Nov. 26, 2022

Richard Hunter interview

Richard Hunter joins me on episode 74. Richard has immersed himself in harmonica ever since he first picked it up at age 15 and has been pushing the boundaries of the instrument ever since. His first release was a solo acoustic harmonica album, composing most of the songs himself and making extensive use of alternate tunings and counterpoint, followed up by a second album along the same lines. Richard is a true innovator of using effects with harmonica and has created some great sounds using ...

Richard Hunter joins me on episode 74.

Richard has immersed himself in harmonica ever since he first picked it up at age 15 and has been pushing the boundaries of the instrument ever since. His first release was a solo acoustic harmonica album, composing most of the songs himself and making extensive use of alternate tunings and counterpoint, followed up by a second album along the same lines.

Richard is a true innovator of using effects with harmonica and has created some great sounds using them on his later two albums, including the use of Digitech multi-effect pedals, for which he has created patch sets that are available to download from his website.

Richard is also the author of one of the first harmonica transcription books: Jazz Harp, that was released in the 1990s, becoming a staple publication on many a harmonica players’ shelves.

Links:

Richard’s website:
https://www.hunterharp.com/

Chris Turner:
https://christurnerharmonica.bandcamp.com/album/chris-turner-harmonicas

The Lucky One posts:
https://www.hunterharp.com/the-lucky-one-is-here-check-out-the-songs/

Solo acoustic harmonica tracks to buy:
https://www.hunterharp.com/all-hunters-downloads-in-one-place/#Sbuy

Tunings used on solo recordings:
https://www.hunterharp.com/harp-keys-and-tunings-for-my-recorded-solo-repertoire/

The Lucky One breakdown of each song:
https://www.hunterharp.com/the-lucky-one-is-here-check-out-the-songs/

DaBell harmonicas:
http://en.dabell.co.kr/home/bbs//board.php?bo_table=product&sca=Harmonica

Videos:
Richard’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/lightninrick

Put The Lever Down, from 1982:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnDPNyimg5o

Recent Electric work:
https://www.hunterharp.com/category/audiovideo/?fbclid=IwAR0bozS97Y4lZwKmGk230CmVEknErhY0rEuvEYQ19mOJOqCRMAi84wi3cVk

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

01:37 - Richard was born in New York and has been based around the North East US all his life

02:08 - Piano was first instrument before deciding on the harmonica (age 15) to get out front and impress the girls

02:45 - Saxophone was an option but the less costly harmonicas was the choice after having heard Paul Butterfield

03:14 - Met his wife while playing the harmonica

03:31 - Had formal piano lessons when young and has taken piano up again recently

04:38 - How piano playing has influenced harmonica playing

05:38 - There are many more great harmonica players now than when Richard was young, helped a lot by online resources

06:36 - Now is a great time to learn to play harmonica

06:53 - Found a community of harmonica players in Boston

07:06 - Charlie Musselwhite was a big influence on the young Richard

08:43 - Had been a devoted harmonica disciple from the age of 15

09:39 - Met Chris Turner, an English harmonica player, during his time in Boston and started writing solo harmonica pieces during this time

11:49 - Winter Sun In Nobska was Richard’s first solo composition

12:20 - Golden Mel song

12:44 - The Act of Being Free in One Act was Richard’s first solo acoustic harmonica album

13:23 - This album was one of the first, if not the first, solo harmonica album of this type

13:32 - Keith Dunn released a solo harmonica album, but that was more blues based

14:39 - Richard composed most of the songs on The Act of Being Free in One Act

14:54 - Hymn For Crow song came to Richard in just 20 minutes

17:23 - Richard uses a lot of different tunings on this album, using Lee Oskar’s at that time

18:11 - Information on the tunings used are available on Richard’s website

18:17 - Need to use the correct tunings to be able to play those songs

19:18 - Chords available on alternate tunings are a big part of the tonality of those songs

20:09 - The Act of Being Free in One Act album is entirely acoustic, no effects added

20:41 - Lots of killer ‘licks’ on the album

22:29 - The Second Act of Free Being album, with almost all tunings used available out of the box

24:00 - Billy The Kid, Bela’s World and How Long Have I Loved You songs

25:28 - Recordings available on Richard’s website of him playing several of these solo pieces at SPAH in 1997

25:51 - The solo pieces are mainly set pieces played from memory (not improvised)

26:37 - Next album (The Lucky One) was released in 2016, almost twenty years since the previous album

27:42 - Performs tracks from The Lucky One using backing tracks from the actual musicians recorded for the album

28:05 - Makes extensive use of effects on The Lucky One

28:50 - First Digitech multi-effects unit bought in 1997 or 1998, which is when Richard really started getting into effects for the harmonica

29:17 - Saw that effects pedals could replace an amplifier

29:30 - Current kit Richard uses

29:54 - Richard provides ‘patch sets’ for the Digitechs where he has selected effects that work well with harmonica

31:31 - Bought a Fender Mustang amp later, and has patch sets for that and the Line 6 multi-effects unit

31:53 - Role of effects in the modern harmonica players arsenal

33:46 - Some of songs on recent two albums and how they use effects

35:10 - Put The Lever Down from The Lucky One album was used as the music for a harmonica radio show

35:58 - Blue Future album from 2019, using harmonica in a different role than the traditional blues band

36:51 - Uses the Fender Mustang amp on most of the songs on the album, a computerised amp

37:28 - Some of the lyrics written by Richard on Blue Future

38:33 - Has spent a lot of time developing singing

39:36 - Website contains a blog with lots of information on how songs on last two albums were put together

40:16 - Since releasing the last two albums has released some videos and now is working on music for licensing purposes

41:07 - Likes to push the role of the harmonica beyond just being a soloist, something that Magic Dick did with The J Geils Band

42:13 - How approaches layering harmonica so doesn’t play over singer

44:03 - Jazz Harp book, released in 1980, which was originally written as a book called ‘Harmonica For Musicians’

45:42 - Was one of first transcription books for harmonica, although Richard still thinks harmonica players should learn to red music

46:28 - Sold quite a few of Jazz Harp and made a little money from it

46:59 - Chromatic harmonica, and recorded some classical pieces and studied some jazz on chromatic

48:02 - Two chromatic songs on The Lucky One album

48:37 - 10 minute question

49:42 - Harmonicas of choice (everyone going!)

51:04 - Buys most of the tunings he uses, doing a little tuning himself

52:17 - How does Richard find switching between different tunings

53:40 - Overblows

54:10 - Embouchre: mostly pucker

54:56 - Amps and pedals and mics

55:48 - Uses wireless mic a lot

56:48 - Lightweight rig uses at jam sessions

57:36 - Has travelled internationally to perform and future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.162 --> 00:00:02.245
Richard Hunter joins me on episode 74.

00:00:02.446 --> 00:00:10.317
Richard has immersed himself in harmonica ever since he first picked it up at the age of 15 and has been pushing the boundaries of the instrument ever since.

00:00:10.958 --> 00:00:22.318
His first release was a solo acoustic harmonica album, composing most of the songs himself and making extensive use of alternative tunings and counterpoint, followed up by a second album along the same lines.

00:00:22.722 --> 00:00:36.496
Richard is a true innovator of using effects with harmonica and has created some great sounds using them on his later two albums, including the use of Digitech multi-effect pedals, for which he has created patch sets that are available to download from his website.

00:00:36.798 --> 00:00:47.168
Richard is also the author of one of the first harmonica transcription books, Jazz Harp, that was released in 1980, becoming a staple publication on many a harmonica player's shelves.

00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:51.454
This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas.

00:00:51.777 --> 00:01:00.905
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:29.569 --> 00:01:31.819
Hello, Richard Hunter, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:33.224
Thanks very much.

00:01:33.284 --> 00:01:34.248
It's a pleasure to be here.

00:01:34.287 --> 00:01:36.796
Are you originally from Vermont?

00:01:37.121 --> 00:01:39.864
No, I was born in New York City.

00:01:39.884 --> 00:01:43.587
I lived in New York State till I was about 12 years old.

00:01:43.808 --> 00:01:45.549
Well, actually, until I was 18.

00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:48.591
Then I moved to Boston to attend college.

00:01:48.852 --> 00:01:52.394
And since then, I've been bouncing around the Northeast US.

00:01:52.695 --> 00:01:55.658
Vermont was one of my stops for about three and a half years.

00:01:55.998 --> 00:01:56.259
Great.

00:01:56.319 --> 00:01:57.900
So you're another New Yorker.

00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:01.783
So I spoke to Adam Gussell last time and saying I hadn't had many New Yorkers on.

00:02:01.802 --> 00:02:05.286
Although I remember since I had William Gallatin, who's also, I think, New York.

00:02:05.527 --> 00:02:07.087
What got you started playing harmonica?

00:02:07.087 --> 00:02:11.514
I believe your first instrument was a piano, and you sort of picked up a little after that.

00:02:12.155 --> 00:02:14.598
Yes, my first instrument was piano.

00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:20.606
In 1967, when I was 15 years old, I was playing in a rock band.

00:02:21.127 --> 00:02:24.793
The name of the band, by the way, was Tiki and the Wambizi Gods.

00:02:25.334 --> 00:02:33.506
I was sitting behind this ugly, awful-sounding little Japanese organ while the guitar players were up front getting all the girls.

00:02:33.825 --> 00:02:35.909
And I thought that that was a problem.

00:02:36.010 --> 00:02:40.599
So I went looking for an instrument that would get me up front.

00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:44.929
Guitar wasn't going to do it because we already had two guitarists in the band.

00:02:45.389 --> 00:02:52.846
I checked out a saxophone and I thought it was amazing, but it was also$650, which was beyond my means.

00:02:53.313 --> 00:02:57.818
And then in the music store, I saw a Hohner display case.

00:02:58.437 --> 00:03:06.264
And I had recently been at Manny's Music in New York City and heard Paul Butterfield doing an impromptu performance there.

00:03:06.324 --> 00:03:08.247
And it just sounded amazing.

00:03:08.606 --> 00:03:10.109
And so I thought, well, that's the thing.

00:03:10.169 --> 00:03:11.789
I'll get myself a harmonica,$2.50.

00:03:11.889 --> 00:03:14.312
And that was the beginning.

00:03:14.551 --> 00:03:14.812
Great.

00:03:14.853 --> 00:03:17.055
So the big question is, did it help you get the girls?

00:03:17.814 --> 00:03:23.080
Well, I met my wife playing harmonica in a band on Cape Cod in the early...

00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:24.882
in the early 1980s.

00:03:25.742 --> 00:03:26.925
So yeah, it helped.

00:03:27.185 --> 00:03:27.705
There we go.

00:03:27.725 --> 00:03:29.266
It achieved that one of the life goals.

00:03:29.307 --> 00:03:30.609
Well done to the harmonica.

00:03:30.748 --> 00:03:37.777
So yeah, so you played piano and what did you have sort of formal piano lessons and learn that way first and sort of classical training?

00:03:38.018 --> 00:03:39.881
I did have formal piano lessons.

00:03:40.461 --> 00:03:46.000
I stopped studying classical piano when I was like 11 or 12, I think.

00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:57.209
I started studying jazz piano with John Mahegan, who was at the time an associate professor at Yale University and the author of a four-part series on jazz improvisation.

00:03:57.710 --> 00:04:01.733
And I studied with him for about six months to a year, I think.

00:04:02.013 --> 00:04:06.657
And then I just got into rock and roll and began playing rock and roll with various bands.

00:04:07.138 --> 00:04:10.080
I wasn't very good at the time, but I got better as I went along.

00:04:10.441 --> 00:04:12.021
So do you still play piano now?

00:04:12.361 --> 00:04:12.802
I do.

00:04:13.223 --> 00:04:18.749
For a long period of time, it took a distinct second fiddle to harmonica, so to speak.

00:04:19.069 --> 00:04:21.471
Second harmonica to harmonica, I should say.

00:04:21.951 --> 00:04:26.737
For a long time, I did not devote a lot of attention to it, but I'm devoting attention to it again.

00:04:26.757 --> 00:04:37.908
And I'm coming up to the level that I was at before I started pulling back in order to have a career in information technology and focus on the harmonica.

00:04:38.209 --> 00:04:41.293
And how do you think the piano informs your harmonica playing?

00:04:41.552 --> 00:04:48.521
Well, I have a much better grasp of harmony and of different keys because I play piano.

00:04:48.961 --> 00:04:59.495
Lots of harmonica players are familiar with the physical layout of the harmonica without really being aware of what the harmonic meaning of the layout is.

00:04:59.514 --> 00:05:05.482
And because I played piano, I have a much better idea of that than many harmonica players do.

00:05:05.858 --> 00:05:10.401
I think, you know, I'm a musician who plays harmonica, among other things.

00:05:11.002 --> 00:05:13.964
I'm not a harmonica player per se.

00:05:14.605 --> 00:05:20.670
Yeah, and I think, you know, as harmonica players, we have a slight inferiority complex, you know, about the instrument.

00:05:20.750 --> 00:05:24.853
And I think, obviously, you can be a full-blown musician on harmonica, absolutely.

00:05:24.894 --> 00:05:29.918
But there's more of a tendency maybe to not, because maybe you haven't had formal lessons, a lot of people who play.

00:05:30.338 --> 00:05:36.391
So, you know, I think all that helps, doesn't it, for the education-wise, obviously, playing other instruments, or at least approaching the harmonica more musically

00:05:36.819 --> 00:05:47.338
well indeed It's worth pointing out that the quantity and quality of harmonica players overall has increased dramatically since I began playing.

00:05:47.658 --> 00:06:08.016
You know, there are kids now who've been playing for a couple of years who have learned more than I learned in the first 10 years playing the instrument because they have access to things like YouTube, because there are more harmonica players performing at a professional level in France, in Germany, in the UK, in various countries in Asia, in the United States.

00:06:08.016 --> 00:06:25.230
states of america in latin america i mean they're all over now and that's a significant change from uh from my youth or perhaps it's simply that uh with the internet i'm now much more aware of what's being done everywhere than i was when i was let's say 20 years old

00:06:25.670 --> 00:06:33.937
would you prefer it back then when there wasn't so much competition or do you think you're better off you know the young people are better off now with uh more harmonic players around like you said they're

00:06:34.038 --> 00:06:45.793
definitely better off now i mean if you want to learn the instrument It's great to have people around you virtually or in person who understand something about the instrument and can show you something.

00:06:46.192 --> 00:06:53.278
You know, I had to work really hard just to find people who played harmonica at anything but the most rudimentary level.

00:06:53.560 --> 00:07:02.247
It wasn't until I got to Boston in 1970 that I found a community of harmonica players who were devoted to mastering the instrument.

00:07:02.526 --> 00:07:05.990
So you mentioned there that you'd heard Paul Butterfield, and that's what inspired you.

00:07:06.170 --> 00:07:06.511
Oh, yeah.

00:07:06.750 --> 00:07:07.872
Charlie Musselwhite was also...

00:07:07.951 --> 00:07:09.112
a big influence on you as well.

00:07:09.454 --> 00:07:09.853
Oh, yeah.

00:07:10.555 --> 00:07:16.982
I heard Charlie a year or two after I heard Butterfield, and he just completely blew my mind.

00:07:17.182 --> 00:07:20.245
You know, there's an experience that musicians have.

00:07:20.504 --> 00:07:27.973
Just about every musician I know has had this experience where they're listening to a piece of music and suddenly they're in a different place.

00:07:28.473 --> 00:07:33.598
You know, they've fallen through a door in the universe and they're in a different place because of what they heard.

00:07:33.899 --> 00:07:44.312
And I had that experience for the first time listening to Charlie Musselwhite play Christo Redentor on the Vanguard album, Tennessee Woman, which was released, I think, in 1969.

00:07:59.009 --> 00:08:02.975
That performance just completely blew my mind.

00:08:03.336 --> 00:08:07.261
It was the most amazing amplified harmonica I had ever heard.

00:08:07.461 --> 00:08:15.350
The fact that he was playing this jazz song on the harmonica and making something very meaningful out of it was very important to me.

00:08:15.451 --> 00:08:18.935
And I just devoured Charlie Musselwhite's music after that.

00:08:19.817 --> 00:08:21.319
Yeah, no, no, Charlie's great, of course.

00:08:21.619 --> 00:08:24.822
Here's a quick word from the podcast sponsor, Blows Me Way Productions.

00:08:26.524 --> 00:08:27.005
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00:08:27.233 --> 00:08:29.738
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00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:37.111
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00:08:37.613 --> 00:08:39.836
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00:08:40.337 --> 00:08:41.721
You know I ain't lying.

00:08:43.484 --> 00:08:50.758
You mentioned that you went to Boston and is that when you were getting more seriously into playing and you picked up on the scene around Boston?

00:08:51.234 --> 00:08:55.017
Well, I was already very serious about playing before I got to Boston.

00:08:55.216 --> 00:08:59.981
I picked up the harmonica when I was 15, so it was with me all through high school.

00:09:00.142 --> 00:09:09.190
And I was very serious about playing the harmonica, very serious about learning new things, very serious about listening to records that had harmonica on them.

00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:17.135
So when I got to Boston, it was like suddenly I was at an all-you-can-eat buffet, so to speak, where there were tons of harmonica players.

00:09:17.437 --> 00:09:19.839
And that's when I started hearing about Little Walter.

00:09:19.958 --> 00:09:25.046
I had been listening to to people like James Cotton and Charlie, of course.

00:09:25.567 --> 00:09:32.578
Players I was listening to were the post-Walter generation, and I really hadn't heard a lot of little Walter before I moved to Boston.

00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:38.327
So I was learning a tremendous amount of harmonica lore throughout that entire period.

00:09:38.769 --> 00:09:41.854
Yeah, and I believe you met up with an English guy called Chris Turner.

00:09:42.018 --> 00:09:43.499
Oh, yes, Chris, indeed.

00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.020
That was a fabulous discovery.

00:09:46.101 --> 00:09:48.263
I learned a huge amount playing with Chris.

00:09:48.624 --> 00:09:59.393
It was one of the potent influences in my playing because Chris's playing was so different from mine, and there was just so much stuff to pick up.

00:09:59.493 --> 00:10:03.616
I started writing solo harmonica pieces while I was working with Chris.

00:10:04.136 --> 00:10:08.701
That's where my piece, Wintersun at Nobska, and my piece, Golden Mel, come from.

00:10:09.121 --> 00:10:15.628
I wrote those while I was learning how to play the vamping techniques that Chris Turner had mastered.

00:10:15.847 --> 00:10:23.495
And I met Chris in 1977, I think, just after he had won the European Solo Harmonica Championship.

00:10:23.615 --> 00:10:26.178
You know, so he was operating at a high level.

00:10:26.539 --> 00:10:30.364
I was teaching a seminar on harmonica.

00:10:30.484 --> 00:10:31.784
I forget exactly where.

00:10:32.024 --> 00:10:42.616
Chris showed up and there had been a listing in the Boston Phoenix, the local alternative paper, from a guy who said, I'm the 1976 European Solo Harmonica champion.

00:10:42.677 --> 00:10:45.360
I'm in town looking to hook up with other musicians.

00:10:45.860 --> 00:10:49.445
So this guy in the audience had an English accent.

00:10:49.485 --> 00:10:51.527
And I said, are you the guy who placed that ad?

00:10:51.606 --> 00:10:52.307
And he said, yes.

00:10:52.587 --> 00:10:57.813
And I said, ladies and gentlemen, we have the 1976 world solo harmonica champion in this room.

00:11:03.541 --> 00:11:07.966
So

00:11:11.009 --> 00:11:15.936
And I got together with Chris after the class, and we went back to my apartment.

00:11:16.196 --> 00:11:23.783
I had a Premier Twin-8 amplifier, which is and was one of the great rock and harmonica amplifiers.

00:11:23.945 --> 00:11:27.908
And Chris plugged into it and began doing his vamping stuff through the amp.

00:11:28.308 --> 00:11:30.471
The sound was huge.

00:11:31.072 --> 00:11:32.413
I was just amazed.

00:11:32.553 --> 00:11:35.677
And I thought, wow, I have to learn how to make that sound.

00:11:36.359 --> 00:11:39.221
This time in Boston, what year we're looking at here...

00:11:40.546 --> 00:11:42.191
Oh, this would be 1977.

00:11:42.892 --> 00:11:43.173
Great.

00:11:43.232 --> 00:11:49.129
And so this is when you mentioned a couple of the songs are like Golden Mail, which I think was your first solo composition.

00:11:49.169 --> 00:11:49.330
Yeah.

00:11:49.610 --> 00:11:53.441
I think Winter Sun at Nobsca was my first solo composition.

00:12:08.546 --> 00:12:14.416
It's quite a bit simpler in performance, not conceptually.

00:12:14.635 --> 00:12:17.159
It was heavily influenced by Bella Bartok's work.

00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:20.144
So conceptually, it's a little bit out there.

00:12:20.404 --> 00:12:26.475
But Golden Mel was conceived as a virtuoso workout.

00:12:26.615 --> 00:12:29.019
You know, it's not an easy piece to play.

00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:30.160
Certainly not for me.

00:12:44.097 --> 00:12:52.749
So these were what went to be your album, which you released, which is an acoustic solo harmonica album called The Actor Being Free in one act.

00:12:53.153 --> 00:12:53.494
Yes.

00:12:54.075 --> 00:12:58.081
Were you developing these songs over a few years then before you put this album out?

00:12:58.500 --> 00:13:02.547
Some of those songs were developed a few years before the album was put out.

00:13:03.047 --> 00:13:09.174
Most of them were developed after I got a grant from the Vermont Council on the Arts.

00:13:09.596 --> 00:13:16.345
They granted me$400 to make an album, which isn't much, but I figured I could make an album of solo pieces for that amount.

00:13:16.664 --> 00:13:23.134
And so I started collecting and practicing and writing solo pieces for that record.

00:13:23.490 --> 00:13:28.437
Yeah, so I don't think there'd been many, if any, solo harmonica albums out by that stage.

00:13:28.657 --> 00:13:30.259
Were you aware of others at that time?

00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:32.322
No, I'm still not aware of them.

00:13:32.442 --> 00:13:44.919
Although Keith Dunn, I think, who I used to see playing in Harvard Square back in the 1970s, Keith was one of the guys who convinced me that you should have a harmonica on you all the time and play it wherever you go.

00:13:45.179 --> 00:13:51.589
But I think Keith did an album that consisted of harmonica solos and harmonica duets with his voice.

00:13:55.105 --> 00:13:59.335
So

00:14:04.365 --> 00:14:06.650
that's the only one I'm aware of.

00:14:06.990 --> 00:14:13.725
Other than that, purely solo instrumental harmonica records, I think there are two in existence, and I made both of them.

00:14:14.114 --> 00:14:20.840
Yeah, I mean, I think there's like a Sonny Terry one, but I think in your approach is certainly unique in the sort of material that you're taking on.

00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:22.000
It's not a blues album.

00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:24.082
You know, there's some bluesy stuff on there, right?

00:14:24.123 --> 00:14:25.264
But it's not a blues album.

00:14:25.303 --> 00:14:26.585
It's more kind of composition.

00:14:26.644 --> 00:14:30.607
So I've been listening to the album before this, and I've got to say, it is fantastic.

00:14:30.628 --> 00:14:32.049
Some great playing on there, Richard.

00:14:32.070 --> 00:14:32.909
Really impressed with it.

00:14:32.990 --> 00:14:38.794
And it's available, the individual songs are available by your website as well for people to buy and check out.

00:14:39.716 --> 00:14:43.058
These are all pieces that you, more or less, all of them you compose yourself.

00:14:43.078 --> 00:14:49.625
Yeah, some of them are, you know, Like Blue Monks on there, for example, is the jazz song, but most of them are composed by yourself.

00:14:49.926 --> 00:14:50.187
Yes.

00:14:50.706 --> 00:14:53.850
So how did you approach composing solo harmonica pieces?

00:14:54.370 --> 00:14:54.892
Some of those

00:14:54.991 --> 00:15:00.597
pieces came to me in a relative flash, practically fully made.

00:15:01.158 --> 00:15:02.038
Him for Crow.

00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:05.462
I had a friend named Crow in Vermont, David Levine.

00:15:05.482 --> 00:15:09.386
He died of stomach cancer while I was in Vermont.

00:15:09.868 --> 00:15:12.770
And a few weeks later, I was thinking about him all the time.

00:15:12.831 --> 00:15:19.047
And a walking down the road with a harmonica in my hand, as I usually do when I walk down the road.

00:15:19.086 --> 00:15:27.111
I started playing and Hymn for Crow basically came into existence in practically completed form within 20 minutes.

00:15:40.066 --> 00:15:42.596
That's an unusual kind of experience.

00:15:42.677 --> 00:15:43.922
It happens once in a while.

00:15:44.202 --> 00:15:50.408
The rest of the pieces, since they were instrumental pieces, they usually began with an instrumental idea.

00:15:50.946 --> 00:15:56.693
And then I would extend that idea, add additional sections to it.

00:15:57.173 --> 00:16:01.740
By this time, I usually had an idea of what tuning I would use on the piece.

00:16:01.821 --> 00:16:04.403
In fact, I would have that idea from the very start.

00:16:04.624 --> 00:16:10.172
There was one interesting composition process that went into that record.

00:16:10.451 --> 00:16:15.979
I was practicing a technical exercise on a natural minor harmonica.

00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:20.785
And at the time, I was recording every practice session I did.

00:16:20.929 --> 00:16:27.559
because I knew the record was coming up and I recorded every practice session so I could pick up on what was going on with the pieces.

00:16:27.580 --> 00:16:31.326
And this was just an exercise that I was doing.

00:16:31.647 --> 00:16:35.893
And suddenly it shifted and became the theme for Rock Heart.

00:16:36.214 --> 00:16:46.048
And you can hear on the tape of that practice session, the point in time at which the rhythm on it shifts just slightly and you have Rock Heart coming out.

00:17:02.785 --> 00:17:07.128
And then I did a work on a B section for rock harp.

00:17:07.554 --> 00:17:20.184
The natural minor harps are really good for that stuff, among other things, because the harmonies, the minor harmonies on the five chord are just very, very sweet, very beautiful.

00:17:20.484 --> 00:17:23.327
You know, you have major ninth chords and all that stuff to work with.

00:17:23.548 --> 00:17:26.529
So, I mean, you mentioned, obviously, that you're playing different tunings.

00:17:26.590 --> 00:17:32.976
And at this stage, I think that must have been quite early in the, were these Lee Oscars that you're playing the different tunings on?

00:17:33.296 --> 00:17:38.641
The act of being free in one act was entirely recorded with Lee Oscar harmonicas.

00:17:38.961 --> 00:17:43.546
Yeah, I was using the Lee Oscar Melody Makers.

00:17:44.007 --> 00:17:52.875
I tuned up one reed on a standard harmonica in order to get the country tuning that I used on a couple of tunes.

00:17:53.457 --> 00:18:04.469
I bought the natural minors off the shelf and used the reed plates from a natural minor combined with the reed plates from a standard harp to make Dorian minor tunings.

00:18:04.969 --> 00:18:11.415
So most of the tunings I used on on that record were assembled from off-the-shelf Lee Oscar parts.

00:18:11.696 --> 00:18:15.359
The information on the tunings that you use are all available on your website, yeah?

00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:16.040
Yes.

00:18:16.080 --> 00:18:17.061
So people can check that out.

00:18:17.482 --> 00:18:21.807
So what do you think about this approach of using multiple different tunings on the album?

00:18:22.127 --> 00:18:24.430
Can you only play these songs with those tunings?

00:18:24.891 --> 00:18:25.211
Yes.

00:18:25.731 --> 00:18:30.737
If people wanted to learn them, say, themselves, they would have to get hold of those tunings to do it justice, yeah?

00:18:31.037 --> 00:18:31.597
Absolutely.

00:18:31.637 --> 00:18:41.089
There's a fair amount of harmonic motion in those tunes, and it just does It does not sound right if you're playing it on a different tuning.

00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:51.608
I mean, if you played the stuff that I do on a natural minor on a standard tuning, even something as regular as when Johnny comes marching home, something as traditional as that.

00:19:05.602 --> 00:19:10.553
You can't play the arrangement that I did on that tune without a natural minor harp.

00:19:10.733 --> 00:19:11.935
The chords aren't there.

00:19:11.977 --> 00:19:17.208
You couldn't play it as something with harmony on it on a standard harmonica.

00:19:17.388 --> 00:19:18.211
Just wouldn't work.

00:19:18.431 --> 00:19:19.954
Is the chords a big part of that then?

00:19:20.316 --> 00:19:21.017
Absolutely.

00:19:21.317 --> 00:19:24.806
We talked earlier about my understanding of the piano.

00:19:25.026 --> 00:19:31.394
Playing the piano gives you much better insight into what the chords are that you're playing and how they relate to each other.

00:19:31.815 --> 00:19:35.900
And most harmonica players aren't very well versed in chords.

00:19:36.059 --> 00:19:37.461
And there are a few reasons for that.

00:19:37.642 --> 00:19:42.567
First of all, they're playing a standard tuned harmonica on folk type music.

00:19:42.929 --> 00:19:43.730
You know, that works.

00:19:44.190 --> 00:19:53.102
The second reason is that they tend to play amplified through bullet type mics and amplified tube amps.

00:19:53.506 --> 00:19:58.851
When you play a bullet mic through one of those amps, it just mushes the chords that you're playing.

00:19:59.111 --> 00:20:08.919
The chord is heard as a kind of rhythmic thing, a punctuation, as opposed to a harmonic entity that's got a direction to it.

00:20:09.259 --> 00:20:10.980
So this is an acoustic album, right?

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:13.583
You didn't use any effects on this album, is that right?

00:20:13.804 --> 00:20:14.263
That's right.

00:20:14.324 --> 00:20:17.186
I wanted to strip it back to the absolute bare minimum.

00:20:17.227 --> 00:20:23.471
Remember that I only had$400 to record this thing with, so I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

00:20:23.471 --> 00:20:29.939
of time in the studio experimenting with effects i wanted to have something that worked with one harmonica and one player

00:20:29.979 --> 00:20:54.484
all right great and obviously effects is a big part of your playing we'll get into that later but uh you know just interesting that this isn't an acoustic album it's great to hear that side of you because obviously using a lot of effects as well later on so oh yes on the album there's some really killer licks you probably wouldn't call them licks but you know i'm listening to them thinking yeah there's a really nice sweet top end lick there that i'm thinking i have to learn and in every song i'm sort of hearing that thinking yeah there's a really another killer riff there i and try and learn that riff.

00:21:07.597 --> 00:21:10.059
How did you approach putting those kind of riffs in?

00:21:10.460 --> 00:21:17.787
Well, because there are multiple parts going on in those tunes, I tend to think in terms of foreground and background.

00:21:18.367 --> 00:21:20.450
And once you establish...

00:21:21.057 --> 00:21:24.383
the rhythmic background, the audience hears it in their head.

00:21:24.663 --> 00:21:48.198
Like, for example, on my recording on the act of being free in one act of Coming Home Baby, I establish a rhythmic motif fairly early on, and then I can improvise leads over that because the audience still has the rhythmic part in their heads as I'm moving them forward through something more elaborate, something less tethered to the rhythmic line.

00:21:58.402 --> 00:22:02.424
Is the album multi-track with different harmonica parts or is it all played through once?

00:22:02.986 --> 00:22:10.112
Every cut on the act of being free in one act is played with a single harmonica in real time.

00:22:10.132 --> 00:22:11.874
There is no overdubbing.

00:22:12.074 --> 00:22:14.236
We edited on a couple of pieces.

00:22:14.336 --> 00:22:21.682
We took, let's say, the third chorus from one recording and melded it with the first and second choruses of another.

00:22:21.842 --> 00:22:24.744
But there was no overdubbing on that record at all.

00:22:24.785 --> 00:22:28.367
You're always listening to one player and one instrument.

00:22:28.367 --> 00:22:28.827
Great.

00:22:28.868 --> 00:22:29.608
It's come out great.

00:22:29.648 --> 00:22:38.137
So you followed this up then with a second act of Being Free, which is a similar approach, although you do add, I think, a guitar player at least, don't you, to it?

00:22:38.199 --> 00:22:39.880
So on some of the songs, not all of them.

00:22:40.260 --> 00:22:40.601
Yeah.

00:22:41.162 --> 00:22:47.488
I had Jerome Harrison, a fabulous guitarist who has worked for many years with Sonny Rollins.

00:22:48.068 --> 00:22:58.319
And there was a third collaboration on that record with the singer Susan Catrona, my daughter, who sang It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry while I played a compliment on it.

00:22:58.319 --> 00:22:59.201
What

00:22:59.902 --> 00:23:07.311
year did

00:23:08.994 --> 00:23:10.135
this second one come

00:23:10.717 --> 00:23:10.817
out?

00:23:10.856 --> 00:23:14.501
The first one, The Act of Being Free, came out, I think, in 1994.

00:23:14.741 --> 00:23:17.846
The second Act of Free Being, I think, was 1997.

00:23:17.987 --> 00:23:25.877
I was a much more skilled player in terms of counterpoint by the time we did the second Act of Free Being.

00:23:26.337 --> 00:23:31.963
Yeah, and again, some great playing and the different tunings used again, and again, all the information that is available.

00:23:32.450 --> 00:23:41.718
As of this point in time, by the way, almost all the tunings that I used are available out of the box from major manufacturers.

00:23:42.038 --> 00:23:48.503
And so you can get a Melody Maker harmonica, you can get a country tuned harmonica, you can get a natural minor.

00:23:48.564 --> 00:24:00.173
The only one I haven't seen the majors take out yet is the Dorian minor tuning, which is too bad, but you can easily make that by combining a draw plate from a natural minor with the blow plate from a standard harp.

00:24:00.413 --> 00:24:02.898
And so Billy the Kid is a song of out on there.

00:24:02.919 --> 00:24:07.006
That's country tuning I believe and again some really intricate pattern playing on there.

00:24:17.857 --> 00:24:22.425
Well, you asked previously whether you could play the pieces on a standard tuned instrument.

00:24:22.705 --> 00:24:27.994
I have in an emergency, but it just doesn't have the same cowboy feel to it.

00:24:28.355 --> 00:24:32.303
The difference between the major seventh and the flat seventh is a world of difference.

00:24:32.864 --> 00:24:43.141
Another one I picked out is Bella's World, which I was reading that you thought that one worked really well as a solo piece, whereas some of the other ones, you know, work well with having the accompaniment you mentioned has been added to the album.

00:24:43.662 --> 00:24:43.741
Yeah.

00:24:54.306 --> 00:24:57.251
Bela's World is one of my special pieces.

00:24:57.332 --> 00:25:00.518
That also is heavily influenced by Bela Bartok.

00:25:01.019 --> 00:25:03.703
I mean, a song I really liked on here is How Long Have I Loved You?

00:25:04.045 --> 00:25:04.464
Really nice.

00:25:04.506 --> 00:25:05.968
Again, and that's played on a natural minor.

00:25:06.308 --> 00:25:06.930
Absolutely.

00:25:07.171 --> 00:25:11.859
And again, that's an example of a piece that just would not work on anything but a natural minor.

00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:17.109
I wrote the harmonica part for that completely before I added the harmony to it.

00:25:17.442 --> 00:25:19.384
And I like to think the tune came out well.

00:25:19.683 --> 00:25:24.768
It sounded great with a quartet at the Buckeye Harmonica Festival in 1999.

00:25:25.588 --> 00:25:32.755
You've got some recordings on your website of you performing at Spa in 1997, which I think a lot of these solo pieces that we've talked about.

00:25:32.875 --> 00:25:36.778
So what was that like performing these solo pieces at Spa?

00:25:37.199 --> 00:25:37.799
It was great.

00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:39.401
I had an attentive audience.

00:25:39.701 --> 00:25:42.022
The music was new to that audience.

00:25:42.403 --> 00:25:43.684
I performed it pretty well.

00:25:44.285 --> 00:25:51.253
In listening to those recordings, I'm amazed at how fast I was clearly hyped on adrenaline.

00:25:51.374 --> 00:25:57.663
You know, when it comes to playing solo pieces like this, you know, were these memorized pieces or are they sort of at least partially improvised?

00:25:58.144 --> 00:25:58.965
All memorized.

00:25:59.346 --> 00:26:08.701
Some of them have room for improvisation in them, but mostly the pieces are through composed, meaning that everything is composed.

00:26:09.026 --> 00:26:19.626
You know, one of the reasons for that is that when you screw up with a band behind you, you've generally got somebody to keep the stuff going until you recover yourself.

00:26:19.867 --> 00:26:24.817
But when you're doing a solo performance, if you screwed up, you can't blame it on the drummer.

00:26:25.122 --> 00:26:28.484
And so I tend to use surefire stuff.

00:26:28.825 --> 00:26:36.852
Over time, the arrangements change, but at any given point in time, I'm playing an arrangement that's through composed, not improvised.

00:26:37.172 --> 00:26:39.755
So your next album is not released till 2016.

00:26:39.795 --> 00:26:41.076
So quite a gap there.

00:26:41.096 --> 00:26:48.642
You were still performing and then playing at festivals during this time, but you hadn't released an album since the second act to the lucky one in 2016.

00:26:49.063 --> 00:26:50.163
Yes, that's right.

00:26:50.183 --> 00:26:51.704
There were a number of reasons for that.

00:26:52.346 --> 00:26:59.546
I was still playing, still working to improve my skills, but I was also getting interested in songwriting, in lyric writing.

00:27:00.130 --> 00:27:04.953
in singing, which until recently was a very big struggle for me.

00:27:05.335 --> 00:27:17.765
And there were things going on in my non-musical life as well that made it difficult to maintain a significant presence out there in the world, in the world of performance in particular.

00:27:18.445 --> 00:27:24.611
When you make a record, you're essentially investing capital in the hope that you're going to get a return on it.

00:27:24.951 --> 00:27:28.193
You can get a return if you're performing regularly.

00:27:28.515 --> 00:27:32.798
If you're not performing regularly CDs simply do not sell.

00:27:33.338 --> 00:27:42.249
So I took a big gamble when I put out The Lucky One, but I was thinking more along the lines of licensing those pieces than I was of performing them with the band.

00:27:42.950 --> 00:27:49.676
Now I perform those pieces with the tracks that I cut in the studio with that band in Philadelphia.

00:27:49.717 --> 00:27:52.559
And it's a very nice performance setup.

00:27:52.619 --> 00:27:57.986
The tracks are a lot more interesting than most pre-recorded tracks because they were played by real musicians.

00:27:58.465 --> 00:28:04.457
So for The Lucky One, you Like you say, you developed your lyric writing there, which is really great, by the way, as well.

00:28:04.517 --> 00:28:12.291
And also, you're well known for using effects, such as using the Digitech RP500, which has got multiple effects on it.

00:28:12.712 --> 00:28:14.797
When did you start really getting into using effects?

00:28:15.258 --> 00:28:20.008
In 1982, I released a single called Put the Lever Down.

00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:33.093
which was my first recorded use of a flanger.

00:28:33.492 --> 00:28:37.236
And for years after that, the flanger was part of my kit.

00:28:37.536 --> 00:28:44.402
I really started getting into effects later on when I had more money to play with effects.

00:28:44.422 --> 00:28:59.655
1997 or 8, I went into a music store, a musical instrument store, and I was trying out the gear and I picked up a Digitech RP200, which was a very primitive machine compared to the RP500 that I have in my kit now.

00:28:59.955 --> 00:29:02.630
But I picked it up and I started messing with it.

00:29:02.891 --> 00:29:05.464
And I came upon a patch with a pitch shifter in it.

00:29:05.698 --> 00:29:12.364
And I heard the sound coming out of that thing when I played the pitch shifter and I just picked it up off the floor and took it to the counter right then.

00:29:12.723 --> 00:29:16.728
That's, I think, when I really started going ape about effects.

00:29:17.327 --> 00:29:30.038
And I eventually came to the conclusion that I could replace an amplifier on stage and a whole pedal board with something like an RP-355 and then later with a Digitech RP-500.

00:29:30.179 --> 00:29:39.448
And right now in my kit, in my looping kit, I have a Digitech RP-360 and a Line 6 Helix Stomp.

00:29:39.708 --> 00:29:45.615
Those two generators, sound generators themselves, put out an enormous variety of tones.

00:29:46.556 --> 00:29:53.923
It's a lot easier and less expensive to build your kit out of these multi-effects devices than it is to build it out of pedals on the floor.

00:29:54.144 --> 00:29:57.106
So about the Digitech machines that you mentioned there.

00:29:57.207 --> 00:30:00.911
So you provide patch sets, as you call them, by your website.

00:30:00.931 --> 00:30:04.214
And I did own these myself and I bought them quite a few years ago now.

00:30:04.595 --> 00:30:23.555
And so what I found great about them is that you've done a lot of the work to find the sounds that work with the harmonica you know because quite often when you get these kind of multi-effects units it's like so mind-boggling the options the number of options right that you you know you kind of give up before you start so it was great to be able to get you know stuff that you kind of pre-built for you know and to sort of say okay this one works and

00:30:23.815 --> 00:30:44.217
my thinking with the patch sets was this gear is cheap it sounds really good and uh it can really expand the horizons for harmonica players so let's put together a patch set with With 25, 50 patches in it, each patch representing a different sound, dozen or so bread and butter blues sounds.

00:30:44.718 --> 00:30:46.619
Let's give them some farther out stuff.

00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:48.942
Let's give them some really far out stuff.

00:30:49.202 --> 00:30:51.065
And I think that the concept is very good.

00:30:51.144 --> 00:31:00.434
I haven't been able to interest any of the manufacturers of these devices in putting out one that's already pre-programmed with stuff for harmonica players.

00:31:00.535 --> 00:31:02.876
But I think that that's a next step.

00:31:03.096 --> 00:31:05.019
And the Digitech pedals are still available yet.

00:31:05.038 --> 00:31:08.502
It's just some of the Yeah, Digitech

00:31:08.542 --> 00:31:11.625
went out of business for a while, and now they've been purchased.

00:31:12.205 --> 00:31:15.788
They should be back in business selling cool stuff again before too long.

00:31:16.068 --> 00:31:28.539
I felt that the multi-effects devices were really good value for money and that the Digitechs sounded really good and cost about half the price of a comparable Line 6 device.

00:31:29.059 --> 00:31:31.162
So I focused on the Digitechs up front.

00:31:31.442 --> 00:31:35.165
Later on, I bought a Fender Mustang 3 V.2 amp.

00:31:35.554 --> 00:31:37.776
which is an amp that I really like, by the way.

00:31:37.796 --> 00:31:40.738
And I programmed a set of patches for that as well.

00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:52.749
I've started work on a set of patches for the Line 6 Spider Series amps, and I like the way they sound as well too, but I haven't gotten around to packaging them up and making them ready for sale.

00:31:53.249 --> 00:31:57.032
You know, some harmonica purists would say, you know, why do you want all those wacky sounds?

00:31:57.053 --> 00:31:58.314
They don't sound like a harmonica.

00:31:58.594 --> 00:32:06.480
But I like the approach of using some effects at least, and possibly more, because, you know, hey, a guitar player's got a massive pedalboard, right?

00:32:06.500 --> 00:32:10.325
You know, why shouldn't we have a pedalboard as well to provide a variety of sounds?

00:32:10.404 --> 00:32:16.971
So, you know, what would you say to people who would say, oh, you know, I can't, it would sort of shy away from having lots of effects on the harmonica?

00:32:17.573 --> 00:32:24.480
You know, the heyday of Chicago blues harp was 70 years ago, and it's a great style.

00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:25.721
It's a great sound.

00:32:26.122 --> 00:32:29.025
Every harmonica player should have that sound in their battery.

00:32:29.325 --> 00:32:30.686
But, you know, it's 2022.

00:32:30.767 --> 00:32:39.036
Tom Morello, the lead guitarist for Rage Against the Machine makes sounds that you would never think a guitar could make.

00:32:39.195 --> 00:32:40.517
And there's nothing wrong with that.

00:32:40.637 --> 00:32:47.785
And nobody says, oh, Morello ought to take all that stuff off the instrument and sound like Elvis's guitarist.

00:32:47.964 --> 00:32:56.755
I just don't see the point of ignoring all of the incredible advances in sound production technology that we've had since the 1950s.

00:32:57.816 --> 00:33:08.049
When I started using the Digitech pedals, I was telling people this stuff, you know, a pedal plugged right into the PA is the wave of the future and it is.

00:33:08.546 --> 00:33:27.281
You can see from the success of Lone Wolf, for example, that harmonica players are now into using a pedal straight to the board to ease the strain on their backs, to ease the strain on their wallets, and to get a consistent sound from location to location.

00:33:27.962 --> 00:33:40.515
And it's interesting to me that the most popular pedals for harmonica players are the ones that focus entirely on emulating the sound of Chicago blues from the 1950s.

00:33:41.455 --> 00:33:42.217
And that's cool.

00:33:42.616 --> 00:33:46.281
But with modern effects, many more things are possible.

00:33:46.623 --> 00:33:46.823
Yeah.

00:33:46.843 --> 00:33:50.728
And so talking a little bit about a couple of the songs on these next two albums.

00:33:50.748 --> 00:33:58.178
So the lucky one, it's got a song called Early to Bed, where you've got a very strange effect, which is what I think you call alien harmonica, which is using the pitch shifter.

00:34:01.102 --> 00:34:01.182
Yeah.

00:34:07.009 --> 00:34:13.797
Wait a minute.

00:34:13.817 --> 00:34:14.077
Wait a minute.

00:34:15.842 --> 00:34:19.784
Early to Bed is a cover of a song by Morphine.

00:34:20.065 --> 00:34:22.608
Basically, the tune runs on one riff.

00:34:22.967 --> 00:34:25.771
It's a rhythmic riff that doesn't change through the song.

00:34:26.090 --> 00:34:29.653
Anyway, there are two harmonica sounds used on it.

00:34:30.213 --> 00:34:36.980
One is a patch with an octave shifted down and a wah-wah effect on the sound.

00:34:37.300 --> 00:34:42.485
What I was aiming for was something that sounds like what Prince was doing on the song Kiss.

00:34:45.047 --> 00:34:48.951
So the other sound effect that I used was called the whammy effect.

00:34:49.472 --> 00:34:58.081
And the whammy effect allows you to shift the pitch anywhere from two octaves down to two octaves up under foot pedal control.

00:34:58.121 --> 00:35:06.990
So I was playing a solo on that song and just whacking away with the whammy effect to shift the pitch all over the place.

00:35:07.351 --> 00:35:08.711
I thought it was kind of spooky.

00:35:09.092 --> 00:35:09.873
I really liked it.

00:35:10.233 --> 00:35:14.818
Another one, which is Put the Lever Down, which you mentioned you'd recorded earlier, but you record it on this album as well.

00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:17.307
Has this gotten multi-layered harmonicas on there.

00:35:17.590 --> 00:35:18.193
Absolutely.

00:35:29.025 --> 00:35:37.492
That has two harmonicas on it, and that's the one that I released in 1982 with a flanger on it.

00:35:37.693 --> 00:35:45.920
In this case, I used two different harmonicas, different effects on both, and I had a great rhythm section behind me, which doesn't hurt at all.

00:35:46.300 --> 00:35:52.706
Yeah, and you had, I think this was used on a radio show, a harmonica music show called The Tin Sandwich.

00:35:52.827 --> 00:35:53.766
It was a theme tune for that.

00:35:53.967 --> 00:35:57.451
Yeah, the one that they ran on The Tin Sandwich was the one from 1982.

00:35:57.471 --> 00:35:58.251
Then moving on

00:35:58.992 --> 00:36:14.367
to your your latest album which is called blue future a release in 2019 so this is interesting you know you mentioned the blues a lot though so this is kind of a very heavily based blues album with a kind of futuristic tinge to it yeah so you kind of got an electronic kind of blues uh coming out

00:36:14.608 --> 00:36:38.306
yes the uh the idea uh was to use the harmonica in a variety of roles that it's not typically used in in a blues band uh sometimes it's fairly extreme but i tried to to establish continuity with the past as well so you notice for example on the title track Blue Future the lead harmonica is an acoustic harmonica.

00:36:50.561 --> 00:37:02.311
The device that was used for most of the leads on that record, I think maybe all of the leads except for Blue Future, was the Fender Mustang amplifier, not the Digitech RP500.

00:37:02.773 --> 00:37:09.778
I used the RP500 to fill in a lot of the backing tracks, like for organ sounds and stuff like that.

00:37:10.179 --> 00:37:20.527
By that point, I really liked, I did want to have continuity with traditional blues, and the Fender Mustang amplifier gave me more of that continuity.

00:37:20.527 --> 00:37:20.943
I sell.

00:37:21.538 --> 00:37:23.559

Richard Hunter interview

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