June 17, 2021

Phil Wiggins interview

Phil Wiggins interview

Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41. Phil was one half of one of the best known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over thirty years. They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world, and even played at the White House to the Clintons. They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach. A native of Washington D.C., Phil w...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Harmonica Author

Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41.

Phil  was one half of one of the best known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over thirty years. They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world, and even played at the White House to the Clintons. They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach.

A native of Washington D.C., Phil wrote a book about the blues scene in the city, and went on to use his music to steer some of the troubled youth of the city onto a better path.

Since John Cephas passed in 2009, Phil has continued his musical career by playing with various artists. Always sticking to his philosophy to play music for people to dance to.

Links:
Website: https://www.philwiggins.com/ 

Washington DC blues scene book:
https://sweetbitterblues.com/

Music & conversation with Joe Filisko and Eric Norden:
https://34lounge.com/

Videos:
National Folk Festival 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POEo8vxU2e8

With Ben Hunter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4f-9OMLmOA

Chesapeake Sheiks: Struttin’ With Some Barbeque
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjqIVZoCQ2g


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

00:57 - Phil is a native of Washington D.C. although was in a military family so moved around, including to Germany for four years

01:26 - First picked up the harmonica age 17 or 18

01:44 - Phil started playing with a woman singer on the streets of Virginia, called Flora Molton

02:06 - Main early influence came from church music, which he heard a lot of blues in

03:57 - Saw a lot of blues greats at the Smithsonian Festival in Washington D.C.

05:12 - Wasn’t aware of that many harmonica players early on, only Sonny Terry, and learned more from horn and piano players

06:11 - Style of playing developed by accompanying Flora, where he learned to listen

07:31 - Where first met John Cephas at a music festival

08:12 - It was in a band that Cephas and Wiggins first played together

11:20 - How the Cephas and Wiggins duo came into being

12:52 - The duo went on to great success and played all around the world

13:37 - Germany record company did some recordings of the duo in the USA and invited them over to tour Germany in early 1980s

14:56 - The duo were initially better known in Europe

16:07 - Cephas and Wiggins played in the White House, along with BB King

18:30 - Phil plays harmonica in the Piedmont style

20:40 - The blues styles of music were all made to dance to

21:29 - How Phil approached the style of Piedmont harmonica, and playing as an accompanist

24:09 - Has written a book about Washington D.C. music scene, called Sweet Bitter Blues

26:53 - Recording output with John Cephas

29:48 - Phil wrote the song Cool Down, about violence in D.C. Phil worked as a musical director to help troubled youth in the city

34:01 - Burn Your Bridges song

35:09 - Discovered Little Walter later in his development

36:21 - John Cephas passed away in 2009

37:27 - Phil continued his music career after the Cephas and Wiggins duo

38:01 - Played with Australian Dom Turner

40:11 - Performed with Ben Hunter

40:39 - Taking part in an online concert with Joe Filisko and Eric Norden on June 17 2021

41:06 - Phil has won numerous music awards, including two WC Handy blues awards

41:18 - Has provided lots of harmonica teaching, including at Euro Blues week in UK alongside Michael Roach

42:28 - Also teaches at Augusta Heritage workshop in West Virginia

42:56 - 10 minute question

44:02 - Phil has sung more since the duo ended, and has developed his voice in recent years, telling the story being key

46:59 - Plays Hohner Marine band diatonics

47:53 - Doesn’t play much chromatic

48:11 - Uses Melody Maker tuning with current band, The Chesapeake Sheiks

50:07 - Overblows

50:19 - Embouchre

51:43 - Amplification used

52:57 - Likes Electro Voice RE20 mic

54:44 - Has tried using tube amps but loses the dynamics of his hand technique

55:23 - Doesn’t use any effects

55:48 - Future plans

56:46 - Phil plays music for people to dance to

WEBVTT

00:00:00.386 --> 00:00:02.488
Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41.

00:00:03.229 --> 00:00:10.439
Phil was one half of one of the best-known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over 30 years.

00:00:11.041 --> 00:00:17.350
They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world and even played at the White House to the Clintons.

00:00:17.971 --> 00:00:25.922
They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach.

00:00:26.754 --> 00:00:36.648
A native of Washington DC, Phil wrote a book about the blues scene in the city and went on to use his music to steer some of the troubled youth of the city onto a better path.

00:00:37.469 --> 00:00:43.798
Since John Cephas passed in 2009, Phil continued his music career by playing with various artists.

00:00:44.459 --> 00:00:47.904
Above all, he plays music to make people dance.

00:00:53.290 --> 00:00:55.293
Hello Phil Wiggins and welcome to the podcast.

00:00:55.490 --> 00:00:57.317
Hello, yeah, thanks for having me.

00:00:57.698 --> 00:00:59.968
So you're a native of Washington, D.C.?

00:01:00.009 --> 00:01:03.182
Yeah, I was born and basically raised in Washington.

00:01:03.426 --> 00:01:05.707
I wound up in a military family.

00:01:05.748 --> 00:01:07.069
So we lived overseas.

00:01:07.108 --> 00:01:08.831
We lived in Germany for four years.

00:01:09.031 --> 00:01:13.614
And then when we returned to the States, we moved to Northern Virginia.

00:01:13.635 --> 00:01:23.644
And also, I spent a lot of my summers growing up in Titusville, Alabama, right outside of Birmingham, which is my mother's home place.

00:01:23.843 --> 00:01:26.525
So quite a diverse range of some time in Germany, as you say.

00:01:26.605 --> 00:01:28.487
So when did you start playing the harmonica?

00:01:28.727 --> 00:01:33.391
When I was living in Northern Virginia, I guess I was maybe 16 or 17.

00:01:33.391 --> 00:01:37.242
probably more like 18 when I started fooling with the harmonica.

00:01:37.763 --> 00:01:43.456
I was living in Northern Virginia, going to high school in Fairfax County, Virginia.

00:01:43.496 --> 00:01:50.814
It was during that time that I kind of reacquainted myself with a woman who was a blind street singer in Washington, D.C.

00:01:50.855 --> 00:01:51.936
named Flora Malton.

00:01:52.115 --> 00:01:59.581
And I like to mention her because I really feel like that connecting with her was when I really seriously started trying to make music on harmonica.

00:01:59.662 --> 00:01:59.921
Yeah.

00:02:00.022 --> 00:02:01.284
So I've been reading about Flora.

00:02:01.323 --> 00:02:05.367
So she was preaching on the street and playing music with the guitar.

00:02:05.387 --> 00:02:05.466
Yeah.

00:02:05.566 --> 00:02:06.028
Is that right?

00:02:06.048 --> 00:02:09.069
And then because you were quite influenced by church music initially, weren't you?

00:02:09.390 --> 00:02:09.651
Yes.

00:02:09.790 --> 00:02:09.950
Yeah.

00:02:10.010 --> 00:02:21.763
Well, starting, I mentioned Titusville, Alabama in terms of influences starting back then And when I was a kid spending summers in Titusville, and I was really close with my grandmother.

00:02:21.802 --> 00:02:25.205
So when I would be in Titusville, I'd spend a lot of time with her.

00:02:25.286 --> 00:02:30.132
And I used to walk her to the church on Thursday evening for the prayer meeting.

00:02:30.312 --> 00:02:32.514
And I would hang outside the church until she was done.

00:02:32.693 --> 00:02:47.955
And the prayer meetings were basically the elderly women of the church that would go and they would do what they call sing prayers and praises, which was a lot of kind of call and response where one of the women would sing out a line and then the rest of of the congregation would answer back.

00:02:48.175 --> 00:02:54.153
Sitting outside in the dark waiting for my grandmother to come out and hearing that music, I mean, it was just very powerful.

00:02:54.534 --> 00:02:56.280
You've done a song called Prayers and Praises.

00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:57.884
I mean, you've written on the basis of that.

00:03:17.858 --> 00:03:23.562
Yeah, I decided to do that just to help keep that memory sharp for myself, you know.

00:03:23.582 --> 00:03:29.288
And I like playing that song because even though it doesn't have words, it tells a story.

00:03:29.747 --> 00:03:32.150
So you're quite influenced by hearing this church music.

00:03:32.189 --> 00:03:35.052
And you saw a lot of blues in this music, yeah?

00:03:35.312 --> 00:03:36.093
Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:03:36.234 --> 00:03:39.336
I mean, to me, you know, musically, there was no difference.

00:03:39.676 --> 00:03:43.159
I mean, of course, the lyric was about, you know, it was sacred.

00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:44.661
It was about praising God.

00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:47.623
But the singing, the phrasing to my ear was...

00:03:47.824 --> 00:03:49.224
This

00:03:49.284 --> 00:03:53.229
is when you were quite

00:03:56.831 --> 00:03:57.252
young.

00:03:57.611 --> 00:04:06.699
Were you familiar with blues then?

00:04:06.740 --> 00:04:16.007
Had you grown up listening to blues?

00:04:17.793 --> 00:04:51.023
performing just like they would be doing on their front porch or in their in their own living room at home they would set them up very informally and so i got to hear all these amazing and really honestly some of the real icons of like mississippi delta blues and and from mississippi alabama louisiana all these places they would bring these amazing people the way they set it up it made it easy for you to approach these musicians and it's always there hanging out with these folks and i had no idea that that they were icons of the Delta Blues.

00:04:51.324 --> 00:04:57.711
I mean, to me, they were just like great musicians that happened to be in my town and they welcomed me.

00:04:57.730 --> 00:05:07.521
They were so friendly and so down to earth that I didn't realize, oh, I'm playing with Johnny Shines or I'm playing with Chief Ellis or Sam Chapman from the Mississippi Sheiks.

00:05:08.341 --> 00:05:12.406
Later on, I realized these are the icons of it.

00:05:12.906 --> 00:05:17.711
So just about how you started playing the harmonica, as you say, you maybe picked it up 17, 18.

00:05:17.711 --> 00:05:27.521
So did you hear the sort of classic blues players or did you sort of develop your own style and then we're playing with Flora and how did you approach learning the harmonica initially?

00:05:27.862 --> 00:05:35.451
Well, honestly, when I first picked up the harmonica, the only harmonica player that I was really aware of was Sonny Terry.

00:05:35.730 --> 00:05:43.500
I'd heard some recordings of him and I actually did get to hear Brownie and Sonny live a few times during my high school years.

00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:54.872
It wasn't until way later on that a friend of mine turned me on to people like Little Walter and Big Walter and Junior Wells and all those Chicago guys.

00:05:55.372 --> 00:06:07.384
So really, when I was first exploring, I was stealing more from horn players and piano players, even guitar players, than I was from other harmonica players.

00:06:07.644 --> 00:06:11.269
So in that sense, I was lucky because I did kind of develop my own style.

00:06:11.408 --> 00:06:16.634
And my style developed because of playing with Flora and then later on with John Cephas.

00:06:16.995 --> 00:06:21.199
But like playing with Floor, for example, you know, she was mainly a street musician.

00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:24.562
She was a sanctified minister and a street musician.

00:06:24.622 --> 00:06:30.889
And she was used to just sitting there with her cup on the end of her guitar, playing whatever she felt like playing and singing.

00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:32.110
She made songs.

00:06:32.151 --> 00:06:33.293
She made beautiful songs.

00:06:33.572 --> 00:06:34.593
And she would just sing.

00:06:34.834 --> 00:06:39.939
You know, she would stop in the middle of a song to say thank you to someone that had dropped money in her bucket.

00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:42.182
So her style was really free.

00:06:42.423 --> 00:06:49.550
And so in order to play with her and in order to stick with her, I had to listen very carefully, which I really appreciate.

00:06:49.810 --> 00:06:57.218
That's how I kind of got started because it really taught me to be a good listener to whoever I was trying to make music with.

00:06:57.598 --> 00:07:02.384
And you'd be surprised how many musicians really don't use their ear that much.

00:07:02.923 --> 00:07:05.887
So at this point, were you aware of, you know, different keys?

00:07:05.987 --> 00:07:10.451
Or were you just picking that up as you were going along and sort of picking whichever harmonica worked?

00:07:10.492 --> 00:07:10.533
Of

00:07:10.812 --> 00:07:13.295
course, I had to figure out the whole key thing.

00:07:13.596 --> 00:07:22.689
But with Flora, it was pretty easy because she played in an open-to She called it Vastapool tuning or Spanish, but it was an open tune.

00:07:22.730 --> 00:07:28.100
She played slide guitar and an open tuning and she really only played in one key.

00:07:29.622 --> 00:07:30.603
I made that simple then.

00:07:30.644 --> 00:07:30.805
Yeah.

00:07:31.245 --> 00:07:32.848
You mentioned John Cephas there.

00:07:32.928 --> 00:07:37.576
So I think you met John when you were playing at a festival with Flora, didn't you?

00:07:38.209 --> 00:07:38.911
Yeah, that's true.

00:07:38.971 --> 00:07:42.132
I mentioned the Smithsonian Festival, and that's how I met John.

00:07:42.173 --> 00:07:53.343
It was 1976, and I was there playing with Flora, and I had gotten to be good friends with Johnny Shines and with Sam Chapman and Robert Belfort.

00:07:53.944 --> 00:07:55.625
John came to the festival.

00:07:55.665 --> 00:08:00.369
He was playing in a band with a guy named Big Chief Ellis, who was a piano player.

00:08:00.649 --> 00:08:02.850
I guess you'd call it barrel house style.

00:08:03.151 --> 00:08:06.113
And Chief was originally from Alabama.

00:08:06.314 --> 00:08:08.997
So they came there playing together, and I'm And I met them.

00:08:09.197 --> 00:08:11.860
Really, I think Johnny Shines introduced me to them.

00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:19.687
And we spent a couple of days at that festival together, going around, talking and listening to other people play and getting to know each other.

00:08:19.708 --> 00:08:27.757
And one of those days, the festival had shut down and we were walking through the festival on our way back to where people had parked their cars or whatever.

00:08:27.877 --> 00:08:33.722
And somebody noticed that on one of the stages, the sound crew had left the sound equipment on.

00:08:33.863 --> 00:08:36.346
They somehow found these live microphones.

00:08:36.485 --> 00:08:39.469
So they got up on that stage And they had a jam session.

00:08:39.629 --> 00:08:46.035
And Johnny Shine said, he and I, we had been talking about how, for me, I mean, that I love the gospel.

00:08:46.116 --> 00:08:52.582
But really what I was really hoping to do someday is to get into just the pure deep blues.

00:08:52.823 --> 00:08:55.447
And he said, well, you know, you just hang in there.

00:08:55.486 --> 00:08:56.648
Keep doing what you're doing.

00:08:56.707 --> 00:08:57.568
Keep your ears open.

00:08:57.688 --> 00:08:58.889
One day you'll get your chance.

00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:00.532
And that day was my chance.

00:09:00.572 --> 00:09:02.374
He said, I'm going to call you on stage.

00:09:02.614 --> 00:09:05.596
And I'm going to sing phrases into your ear.

00:09:05.616 --> 00:09:08.080
And then I want you to play them just like I sang them to you.

00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:09.562
And that's what we did.

00:09:09.741 --> 00:09:13.605
That was kind of my musical introduction to John and Chief Ellis.

00:09:13.846 --> 00:09:19.832
They had a trio, Chief Ellis and the Barrelhouse Rockers, which was John and then a bass player named James Bellamy.

00:09:19.932 --> 00:09:29.001
So we had that jam session and I found out that they were going to be going to the Child Herald that night, which was really at that point was in my neighborhood.

00:09:29.342 --> 00:09:41.174
I got hip to the fact that the guy that owned the Child Herald in the summertime, he would come and root around the festival and see which blues players that Smithsonian had brought in and he knew the festival was shut down that night.

00:09:41.336 --> 00:09:45.220
So they were free and he would get them to come to his club and play at night.

00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:47.322
And that's where Chief and John were going.

00:09:47.562 --> 00:09:52.386
And so I followed them there and they invited me to join in on the jams there.

00:09:52.607 --> 00:09:56.371
And then they invited me to join their trio, the Barrelhouse Rockers.

00:09:56.731 --> 00:09:59.754
So this was you, again, the first time you played with John Cifa.

00:09:59.774 --> 00:10:03.458
So obviously there was three of you then and it was the four of you when you joined.

00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:06.982
Yeah, so it was Chief Ellis playing the piano.

00:10:07.043 --> 00:10:12.328
He was the band leader James Bellamy on bass, John on guitar, and then me on harmonica.

00:10:12.428 --> 00:10:18.034
And so we played that way together, did a few festivals and a couple of out of town gigs.

00:10:18.475 --> 00:10:20.417
And Chief, he lived in D.C.

00:10:20.456 --> 00:10:21.558
He owned a liquor store.

00:10:21.778 --> 00:10:23.399
John was a carpenter.

00:10:23.461 --> 00:10:28.004
He was the foreman at the carpenter shop at the National Guard Armory.

00:10:28.245 --> 00:10:31.489
James Bellamy was a security guard at the armory.

00:10:31.749 --> 00:10:34.392
And so they all, you know, were residents of D.C.

00:10:34.471 --> 00:10:37.434
and they had their day jobs and then they had their music.

00:10:37.655 --> 00:10:44.942
And I'd We played that way for about two years before Chief decided to move back home to Alabama.

00:10:45.323 --> 00:10:50.369
Shortly after he moved back to Alabama, he had a heart attack and he passed away.

00:10:50.889 --> 00:10:55.554
Now, the funny thing about all that, my father passed away when I was seven years old.

00:10:55.695 --> 00:10:59.658
And so in my lifetime, I never knew very many people that actually knew my father.

00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:07.888
But it turns out, just coincidentally, that Chief Ellis and my father were classmates in Tittlesville, Alabama when they were kids.

00:11:07.888 --> 00:11:09.671
when they were in grade school.

00:11:10.051 --> 00:11:13.697
And I guess through high school, they were classmates.

00:11:13.996 --> 00:11:14.216
Wow.

00:11:14.577 --> 00:11:16.220
Strange, these coincidences, aren't they?

00:11:16.461 --> 00:11:16.640
Yeah.

00:11:17.001 --> 00:11:36.090
So you went on, you played with the band, and then that turned into the duo, which you're best known for, Cephas and Wiggins, which you played with John Cephas for well over 30 years, yeah?

00:11:36.110 --> 00:11:36.190
Yeah.

00:11:43.138 --> 00:11:44.519
How did that become a duo?

00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:51.044
Well, after Chief passed, people had started to call John to come and play festivals.

00:11:51.164 --> 00:11:55.989
And there were some coffee houses in that time and those kind of clubs and whatnot.

00:11:56.249 --> 00:12:01.313
And John, you know, he called me up one day and said, you know, Phil, people keep calling me to come and play.

00:12:01.374 --> 00:12:03.676
And I don't really enjoy doing it by myself.

00:12:03.735 --> 00:12:05.256
You know, would you like to come along?

00:12:05.297 --> 00:12:10.381
And so, you know, so I started going with John to different, you know, like coffee houses.

00:12:10.542 --> 00:12:16.927
And actually at that point, I had been doing more playing in public than John had, even though he was much older than me.

00:12:17.168 --> 00:12:23.414
His only playing experience, you know, public playing experience was, you know, his few gigs that he had done with Chief.

00:12:23.634 --> 00:12:29.782
John, you know, did a lot of, you know, house parties, you know, playing at home and playing at friends' houses and stuff.

00:12:30.142 --> 00:12:34.326
He had not played in, like, public venues that much.

00:12:34.407 --> 00:12:50.244
Like, when they came to the Smithsonian, that was the first time John had played for the I had played at the Smithsonian Festival for probably four years already prior to meeting John.

00:12:50.724 --> 00:12:52.206
You know, I played there with Flora.

00:12:52.745 --> 00:12:57.130
So your duo, I mean, you went on to be, you know, probably one of the great blues duos, yeah?

00:12:57.150 --> 00:13:04.879
I mean, when you talk about Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, you know, you're probably mentioned in the same sentence as those guys, yeah, as being a well-known blues duo.

00:13:07.481 --> 00:13:13.008
I just remember that the blues would do your heart good

00:13:13.008 --> 00:13:23.005
¶.

00:13:23.841 --> 00:13:24.802
to do great things.

00:13:24.863 --> 00:13:34.331
You know, you toured the world, you played in all sorts of festivals, you played in some of the great concert arenas around the world, you played in Carnegie Hall, in Royal Albert Hall, Sydney Opera House, yeah?

00:13:34.711 --> 00:13:35.572
So how was all that?

00:13:35.972 --> 00:13:37.553
Oh man, it was amazing.

00:13:37.774 --> 00:13:52.267
So we got started, there was a record label in Germany, Lippmann& Rau, a record company that had sent two recording technicians to the east coast of the US to find these quote-unquote Piedmont players.

00:13:52.506 --> 00:13:57.672
So they were there looking for for Archie Edwards and John Jackson and John Cephas.

00:13:58.033 --> 00:14:06.721
And they met John and, you know, again, you say they did some recording sessions at John's carpenter shop and they did some recordings at his house.

00:14:06.802 --> 00:14:11.046
And, you know, again, he called me up and said, these guys from Germany are here recording me.

00:14:11.287 --> 00:14:12.888
Why don't you come over and join in?

00:14:13.149 --> 00:14:13.808
And I did that.

00:14:13.869 --> 00:14:24.801
And then when they took those recordings back to Germany and once the record company owners, they heard those recordings and they had been doing these annual acoustic Lou's tours.

00:14:25.081 --> 00:14:30.687
And so they invited me and John to one of those tours in 19, it was 1980 or 81.

00:14:31.288 --> 00:14:32.208
So we did a tour.

00:14:32.229 --> 00:14:34.572
It was about three weeks long, I would say.

00:14:34.751 --> 00:14:46.825
And when I came back from that, by that time, been in that much time together with John and learning to play well with him and all, and realizing that he was probably the best musician that I knew up to that point.

00:14:46.985 --> 00:14:55.933
So all these other things that I was doing, I just kind of cut them back and decided that I was just going to focus on Cephas and we And that's really how we got started.

00:14:56.254 --> 00:15:01.600
And from there, I mean, for a long time, we were better known in like Europe than we were in the U.S.

00:15:02.041 --> 00:15:03.942
Our records were done in Europe.

00:15:04.683 --> 00:15:09.107
And, you know, you mentioned a lot of these great venues that we got a chance to play.

00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:10.129
And it was great.

00:15:10.210 --> 00:15:15.534
I mean, for me, I love to travel and it was great to get a chance to go back to Europe.

00:15:15.755 --> 00:15:19.399
As I said before, I had lived in Germany for four years when I was growing up.

00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:26.947
I mean, the interesting thing about that, I mean, even though John was older, he really really hadn't traveled that much except, you know, being in the military.

00:15:27.027 --> 00:15:28.067
He was in Korea.

00:15:28.408 --> 00:15:32.591
But in terms of, like, traveling throughout Europe, and I had learned to speak some German.

00:15:32.892 --> 00:15:42.821
And so, really, I sort of took care of him through all those tours because, I mean, I was used to traveling, you know, and I could speak some of the language and so I could help navigate.

00:15:43.081 --> 00:15:50.427
And John, honestly, John built his house down there in Bowling Green, Virginia between Richmond and Fredericksburg.

00:15:50.847 --> 00:15:53.509
As he said, you know, he was a country boy at heart.

00:15:53.666 --> 00:16:00.591
And honestly, his comfort zone was like basically a five-mile radius of where he built his house.

00:16:01.011 --> 00:16:05.556
So being in foreign countries, he wasn't really that comfortable.

00:16:06.157 --> 00:16:07.278
You looked after him, yes.

00:16:07.457 --> 00:16:10.320
So, I mean, you also played in the White House as well, yeah, with B.B.

00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.403
King to the Clintons when they were in office there.

00:16:13.702 --> 00:16:17.767
Yeah, that was a great experience, yeah, playing for Bill and Hillary.

00:16:18.206 --> 00:16:19.548
Yeah, it was great.

00:16:20.589 --> 00:16:21.529
It was kind of funny.

00:16:21.971 --> 00:16:58.399
Well, for one thing, I mean, for me, you know it was great to meet the clintons but the highlight of it for me was being able to spend like two solid days uh in the company of uh bb king who's just an amazing character amazing gentleman That two day experience was kind of hectic because, you know, it was for television and everything.

00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:05.951
And so I think on the first day we had to run the show like three times, you know, straight through exactly the way it was going to be.

00:17:05.971 --> 00:17:07.594
So it was kind of hectic.

00:17:07.773 --> 00:17:08.414
And B.B.

00:17:08.434 --> 00:17:13.001
King was just a completely relaxed and complete gentleman the whole time.

00:17:13.314 --> 00:17:15.476
So it was great to be able to spend time with him.

00:17:15.855 --> 00:17:18.438
And his bandmates were a riot.

00:17:18.458 --> 00:17:23.242
I remember because we stayed in a hotel a little ways away from the White House.

00:17:23.663 --> 00:17:24.903
John and I and B.B.

00:17:25.163 --> 00:17:29.667
King's band were all loaded in the same van driving to the White House.

00:17:30.048 --> 00:17:31.390
We'd have to go through security.

00:17:31.569 --> 00:17:34.692
That was during that whole Monica Lewinsky episode.

00:17:36.634 --> 00:17:41.939
Those guys had all kinds of great jokes about navigating through security and all.

00:17:41.959 --> 00:17:43.279
They're going, hmm, Monica Lewinsky?

00:17:43.279 --> 00:18:12.171
got through all this they had a german shepherd you know bomb sniffing dog that would come and inspect the van and the dog was kind of gray around the snout and uh those guys were looking and laughing look at that dog he's about ready to retire and then another guy said yeah he's gonna draw a pension too they were right so that was a great experience and they let me bring my daughters so they got to meet the clintons and they got to meet bb king and they got to meet della reese so that was a great experience for them also

00:18:12.530 --> 00:18:14.954
well it's fantastic where, you know, the harmonica's taking you.

00:18:15.015 --> 00:18:16.718
Must be so grateful for that.

00:18:16.838 --> 00:18:19.844
I never thought that it would take you so far when you picked it up, eh?

00:18:20.204 --> 00:18:21.968
Yeah, no, that's true, man.

00:18:22.568 --> 00:18:22.970
What is it?

00:18:23.029 --> 00:18:29.561
Three inches of wood and steel and it's taken me to every continent on this planet except Antarctica.

00:18:30.018 --> 00:18:33.701
So talking more than about, you mentioned the Piedmont style.

00:18:33.760 --> 00:18:36.123
So you're associated with the Piedmont styles.

00:18:36.644 --> 00:18:37.924
Let's explain that.

00:18:38.005 --> 00:18:44.269
You're probably one of the few exponents on harmonica as a Piedmont style, because it's more based on guitar playing, isn't it?

00:18:44.369 --> 00:18:47.553
The sort of bass notes and sort of melody on the treble strings, isn't it?

00:18:47.573 --> 00:18:53.438
And is that how you picked it up by playing with John Cephas and the sort of style he was playing and others?

00:18:53.798 --> 00:18:54.618
Yeah, exactly.

00:18:54.679 --> 00:18:55.839
Yeah.

00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:58.221
I called it finger style or finger picking.

00:18:58.383 --> 00:19:08.086
When I hooked up with John, That's when I became familiar with that term Piedmont style.

00:19:26.913 --> 00:19:42.928
Well, first I should say, as you mentioned, like the Piedmont style is defined by the technique used on the guitar of picking out an alternating bass line and at the same time picking out a melody line on the treble strings.

00:19:43.288 --> 00:19:56.098
I guess for people that aren't familiar with it, kind of one of the best ways to explain it is to imagine the guitar kind of being used to imitate like a piano where your thumb is like the left hand of the piano.

00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:04.740
and out of baseline and your fingers are like the right hand playing the melody on the higher treble strings.

00:20:04.980 --> 00:20:06.582
That's how I would explain it.

00:20:06.961 --> 00:20:09.424
You know, it's a kind of acoustic country style, isn't it?

00:20:09.464 --> 00:20:12.707
Not so much the city style that we associate with, obviously, Chicago.

00:20:13.208 --> 00:20:19.753
And, you know, the other sort of alternative would be the sort of delta blues from the south of the U.S., which was acoustic but different, yeah.

00:20:19.773 --> 00:20:23.997
So it was that country acoustic style very much, you know, was a big part of it, yeah.

00:20:24.297 --> 00:20:24.498
Yeah.

00:20:24.678 --> 00:20:33.905
Well, so the delta style, you know, what we call the Chicago style or urban blues, really is linked to the Delta style of playing.

00:20:34.125 --> 00:20:38.830
Of course, Muddy Waters went up to Chicago and took that sort of Delta style and developed it into electric, yeah.

00:20:39.092 --> 00:20:39.332
True.

00:20:39.893 --> 00:20:44.478
Both of those styles of music, though, were essentially, you know, dance music.

00:20:44.657 --> 00:20:48.862
And when you think of the Piedmont style, it's not like really a show-off.

00:20:48.902 --> 00:20:50.223
I mean, it's challenging.

00:20:50.284 --> 00:20:59.653
I mean, the technique, the Piedmont style technique, and John used to like to say that, you know, the Piedmont style is much harder than the Delta style to play.

00:21:00.934 --> 00:21:02.016
He often said that.

00:21:02.096 --> 00:21:13.387
But I mean, unless you were paying attention, you don't notice, like in the Piedmont style, it's not so much like, you know, showing off guitar solos and things like that.

00:21:13.648 --> 00:21:17.031
It's like a woven pattern that's for dancing.

00:21:17.333 --> 00:21:20.875
I mean, to me, that's kind of one of the things that I love most about it.

00:21:20.895 --> 00:21:26.942
It's just, it's such a great rhythm, such a great kind of loping or bouncing kind of rhythm.

00:21:27.002 --> 00:21:29.345
John used to call it the Williamsburg lope.

00:21:29.645 --> 00:21:31.728
And that really comes true in your harmonica playing.

00:21:31.728 --> 00:21:33.169
So it really weaves in and out.

00:21:33.209 --> 00:21:38.413
There's some intricate rhythms that you play on harmonica as well as you're accompanying the guitar.

00:21:38.473 --> 00:21:41.696
And, you know, you play some really fast licks in between as well.

00:21:41.817 --> 00:21:52.967
But, you know, it is quite a busy style harmonica, which fits really nicely around the guitar, doesn't it?

00:21:53.067 --> 00:21:56.150
¦

00:22:03.650 --> 00:22:10.056
One of my favorite things to do with the harmonica is to kind of use it as percussion.

00:22:10.355 --> 00:22:14.098
And like you say, the Piedmont style is pretty busy.

00:22:14.358 --> 00:22:16.121
There's a lot going on with the guitar.

00:22:16.340 --> 00:22:20.845
So sometimes my best job is just to lay on the backbeat.

00:22:21.144 --> 00:22:22.125
So I do that a lot.

00:22:22.526 --> 00:22:26.088
Also, when there's space, I throw in some licks.

00:22:26.369 --> 00:22:30.973
I'll steal a lick from the guitar or I'll steal a phrase from the vocal.

00:22:31.213 --> 00:22:35.458
My main thing is trying to be careful not to overpower the vocal.

00:22:35.617 --> 00:22:40.202
Because playing with John, I mean, John had that beautiful baritone voice, but he wasn't a shouter.

00:22:40.442 --> 00:22:42.164
You know, he was a singer and he sang.

00:22:42.204 --> 00:22:44.287
Honestly, he didn't sing that loud.

00:22:44.326 --> 00:22:51.194
He sang pretty softly and he worked the microphone well until he got up on the mic when he was singing so you could hear him.

00:22:51.255 --> 00:22:58.923
But he sang softly and I think that's how he got such a beautiful tone with his voice was by not shouting out.

00:22:59.022 --> 00:23:01.445
Then I had to be careful not to overpower

00:23:01.486 --> 00:23:03.567
him.

00:23:03.567 --> 00:23:16.582
and also

00:23:16.701 --> 00:23:34.441
not not to clutter up because john was doing some pretty amazing stuff finger picking a lot of times i would repeat phrases that he would play on the guitar but a lot of times i would just play those rhythms i would i would kind of think of the guitar as maybe like a snare drum or something you know and play those rhythms.

00:23:34.681 --> 00:23:45.952
And then sometimes I would almost use it as like playing a bass line, you know, just thinking of what the best thing at any point in time would be to support what's going on.

00:23:45.972 --> 00:23:55.584
I mean, I often say to people, you know, if you got the right key harmonica and you stick it in your mouth and wiggle it around, you're not going to hit a wrong note, but you're not really playing the song.

00:23:55.844 --> 00:24:08.517
And so really, if you're stealing phrases from the voice or you're stealing licks from the guitar or you're hitting the backbeat to help support the rhythm, then you're really playing music, then you're really playing the song.

00:24:09.057 --> 00:24:15.384
So another thing you've done is you've co-wrote a book called Sweet Bitter Blues, which is about Washington, D.C.''s homemade blues.

00:24:15.464 --> 00:24:23.173
So this is a very well-received book, yeah, and it focuses quite a lot on this Piedmont style and the whole scene around, the blues scene around Washington, yeah?

00:24:23.614 --> 00:24:25.855
Yeah, and that's the thing a lot of people don't realize.

00:24:25.875 --> 00:24:30.421
There's a pretty amazing and thriving community of blues players in Washington, D.C.

00:24:30.760 --> 00:24:36.207
Now, a lot of them, the linchpins of that community are gone now or passed on.

00:24:36.267 --> 00:24:40.771
You know, John Cephas, John Jackson, Archie Edwards, Flora Moulton.

00:24:41.172 --> 00:24:41.553
D.C.

00:24:41.613 --> 00:24:43.755
basically is in the Piedmont region.

00:24:43.875 --> 00:24:54.026
And so you had people that made their homes here that were from Virginia or North Carolina, you know, Piedmont pickers that made their homes in and around Washington, D.C.

00:24:54.205 --> 00:24:56.568
Yeah, and that's what a lot of what the book focuses on.

00:24:56.989 --> 00:25:00.512
John Cephas and I, you know, as you know, we traveled around the world.

00:25:00.992 --> 00:25:05.678
Archie Edwards really didn't travel that much until kind of much later on.

00:25:06.159 --> 00:25:10.483
But when he came back home, he was from a place called Franklin County, Virginia.

00:25:10.844 --> 00:25:14.887
But he made his home in Washington, D.C., and he owned a barbershop there.

00:25:15.028 --> 00:25:18.011
He would cut hair through the week and then on Saturday.

00:25:18.071 --> 00:25:22.476
But on Saturday, around two o'clock in the afternoon, he would shut the shop.

00:25:22.696 --> 00:25:30.325
And from two o'clock till like way late in the evening, he and his friends that would come to the shop would sit around and play music together.

00:25:30.585 --> 00:25:33.327
They were mostly finger style or Piedmont style players.

00:25:33.327 --> 00:25:34.308
that would come.

00:25:34.568 --> 00:25:39.334
And a bunch of young people caught wind of that and they would show up there too, mostly to listen.

00:25:39.755 --> 00:25:51.227
And then when he passed away, by the time he passed away, a lot of these young folks that had caught on to, you know, his jam sessions really felt inspired to carry on his legacy.

00:25:51.426 --> 00:25:53.348
And they rented out the barbershop.

00:25:53.569 --> 00:25:54.911
They hosted these jams.

00:25:54.951 --> 00:26:02.098
And one guy in particular, Michael Batop, he really helped to establish this, what they call the Archie Edwards Foundation.

00:26:02.278 --> 00:26:09.246
The thing that that the younger generation picked up from those folks who were world-class musicians.

00:26:09.507 --> 00:26:13.810
They were very down to earth and very generous with their talent.

00:26:14.051 --> 00:26:21.098
They really appreciated when any younger person showed up that was interested in what they were doing and wanted to learn.

00:26:21.138 --> 00:26:22.881
And they were very welcoming.

00:26:22.921 --> 00:26:38.647
And I think that helped set the tone to carry on that spirit of generosity and accepting all comers, regardless of ability or level of plan or You know, everybody was, and still is to this day, welcome to those jam sessions.

00:26:38.909 --> 00:26:40.673
Good breeding ground for people to develop.

00:26:41.035 --> 00:26:43.101
So did you play in this barbershop yourself?

00:26:44.042 --> 00:26:44.925
Yeah, I did.

00:26:45.377 --> 00:26:46.558
Yeah, superb.

00:26:46.979 --> 00:26:49.582
Well done for getting that book together and getting it out.

00:26:49.622 --> 00:26:52.624
So I'll move on to talking through your recording career.

00:26:53.204 --> 00:27:00.290
So you did numerous albums with John Cephas through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s as well.

00:27:00.931 --> 00:27:01.291
Yeah.

00:27:01.711 --> 00:27:08.397
So we did two, I believe, over the first 80 and then maybe 83.

00:27:08.897 --> 00:27:14.442
And they were on the Lippmann and Rau label, which was from West Germany.

00:27:14.603 --> 00:27:16.747
And they were the ones that had the tour.

00:27:16.788 --> 00:27:18.511
They did an annual blues tour.

00:27:19.133 --> 00:27:30.059
Well, the first recordings that we did in the States were on Flying Fish, and then we got on Rounder.

00:27:30.401 --> 00:27:31.904
I believe it was the Flying Fish...

00:27:32.385 --> 00:27:38.451
label that actually John and I were playing at the Smithsonian Festival.

00:27:38.832 --> 00:27:42.634
And by that time, we had befriended a guy named Joe Wilson.

00:27:42.934 --> 00:27:48.299
At that time, he was the head of an organization called the National Council for Traditional Arts.

00:27:48.779 --> 00:27:51.061
When he met John, it was like love at first sight.

00:27:51.402 --> 00:27:54.525
They became fast friends and fast buddies.

00:27:54.605 --> 00:28:04.173
And Joe Wilson really took it as his job to help John and also myself get more recognition and to advance our careers.

00:28:04.493 --> 00:28:10.099
And he had invited a guy from Rounder to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

00:28:10.259 --> 00:28:21.211
And one day while they were there, he kind of wrangled that guy to watch me and John as we finished a set and went to the products tent, you know, where we're selling our recordings.

00:28:21.673 --> 00:28:26.438
And that guy saw us selling a cassette recording that we had made.

00:28:26.877 --> 00:28:29.540
And, you know, the line was around the block by then.

00:28:30.501 --> 00:28:32.084
And that guy, he said, you know, who...

00:28:32.304 --> 00:28:42.377
owns that recording and that's how we kind of got hooked up with rounder because that guy saw our cassette selling like hot cakes and he decided yeah i want a piece of that

00:29:04.993 --> 00:29:21.102
Yeah, so you released a few albums through, and John doing Guitar Man, and then on Flip Flop and Fly in 92, you got some other musicians on there, there's some horns on that album.

00:29:21.122 --> 00:29:21.342
MUSIC PLAYS

00:29:30.753 --> 00:29:34.336
Was that the first album you had, you know, more than just a duo on there?

00:29:35.137 --> 00:29:36.019
Yeah, I believe so.

00:29:36.439 --> 00:29:44.546
And the horns, maybe they were only on one or two tracks, but it was the United House of Prayer brass band.

00:29:44.965 --> 00:29:48.429
But generally you stuck to doing the duo and not bring too many in.

00:29:48.670 --> 00:29:50.211
And you mentioned John Good Singing.

00:29:50.290 --> 00:29:56.516
I mean, you've got some interesting lyrics, you know, you've got that cool down song on the album in 96.

00:29:57.017 --> 00:30:01.406
You know, it's about people not getting into, you know, getting pick up a gun and getting into violence.

00:30:06.529 --> 00:30:10.272
So there's some

00:30:16.719 --> 00:30:18.881
quite meaningful lyrics coming out.

00:30:19.080 --> 00:30:20.541
Who wrote most of the songs?

00:30:20.761 --> 00:30:24.164
Well, most of the original songs that we did, I wrote.

00:30:24.365 --> 00:30:29.109
And actually, you know, I've been writing songs over 30 years that John and I played together.

00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:36.496
I was writing songs, but very few of my own songs made it onto our set list.

00:30:36.496 --> 00:30:37.356
But a few of them did.

00:30:37.717 --> 00:30:39.779
You mentioned Cool Down.

00:30:40.220 --> 00:30:42.722
Yeah, at that time, that was in the early 80s.

00:30:42.782 --> 00:30:44.443
And at that time, D.C.

00:30:44.545 --> 00:30:47.268
was the homicide capital of the country.

00:30:47.587 --> 00:30:57.077
So one of my day jobs was working with this theater company that had a contract with the district government to work with what they called Youth at Risk.

00:30:57.258 --> 00:31:01.583
So we would get these kids that had been thrown out of school.

00:31:01.883 --> 00:31:03.644
The school system couldn't deal with them.

00:31:03.845 --> 00:31:07.009
Most of them had had kind of run-ins with the penal system.

00:31:07.048 --> 00:31:10.712
Most of them had been in and out of youth detention centers.

00:31:10.853 --> 00:31:12.213
So we were working with them.

00:31:12.433 --> 00:31:20.083
And at that time, I mean, D.C., especially in certain neighborhoods like Anacostia, it was like terrible, dangerous place to live.

00:31:20.222 --> 00:31:31.233
And, you know, we would we would work with these kids and every Monday they would come back to work talking about this friend was killed this weekend or, you know, I went to this wake or I went to this funeral.

00:31:31.255 --> 00:31:33.757
And I mean, it was a terrible, dangerous place.

00:31:33.817 --> 00:31:36.240
And, you know, of course, it was the drug business.

00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:46.673
which a lot of those kids living in these neighborhoods and living kind of a hard life and not having much, they could make a lot of fast money selling drugs.

00:31:46.873 --> 00:31:58.708
But then the ones that came to us, they had been in and out of jail, out of school, whatever, and were theoretically ready to try to do something better with their lives.

00:31:58.868 --> 00:31:59.789
And it was hard.

00:32:00.450 --> 00:32:00.789
So

00:32:01.009 --> 00:32:04.292
were you using the music as part of this?

00:32:04.653 --> 00:32:04.933
Yes.

00:32:05.273 --> 00:32:05.554
Yeah.

00:32:05.894 --> 00:32:16.364
I basically was kind of like the musical director and I turned those kids on to a lot of the old styles of music because at that time, you know, hip hop was just getting started.

00:32:16.784 --> 00:32:22.729
But the cool thing I was able to, you know, and kind of rap was just getting started.

00:32:22.749 --> 00:32:25.771
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, all that kind of stuff.

00:32:25.971 --> 00:32:33.019
But I was able to link that stuff to stuff like Louis Jordan and and even stuff further back, you know, talking blues.

00:32:33.278 --> 00:32:41.347
And to show those kids the link between the music that they were into and the music that I was into, which went way back.

00:32:41.448 --> 00:32:44.790
And, you know, I was able to show them the roots of the music that they were into.

00:32:44.830 --> 00:32:46.413
That was really a rewarding work.

00:32:46.593 --> 00:32:52.318
And the interesting thing, I mean, showing the longevity, showing that it's not just a flash in the pan.

00:32:52.358 --> 00:32:55.001
All this stuff that they love, you know, has roots.

00:32:55.122 --> 00:33:03.971
And anything like really worth having is worth, you know, taking time to build the And that longevity, I mean, you know, instead of like fast cash.

00:33:04.051 --> 00:33:11.420
I mean, I remember bringing Archie Edwards in and they loved Archie because, I mean, he was like kind of a little guy, but he had a big ego.

00:33:11.619 --> 00:33:13.682
And those kids, you know, they love that.

00:33:13.922 --> 00:33:15.884
And I said, you know, here's a man.

00:33:15.924 --> 00:33:17.807
He has a good life.

00:33:17.906 --> 00:33:21.790
He has his barbershop where he makes his money and he owns it.

00:33:22.070 --> 00:33:26.496
Nobody gave it to him and no one can take it from him because he built it himself.

00:33:26.655 --> 00:33:27.717
They appreciated that.

00:33:27.936 --> 00:33:30.319
And those kids, I mean, of course, now they're all grown and everything.

00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:52.864
So the idea with Everyday Theatre was to teach those kids, you know, theatre skills, you know, everything from performing, you know, singing, dancing, acting, to the music part, which I did a lot of, you know, in order for me to be paid for working with them, there wasn't a category in the DC government for a musical director, but there was a category for job developer.

00:33:52.943 --> 00:33:54.526
So that's the title they gave me.

00:33:54.645 --> 00:33:57.588
And that's actually, I tried to do that, some of that too.

00:33:57.950 --> 00:34:00.132
Yeah, it sounds like you did some great work there.

00:34:00.152 --> 00:34:00.873
So Yeah.

00:34:01.173 --> 00:34:07.219
Another song I want to mention of yours, Phil, which is one of my absolute favorite harmonica songs is Burn Your Bridges.

00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:08.079
Oh, yeah.

00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:09.981
For me, that song has kind of got everything.

00:34:10.103 --> 00:34:15.168
I like to think I play along with lots of songs, you know, thousands of songs I've got in my collection.

00:34:15.789 --> 00:34:17.510
But that one I always go back to.

00:34:17.550 --> 00:34:22.675
And it's always challenging, even though I've played with it many times, I find it quite a challenging one to play along with.

00:34:22.735 --> 00:34:26.099
So, yeah, I think that song's got it all about the stuff you saw earlier on.

00:34:26.119 --> 00:34:32.487
You know, you're playing, you know, rhythm, you're playing sort of bass lines, you're playing really fast licks and everything so yeah what about that song

00:34:32.802 --> 00:34:39.407
Well, it might surprise you to hear, but it was inspired a lot by listening to Lil' Walter.

00:34:40.047 --> 00:34:40.188
Oh, yeah.

00:34:40.208 --> 00:34:43.690
And kind of mashing up that with the Piedmont style stuff.

00:34:43.871 --> 00:34:49.617
A lot of the fast licks that I do are kind of stolen from the right hand of piano.

00:34:49.717 --> 00:34:51.617
I mean, I've always loved piano.

00:34:51.717 --> 00:34:57.422
I think probably when I was growing up and collecting records, I had more piano records than just about anything else.

00:34:57.583 --> 00:35:02.608
For a long time, as I was learning the harmonica, I wasn't listening to other harmonic players.

00:35:02.708 --> 00:35:10.275
I listening to piano, guitar, clarinet, trumpet, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, all sorts of piano.

00:35:10.496 --> 00:35:17.063
So a lot of kind of like in that song and Burn Your Bridges, some of the phrases are inspired by hearing Little Walter.

00:35:17.304 --> 00:35:23.690
I've discovered Little Walter pretty late on in my development, you know, of trying to learn the harmonica.

00:35:23.911 --> 00:35:26.653
I had done a gig in Alexandria, Virginia.

00:35:26.893 --> 00:35:28.795
Actually, this was with my high school band.

00:35:29.096 --> 00:35:42.369
I met this guy who came to the gig and he and I, we went I went up going to his, he lived in the attic of this old couple in Alexandria, and he had an amazing record collection, including a lot of Little Walter.

00:35:42.429 --> 00:35:43.992
And that's when I first discovered him.

00:35:44.211 --> 00:35:47.175
I never listened to Little Walter with the harp in my mouth.

00:35:47.315 --> 00:35:51.380
I always just, you know, had it on the turntable and listened to it because I loved it.

00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:55.304
But I didn't play along with it or try to learn note for note his stuff.

00:35:55.364 --> 00:35:58.807
But I sort of internalized a lot of it just from listening to it.

00:35:58.967 --> 00:36:00.570
Because I mean, he's such a genius.

00:36:00.969 --> 00:36:11.728
So but just from listening over and over to it, sort of his harmonica lexicon got into my life.

00:36:16.673 --> 00:36:21.717
sadly

00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:33.007
in 2009 John Cephas died that was your long duo you know you've been together for over 30 years yeah then what about the impact on that and what about you know on the impact on your career obviously as well following that sad time

00:36:33.228 --> 00:36:51.925
yeah that was rough of course you know losing my partner of over 30 years was very difficult you know I still miss John in a lot of ways I mean I came to the realization you know after John passed here we had played for over 30 years together and learned to play well together in that amount of time.

00:36:52.146 --> 00:37:03.557
And that, you know, looking at my life going forward, I remember thinking, well, I probably haven't got enough time left in my life to learn to play with someone else as well as John and I played together.

00:37:04.418 --> 00:37:05.059
And it was rough.

00:37:05.400 --> 00:37:15.090
Financially, at first, after John passed, we had just settled a couple of deals on some tours that involved like grant money and this and that.

00:37:15.331 --> 00:37:19.315
Some of the venues that had signed on to those tours.

00:37:19.735 --> 00:37:26.722
Some of them decided not to carry on with those contracts, but then some of them decided to carry on.

00:37:27.143 --> 00:37:31.188
So I enlisted my new friend at the time, Corey Harris, to come.

00:37:31.367 --> 00:37:38.074
And so we did quite a few of those concerts that had been contracted that involved that grant money and everything.

00:37:38.434 --> 00:37:44.822
And so I didn't, you know, financially for a while, I was not impacted so much by John having passed on.

00:37:44.862 --> 00:37:48.527
But after a while, those ran out and then i kind of hit the bottom

00:37:49.148 --> 00:38:12.461
yeah to then start playing with new people and uh yeah so obviously but it gave you the opportunity maybe to expand your musical horizons to some extent obviously playing with the same with john for so long you know you were so tied together but yeah so so you played with an australian i think called dom turner and uh you released a couple of albums with him so

00:38:13.409 --> 00:38:21.661
music music

00:38:24.769 --> 00:38:29.454
Dom Turner and I, actually we met years and years ago, I think in West Virginia.

00:38:29.653 --> 00:38:35.960
But a friend of mine named Joan Fenton had introduced me to Dom and his wife Ida sometime after we met.

00:38:36.059 --> 00:38:38.402
And this would have been like the early or mid 80s.

00:38:38.641 --> 00:38:44.726
John and I did a few tours in Australia and Dom Turner had his band, The Backsliders.

00:38:45.007 --> 00:38:50.813
And on some of these tours that we did, his band would go as what in Australia they call the support band.

00:38:50.913 --> 00:38:51.954
They would open for us.

00:38:52.233 --> 00:38:55.297
And at that time, his band was an acoustic trio.

00:38:55.637 --> 00:38:58.579
And so they would travel with us and they would open for us.

00:38:58.860 --> 00:39:01.143
And so Dom and I, we got to be great friends.

00:39:01.242 --> 00:39:06.668
And then by the time John Cephas passed away, it was like kind of over 30 years later.

00:39:06.708 --> 00:39:10.992
And it turned out Dom was coming to the States and we hooked up.

00:39:11.134 --> 00:39:12.474
We did a few gigs together.

00:39:12.494 --> 00:39:20.003
I guess you could call it like a short tour, just like really three or four gigs, like around Northern Virginia, DC area.

00:39:20.242 --> 00:39:25.329
And then Dom invited me to come to Australia and do some touring with him there.

00:39:25.528 --> 00:39:26.048
And we did.

00:39:26.269 --> 00:39:29.693
And then while I was there, we did some recording together.

00:39:29.713 --> 00:39:34.579
Now, the great thing about Dom, there's so many things I love about him as a musician.

00:39:34.798 --> 00:39:39.182
So he's got that beautiful voice and he sings like himself.

00:39:39.324 --> 00:39:53.838
There's so many blues players, especially young blues players, that when they're singing, they're trying to imitate some like 60, 70, 80 year old musician that, you know, singer from the Delta or from Alabama or from somewhere in the deep South that they heard.

00:39:53.958 --> 00:40:02.469
They're trying to imitate that it's not right you know it doesn't sound right and Dom he sings like himself and he's got a beautiful voice

00:40:02.829 --> 00:40:22.974
so yeah and you played with various people since that time you know you've also played with a band called Soul Roots sort of a bit of soul and Ben Hunter you played with and that's where I saw you playing in the UK playing in that trio with Ben Hunter in 2016 music

00:40:23.266 --> 00:40:27.646
Oh,

00:40:35.074 --> 00:40:38.916
So yeah, you've played with different people since that time, which is great.

00:40:38.936 --> 00:40:46.643
And I just want to mention as well, on June the 17th, that you're doing an online event with Joe Felisco, a live music event with Joe Felisco.

00:40:46.684 --> 00:40:48.304
So that'll be available.

00:40:48.346 --> 00:40:50.067
I'll put the link onto the front page for that.

00:40:50.487 --> 00:40:54.070
I'm not sure you'll have this out quite in time, but even if not, it'll be available for the week after.

00:40:54.130 --> 00:40:58.494
So you'll be able to see you playing along with Joe Felisco and Eric Norden.

00:40:58.715 --> 00:40:59.655
He's a guitar player.

00:40:59.835 --> 00:41:02.998
And you've been doing lots of online concerts as well, of course, over the last year.

00:41:03.057 --> 00:41:05.039
So as many of us have now.

00:41:05.039 --> 00:41:30.722
so you've also won numerous awards through the years obviously some with the Sepperson Wiggins you've won the WC Handy Blues Foundation Awards twice you won an award with those and you've won Best Traditional Album and Entertainers of the Year and you've also done a lot of teaching as well teaching is something that you've been really involved with you've done Euro Blues Week here in the UK and you've done some teaching in the US the Augusta Heritage Centre in West Virginia

00:41:31.137 --> 00:41:37.085
Well, the Euro Blues Week, of course, that's organized by my good friend, Michael Roach, who lives here in England now.

00:41:37.608 --> 00:41:42.896
But he's originally from Washington, D.C., And of course, we were good friends.

00:41:42.916 --> 00:41:49.181
I believe I got to know Michael Roach kind of late 80s, early 90s.

00:41:49.201 --> 00:42:00.630
I got to be good friends with him right about the time that the DC Blues Society was being formed, which really John Cephas was kind of the catalyst of that organization getting started.

00:42:01.152 --> 00:42:06.076
And Michael and I, we worked together quite a bit getting that organization started.

00:42:06.175 --> 00:42:07.797
So that's how we got to be good friends.

00:42:07.896 --> 00:42:10.239
And of course, he and John were mentors.

00:42:10.539 --> 00:42:16.365
Michael Roach was actually more of a mentor or a mentee, I guess you could say.

00:42:16.385 --> 00:42:17.447
Is that a word?

00:42:17.626 --> 00:42:20.911
But anyway, I mean, he was a student of Archie Edwards, too.

00:42:21.231 --> 00:42:27.557
And also, yeah, and then he married a British girl and they moved to the UK and been living there ever since.

00:42:27.657 --> 00:42:28.478
So he started that.

00:42:28.679 --> 00:42:32.523
And then, you know, Augusta Heritage Workshop, that's in West Virginia.

00:42:32.543 --> 00:42:34.025
I started doing that one.

00:42:34.224 --> 00:42:39.891
I guess that would have been the early 80s also, you know, the very first blues week that they had there.

00:42:40.271 --> 00:42:48.362
I taught there and I was recommended to the organizer of that, that would have been Joan Fenton, who's the person that introduced me to Dom Turner.

00:42:48.581 --> 00:42:51.746
She started the Augusta Blues Week in West Virginia.

00:42:52.065 --> 00:42:56.251
She had hired John Jackson and John Jackson recommended me.

00:42:56.751 --> 00:43:04.222
So relating to your teaching, a question I ask each time, Phil, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:43:04.706 --> 00:43:30.969
Depending on the level, but I would say tone, getting good, clear, single notes on the harmonica and getting a nice kind of rich, fat tone and kind of making yourself aware of the range of tones that you can get from the harmonica by both, you know, what you're doing with your mouth and all, you know, maybe more importantly, what you're doing with your hands, like with the cupping techniques on the harmonica.

00:43:31.309 --> 00:43:37.594
I mean, a lot of people, you know, are fixated on gear like the right microphone and the right amplifier.

00:43:37.755 --> 00:43:43.201
But the sound that comes out of your harmonica begins with your own body.

00:43:43.802 --> 00:43:49.768
If that sound is no good, then when you plug it in, it's just going to be that no good sound louder.

00:43:49.967 --> 00:43:53.072
But the main thing is to realize that it's your own body.

00:43:53.152 --> 00:43:58.336
It's your own, you know, I mean, the harmonica is your own voice and it starts with what you're doing with your own body.

00:43:58.436 --> 00:43:58.858
And then, of

00:43:59.297 --> 00:44:00.880
course, it goes really well with the voice.

00:44:00.940 --> 00:44:02.161
Lots of harmonica players do sing.

00:44:02.201 --> 00:44:03.443
So you do sing as well.

00:44:03.463 --> 00:44:04.844
I've got some nice acapella So,

00:44:05.684 --> 00:44:14.574
but usually

00:44:25.106 --> 00:44:29.329
when you play with John Cephas, he did the singing, didn't they?

00:44:29.409 --> 00:44:31.873
And you did a, you did a bit of backing, did you?

00:44:31.893 --> 00:44:34.115
And you've sung, but you do sing more nowadays, don't you?

00:44:34.576 --> 00:44:34.876
Yes.

00:44:35.056 --> 00:44:35.257
Yeah.

00:44:35.657 --> 00:44:39.922
So of course, when you have John in the band, you don't really need another singer.

00:44:40.663 --> 00:44:47.449
So the label Alligator that we recorded with, they basically weren't interested in me as a singer.

00:44:47.489 --> 00:44:54.577
They, you know, they had John's beautiful voice, you know, but since John passed, you know, as you say, I've been singing a lot more.

00:44:54.617 --> 00:45:06.769
I've been gaining a lot of confidence in my singing, you know, and these days, you know, I'm feeling good about my singing and, and, and especially because I'm singing actually most of the songs that I sing are my own songs.

00:45:07.130 --> 00:45:09.253
Any tips for how you develop your singing?

00:45:09.432 --> 00:45:13.538
Because obviously a lot of harmonica players would like to sing but don't feel that confident to do so.

00:45:13.717 --> 00:45:22.527
I guess the main thing, and technically it's the same thing, the same kind of technical considerations that you use when you're playing the harmonica.

00:45:22.766 --> 00:45:31.257
It's basically the more relaxed you are, you know, relaxed breath is what produces the best tone, both with singing and with harmonica playing.

00:45:31.456 --> 00:45:35.161
The other thing for me that seemed to really help me quite a bit.

00:45:35.201 --> 00:45:37.943
This was Paul Rochelle.

00:45:38.083 --> 00:45:38.905
You're familiar with him.

00:45:39.706 --> 00:45:41.226
Annie Raines and Paul Rochelle.

00:45:41.447 --> 00:45:42.909
She's a harmonica player.

00:45:42.929 --> 00:45:43.690
He's a guitar player.

00:45:44.110 --> 00:45:48.715
Years ago, I was backstage with him at Augusta.

00:45:48.795 --> 00:45:50.317
He had come to Augusta to teach.

00:45:50.617 --> 00:45:51.637
We were talking.

00:45:51.657 --> 00:45:52.860
I was on the staff.

00:45:53.219 --> 00:45:54.320
He was on the staff, of course.

00:45:54.702 --> 00:46:04.231
I was talking about how they teach vocals at Augusta, but most of the people that they had teaching vocals, blues vocals, they were not really singers.

00:46:04.431 --> 00:46:06.193
And he is a beautiful singer.

00:46:06.213 --> 00:46:10.478
And I was asking him if he would ever be interested in teaching vocal singing.

00:46:10.498 --> 00:46:14.322
And he said, you know, I don't really think that you can teach a person how to sing.

00:46:14.623 --> 00:46:20.989
And he said, you know, for me, I just, I take a song and I just try to tell the story, you know, and I thought about that.

00:46:21.170 --> 00:46:28.157
And the next time that I sang a song, and it was probably one of my songs, and I just said, okay, I'm just going to tell the story.

00:46:28.418 --> 00:46:35.605
And I reached this level of relaxation and this tone that I had never heard come I'm out of myself before.

00:46:35.644 --> 00:46:37.728
And I was like, you know, that works.

00:46:38.128 --> 00:46:45.275
That's, for me, what helped me to actually sing better, but also to gain more confidence about my singing.

00:46:45.536 --> 00:46:49.579
Get behind the story and just really try to put the story across.

00:46:49.800 --> 00:46:49.940
Yeah,

00:46:49.960 --> 00:46:52.623
and it obviously helps writing your own lyrics to do that as well, doesn't it?

00:46:52.804 --> 00:46:53.324
Yeah, true.

00:46:53.724 --> 00:46:55.527
So we'll finish on the last section now.

00:46:55.567 --> 00:46:59.530
I know you've got an online gig this evening as well, so let you prepare for that.

00:46:59.570 --> 00:47:04.115
So as to the harmonica you play, I believe you play the Marine Band exclusively.

00:47:04.335 --> 00:47:05.356
Yeah, that's true.

00:47:05.918 --> 00:47:07.478
Which model of the marine bands do you like?

00:47:08.641 --> 00:47:14.427
Just the old-style wood comb, original marine band.

00:47:14.827 --> 00:47:18.931
You've never been tempted then with the deluxe or the crossovers for the treated combs?

00:47:18.972 --> 00:47:20.273
You like those older ones?

00:47:21.273 --> 00:47:27.199
The treated combs, to me, they seal the wood and they give it a brighter sound.

00:47:27.239 --> 00:47:39.333
They are, I would say, kind of more dependable and more responsive, and they're louder, but They're also, because of the way the wood is sealed, they're also kind of brighter sounding.

00:47:39.653 --> 00:47:50.364
And I feel like the original Marine Band, which kind of with that softer wood finish, it's already bright enough and it has such a beautiful tone to it.

00:47:50.846 --> 00:47:52.387
So that's what I like.

00:47:52.867 --> 00:47:54.809
Do you play any chromatic at all?

00:47:55.431 --> 00:47:58.634
You know, I've fooled with chromatic a little bit.

00:47:58.713 --> 00:48:00.295
I never got very far on it.

00:48:00.556 --> 00:48:06.822
I mean, it's sort of one of these things that I've wanted to to learn and bend meaning, to get better at.

00:48:07.083 --> 00:48:10.927
But I'm pretty much a tin hole player.

00:48:11.548 --> 00:48:15.134
And do you play any different tunings or do you stick to the Richter tuning?

00:48:15.634 --> 00:48:18.958
I do use some different tunings, or one different tuning anyway.

00:48:19.318 --> 00:48:24.445
There's a tuning that I became aware of from the Leoscar.

00:48:25.090 --> 00:48:26.992
And it's called a melody maker tuning.

00:48:27.411 --> 00:48:35.938
I honestly can't explain to you exactly what the difference is, but I know that he's sharpened a couple of the notes.

00:48:36.018 --> 00:48:39.882
I think like the flat five and the flat seven are sharpened.

00:48:40.322 --> 00:48:43.666
You know, don't hold me to that, but I think that's what's going on.

00:48:44.065 --> 00:48:45.507
But I discovered those.

00:48:45.547 --> 00:49:36.574
They make it easier or more accessible to play some of the swing standards that I like to play with kind of my main band right now is the Chesapeake Sheiks Phil Wiggins and the Chesapeake Sheiks and the Sheiks aside from doing you know some of my original tunes do a lot of kind of these old kind of swing standards and swing songs and string band songs from people like like Louis Armstrong Louis Jordan people like Slim and Slam Cats in the Fiddle the Harlem Ham Fats you know a lot of those and a lot of those melodies you know the Melody Maker Harmonica makes those melodies kind a more accessible site.

00:49:45.153 --> 00:49:47.757
Yeah, so you better play melodies on it.

00:49:47.777 --> 00:49:51.780
And basically, they've got a major scale on them, so you've got the whole scale.

00:49:51.820 --> 00:49:53.983
So yeah, so great.

00:49:54.003 --> 00:49:55.264
Yeah, so you use the Melody Makers.

00:49:55.724 --> 00:49:56.326
But actually, I

00:49:57.246 --> 00:50:00.289
just want to clarify, I don't use Lee Oscar Melody Makers.

00:50:00.971 --> 00:50:06.076
What I do is I get Hohner to retune me some Marine Vans in that tuning.

00:50:06.416 --> 00:50:07.318
Yeah, yeah, great, yeah.

00:50:07.737 --> 00:50:09.739
And do you play any overblows?

00:50:10.880 --> 00:50:11.121
No.

00:50:11.681 --> 00:50:19.342
I've actually tried really hard, have hit an overblow once or twice, but I have not mastered that technique.

00:50:19.722 --> 00:50:22.250
And embouchure-wise, what are you doing there?

00:50:22.369 --> 00:50:24.556
Are you pursing, tongue blocking, or anything else?

00:50:24.576 --> 00:50:26.701
I'm doing both.

00:50:27.106 --> 00:50:30.929
I'm doing both tongue blocking and lip pursing.

00:50:30.949 --> 00:50:38.536
Okay, so kind of rule of thumb is from the one hole to about the four hole, I'm lip pursing.

00:50:39.135 --> 00:50:44.601
And, you know, depending on the song, but mainly, yeah, from one hole to the four hole, I'm lip pursing.

00:50:45.001 --> 00:50:50.045
From the five hole on up, you know, the harmonica is starting to sound shrill to me.

00:50:50.626 --> 00:51:01.438
So from the five up, I sort of tongue block to kind of fatten up Mm-hmm.

00:51:19.458 --> 00:51:22.059
I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg.

00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:35.052
I don't know if I learned to do that because those high notes are the ones that I want to hear tongue blocking on or if that developed because I could only do tongue blocking to the left.

00:51:35.331 --> 00:51:37.534
But anyway, that's kind of my rule of thumb is that.

00:51:38.333 --> 00:51:42.518
And I do tongue blocking for octaves or for the single notes.

00:51:43.358 --> 00:51:43.478
Yeah.

00:51:43.518 --> 00:51:46.641
And you mentioned gear early on and people rely too much on it.

00:51:46.802 --> 00:51:48.043
So what about gear yourself?

00:51:48.083 --> 00:51:49.423
Obviously, you're playing acoustics.

00:51:49.423 --> 00:51:53.572
a lot so do you use any particular amps or just using the PA most of the time?

00:51:53.922 --> 00:51:55.804
I'm playing through the PA.

00:51:56.063 --> 00:51:57.724
I play off the mic.

00:51:57.965 --> 00:52:02.730
So I work the mic quite a bit for both for dynamics and for tone.

00:52:03.250 --> 00:52:06.373
And mainly, you know, it's kind of a function of my handcuffing.

00:52:06.432 --> 00:52:10.496
Like I have a really airtight handcuff technique.

00:52:10.637 --> 00:52:22.065
But, you know, like when I when my hands are shut, they're shut tight enough that I can actually feel my pinky finger on my left hand getting sucked in towards the harmonica.

00:52:22.367 --> 00:52:40.157
So and then as I as I open my hands to let more sound out, I kind of back away from the microphone so that it doesn't become too loud, you know, or so, you know, to work the dynamics.

00:52:57.474 --> 00:52:59.615
And do you use any particular microphones?

00:53:00.175 --> 00:53:00.916
Yes, I do.

00:53:01.016 --> 00:53:03.619
And I'm trying to remember the name of my microphone.

00:53:03.699 --> 00:53:07.882
I saw on a video that it looked like an Electro-Voice or the 320.

00:53:07.902 --> 00:53:08.063
Yeah,

00:53:08.083 --> 00:53:09.264
that's exactly what it is.

00:53:09.824 --> 00:53:10.644
And I use that mic.

00:53:10.905 --> 00:53:19.112
I had a conversation years ago with a guy that was a sound technician at one of the camps that I play at, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.

00:53:19.612 --> 00:53:35.009
And this guy was telling me, he was explaining to me about that microphone that, you know, for a lot of microphones that you use as you back away from the microphone, you not only lose volume, but you also lose some of the tone quality.

00:53:35.389 --> 00:53:42.297
And what mainly you lose is the bass, the bottom end range, the bottom end of it.

00:53:42.679 --> 00:53:46.423
But with that particular microphone, you don't lose the bottom end.

00:53:46.483 --> 00:53:51.570
You just lose volume, which is really why I back on and off.

00:53:51.949 --> 00:54:08.884
And so that's why I wound up using that uh microphone because when i back off i i i lose the volume but i don't lose the bottom and the funny thing is that how how i got that microphone was i had a friend of mine from the eastern shore that was in D.C.

00:54:09.164 --> 00:54:09.585
visiting.

00:54:09.625 --> 00:54:13.347
We were at my friend in the cheeks, the piano player.

00:54:13.728 --> 00:54:17.992
We were at his house late one night, like drunk, really drunk.

00:54:18.012 --> 00:54:21.275
And we were talking and we're talking about microphones.

00:54:21.335 --> 00:54:23.016
And I mentioned that microphone to him.

00:54:23.396 --> 00:54:26.920
And we actually even looked it up on the web and looked at it and everything.

00:54:27.260 --> 00:54:32.023
And about a year later on my birthday, I received a package in the mail.

00:54:32.324 --> 00:54:35.626
And it's that microphone that he bought and gifted to me.

00:54:35.668 --> 00:54:39.552
That's a present they're quite expensive those microphones so

00:54:39.572 --> 00:55:15.469
yeah true yeah true i was very very generous yeah and i and i and i use that mic to this day i always play through the pa you know like i mean i've done some playing with some some electric players anson vandenberg bob margolin and i've tried going back to because years ago i had you know like a an old pretty cbs fender basement amplifier and a green bullet and i tried fooling with it and and i was frustrated that it seemed like it could only get like kind of one sound out of it yeah whereas playing off the mic playing through the PA and with my hands there was like kind of infinite

00:55:15.530 --> 00:55:27.161
yeah like you said that hand cupping technique is so critical isn't it to the harmonica sound and obviously you can get electrified sound as well but yeah that's really do you use any effects at all or any reverb even no no nothing at all no

00:55:27.543 --> 00:55:43.967
no reverb no and I mean the shocking thing to me now is that a lot of harmonica players now are using foot pedals like guitar players players use to me it's crazy I mean to each his own you know I'm not going to knock it but yeah but yeah that's kind of to me that's kind of crazy

00:55:44.327 --> 00:55:53.764
cool and so and so final question then Phil thanks so much for your time so so what about your future plans and how things looking for you now things opening up and you started to get out playing

00:55:54.402 --> 00:56:05.090
Okay, so you mentioned Ben Turner and Joe Siemens and my bands that I have now, the Chesapeake Sheiks, which I stole the name from the Mississippi Sheiks.

00:56:05.351 --> 00:56:08.193
Then I have the trio House Party.

00:56:08.994 --> 00:56:14.960
So what I'm getting at is I have all these amazing kind of young players that have come into my life.

00:56:15.219 --> 00:56:18.123
They're like, just like, I mean, for one thing, they're young.

00:56:18.182 --> 00:56:19.983
And so they're like really energetic.

00:56:20.023 --> 00:56:23.407
I mean, even musically, sometimes I have a hard time keeping up with them.

00:56:23.606 --> 00:56:24.367
And they're just great.

00:56:24.367 --> 00:56:25.989
great folks to be around.

00:56:26.429 --> 00:56:28.853
They are just like wonderful human beings.

00:56:29.152 --> 00:56:31.956
They're extremely talented musicians.

00:56:32.356 --> 00:56:39.063
You know, for one thing, I get to play, you know, all my original songs and also like just a real variety of other stuff.

00:56:39.083 --> 00:56:46.291
Like I mentioned, those swing bands, you know, that we're playing, especially the Chesapeake Sheiks, we're playing that kind of stuff.

00:56:46.592 --> 00:56:53.920
You know, I came to a realization a while ago that probably every note of music that I've ever played in my life has been dance music.

00:56:54.320 --> 00:56:56.882
And it's rarely ever been presented that way.

00:56:57.583 --> 00:57:02.646
Mostly I have played for people sitting on their butts, you know, and clapping their hands or whatever.

00:57:02.907 --> 00:57:08.692
But, you know, so it's been kind of one of my goals to reconnect the dance with the dance music.

00:57:08.833 --> 00:57:19.581
And I've been fortunate to connect with two really brilliant dancers with my band House Party, which is just a trio, acoustic kind of Piedmont style guitar, violin, harmonica.

00:57:19.902 --> 00:57:25.583
And we have a dancer who dances in what, for lack of a better term, We call it buck dancing.

00:57:26.083 --> 00:57:30.226
That's Junius Lee Brickhouse, who dances with that band.

00:57:30.507 --> 00:57:36.032
And then with the Chesapeake Sheiks, I have a really brilliant tap dancer instead of a drummer.

00:57:36.432 --> 00:57:38.414
So it's part of the sound, is it, the tap dancing?

00:57:38.634 --> 00:57:39.094
Exactly.

00:57:39.335 --> 00:57:45.219
So rather than having a drummer, you have Bakari Wilder, who's a brilliant, brilliant tap dancer.

00:57:45.539 --> 00:57:53.067
And so in that band, it's piano, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, harmonica, violin, and tap dancer.

00:57:53.347 --> 00:58:04.338
So that, to me, is probably the most fun thing and the most important thing that has developed in my playing life since John Pass is to be able to include dancing.

00:58:04.818 --> 00:58:09.824
And like I say, all those people are such amazing, beautiful human beings.

00:58:09.945 --> 00:58:16.371
But it seems like there's something wrong because it seems like in every band there's got to be that one person that's the a-hole.

00:58:16.492 --> 00:58:18.132
And there's just not in that band.

00:58:18.574 --> 00:58:28.385
And then I remembered a joke a guy said, you know, every family has that one person that's paying in the in the A and if you think your family doesn't have that then it's you

00:58:28.425 --> 00:58:30.648
and

00:58:30.708 --> 00:58:31.449
I thought uh oh

00:58:31.650 --> 00:58:41.583
I'm sure that's not true so thanks very much Phil Wiggins for joining me today well my pleasure man thank you that's it for episode 41 thank you again to Mr.

00:58:41.623 --> 00:58:51.838
Phil Wiggins and it's just over to Phil to tell you that whatever you do do not burn your bridges music

00:58:53.313 --> 00:58:58.610
so so