:47.415
Atlantic and Columbia Records.

00:17:48.356 --> 00:17:48.678
Awesome.

00:17:48.758 --> 00:17:51.780
And this is all harmonica you were playing during this time with these bands?

00:17:52.501 --> 00:18:01.692
Yeah, because I played guitar, but I wasn't nearly as good as the other guitar players in the band, so I didn't do anything on guitar with these guys.

00:18:02.393 --> 00:18:09.842
And this all led on to you actually performing with Dave Brubeck himself, and there's recordings of you playing Take Five with Dave Brubeck, yeah?

00:18:10.342 --> 00:18:10.643
Yeah.

00:18:10.843 --> 00:18:15.817
So after Sky King joined the band, Darius Brubeck Ensemble.

00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:22.201
The Darius Brubeck Ensemble was pretty much a jazz group with tenor sax, clarinet.

00:18:22.721 --> 00:18:25.846
bass, trombone, and harmonica as a horn section.

00:18:26.125 --> 00:18:30.872
Darius played piano, and that was an amazing experience to be part of a horn section.

00:18:31.192 --> 00:18:51.637
I learned so much in that band, and after a while, we'd be opening act for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and then about 1974, Dave Brubeck disbanded his quartet and started using Darius' band as his backup band, and it became known as Two Generations of Brubeck, and I was in that group for about five years.

00:18:52.673 --> 00:18:58.282
And you played at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival in that outfit.

00:18:58.743 --> 00:19:02.250
Well, it was Newport Jazz Festival in exile, I guess they called it.

00:19:02.289 --> 00:19:05.454
It was sponsored, a concert sponsored by them.

00:19:05.695 --> 00:19:09.221
And also the Sydney Opera House in Mexico.

00:19:09.342 --> 00:19:14.230
And we played in Germany and Switzerland and Austria, all over the place.

00:19:30.082 --> 00:19:33.228
So maybe you can talk a moment about how you approached your harmonica.

00:19:33.268 --> 00:19:35.291
You're playing in on a full-on jazz band here.

00:19:35.332 --> 00:19:37.896
So what were you doing with your harmonica in this band?

00:19:38.898 --> 00:19:45.250
I was woodshedding like crazy, trying to keep up, really.

00:19:45.771 --> 00:19:48.798
I realized that there was missing notes.

00:19:48.961 --> 00:19:52.948
the diatonic, they'd be going to places where they didn't have the notes.

00:19:53.008 --> 00:20:01.320
So I'd be piling harmonicas on top of each other, just setting one on top of the other and jumping up between the harmonicas to get the missing notes.

00:20:01.821 --> 00:20:09.534
And I learned how to switch harmonicas very quickly, sort of.

00:20:11.009 --> 00:20:13.251
I'd be going between different harmonicas.

00:20:13.291 --> 00:20:16.914
You just pull the one on the bottom out and the one on the top drops down.

00:20:16.974 --> 00:20:23.121
And so in order to play something like, in order to play Blue Rondo a la Turk, it took two harmonicas.

00:20:23.161 --> 00:20:24.902
You just have to remember when to switch.

00:20:24.981 --> 00:20:31.268
Maybe one harmonica you'd be playing in second position and the second harmonica you'd be playing in third position.

00:20:31.508 --> 00:20:40.095
You just have to learn where to find these notes, figure out when to switch harmonicas and what position to play in to find the notes you're looking for.

00:20:40.635 --> 00:20:42.445
I don't think a lot of people do that, do they?

00:20:42.526 --> 00:20:47.057
This idea that you will quickly change your harmonica mid-song to make it fit.

00:20:47.298 --> 00:20:54.263
Right, I just was listening to your former podcast with Charlie McCoy, and yeah, he'd do that.

00:20:54.845 --> 00:20:59.588
And of course, Norton Buffalo was amazing at switching harmonicas quickly.

00:20:59.628 --> 00:21:02.830
It's before I'd heard either one of those guys do it.

00:21:03.211 --> 00:21:07.675
I was looking for the notes, and if I couldn't find them on one, I'd find it on another.

00:21:08.195 --> 00:21:10.637
You didn't do any overblows or anything at that point?

00:21:11.278 --> 00:21:12.859
Yeah, and I still don't.

00:21:12.900 --> 00:21:16.103
I squeak out a couple of overblows per month, maybe one or two.

00:21:17.263 --> 00:21:19.546
Played with them through the 70s.

00:21:19.586 --> 00:21:25.112
And then you went on to, well, I think you were in various bands and different outfits throughout the 80s.

00:21:25.132 --> 00:21:32.800
And then you had a longtime duo with Shari Kane in the Mad Cat and Kane duo, which I think you were in for 24 years.

00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:34.281
That's exactly right.

00:21:34.301 --> 00:21:35.022
24 years.

00:21:35.042 --> 00:21:37.506
That's the longest running group I was ever in.

00:21:37.586 --> 00:21:40.288
During the 80s, I'd have a band for a while.

00:21:40.328 --> 00:21:41.589
I'd play solo for a while.

00:21:41.670 --> 00:21:42.851
I'd have a duo.

00:21:42.911 --> 00:21:43.511
I'd play solo.

00:21:43.571 --> 00:21:44.353
I'd have a trio.

00:21:44.373 --> 00:21:45.233
I'd play solo.

00:21:45.554 --> 00:21:50.260
And also during that time, I did a lot of school assembly programs, a lot of kids shows.

00:21:50.461 --> 00:21:53.586
But then in the early 90s, I hooked up with Sherry Cain.

00:21:53.886 --> 00:21:55.108
It was kind of by accident.

00:21:55.509 --> 00:21:59.435
I mean, I knew she played guitar and she'd been a friend since the late 70s.

00:21:59.496 --> 00:22:03.782
But I was going to do a duo show at a big outdoor concert in Ann Arbor.

00:22:04.144 --> 00:22:08.009
Morning of the show, my duo partner from Chicago called up.

00:22:08.089 --> 00:22:09.392
He said he was having car trouble.

00:22:09.412 --> 00:22:10.173
He couldn't make it.

00:22:10.561 --> 00:22:12.644
So I thought, well, I have this big show.

00:22:12.684 --> 00:22:13.625
What am I going to do?

00:22:14.247 --> 00:22:18.753
I know I'll call Sherry, and she can come sit in for a couple of songs and help me along here.

00:22:18.834 --> 00:22:21.678
And so she did, and it went very well.

00:22:21.998 --> 00:22:29.848
So after that, we started playing a few more shows and then a few more, and then it turned into a duo, which I did pretty much full-time for 24 years.

00:22:31.811 --> 00:22:35.998
I said I hear your voice, seize my worry, my open-eyed cat

00:22:47.425 --> 00:22:51.871
I think, did they play at your 70th birthday concert?

00:22:52.092 --> 00:22:54.595
Yeah, she came and played on that.

00:22:54.694 --> 00:22:59.881
She was also on my 60th birthday concert and I guess my 50th too.

00:23:02.565 --> 00:23:04.626
Every 10 years I try to have a big concert.

00:23:05.367 --> 00:23:08.070
And then also you play regularly in Brazil.

00:23:08.852 --> 00:23:12.297
Yeah, I went down with Sherry Kane to Brazil one time.

00:23:12.336 --> 00:23:16.301
There was a promoter from Chicago that arranged for us to go down there.

00:23:16.834 --> 00:23:18.298
We played at a blues festival.

00:23:18.619 --> 00:23:21.789
And when I was there, I met some Brazilian harmonica players.

00:23:22.151 --> 00:23:25.060
And then two years later, we were asked to go back.

00:23:25.663 --> 00:23:26.163
And so...

00:23:26.849 --> 00:23:30.232
I contacted these harmonica players and said, yeah, I'm coming back.

00:23:30.973 --> 00:23:32.315
Maybe we can see each other again.

00:23:32.836 --> 00:23:44.527
And this guy, Jefferson, before email, so he faxed me a note saying, if you come back, spend an extra few days at the end playing with this guitar player named Big Joe Von Fra.

00:23:44.747 --> 00:23:45.807
So I said, sure, why not?

00:23:46.128 --> 00:23:47.910
Those concerts went so well.

00:23:48.250 --> 00:23:52.535
Big Joe hired me to come back to Brazil another 12 times after that.

00:23:52.555 --> 00:23:55.557
So I've been 13 tours of Brazil over the years.

00:23:56.546 --> 00:24:02.234
An album of yours I really love, and I think it's a solo one, is the Harmonica and Ukulele Project.

00:24:02.695 --> 00:24:03.797
Really love that album.

00:24:03.936 --> 00:24:06.280
And yeah, if you could just talk about that for a minute.

00:24:06.761 --> 00:24:16.656
My first solo record, which was a CD, my first solo CD was called Harmonicology, which was all harmonica and percussion.

00:24:16.998 --> 00:24:50.942
And then that was followed by Harmonica and Ukulele Project, because I'd kind of forgotten about ukulele for decades i just was playing guitar and then i got a ukulele again and i really started enjoying it and realizing that all the technique i'd been learning on guitar for many decades could be reapplied to the uke uh that was recorded in my house in my home studio and yeah it's just a collection of songs that i put together using ukulele and harmonica the birth of spring is at hand

00:25:05.506 --> 00:25:08.450
So you obviously mentioned ukulele there, and that was your first instrument.

00:25:09.530 --> 00:25:22.868
But you play quite a lot of instruments, playing guitars, you already said, ukulele, and Jew's Heart, which you put in, I think banjo, and penny whistles, and lots of different things you try and incorporate into your playing, into your shows, is it?

00:25:23.890 --> 00:25:28.175
Yeah, it's fun to just make music on whatever is around.

00:25:29.298 --> 00:25:32.541
And so all those instruments you mentioned are the ones I play the most, yeah.

00:25:32.801 --> 00:25:38.112
Again, you do this great thing I'll put a clip on from YouTube where you do all these different things with percussion.

00:25:38.152 --> 00:25:43.301
So you're playing percussion at the same time as you play, actually the same time as you're playing the harmonica, very effective as well.

00:25:43.383 --> 00:25:44.865
So how did you develop that trick?

00:25:45.946 --> 00:25:49.835
It first came when I was doing kids shows in the 1980s.

00:25:49.914 --> 00:25:54.865
I started using these little noisemakers to entertain the kids.

00:25:54.884 --> 00:25:59.134
And then I found out later that adults really enjoyed it also.

00:25:59.295 --> 00:26:02.462
Something that I just put together.

00:26:02.482 --> 00:26:03.705
I don't know.

00:26:03.747 --> 00:26:05.431
I'd never seen anyone else do it.

00:26:05.451 --> 00:26:06.594
It's just something I thought up.

00:26:31.809 --> 00:26:32.951
effective like that.

00:26:33.270 --> 00:26:35.133
As you're saying, it works so well, the harmonica.

00:26:35.153 --> 00:26:37.275
You do little rhythm things with the percussion.

00:26:37.315 --> 00:26:39.616
You've got the little shaker and the little whistles.

00:26:40.257 --> 00:26:42.920
Do you put that quite often into your shows?

00:26:43.619 --> 00:26:45.082
In a solo show, I'll do it.

00:26:45.221 --> 00:26:50.346
In a band show, I don't do it, except for when I'm playing with Chris Brubeck's triple play.

00:26:50.385 --> 00:26:52.347
We often put that as part of the show.

00:26:52.788 --> 00:26:56.050
My dad had some crow calls and duck calls.

00:26:56.131 --> 00:26:58.973
In his younger days, he was a hunter.

00:26:59.013 --> 00:27:06.641
It was the duck call and the crow call that was the first two Noisemakers and then I just added to the collection.

00:27:07.261 --> 00:27:11.746
Yeah, so your most recent band then, I think it's the Mad Cat Midnight Blues Journey.

00:27:11.766 --> 00:27:13.028
Is that your current band?

00:27:13.607 --> 00:27:14.348
Yes, it is.

00:27:14.890 --> 00:27:18.874
Although we're on hiatus right now because of the lockdown.

00:27:18.894 --> 00:27:21.517
There's no summer concerts in Michigan this year.

00:27:21.977 --> 00:27:26.080
But when I get back to it, I'm looking forward to playing with these guys again.

00:27:26.662 --> 00:27:27.323
Great band.

00:27:27.603 --> 00:27:30.286
Bass, drums, guitar and harmonica.

00:27:31.137 --> 00:27:35.684
Talking about awards then, so in 1997 you won the Spa Player of the Year.

00:27:35.704 --> 00:27:36.787
How was that?

00:27:37.407 --> 00:27:47.825
That was mind-blowing, because no diatonic player had ever won that award, and I certainly wasn't expecting to win that award at all.

00:27:48.125 --> 00:27:58.301
In fact, when they started to announce who was going to win the award, I said, well, I'll find out as soon as I get back from the bathroom, so I went to the bathroom.

00:27:58.465 --> 00:28:04.132
Someone came in and said, hey, why don't you come back in and see who wins this award?

00:28:04.152 --> 00:28:06.315
And I said, okay, I'll go back in.

00:28:07.056 --> 00:28:08.877
I was very surprised that it was me.

00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:13.242
So you say you're the first diatonic harmonica player.

00:28:13.282 --> 00:28:15.885
So had that usually gone to chromatic players before?

00:28:15.945 --> 00:28:19.068
Yeah, it had always gone to a chromatic player.

00:28:19.470 --> 00:28:24.214
For the whole history of spa up until me, it was always a chromatic player.

00:28:24.255 --> 00:28:26.317
So I was definitely shocked.

00:28:27.521 --> 00:28:27.982
Fantastic.

00:28:28.042 --> 00:28:30.165
And then you've also won a Grammy in 2006.

00:28:30.185 --> 00:28:30.866
Yeah, I

00:28:33.290 --> 00:28:38.538
was on a recording by a guy named William Balcom.

00:28:38.878 --> 00:28:44.267
And it's this huge project called Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

00:28:44.768 --> 00:28:51.357
And this guy, William Balcom, had taken the poems of William Blake and made orchestrations for the whole thing.

00:28:52.378 --> 00:29:01.790
As part of it, a huge orchestra, a reggae band, some folk musicians, a whole huge chorus, a children's chorus.

00:29:01.891 --> 00:29:05.273
It was just, this production was just way over the top.

00:29:06.035 --> 00:29:11.840
And I was called to play some harmonica, some folk guitar, and do some singing.

00:29:12.481 --> 00:29:16.625
It was quite a project, and I was glad to be called and glad to be part of it.

00:29:17.006 --> 00:29:18.988
It was over, and I thought, well, that's over.

00:29:19.008 --> 00:29:21.691
I didn't think of anything of it.

00:29:22.131 --> 00:29:24.554
And then that recording...

00:29:25.185 --> 00:29:29.731
won the classical music album of the year.

00:29:29.751 --> 00:29:32.756
I had no idea it was nominated or anything.

00:29:33.416 --> 00:29:37.521
I just get a package in the mail that said from the Grammy Awards.

00:29:37.622 --> 00:29:39.483
And so I thought, oh, what do they want?

00:29:39.525 --> 00:29:41.126
They want some money or something.

00:29:41.207 --> 00:29:42.828
I didn't even open it for a few days.

00:29:42.888 --> 00:29:50.739
And then I opened it up and it said, hey, Grammy Award winner for your participation in the CD of the year.

00:29:50.898 --> 00:29:52.601
So that was a surprise.

00:29:53.185 --> 00:29:54.188
Yeah, amazing.

00:29:54.248 --> 00:29:55.690
And on a classical album as well.

00:29:55.730 --> 00:30:03.964
So it's again showing your versatility and you're playing folk bands, obviously blues bands, jazz with the Brubecks, and now a classical piece.

00:30:04.405 --> 00:30:06.068
So what sort of stuff were you playing on this album?

00:30:06.809 --> 00:30:15.905
Well, my portion of it was kind of straight ahead, first position harmonica, singing and guitar, a little second position harmonica too.

00:30:16.267 --> 00:30:17.950
I didn't play very much on this album.

00:30:18.082 --> 00:30:18.843
But there it was.

00:30:18.942 --> 00:30:20.265
I got this thing in the mail.

00:30:20.285 --> 00:30:25.049
It says, here's a Grammy for your participation in Classical Record of the Year.

00:30:25.089 --> 00:30:26.491
I didn't get a statue or anything.

00:30:26.571 --> 00:30:29.476
I just got a plaque to put on the wall.

00:30:30.497 --> 00:30:41.029
So yeah, so you've been in, as you say, a lot of bands, a very long, successful career, playing all sorts of different bands and genres and played on lots of people's CDs.

00:30:41.390 --> 00:30:47.917
I wonder if you've got any advice for people who are starting out or maybe to kickstart their own musical career on harmonica.

00:30:48.385 --> 00:30:50.930
Well, just being versatile is excellent.

00:30:51.349 --> 00:30:52.711
Limiting yourself is...

00:30:53.212 --> 00:30:54.173
I wouldn't recommend it.

00:30:55.576 --> 00:30:56.778
I think of record...

00:30:57.077 --> 00:31:02.445
I mean, of music categories as kind of just something that record stores need.

00:31:04.087 --> 00:31:06.491
Because they know where to put their records.

00:31:06.551 --> 00:31:08.875
But music categories don't really mean that much to me.

00:31:08.954 --> 00:31:09.316
It's just...

00:31:09.916 --> 00:31:12.460
I just like all different kinds of music.

00:31:13.422 --> 00:31:16.306
And meeting up with Chris Brubeck was really good, because...

00:31:16.642 --> 00:31:21.386
he really likes blues and jazz and folk music and classical music.

00:31:21.527 --> 00:31:26.172
And all our collaborations have been combinations of different kinds of music.

00:31:26.612 --> 00:31:31.797
I just want to, when I approach harmonica, I want to see, well, what can be done with this instrument?

00:31:31.997 --> 00:31:32.278
Yeah.

00:31:32.518 --> 00:31:34.759
I just try to be versatile.

00:31:35.580 --> 00:31:43.828
So another thing you do with playing your, your other instruments is you play harmonica on a rack, you know, when you're playing guitar or the ukulele as well.

00:31:43.929 --> 00:31:46.509
So what, What about playing harmonica on a rack?

00:31:46.528 --> 00:31:47.390
How does that differ?

00:31:47.490 --> 00:31:49.732
And any tips for people about how to do that well?

00:31:50.413 --> 00:32:01.450
When I'm driving to a gig and I can take my own equipment, I have a system where my harmonica is on a mic stand, a rack built on a mic stand.

00:32:01.851 --> 00:32:03.432
So then it's not around my neck.

00:32:03.854 --> 00:32:12.306
And so I can sing into one microphone and just lean a few inches to the left and play this harmonica and then lean a few inches to the right and sing.

00:32:13.026 --> 00:32:15.092
And that's the way I prefer doing it.

00:32:15.692 --> 00:32:23.294
However, if I am flying to a gig and need to play rack harmonica, I'm using the new Pete Farmer Seidel harmonica.

00:32:23.490 --> 00:32:29.679
harmonica rack which when it comes to harmonica racks is the the very best one i've i've come across

00:32:30.058 --> 00:32:51.710
so i i saw that um the uh the rack attached to the microphone stand i was really interested in that because i think a lot of people you know it can be quite a hindrance can't it having that rack in your face you know particularly if you want to sing as well and it's kind of a visual deterrent isn't it sort of having it there in your face and it gets in the way so it's a really good idea so what exactly is that rack built onto the mic stand

00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:53.771
There's a lot of things over the years.

00:32:53.893 --> 00:32:57.478
I'm a tinkerer, so I've made different systems.

00:32:57.538 --> 00:33:03.528
But the current system is a Shure Beta 57 microphone.

00:33:03.887 --> 00:33:12.221
And then it happens that the top of a vitamin bottle fits exactly on top of a Shure Beta 57.

00:33:12.281 --> 00:33:22.336
So it's half of a vitamin bottle, and then it's half of a harmonica, plastic harmonica box and they're duct taped together.

00:33:22.356 --> 00:33:24.220
It's just, it works.

00:33:26.103 --> 00:33:28.226
I just like to tinker with stuff, see what works.

00:33:29.448 --> 00:33:29.688
Yeah.

00:33:29.768 --> 00:33:31.550
So is that something it's kind of fixed on?

00:33:31.590 --> 00:33:34.955
So you kind of have to take the whole mic stand with you if you're going to use it, as you say.

00:33:35.057 --> 00:33:35.798
Yeah, right.

00:33:36.018 --> 00:33:36.419
You do.

00:33:36.558 --> 00:33:40.345
And you need to have a weight on the bottom of the mic stand.

00:33:40.365 --> 00:33:43.630
So I have the mic stand bolted down to a piece of plywood.

00:33:44.034 --> 00:33:47.880
so that it won't move away when I push up against it.

00:33:48.721 --> 00:33:53.409
Yeah, it's just something that works and it doesn't look beautiful, but it works really well.

00:33:54.570 --> 00:33:57.296
And what about actually playing the harmonica on the right?

00:33:57.316 --> 00:34:01.102
Again, I do it a little bit myself, but it's quite different, isn't it?

00:34:01.182 --> 00:34:06.651
Not being able to hold it in your hands, you get a different sound, the way you can move your head against it, as you've just said.

00:34:06.730 --> 00:34:09.394
It's quite a different way to play it, isn't it?

00:34:09.474 --> 00:34:10.958
Any particular way you approach it?

00:34:11.297 --> 00:34:16.965
So much of harmonica playing has to do with how you use your hands, all the wah-wah.

00:34:18.608 --> 00:34:23.255
All

00:34:23.295 --> 00:34:24.617
that stuff, you lose that.

00:34:25.139 --> 00:34:30.306
And also when you do a warble, you kind of lose that.

00:34:30.686 --> 00:34:33.510
But I learned a few little techniques.

00:34:33.650 --> 00:34:35.474
One is to do a warble with your tongue.

00:34:39.639 --> 00:34:40.581
And so you can do that.

00:34:40.865 --> 00:34:43.088
when the harmonic is in the rack.

00:34:43.610 --> 00:34:47.376
It's a whole different approach, but it works out pretty well.

00:34:47.496 --> 00:34:59.773
And sometimes I run that rack through some effects pedals so I can get an interesting sound, not just the sound of a rack harp through a vocal mic.

00:35:00.936 --> 00:35:07.846
So talking about your teaching now, I think you've just started a new set of instructional videos on your YouTube channel.

00:35:08.193 --> 00:35:10.376
Well, I put one up so far.

00:35:11.737 --> 00:35:16.643
I'll probably put a couple more, but I'm not big into teaching.

00:35:16.802 --> 00:35:20.847
When I go to a Sabah convention, I love being part of the workshops.

00:35:21.307 --> 00:35:26.072
I'll give a seminar sort of thing, but I don't teach on a regular basis.

00:35:26.213 --> 00:35:32.019
I don't have regular students just because, I don't know, I don't have the patience for it, I guess.

00:35:33.221 --> 00:35:35.322
Just do what Big Walter do and just say, play that.

00:35:35.884 --> 00:35:37.885
Yeah, exactly.

00:35:38.434 --> 00:35:46.536
And, you know, there's some people that are just fabulous harmonica teachers, like Joe Felisco or Dave Barrett.

00:35:47.057 --> 00:35:50.005
Some people are just meant to be harmonica teachers.

00:35:50.387 --> 00:35:53.976
But I limit it to a few workshops a year.

00:35:54.434 --> 00:35:56.115
Maybe I'll put up a couple more videos.

00:35:56.376 --> 00:35:58.278
Yeah, it's a good video you watch.

00:35:58.358 --> 00:36:02.003
It's called Crossing the Great Divide, and it's about how you play at the top end.

00:36:02.344 --> 00:36:06.909
And as you say in that video, you know, a lot of harmonica players will neglect that top end.

00:36:06.989 --> 00:36:12.657
So maybe give us a quick point to hear about how you, you know, how you make the best of the top end.

00:36:12.817 --> 00:36:14.478
You play some great top end stuff yourself.

00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:22.309
Yeah, well, it's just the breathing pattern at the lower end is different than in the middle, and it's different than at the top end.

00:36:22.509 --> 00:36:23.210
And so...

00:36:23.713 --> 00:36:36.586
In order to play with the Brubeck band, I had to figure out the whole range of the harmonica because if you're limited to just the bottom six holes, you'd be missing 40% of what you could do.

00:36:37.288 --> 00:36:40.431
So I learned how to do things using the whole harmonica.

00:36:40.751 --> 00:36:49.280
So yeah, on my YouTube channel, I have this little thing about how to get from a little exercise to help you get from the low end to the top end.

00:36:49.480 --> 00:36:51.422
A couple of different exercises how to do it.

00:36:52.097 --> 00:36:54.021
Just one last thing on the teaching side.

00:36:54.061 --> 00:36:59.914
So quite a few years ago now, you released a Rhythm Harmonica DVD.

00:37:00.474 --> 00:37:04.722
Yeah, the ins and outs of Rhythm Harmonica on Homespun tapes, yeah.

00:37:05.525 --> 00:37:06.126
That's right, yeah.

00:37:06.146 --> 00:37:08.110
And I think, is that still available on Homespun?

00:37:09.012 --> 00:37:10.173
Yes, I believe it is.

00:37:10.498 --> 00:37:12.161
Again, a great DVD.

00:37:12.221 --> 00:37:22.996
I saw that quite a few years ago and a friend of mine called Simon Hall absolutely loved that DVD and it really inspired him to learn some of the things you did on there.

00:37:23.056 --> 00:37:27.543
And he came up with this great Sonny Terry piece based on that DVD.

00:37:27.864 --> 00:37:28.965
So he really loved it.

00:37:28.985 --> 00:37:30.327
It was a great inspiration to him.

00:37:31.429 --> 00:37:33.313
Let me talk a little bit about playing rhythm.

00:37:33.333 --> 00:37:35.856
It's a big part of your playing, playing the rhythm on harmonica.

00:37:36.557 --> 00:37:36.637
Yeah.

00:37:36.929 --> 00:37:42.518
Yeah, well, as I'm trying to play like Sonny Terry, but I wasn't playing quite like Sonny Terry was.

00:37:42.597 --> 00:37:51.771
I was playing the sound of Mad Cat trying to imitate Sonny Terry, and I realized I was doing things that other harmonica players weren't doing at all.

00:37:52.190 --> 00:37:56.077
Part of it had to do with what I call hoppas, where you're...

00:37:59.621 --> 00:38:04.768
where you're inhaling, and your bottom lip is moving off the harmonica altogether.

00:38:05.570 --> 00:38:05.789
You kind of...

00:38:07.297 --> 00:38:11.143
And hop on the in-breath and then the out-breath.

00:38:14.489 --> 00:38:16.634
And with this, you can get quite a bit of speed.

00:38:23.905 --> 00:38:30.918
The ins and outs of rhythm harmonica slows that all down and explains how I do it.

00:38:31.746 --> 00:38:33.327
Because someone asked me, how do you do that?

00:38:33.628 --> 00:38:34.708
I said, I have no idea.

00:38:34.829 --> 00:38:39.114
And I had to slow it down myself to figure out what it was I was doing.

00:38:39.434 --> 00:38:48.784
And yeah, so then I recorded the CD out of that experience of figuring out what I was doing, because I had no idea what I was doing.

00:38:50.045 --> 00:38:51.128
Yeah, it's great stuff.

00:38:51.507 --> 00:38:59.157
And again, showing a lot of those early influences that Sonny Terry and you're playing, you know, you're one of the exponents of the Sonny Terry style, aren't you?

00:38:59.177 --> 00:39:00.137
You do that very well.

00:39:00.833 --> 00:39:09.786
Well, as I mentioned, I only listened to Sonny Terry the first two years I was playing harmonica, so I really got it in my system somehow.

00:39:10.108 --> 00:39:24.528
And right, Sonny Terry would put these little hoops in between the notes, and it seems very few harmonica players do that anymore, but it's something that I find amazing, and I still like to do it.

00:39:24.628 --> 00:39:36.141
And it actually fits in amazingly well with not just folk blues, but That style can fit in with all different styles of harmonica playing.

00:39:36.782 --> 00:39:44.672
Those whoops and hollers, as they're called, it's something I've never quite mastered these whoops and hollers, so maybe a quick tip on how you get those.

00:39:46.536 --> 00:39:48.679
There's a couple of different ways to fit them in.

00:39:50.380 --> 00:39:55.007
If you go, ah, you get that singing note, and then a blow and then a draw.

00:39:55.027 --> 00:39:55.067
Ah,

00:39:55.628 --> 00:39:55.668
ah,

00:39:57.731 --> 00:39:57.771
ah.

00:39:57.791 --> 00:39:58.972
That's one way to fit it in.

00:40:00.353 --> 00:40:07.961
And then another is a, it's an ah and then a bent note.

00:40:08.722 --> 00:40:08.983
So.

00:40:09.302 --> 00:40:16.751
And in a triplet there.

00:40:16.831 --> 00:40:17.472
And so.

00:40:23.757 --> 00:40:26.661
So then you can go back and forth between the two.

00:40:33.889 --> 00:40:36.452
It

00:40:36.492 --> 00:40:37.094
sounds great.

00:40:37.114 --> 00:40:39.177
And it's getting them in at that speed, isn't it?

00:40:39.197 --> 00:40:40.557
So they really flow in it.

00:40:40.597 --> 00:40:42.039
That's the real trick to it, isn't it?

00:40:42.059 --> 00:40:43.742
And when you can get that right, it sounds amazing.

00:40:44.603 --> 00:40:45.164
Yeah.

00:40:46.304 --> 00:40:52.713
And with this hapa, hapa, hapa technique, you don't have to be breathing as deeply.

00:40:53.715 --> 00:40:58.561
You just kind of use the bellows of your mouth to get it at a faster speed.

00:40:58.780 --> 00:41:02.766
And it's something that is explained in the ins and outs of...

00:41:03.137 --> 00:41:04.039
rhythm harmonica.

00:41:05.260 --> 00:41:16.010
Another thing you do really well, uh, in your style of harmonica playing is you, uh, you do lots of, lots of really fast playing, which fits, you know, it doesn't, you know, it fits really well.

00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:18.552
It doesn't sound like you're out of time, you know?

00:41:18.952 --> 00:41:21.195
So what's your approach to playing fast in the harmonica?

00:41:22.036 --> 00:41:22.436
Don't know.

00:41:23.777 --> 00:41:26.440
It's just, I don't know if I have an approach.

00:41:26.860 --> 00:41:34.317
Uh, actually over the years I've been playing slower and slower because sometimes, uh, Too many notes gets in the way.

00:41:34.356 --> 00:41:44.791
I was listening to Charlie McCoy's interview where he was saying that one of his favorite recordings is where he just plays four little slow fills.

00:41:45.652 --> 00:42:01.326
So I think it's important when playing is to be able to play slow and fast and melodically and rhythmically and try to have a a big toolbox of what a harmonica can do.

00:42:01.425 --> 00:42:03.288
But yeah, sometimes you can play fast.

00:42:11.940 --> 00:42:14.384
It has its place, but I don't do it all the time.

00:42:14.403 --> 00:42:14.483
Yeah,

00:42:15.164 --> 00:42:16.326
you've got to choose your moments.

00:42:16.385 --> 00:42:17.907
But yeah, when you do it, it sounds great.

00:42:17.947 --> 00:42:19.289
And, you know, you keep the timing good.

00:42:19.369 --> 00:42:20.791
I think that's the secret to it.

00:42:20.871 --> 00:42:25.237
Maybe that's part of what you've done around, you know, the whoops and hollers, kind of the rhythm sort of stuff.

00:42:25.579 --> 00:42:27.902
Maybe it helps you develop that to keep that timing good.

00:42:28.034 --> 00:42:28.974
correct when you're doing it

00:42:29.615 --> 00:42:46.219
yeah it's it's keeping timing is important for sure and it's uh i would recommend to any beginning harmonica player or any harmonica player really if they want to play along with a metronome it helps because uh then when you go to playing with other musicians so your timing won't be off you know

00:42:47.121 --> 00:42:51.967
a lot of time you've uh you did a lot of singing you've been the main singer in the band as well yeah

00:42:52.628 --> 00:42:56.393
yes i have right After New Heavenly Blue, I didn't do hardly any singing.

00:42:56.574 --> 00:43:02.063
And it wasn't until I started playing solo that I started having to do my own singing.

00:43:02.463 --> 00:43:04.626
But over the years, it's gotten better.

00:43:05.648 --> 00:43:12.699
Yeah, I think as a harmonica player, in many ways, you kind of almost need to sing, don't you, to be the front man in the band.

00:43:12.780 --> 00:43:14.041
It's an important part, isn't it?

00:43:14.081 --> 00:43:15.623
But a lot of people are reluctant to sing.

00:43:15.684 --> 00:43:17.626
So was that the same for you?

00:43:17.708 --> 00:43:21.634
You felt you had to sing, you push yourself in that direction?

00:43:21.773 --> 00:43:21.853
Yeah.

00:43:22.210 --> 00:43:25.233
Yeah, well, when you're doing a solo show, you really have to sing.

00:43:28.157 --> 00:43:30.679
And I've done so many over the years.

00:43:30.780 --> 00:43:35.184
I'd have a duo, a trio, a band, and they'd all fall apart.

00:43:35.204 --> 00:43:37.186
And then you go back to doing a solo show.

00:43:37.266 --> 00:43:39.489
And I love playing solo shows.

00:43:40.210 --> 00:43:42.733
And I love playing duo shows and trio shows.

00:43:42.813 --> 00:43:46.418
And in all those situations, I'm usually the main singer.

00:43:47.820 --> 00:43:49.981
Do you play any chromatic harmonica at all?

00:43:50.242 --> 00:43:56.170
A little bit in the band Triple Play with Chris Brubach, there's a couple of songs.

00:43:56.612 --> 00:43:58.934
I'm not a very good chromatic player.

00:43:59.335 --> 00:44:03.422
I'm only comfortable in a couple of keys, and I never really practice it.

00:44:03.702 --> 00:44:08.650
The diatonics harmonicas, I love the sound of those harmonicas.

00:44:08.971 --> 00:44:10.032
I love the bent notes.

00:44:10.253 --> 00:44:15.721
I love the chord possibilities, and so I don't get around to playing chromatic very often.

00:44:16.610 --> 00:44:21.596
Question I ask each time, if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:44:22.215 --> 00:44:25.480
I'd probably play some songs.

00:44:25.800 --> 00:44:34.710
I'd probably think of a song that I'd like to play and play it, because I find it's more entertaining to myself.

00:44:35.050 --> 00:44:41.077
Think of a song and then think, well, what if I played that same song in first position?

00:44:41.409 --> 00:44:45.735
And what if I played that same song in third position or 12th position?

00:44:45.815 --> 00:44:46.755
What would it sound like?

00:44:46.835 --> 00:44:50.621
And so I kind of will amuse myself in that way.

00:44:50.780 --> 00:44:56.708
And by trying out melodies in different positions, I think that's a great way to practice.

00:44:56.927 --> 00:45:01.313
But it's also it's more entertaining than just running scales or something like that.

00:45:01.813 --> 00:45:05.378
And so you're playing these songs just from your head rather than written music.

00:45:05.826 --> 00:45:08.389
Yeah, because I'm very poor at reading music.

00:45:08.668 --> 00:45:08.929
Yeah.

00:45:09.469 --> 00:45:12.632
In all these decades of playing, I really just play by ear.

00:45:13.393 --> 00:45:22.202
Well, when I'd play with a symphony, I'd have to really learn a part, and I learned how to follow along in a score, but I'm not at all a sight reader.

00:45:22.782 --> 00:45:23.923
Never really learned that way.

00:45:24.003 --> 00:45:30.530
And also, diatonic harmonica and sight reading is very difficult because you're always picking up a different harmonica.

00:45:30.952 --> 00:45:36.856
Chromatic playing and reading makes sense, but diatonic harmonica, and reading doesn't make much sense at all.

00:45:38.217 --> 00:45:39.480
What harmonica do you play?

00:45:39.539 --> 00:45:43.643
So you're a Seidel endorser these days, so what Seidel harmonicas do you like?

00:45:44.284 --> 00:45:49.889
Well, my absolute favorite these days is the new Seidel lightning harmonica.

00:45:50.630 --> 00:45:52.773
Before that, I was using the Noble.

00:45:53.313 --> 00:45:57.938
Lightnings aren't available in all keys, so I still have Noble harmonicas.

00:45:59.018 --> 00:46:01.981
I started out on marine band, and then...

00:46:02.657 --> 00:46:03.219
I don't know.

00:46:03.418 --> 00:46:04.661
I'm not sure what year it was.

00:46:04.760 --> 00:46:06.003
Probably late 70s.

00:46:06.443 --> 00:46:11.269
Chamber Huang said, why don't you try one of these silver tone harmonicas?

00:46:11.831 --> 00:46:12.472
And I liked it.

00:46:12.632 --> 00:46:18.139
So I switched from being a Hohner endorser to a Huang endorser.

00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:19.561
And I played those for a while.

00:46:19.601 --> 00:46:23.927
But over the years, the quality of those harmonicas was going down.

00:46:23.947 --> 00:46:29.536
Alberto Bertolazzi from Herring Harmonica said, hey, try one of these.

00:46:29.615 --> 00:46:30.197
And I tried it.

00:46:30.237 --> 00:46:30.878
And that was great.

00:46:31.170 --> 00:46:33.554
really a very good quality harmonica.

00:46:33.594 --> 00:46:36.818
So I switched and I became a herring endorser.

00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:39.282
And I was a herring endorser for many years.

00:46:39.382 --> 00:46:40.965
But the same thing happened.

00:46:41.005 --> 00:46:43.469
The quality of the harmonicas was going down.

00:46:43.610 --> 00:46:47.076
And then I started playing sidal harmonicas.

00:46:47.757 --> 00:46:51.903
Fortunately for me, they decided to make me a sidal endorser.

00:46:52.625 --> 00:46:52.864
Yeah.

00:46:53.106 --> 00:46:54.668
What do you think about the steel reeds?

00:46:55.309 --> 00:46:57.672
They last so much longer.

00:46:58.094 --> 00:46:58.173
Yeah.

00:46:58.306 --> 00:47:00.688
Some people say that they're harder to play.

00:47:00.969 --> 00:47:02.130
I don't find that at all.

00:47:02.592 --> 00:47:05.295
The way I play, they sound the same to me.

00:47:06.677 --> 00:47:08.699
Do you have a favorite key of harmonica?

00:47:09.880 --> 00:47:13.485
I carry a C harmonica in my pocket at all times.

00:47:14.226 --> 00:47:17.931
Part of the reason for that is singing in the key of G.

00:47:18.731 --> 00:47:21.936
That's right in the middle of my particular singing range.

00:47:22.396 --> 00:47:26.081
Also, a C harmonica is not too high and it's not too low.

00:47:26.786 --> 00:47:32.775
A lot of people that play folk music or blues or country music can play the key of G.

00:47:33.496 --> 00:47:34.958
So that's what I keep in my pocket.

00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:38.163
And do you play different tunings?

00:47:38.824 --> 00:47:40.686
I have a couple of different tunings.

00:47:41.288 --> 00:47:48.518
There's two songs that Mad Cat Midnight Blues Journey plays that I use altered tunings.

00:47:49.059 --> 00:47:51.023
One is On the Road Again.

00:47:51.063 --> 00:47:53.106
The sixth hole is tuned up.

00:47:53.507 --> 00:47:54.668
Here's a regular A harp.

00:47:55.429 --> 00:47:55.550
A harp.

00:48:00.257 --> 00:48:05.903
So the sixth draw is tuned up a half step, and that's so you can get that song.

00:48:06.003 --> 00:48:06.105
You

00:48:09.748 --> 00:48:10.329
can

00:48:19.559 --> 00:48:24.244
get that high note there, which on a regular harp you'd have to get with an overblow.

00:48:25.306 --> 00:48:28.530
I also have a harmonica, which I...

00:48:28.769 --> 00:48:34.137
tuned to a minor chord on the inhale instead of a major chord on the inhale.

00:48:34.259 --> 00:48:35.940
And I use that once in a while.

00:48:35.960 --> 00:48:44.233
And I used to have, still somewhere around the house, I have a Charlie McCoy style country harp tuning.

00:48:44.934 --> 00:48:49.101
I used to play that once in a while, but I haven't been using that recently.

00:48:49.121 --> 00:48:54.269
97% of my playing is just on standard tuning.

00:48:54.434 --> 00:48:59.021
Yeah, obviously you've developed this technique of being able to switch harmonicas very quickly, haven't you?

00:48:59.041 --> 00:49:01.644
So that's kind of how you got over the issue there, haven't you?

00:49:01.724 --> 00:49:05.391
Instead of having to retune, you know, different tunings, you switch harmonicas.

00:49:06.012 --> 00:49:13.202
Also getting really comfortable playing in first, second, third, fourth, fifth and twelfth positions.

00:49:13.884 --> 00:49:18.490
If you feel comfortable in all those positions, then you can find plenty of notes.

00:49:19.813 --> 00:49:22.818
We touched on it a little bit early on, but do you use any overblows at all?

00:49:23.458 --> 00:49:23.818
No.

00:49:24.119 --> 00:49:24.900
I mean, yes.

00:49:25.661 --> 00:49:28.764
I try to play one overblow per month.

00:49:31.228 --> 00:49:36.615
I mean, I really appreciate the people that have spent the time to do that style.

00:49:36.835 --> 00:49:40.139
And it's just amazing what they can do.

00:49:40.460 --> 00:49:44.246
And Howard Levy has been a very good friend of mine for many, many years.

00:49:44.346 --> 00:49:46.648
And he's just phenomenal at doing that.

00:49:46.789 --> 00:49:50.074
And then people like Jason Rishi, Carlos Del Junco.

00:49:50.338 --> 00:49:53.422
They can do that style so well.

00:49:54.364 --> 00:49:56.266
So next question, what embouchure

00:49:56.286 --> 00:49:56.907
do you use?

00:49:57.548 --> 00:50:03.697
I switch between puckering and tongue blocking, constantly switching back and forth.

00:50:03.958 --> 00:50:06.842
And I don't think about it at all.

00:50:06.902 --> 00:50:08.184
I use them both.

00:50:08.525 --> 00:50:11.750
However, if I'm bending a note, it's puckering.

00:50:12.371 --> 00:50:14.054
And I know how to bend a note.

00:50:14.369 --> 00:50:20.057
tongue-blocking, but I find it uncomfortable, and it's just the way I've been playing for so many decades.

00:50:20.139 --> 00:50:21.760
So that's how I do it.

00:50:22.501 --> 00:50:23.202
Yeah, it's interesting.

00:50:23.222 --> 00:50:26.106
A lot of people I've talked to on here have said that they switch between the two.

00:50:26.126 --> 00:50:29.452
You find you're able to just do it without thinking, then, are you?

00:50:30.012 --> 00:50:30.233
Yeah.

00:50:30.894 --> 00:50:34.380
When I'm playing my best, I'm hardly thinking at all.

00:50:34.440 --> 00:50:37.103
I'm listening and saying, oh, I didn't know I was going to do that.

00:50:38.885 --> 00:50:40.668
Well, instinctive is often the best way, isn't it?

00:50:41.010 --> 00:50:43.793
So what's your amplifier of choice?

00:50:44.289 --> 00:50:46.172
Well, first of all, about

00:50:46.293 --> 00:50:53.001
half my shows I play through a guitar amp, and about half my shows I just play through a PA without an amp.

00:50:53.320 --> 00:50:58.086
But when I play through an amp, it's a PV transformer.

00:50:58.588 --> 00:51:02.413
It's an amp that they don't make anymore, but it's a modeling amp.

00:51:02.813 --> 00:51:09.181
It's no tubes in it at all, but it can emulate the sound of various amplifiers.

00:51:09.541 --> 00:51:12.666
I find it completely reliable and very versatile.

00:51:12.929 --> 00:51:17.978
Yeah, so you will switch between using the different modeling amplifiers in there to get different sounds.

00:51:18.057 --> 00:51:19.701
Is that the main reason for using it?

00:51:20.643 --> 00:51:28.635
Yeah, although mostly I just have it set for one, which is kind of emulating an old Fender amp.

00:51:29.257 --> 00:51:32.001
But yeah, sometimes I use the other models as well.

00:51:32.101 --> 00:51:34.585
But mostly I have it on that one setting.

00:51:35.137 --> 00:51:39.222
And then I play through a pedal board too when I'm playing an electric show.

00:51:39.242 --> 00:51:44.708
And so I get a lot of the variation in tones from my pedal board rather than from the amp.

00:51:45.849 --> 00:51:54.619
So about your effects, you do this great recording, which is Sonny Terry meets Jimi Hendrix, which recorded back in 1983.

00:51:55.420 --> 00:51:59.384
So you must have been pretty early on using the different effects on harmonica.

00:51:59.403 --> 00:52:00.985
So how did that recording come about?

00:52:03.088 --> 00:52:03.548
That was...

00:52:05.153 --> 00:52:11.543
I guess from my first solo record, which was an LP called Mad Cat Gone Solo.

00:52:11.702 --> 00:52:18.813
And I'd been playing in a band and the band broke up and I thought, well, I'll just go solo.

00:52:18.833 --> 00:52:22.378
So that's how that record name came to be.

00:52:23.380 --> 00:52:25.682
But I'd been playing through an amp.

00:52:26.184 --> 00:52:29.168
Well, the first amp I had was called a Heathkit amp.

00:52:29.507 --> 00:52:33.333
And it was this company, Heathkit, that you...

00:52:33.697 --> 00:52:35.420
It was a kit that you put together.

00:52:35.460 --> 00:52:37.724
You'd solder the circuit board together.

00:52:38.867 --> 00:52:41.431
Because I couldn't afford a Fender amp.

00:52:42.813 --> 00:52:46.139
But I put this amp together and it was a solid state amp.

00:52:46.820 --> 00:52:51.708
And then I was, you know, harmonica players would tell me, you know, well, you're doing it wrong.

00:52:52.630 --> 00:52:56.597
You have to have a tube amp in order to play right.

00:52:56.677 --> 00:53:03.038
But Hey, I'd already been on three albums and toured the world, and I thought, well, I can't be all that wrong.

00:53:05.001 --> 00:53:16.056
So I've mostly played through solid state amps, just because I didn't want to mess with having to change a tube, and because they were reliable.

00:53:17.257 --> 00:53:21.284
But what effects did you use on that Sonny Terry meets Jimi Hendrix song?

00:53:22.445 --> 00:53:32.873
At the time, I was using a microphone amp, It was a Wollensack tape recorder microphone, high impedance, little plastic thing.

00:53:33.195 --> 00:53:41.545
I made a microphone that would attach to my finger and had a volume control on my wrist on a watch band.

00:53:42.266 --> 00:53:44.068
But it was that Wollensack mic.

00:53:44.989 --> 00:53:59.170
And somehow the Wollensack mic with the speaker cabinet that I was using would get this amazing feedback that you can control by how close or far you got away from the speaker.

00:53:59.590 --> 00:54:04.315
So I developed that sound in the mid-70s, I guess.

00:54:19.614 --> 00:54:22.637
Well, so all that is just feedback, the sounds on that record.

00:54:22.914 --> 00:54:33.271
Yeah, that squeal is controlled feedback by how close my mic was from the speaker and how much I'd cup the mic with my hand.

00:54:33.351 --> 00:54:46.010
And so once that mic broke and I started using other mics, the feedback, it had to do with the combination of that particular mic and the speaker and the distance between the two.

00:54:46.130 --> 00:54:48.695
And so I don't have that sound anymore.

00:54:48.775 --> 00:54:50.097
I kind of miss it, but...

00:54:50.657 --> 00:54:51.798
I have other sounds now.

00:54:52.380 --> 00:54:54.302
Yeah, so what effects pedals do you use now?

00:54:55.402 --> 00:55:00.748
I use a POG, which is polyphonic octave device.

00:55:01.188 --> 00:55:06.634
And so it plays an octave up and an octave low or the main octave itself.

00:55:07.074 --> 00:55:11.498
And it has three dials where you can dial in the amount of the octave.

00:55:11.539 --> 00:55:12.840
So I use that once in a while.

00:55:13.641 --> 00:55:18.846
And I also have a delay pedal called a Supa Puss pedal.

00:55:19.489 --> 00:55:20.751
I love this delay pedal.

00:55:20.791 --> 00:55:23.695
It's an analog pedal, but it's digitally controlled.

00:55:23.856 --> 00:55:26.059
And it has a tap tempo.

00:55:26.478 --> 00:55:31.726
So you can tap in the exact tempo you want the delay to be.

00:55:31.766 --> 00:55:40.797
And then you also can make, by turning a knob, you can turn that into triplets or dotted eighth notes or eighth notes.

00:55:41.619 --> 00:55:46.905
I like to have a delay pedal that's highly adjustable.

00:55:47.873 --> 00:55:50.297
Those are my main two pedals.

00:55:51.599 --> 00:56:00.373
I run my sound through a graphic equalizer to get out some of the more shrill feedback bits.

00:56:01.355 --> 00:56:15.838
And then in the amp itself, my PV transformer amp has some phase shifting, some flanging, some Leslie speaker simulation, a nice reverb effect.

00:56:16.193 --> 00:56:18.617
So I use those sometimes.

00:56:19.878 --> 00:56:25.146
And microphone-wise, you're well known for the Shaker Madcat harmonica microphone.

00:56:25.166 --> 00:56:26.628
Is that still your microphone of choice?

00:56:27.429 --> 00:56:28.490
Yes, absolutely.

00:56:28.590 --> 00:56:42.570
I had this microphone made out of the Wollensack tape recorder mic, and then when that one broke, I had some made out of a RadioShack tape recorder mic, but after a while, you couldn't get those anymore.

00:56:43.458 --> 00:56:47.061
But I showed it to Joe Harless of Shaker Microphone one time.

00:56:47.081 --> 00:56:52.648
I said, well, I like that little original Shaker Microphone, but I like this one better.

00:56:52.668 --> 00:57:02.619
And he's the one that came up with the idea of making it into the shape that the Shaker Mad Cat Microphone is these days.

00:57:03.280 --> 00:57:04.961
And yes, that's the one I use.

00:57:05.181 --> 00:57:08.585
If I'm going to play through an amp, that's the only mic I ever use.

00:57:09.378 --> 00:57:13.943
And so to finish off now, just asking you about any future plans you've got.

00:57:13.983 --> 00:57:23.697
So again, on your YouTube channel, you've got this great song for the current situation called the Pandemic Boogie.

00:57:40.418 --> 00:57:54.271
so

00:57:55.391 --> 00:58:02.137
uh so obviously we're in this pandemic time at the moment any plans coming up beyond that or anything you're working on at home

00:58:03.619 --> 00:58:27.699
i'm working on various uh projects um there's a band called the steel drivers and uh It has a guitar player named Jay Lapp, and he lives in Ann Arbor, and we just met recently, and we've been doing some recording together, which it's recording together in two different houses, but we send tracks back and forth.

00:58:28.519 --> 00:58:31.503
So some of that might make it out into the world someday.

00:58:31.842 --> 00:58:38.590
I'm no doubt going to make some more solo recordings in my basement and put them out.

00:58:39.393 --> 00:58:43.519
And I might make some more harmonica teaching videos.

00:58:43.579 --> 00:58:44.181
I'm not sure.

00:58:44.702 --> 00:58:45.884
Just see what happens.

00:58:46.385 --> 00:58:49.750
I have no particular big plan I'm working on.

00:58:50.771 --> 00:58:51.472
Yeah, fantastic.

00:58:51.592 --> 00:58:53.815
It's been great to speak to you.

00:58:53.936 --> 00:58:55.498
You're certainly a fantastic player.

00:58:55.659 --> 00:58:56.780
You've done lots of great things.

00:58:56.800 --> 00:58:58.083
Thanks very much for joining me today.

00:58:58.684 --> 00:59:00.766
Well, it was a delight talking with you.

00:59:02.088 --> 00:59:02.309
Great.

00:59:02.349 --> 00:59:03.190
I love your series.

00:59:03.271 --> 00:59:08.038
I'm looking forward to listening to some of the back podcasts that I haven't heard.

00:59:08.929 --> 00:59:10.293
That's it for today, folks.

00:59:10.655 --> 00:59:18.396
Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica.

00:59:18.717 --> 00:59:20.262
Be sure to check out their website.

00:59:21.644 --> 00:59:23.409
My cat, take us home.

00:59:24.452 --> 00:59:24.733
Woof, woof, woof.