Jan. 24, 2025

The harmonica playing of Bob Dylan with Ross Garren, Rob Paparozzi and Liam Ward

Ross Garren, Rob Paparozzi and Liam Ward join me on episode 128, to discuss the harmonica playing of Bob Dylan.
The early part of Dylan’s career is chronicled in the current biopic, A Complete Unknown.
Ross and Rob were the ‘harmonica coaches’ for the movie. Ross recorded most of the harmonica used in the movie and the soundtrack, with Rob contributing one song and also providing support on the East Coast. Ross shares the painstaking process of recording for such a major music movie, how he studied Dylan’s playing in great depth and the challenges that Dylan’s style of harmonica presented.
Liam runs the highly successful LearnTheHarmonica.com website. He was inspired to take up the harmonica from hearing Dylan, and released a series of tuition videos on some of Dylan’s harmonica playing.
Love him or hate him, Dylan has popularised the instrument which has been an integral part of his iconic songs since the early 1960s.

Links:

Spreadsheet showing all songs using harmonica on Dylan’s studio albums:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10HnAQSoN2ubvq5LrNCQhaGQF5hCobQ1myc8qvj-7gzI/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Harp keys used on Dylan’s albums:
https://dylanchords.com/content/dylans-harp-keys

'Untold Dylan’ article on Dylan as ‘master harpist’:
https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/9903

Liam Ward ‘Learn The Harmonica’ website:
https://www.learntheharmonica.com/

Videos:

Liam Ward tutorial on Mr Tambourine Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IwFW_oCaxU&t=47s

It’s All Over Now: Newport Folk Festival 1965:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcWaHBOFkUw

Dylan playing harmonica in the hand (not rack):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJbddZjbDTM&t=256s

Dylan playing as a harmonica player only with Harry Belafonte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YibIueuzTNM

Timothee Chamalet talks about A Complete Unknown on the Graham Norton show (UK):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_g3nNcurQU

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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:46 - Neil was a big Bob Dylan fan in his late teens

02:24 - Ross played the vast majority of songs in the movie and on the soundtrack and was involved in the project for a long time for Rob got involved

02:45 - Rob got involved to help with cast someone to play a mid-forties Sonny Terry, which turned out to be Steve Bell (Carey Bell’s Son)

03:26 - Ross actually played the Sonny Terry part though, not Steve Bell (who appears in the movie)

03:39 - The music side of the movie was done by a team who worked on The Color Purple from a few years back, which Ross also worked on

04:19 - Ross recorded the harmonica parts in LA, then filming moved to New York, where most of the movie was recorded

04:35 - Ross and Rob both provided harmonica coaching to Timothee Chamalet on how to play the harmonica

05:41 - Ross started working on the movie around two years before it was released

06:36 - The movie was originally incepted before Covid, but that and the movie writer’s strike delayed it, giving Timothee Chamalet plenty of time to prep to play the music and to play Dylan

07:26 - Ross gave about five harmonica coaching sessions to Timothee

08:04 - Ross and Rob are on the credits on the movie as ‘harmonica coaches’

08:17 - Rob’s role as harmonica coach was to coach Timothee on how to mime to the harmonica parts Ross had already recorded with Timothee keen on it looking authentic

09:50 - Rob coached Timothee to play a part on harmonica which Rob thinks Timothee recorded for the movie

11:50 - Timothee recorded parts of the movie with the harmonica reeds removed so he could mime, with Tom Halchak at Blue Moon providing some harmonicas for the movie

12:48 - Liam has done some harmonica coaching for a movie in the UK where they used harmonicas without reeds

13:24 - Liam found that the film makers want exaggerated movements from actors playing the harmonica and did Ross and Rob also coach Timothee on authentic harmonica movements

14:51 - Ross recorded a lot of material that wasn’t used in the movie and some of songs were more complicated which may have called for more miming from Timothee, rather than playing them

15:51 - Rob decided it was better to coach Timothee with a rack on, as that is how he would be filming it

16:39 - Dylan was often quirky and erratic in his movements when playing harmonica, and how to teach Timothee to do that

17:22 - Timothee put a lot of work in to get the visual parts of playing the harmonica correct

17:38 - Rob tried to get Timothee to use an authentic rack from the 60s but Timothee found it uncomfortable so didn’t use it

18:32 - Hohner Marine Bands were used in the movie, and Golden Melodies weren’t out at that time

19:04 - Rob gave some Big River harmonicas (via Blue Moon) to the movie crew

19:15 - The different parts of the harmonica community involved in the movie across the US

19:29 - Kinya Pollard also provide some harmonicas for the movie

20:32 - Ross did lots of recording for the movie, around 150 hours, much of it at home in his studio. Lots of these recordings weren’t used

22:08 - Made extra recordings at the end which synced better with the visuals on the movie

22:34 - Ross is interested in how they mixed the sound for different ambient conditions

24:13 - Harmonica features heavily in the movie

24:31 - Rob compliments Ross on how he played the Dylan parts, considering his unorthodox style

25:34 - Rob recorded some harmonica on a Judy Collins Dylan album

26:11 - Recording sessions often call for specific parts, like Dylan, or Neil Young, which aren’t the sort of harmonica session harmonica players play like

26:43 - How Ross went about learning some of Dylan’s harmonica parts

27:38 - Ross thinks Dylan could well be the most well known harmonica player

28:10 - Did Dylan start the revolution of singer / songwriters playing harmonica on a rack?

28:27 - Woody Guthrie played on a rack and no doubt inspired Dylan to do so

29:44 - Jimmy Reed also played on a rack before Dylan

29:57 - Ross hasn’t done a recording session where he had to emulate a player so closely before

31:04 - For the informal / live clips in movie Ross listened to Dylan live clips to learn them

31:32 - Ross decided not to use a rack when recording the parts for the movie as he isn’t an accomplished rack player

32:01 - Ross had to be careful not to add hand effects when playing the parts with the harmonica in his hands

32:38 - Are a couple of scenes in movie where Dylan played harmonica held in hands

33:16 - Ross watched some videos of Dylan playing harmonica so could learn some of his physical movements when playing harmonica

33:50 - Dylan has a strong attack when playing harmonica

34:17 - Balance Ross tried to strike between playing Dylan note for note and capturing the hectic vibe of his playing

35:58 - Recapturing the early 1960s recording techniques was another challenge

36:34 - Ross took all day to record the Sonny Terry scene, with Joe Filisko providing remote support

37:07 - Ross was keen to represent the playing of Dylan and Sonny Terry accurately

37:41 - There is a soundtrack album available of the movie where you can hear the songs Ross and Rob play on

38:45 - Liam runs the very successful Learn The Harmonica website and did a ‘Bob Dylan’ week where he tabbed out five songs of Dylan, available on YouTube

39:26 - One of the first YouTube videos Liam made was on a Dylan song, and the difficulty in tabbing out Dylan’s playing

40:38 - Dylan was the reason Liam took up the harmonica and he defends Dylan’s playing

41:16 - In the videos Liam teaches the melody lines of the songs, rather than closely tabbing out Dylan’s playing

41:39 - Dylan plays a lot of melodic lines

42:01 - Liam tries to teach by pointing students in the right direction and allowing space for students to work part of it out themselves

43:12 - Ross discusses how the nuances of harmonica playing often don’t lend themselves well to tab

44:04 - Ross had to learn live versions as well as studio versions of Dylan’s playing

44:39 - Ross studied Dylan’s style so much that he picked up the nuances of his playing more than with any other players he’s studied

45:56 - Rob talks of how Dylan’s playing is put down, but that it’s actually difficult to emulate

47:03 - Dylan played quite a bit of second position

47:11 - When Dylan played (and plays) as a solo artist, the harmonica is his only melodic instrument and he captures a lot of different moods with it

49:33 - Dylan’s playing is very relatable to people and his music has a rawness, with the music supporting that

49:54 - Similar artists (such as Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty) use the harmonica in a similar, simple manner, which is equally appealing to the audience

50:19 - Dylan defines what the harmonica means to a lot of people, despite it’s rudimentary level

50:46 - Playing the rack is a limiting factor, but he always serves the song and is quite possibly the best songwriter ever (having also won the Nobel Prize for Literature)

51:26 - Liam picked out 30 favourite Dylan harmonica songs

52:07 - Liam shares rough percentages of the positions used by Dylan: 1st position 60%, 2nd position 35%, 4th position on a few songs, one 5th and one 12th position

54:06 - First eight albums have most harmonica, that dwindled for a while but then made a comeback

54:23 - Some of Liam’s favourite Dylan harmonica songs

55:06 - ‘Music isn’t about ability but suitability’

55:34 - Dylan has recorded harmonica on over 150 songs and bad solos only really appear on live recordings (not studio recordings)

56:34 - Liam believes the vilification he receives from some of the harmonica community is uncalled for

56:45 - Dylan is probably the most commonly known harmonica player to the man on the street and the responsibility that brings to him as a harmonica player is probably unfair

58:12 - Dylan did some session work as a harmonica player only (not on a rack) early in his career

59:06 - One of Neil’s favourite harmonica songs of Dylan’s is Pledging My Time

59:45 - Ross likes some of the less polished harmonica performances from Dylan, and the uniqueness of each performance

01:01:16 - Dylan and Neil Young are two of the most famous harmonica players and they deserve respect for that

01:02:04 - Dylan is known for having a bad singing voice, especially later in his career, and possible impact on his harmonica tone

01:02:29 - Dylan also plays piano

01:02:36 - Liam saw Dylan around 2010 and couldn’t recognise a lot of the songs

01:03:12 - Dylan is a creative force and his harmonica playing is part of that

01:03:51 - Liam appreciates Dylan’s imperfections, making him what he is

01:04:39 - You hear so many acoustic guitar players trying to sound like Dylan on the rack harmonica, without getting his distinctive sound

01:05:02 - Dylan has recorded plenty of blues songs on his early albums, but didn’t play harmonica on them, maybe in deference to good blues harmonica playing

01:07:39 - The harmonica has a certain innocence in pop music by being played in a rudimentary style by certain famous artists, including Dylan

01:09:04 - Dylan used part of Paul Butterfield’s band when he went electric, and Butterfield may have inspired Dylan’s electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965

01:09:43 - Dylan never really played or recorded ‘proper’ blues harmonica, or played amplified blues harmonica

01:10:13 - Dylan used some blues harmonica players in later recordings, including Sugar Blue on the Desire album (although the songs never made the final album)

01:10:24 - Charlie McCoy played on the Blonde On Blonde album

01:10:30 - The harmonica was an important part of the complete whole of a Dylan songs

01:11:04 - More on Dylan playing blues songs, without much, if any, playing of blues harmonica

01:11:51 - Dylan only used session harmonica players occasionally, as he wanted to play the harmonica parts himself

01:12:27 - The crowd would goes wild when Dylan plays harmonica at one of his live shows

01:13:04 - An article ‘Dylan Master Harpist’ by Mike Johnson compares Dylan’s harmonica playing to John Coltrane and Charlie Parker

01:13:43 - A wealth of online material on Dylan’s harmonica, as well as books and You Tube videos tutorials

01:14:01 - Dylan’s extensive use of the E diatonic and Liam’s breakdown of keys used by Dylan: G harp 23%, C harp 20%, E harp 15%

01:15:35 - The remaining keys Dylan uses are in a typical order of common use: D, A, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, F#, Db, B

01:16:20 - All Along The Watchtower is played in 4th position and Dylan more recently may have used minor tuned harmonicas

01:17:09 - Rob owns one of Dylan’s chromatic harmonicas

01:17:43 - Don’t believe Dylan has ever played any chromatic harmonica, although used one in photoshoots

01:18:01 - Dylan played Hohner Marine Bands, then Special 20s and Blues Harps

01:18:12 - Hohner released a Bob Dylan signature model diatonic, one of which Rob sent to Timothee Chamalet

01:19:14 - Ross felt the study he made of Dylan’s playing in preparation for the movie recordings really helped him look closely at it for the first time

01:20:27 - Some of the things Ross learned from Dylan’s harmonica playing included tone and note density, and being effective with a relatively limited technique

01:22:11 - Dylan has the ability to summon different moods and flavours with his harmonica across a range of different songs

01:22:46 - With the early songs recorded in mono, they sound different with modern playback techniques

01:24:22 - Dylan is what got Rob playing harmonica, with his brother a fan when young and so exposing Rob to his music

01:24:56 - As a session harmonica player Rob feels it’s his job to be able to emulate players like Dylan, as the session demands

01:26:13 - Rob congratulates Ross on the amazing job he did recording for the A Complete Unknown movie, and Ross is the new Tommy Morgan

01:26:36 - The movie will bring more exposure to the harmonica

01:26:53 - Dylan was the inspiration for Liam to take up the harmonica and to give him his career now in the harmonica and has come full circle in looking at Dylan again

01:28:10 - Liam thanks Ross and Rob for their work on the movie and the mainstream exposure it brings to the harmonica

01:28:41 - Liam is hopeful that there is more to come from Dylan’s harmonica

01:28:58 - Neil’s closing remarks are that he has enjoyed re-listening to Dylan’s songs as part of the podcast preparation and remembering how much he loves the songs and the part the harmonica play in them

WEBVTT

00:00:00.034 --> 00:00:07.001
Ross Garron, Rob Paparazzi and Liam Ward join me on episode 128 to discuss the harmonica playing of Bob Dylan.

00:00:07.722 --> 00:00:12.208
The early part of Dylan's career is chronicled in the current biopic A Complete Unknown.

00:00:12.929 --> 00:00:15.612
Ross and Rob were the harmonica coaches for the movie.

00:00:16.573 --> 00:00:24.321
Ross recorded most of the harmonica used in the movie and the soundtrack, with Rob contributing one song and also providing support on the East Coast.

00:00:24.993 --> 00:00:34.631
Ross shares the painstaking process of recording for such a major music movie, how he studied Dylan's playing in great depth, and the challenges that Dylan's style of harmonica presented.

00:00:35.853 --> 00:00:39.359
Liam runs the highly successful LearnTheHarmonica.com website.

00:00:40.161 --> 00:00:46.954
He was inspired to take up the harmonica from hearing Dylan, and released a series of tuition videos on some of Dylan's harmonica playing.

00:00:48.235 --> 00:00:49.137
Love him or hate him.

00:00:49.506 --> 00:00:55.978
Dylan has popularised the instrument, which has been an integral part of his iconic songs since the early 1960s.

00:00:57.101 --> 00:00:59.567
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:59.987 --> 00:01:09.346
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:26.433 --> 00:01:29.203
Hello, Ross Garan, Rob Paparazzi and Liam Ward.

00:01:29.302 --> 00:01:30.186
Welcome to the podcast.

00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:31.710
Hi, Neil.

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Hey, Neil.

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Thanks for having me.

00:01:34.299 --> 00:01:35.102
Lovely to be here.

00:01:35.233 --> 00:02:10.347
So thanks guys, we are here to talk today about Bob Dylan's harmonica playing So the much maligned harmonica playing of Bob Dylan And I think hopefully we're going to dispel that myth somewhat When I was in my late teens I was a huge Bob Dylan fan myself So I'm very familiar with his recordings Certainly his early period through into the late 60s and then some of the 70s albums He didn't inspire me to take up the harmonica But I certainly heard lots of his harmonica then and I was familiar with it So the reason we're doing this episode now is because of course the movie's out, A Complete Unknown, with Timothy Chamelet, who's playing Bob Dylan.

00:02:10.387 --> 00:02:15.092
And you guys, Ross and Rob, are actually playing on the soundtrack for that.

00:02:15.173 --> 00:02:16.754
So you were involved with the movie, right?

00:02:17.175 --> 00:02:17.596
That's right.

00:02:18.758 --> 00:02:26.568
I'm just going to, before we move on from the soundtrack, just want to state that Ross played on the whole soundtrack.

00:02:26.987 --> 00:02:31.274
There was one song that they needed to change when they started shooting.

00:02:31.586 --> 00:02:35.817
because they wanted to, I think, you know, maybe Timmy wanted to start playing on a couple of things.

00:02:36.157 --> 00:02:37.981
So Ross is all on the soundtrack.

00:02:38.062 --> 00:02:39.746
I'm on one song on that soundtrack.

00:02:39.847 --> 00:02:44.217
And Ross started with this project way before I got involved.

00:02:44.610 --> 00:02:45.570
and got a call.

00:02:45.890 --> 00:02:49.213
I got a call really because they needed some help with casting.

00:02:49.234 --> 00:02:52.456
You know, they needed a Sonny Turi for a scene.

00:02:52.556 --> 00:03:00.864
And hey, Rob, do we know a black harmonica player that can really play, but was maybe 49 or 50 years old in 1961?

00:03:01.805 --> 00:03:06.949
And so then I started scratching my head and doing emails to Joe Felisco and guys like that.

00:03:07.090 --> 00:03:12.593
And I was thinking Brandon Bailey, great player from Memphis, but too young.

00:03:13.055 --> 00:03:21.062
And then I was thinking, sure, Sugar Blue, which everybody knows Sugar Blue, but now he's too old, you know, to be that age in 1960.

00:03:21.103 --> 00:03:24.986
So anyway, I was helping with the casting, and that was my involvement.

00:03:25.086 --> 00:03:30.612
And then after they came, I think we ended up, or they ended up, with Steve Bell, who was Cary Bell's son.

00:03:31.234 --> 00:03:32.235
And he didn't really play.

00:03:32.294 --> 00:03:35.078
That's Ross playing the Sonny Terry parts.

00:03:35.177 --> 00:03:35.617
Everything was...

00:03:35.838 --> 00:03:36.278
Oh, is it?

00:03:36.338 --> 00:03:38.741
Yeah, so Ross, why don't you jump in here and explain?

00:03:39.141 --> 00:04:51.059
My understanding is this film, at least the music side, is done by some guy I've worked with the first project I did with them was The Color Purple a really awesome crew of guys that from what I can tell specialize in doing films that have songs you know proper Color Purple film that came out I think two Christmases ago was an adaptation of the musical so it had album song like production and so I had worked with them before so yeah they threw this project my way to start recording the harmonica parts and here in LA but when they moved to filming I think most of it was filmed in New York I'm not totally sure but at least a lot of it was you know when they moved to the that section of it they were lucky that Rob was around to be able to you know do some additional things and I think the lion's share I did get to coach and give Timmy some harmonica lessons I think as he was sort of preparing for the actual shoots but I think we Rob was there when they were doing the real heavy, you know, lifting on that part and some additional recording.

00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:53.521
And that's my understanding of the workflow.

00:04:53.562 --> 00:05:03.853
They did sort of pre-production in LA, which involved pre-recording music for them to have on hand for Timmy to practice to, for them, I'm guessing, to shoot to.

00:05:03.872 --> 00:05:08.437
I'm not really sure on all the specifics, but basically we pre-recorded quite a lot of music.

00:05:08.877 --> 00:05:10.439
They moved to New York.

00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:40.971
And I think even in that time period, I got something where they were revising pieces you know maybe they wanted something to play a little longer once they got to shooting or something like that you know then they imagined in the pre-production stage and I think Rob and I handled some of that stuff and then when they were done filming there was another round of you know kind of looking at what they had and what could be improved about it yeah that's kind of my understanding of how that workflow was and it was really cool

00:05:41.452 --> 00:05:47.060
when did you start giving him online lessons and stuff and coaching out there a couple years ago, right?

00:05:47.713 --> 00:05:49.516
man, I'm really bad with time.

00:05:49.675 --> 00:06:08.531
And this project went on for me for an incredibly, you know, for me, like if I get the sort of best film gigs I get as a, you know, recording harmonica, be lucky to be four days or something like that of work, that would be kind of a pretty extensive project for me.

00:06:08.572 --> 00:06:11.615
And this was over the course of a couple years.

00:06:11.694 --> 00:06:17.459
I think I even had revisions happening like a month before the movie released, you know, something like that.

00:06:17.500 --> 00:06:20.942
They were still, you know, working on the end credit scenes.

00:06:21.504 --> 00:06:24.788
I definitely started working on it a couple

00:06:24.848 --> 00:06:25.668
years ago.

00:06:25.689 --> 00:06:35.899
I'm aware that I watched an interview with Timothy and apparently they started this project before COVID and then COVID delayed it all.

00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:38.401
So he actually kind of worked on it for five years.

00:06:38.843 --> 00:06:43.487
So the fact that he does sing and play, he actually sings and plays the guitar in the movie, right?

00:06:43.728 --> 00:06:46.891
And it's only the harmonica, I think, which is, you know, it isn't him.

00:06:46.911 --> 00:06:50.595
I think I've I'm not sure about the guitar, but he definitely does the singing.

00:06:50.634 --> 00:06:54.680
So he sort of had five years to work on it because of this delay to the movie being made.

00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:57.742
I definitely didn't work with him at that long.

00:06:57.822 --> 00:07:03.709
So from my perspective, it was maybe a couple of years and it was interrupted by the writer's strikes.

00:07:04.009 --> 00:07:09.355
So the original filming got delayed, I think, because of strikes.

00:07:09.535 --> 00:07:15.141
I don't know how that then impacted, you know, some of the important people's already existing schedules.

00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:26.452
So he did tell me something along those lines that he felt he enjoyed having significantly more prep time for this role than he thought he was going to have.

00:07:26.473 --> 00:07:44.892
I think I only did five or ten lessons with him and most of what I did I think was well before they started shooting and then I made I think Rob maybe I sent it to you just a folder of a walk through roughly like video of each song.

00:07:45.293 --> 00:07:55.384
That was kind of the extent and it kind of seemed like it was a sporadic lesson here and there over a period of time and i don't have much insight into the pre-covid production

00:07:55.725 --> 00:08:16.629
so i watched the movie on friday it came out in the uk on friday which was the 17th of january but in the us it came out on the 25th of december yeah so so on the end on the credits you you guys are both ross and rob you're both on there on the credits as harmonica coaches right so you're saying there that you're coaching timothy but he didn't play the harmonica did he in the but were you just coaching him about where to put his mouth and things

00:08:17.122 --> 00:08:24.139
Well, actually, the job I was hired for was to coach him through the stuff that Ross had already recorded.

00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:27.507
They're really going to use this free record, all of it.

00:08:28.009 --> 00:08:29.612
And so I had to study Ross's...

00:08:29.985 --> 00:08:37.604
And then what I kind of did is I kind of even tabbed him out a little bit so I could remind myself where the holes were.

00:08:37.984 --> 00:08:43.155
And maybe he would want to even see that, too, because he really didn't just want to fake it.

00:08:43.456 --> 00:08:47.166
He wanted to learn it, even if he wasn't going to play it when they started shooting.

00:08:47.426 --> 00:08:55.212
So he had real, he had about eight harmonicas when I first met with him and he knew the different keys and was ready to blow along with me.

00:08:55.613 --> 00:09:19.818
The thing was, is once they started shooting, I think, and I had seen some videos too online that I think Ed Norton, the guy who plays Pete Seeger, was listening to, you know, as they're shooting and he kept saying, you know, Timmy, you know, when all of us, when we perform live, when we're in these small like bedroom scenes, not out on the big Newport stages or anything, It actually, Sounds real.

00:09:19.999 --> 00:09:23.081
Like if we can, if we can do any of this live.

00:09:23.481 --> 00:09:29.466
So Timmy already, he had been studying with one of my friends, Larry Saltzman for five years studying guitar.

00:09:29.827 --> 00:09:33.431
And I remember Larry telling me he was teaching some guy for the, for the Dylan film.

00:09:33.451 --> 00:09:40.937
So I didn't think anything of it when they started shooting and fast forward now to when they're getting close last summer, they're doing a lot of shots.

00:09:41.256 --> 00:09:48.783
They were doing a shot, which supposed to be Gertie's folks city or, and I, Timmy wanted to play the guitar thing and he was doing it.

00:09:48.783 --> 00:09:50.886
And he wanted to do the harmonica thing.

00:09:51.567 --> 00:09:55.333
So I got a call, Ross, from Nick Baxter.

00:09:55.854 --> 00:10:01.982
And Nick, who's the music producer for the movie, he said, Rob, he goes, Ross already recorded all this stuff.

00:10:02.003 --> 00:10:07.652
But this one song, the director wants him to really get in there and do something different.

00:10:08.251 --> 00:10:11.717
And it's not lining up with our prerecord on this particular song.

00:10:12.197 --> 00:10:14.400
And they didn't tell me that he was trying to play it.

00:10:14.881 --> 00:10:15.682
So what do you want me to do?

00:10:15.702 --> 00:10:18.384
He goes, well, can I come to you to record?

00:10:18.504 --> 00:10:20.486
And I said, I live in a condominium.

00:10:20.527 --> 00:10:21.467
What do you mean come to me?

00:10:21.868 --> 00:10:22.908
He goes, I'll come over.

00:10:22.969 --> 00:10:25.770
And he came over with his laptop and we recorded.

00:10:25.831 --> 00:10:28.913
We listened to the original thing that Ross had done.

00:10:29.315 --> 00:10:36.620
And we kind of, he wanted me to simplify it even more than Ross had already broke it down really nice and easy.

00:10:36.660 --> 00:10:38.101
It's a solo at the end of the tune.

00:10:38.682 --> 00:10:42.505
And he didn't tell me why, but I figured, okay, well, tell me what you want.

00:10:42.546 --> 00:10:44.528
And we would do it lick by lick and we got it.

00:10:44.847 --> 00:10:50.734
kind of got it down to where, and then he rushed out with his laptop and started, I guess, editing it and putting it all together.

00:10:50.774 --> 00:11:01.466
And it turns out, when I went to see the film, when I saw it on New Year's Eve, I was listening for that scene, and I see, that's not, because Nick Baxter is a good guitar player too, right, Ross?

00:11:01.505 --> 00:11:05.971
He played, I think he was playing guitar on some of this stuff, and it was like an open G tuning.

00:11:06.390 --> 00:11:10.596
And I said, that doesn't sound like the part that I learned from Nick on the free record.

00:11:11.176 --> 00:11:14.799
So Timmy was playing guitar, and then it got to the harmonica solo at the end.

00:11:14.799 --> 00:11:17.937
And it didn't sound like Ross and it didn't sound like me.

00:11:18.539 --> 00:11:20.892
He was playing the new part.

00:11:21.346 --> 00:11:22.226
I'm pretty sure.

00:11:22.267 --> 00:11:22.726
Right.

00:11:22.746 --> 00:11:23.187
So you think

00:11:23.227 --> 00:11:24.869
there is some of Timothy playing in the

00:11:24.908 --> 00:11:25.470
movie as well?

00:11:26.070 --> 00:11:32.495
And on that song, that song, it goes by really fast and everybody's talking and John Hammond's looking at him.

00:11:32.515 --> 00:11:34.937
But that harmonica solo is not me.

00:11:35.057 --> 00:11:37.139
And I don't think it was what Ross had sent.

00:11:37.419 --> 00:11:45.206
So he is playing on some of the stuff in the smaller scenes, maybe at the hospital when, you know, he tooted a note out.

00:11:45.346 --> 00:11:46.207
I don't know where.

00:11:46.668 --> 00:11:49.470
And it was interesting to see how that was done.

00:11:49.990 --> 00:11:58.019
And hats off again to Timmy, who really put in so much time with the videos that me and Ross were making them or when we met up with them.

00:11:58.279 --> 00:11:59.761
He was really doing his homework.

00:12:00.121 --> 00:12:06.448
Can I ask, what's the plan that he'd be using a harmonica with the reeds removed for the scenes?

00:12:07.269 --> 00:12:13.937
I found out from Tom Halchak from Blue Moon Harmonicas that they had reached out to him when they got out to the East Coast.

00:12:13.998 --> 00:12:17.341
Apparently, they needed some some like vintage harmonica.

00:12:17.442 --> 00:12:44.626
looking harmonicas that would be harmonicas that were available only in the early 60s and and apparently he sent them a bunch of harmonicas and then they requested reedless ones so i guess if he's on set and he's playing along or whatever they're going to do with the pre-records or not do they don't want sound to come out of the harmonica while they're playing pre-records so he could play and they could mute the guitar or mute the harmonica by putting reedless reeds in there.

00:12:44.726 --> 00:12:48.129
I don't know if they ever used those, but Tom made them up a whole set of them.

00:12:48.309 --> 00:13:00.721
Yeah, yeah, I was just wondering, because I've had a bit of limited experience on set on a film in the UK, which my friend Will Pound is on the soundtrack, and he asked if I would go in and train the actor.

00:13:01.100 --> 00:13:04.224
It's a film about a guy who takes up the harmonica and it kind of saves his life.

00:13:04.543 --> 00:13:38.078
They did a similar thing where they had reedless harmonicas, but as you were saying with Timmy, the guy I was teaching got really into learning and really wanted to learn the thing, but the thing that I found funny on set, and I don't know how this was for you guys in terms of the video lessons and whatever you were giving, but the thing I found funny was, you know you see a film sometimes and there's a harmonica player, and the movements they're making on the instrument are way too big, it's kind of really hammed up, and you think, ah, they really needed a harmonica advisor there to tell them it's not realistic.

00:13:38.519 --> 00:14:21.951
Well, I found when I was on this film that I was trying to really make it look realistic I was trying to sort of make sure his movements were really accurate to what he was supposed to be playing and then someone from the crew would keep saying no we need it to be bigger we need them to move around more which of course as you know as harmonica players a lot of the time you're not you're not sliding up and down the instrument that much maybe it's a bit different with Dylan because some of his playing is quite busy and up and down but I just wondered if there was any in terms of your instructions Ross or Rob Were you just teaching specific solos or was there anything in terms of coaching him to look realistic when he's playing it on set or anything

00:14:21.991 --> 00:14:22.352
like that?

00:14:22.977 --> 00:14:38.010
In the time I spent with him, we basically were just working on actually playing the songs, like maybe slow, maybe not clean, maybe not exactly the way you would hear it, but where he pretty much was playing, you know, in like some version of it.

00:14:38.051 --> 00:14:45.798
And I worked with him well before Rob, so I'm sure the whole thing really got way more refined once it, you know, got closer to shooting.

00:14:45.857 --> 00:14:46.818
So that was it.

00:14:47.619 --> 00:14:50.101
There were some of the more complicated songs.

00:14:50.341 --> 00:14:56.788
And I will say that I recorded a lot of material that didn't get used in the film, a lot of songs.

00:14:57.067 --> 00:15:04.515
And I would say some of the fancier songs that we recorded in terms of like sort of crazier harmonica playing that didn't get used.

00:15:04.556 --> 00:15:22.895
So I think there were maybe some songs that were going to be, I don't really know because he's a really talented guy who was working really hard, but there were certain songs that were a real stretch for me that maybe would have moved more towards miming and less towards like kind of trying to actually play it.

00:15:22.895 --> 00:15:40.926
but I don't think that that material didn't really get used a whole lot so for me it was actually just teaching them how to kind of play the songs to to some degree and not like fake it you know

00:15:50.625 --> 00:15:59.418
Yeah, I had found once we started digging in, And we got together a couple of times with Larry, the guitar player at Timmy's place and myself.

00:15:59.818 --> 00:16:05.423
And I have found it's better to put a rack on because he's going to be shooting this stuff with a rack.

00:16:06.004 --> 00:16:13.409
And so I put the rack on and even the stuff I did from home on FaceTime or Zoom, I would pick up a guitar because I could play a little bit.

00:16:13.730 --> 00:16:14.571
So I would play.

00:16:14.792 --> 00:16:18.394
I said, OK, we're doing it's all over now, baby blue or whatever it is.

00:16:18.774 --> 00:16:20.495
I said, let's let's play these chords.

00:16:20.557 --> 00:16:24.399
And then you're going to start on the middle of the harmonica and you're going to work your way to the right.

00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:30.446
Whatever Ross was playing on this and Dylan was playing doesn't go down to the left on this particular solo.

00:16:30.745 --> 00:16:33.148
So we were zeroing in on the whole numbers.

00:16:33.607 --> 00:16:34.649
He knew the whole numbers.

00:16:34.710 --> 00:16:38.812
He was already putting a lot of time in as to where he's supposed to play this thing.

00:16:39.053 --> 00:16:44.318
And then sometimes, you know, and I'm sure they had Ross when he was copying some of these Dylan solos.

00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:49.764
You know, Dylan was very quirky and he'd do those flurries and like up and down and like...

00:17:00.258 --> 00:17:03.421
How am I going to teach Timmy this?

00:17:04.582 --> 00:17:06.824
But that's where the harmonica was going.

00:17:06.864 --> 00:17:07.924
It was going up and down.

00:17:07.984 --> 00:17:11.367
And I kind of said, well, start on this hole and work your way.

00:17:11.428 --> 00:17:12.489
Don't go past nine.

00:17:12.548 --> 00:17:13.990
He's not going any higher than that.

00:17:14.509 --> 00:17:15.431
And work your way back down.

00:17:15.691 --> 00:17:19.375
So it was a very visual kind of thing where me holding a guitar, looking at him.

00:17:19.674 --> 00:17:20.414
He's looking at me.

00:17:20.496 --> 00:17:21.395
He's got his guitar.

00:17:21.696 --> 00:17:22.656
I got a rack on.

00:17:23.038 --> 00:17:24.858
Like I said, he didn't want any shortcuts.

00:17:24.898 --> 00:17:26.300
He wanted to nail this stuff.

00:17:26.681 --> 00:17:34.468
Now, as far as how much time he put in on the set when he got there, I don't know, but I was impressed what I saw.

00:17:34.509 --> 00:17:36.862
I didn't see any wrong movements there.

00:17:37.057 --> 00:17:38.078
something that looked weird.

00:17:38.618 --> 00:17:47.086
I did try and get him to use the original harmonica rack that I had from 1964, whatever, when I started using the rack.

00:17:47.267 --> 00:17:49.409
But, you know, he felt really uncomfortable with it.

00:17:49.449 --> 00:17:52.030
And it's a piece of garbage, that rack, you know.

00:17:52.391 --> 00:17:56.894
And he was already using something, maybe, I don't know, something from the 70s or something.

00:17:56.914 --> 00:17:58.836
So he wasn't bent out of shape.

00:17:58.856 --> 00:18:00.719
You know, he didn't say, I'm not using it.

00:18:00.959 --> 00:18:04.040
But I noticed when I went and saw the film, he didn't use the original one.

00:18:04.101 --> 00:18:06.763
And they sent it, the property people sent it back to me.

00:18:07.023 --> 00:18:08.325
And I said, you know what?

00:18:08.846 --> 00:18:10.907
He's putting a lot of time in playing here.

00:18:11.147 --> 00:18:11.989
He wants to get it right.

00:18:12.028 --> 00:18:13.171
He wants to feel comfortable.

00:18:13.471 --> 00:18:15.133
And that original rack is horrible.

00:18:15.212 --> 00:18:18.096
And who's going to know but us harmonica nerds?

00:18:18.375 --> 00:18:21.338
It's funny you should say that, Rob, because I knew that story about the rack.

00:18:21.398 --> 00:18:22.580
I'd read about it before this.

00:18:22.641 --> 00:18:26.183
And I was actually looking closely at the rack thinking, yeah, that rack doesn't look so old.

00:18:26.765 --> 00:18:27.025
No, it doesn't.

00:18:27.045 --> 00:18:27.605
And they had it.

00:18:27.726 --> 00:18:30.068
They had the original if they wanted to use it.

00:18:30.088 --> 00:18:31.871
And so they must have known some of the backstory.

00:18:32.131 --> 00:18:36.976
And even Tom Halchick said, oh, Rob, I sent them these reedless harmonicas and vintage harmonicas.

00:18:36.976 --> 00:18:58.085
sent them golden melodies i said tom they didn't have golden melodies until the end of the 60s and uh he goes oh okay i'll tell them i'll tell you know so uh you know i said don't use golden melodies it's got to be marine band or maybe old standbys or something but they were not making plastic comb golden melodies in 1962 you

00:18:58.105 --> 00:19:03.973
know yeah it's great that tom was involved you know he's a sponsor of the podcast so he also sent some big river harmonicas to the crew didn't he

00:19:04.354 --> 00:19:05.214
Well, I did.

00:19:05.335 --> 00:19:10.179
Yeah, I had to make me up a couple and because he was making some up for me on my own order.

00:19:10.558 --> 00:19:13.842
And I had a couple little ones that he put complete unknown or something on it.

00:19:13.942 --> 00:19:15.483
And, and I sent it out to them.

00:19:15.523 --> 00:19:26.993
But it was so cool that way this film worked out to have Ross on the West Coast, and me on the East Coast and a guy like Tom, who's like this harmonica builder, and they were interested in trying to get this right.

00:19:27.114 --> 00:19:28.974
So that's hats off to them, too.

00:19:29.135 --> 00:19:29.296
You know,

00:19:29.576 --> 00:19:34.319
I'd like to chime in real quick, too, because Kenya Pollard is not on social media.

00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:36.422
But he also made harmonica.

00:19:36.942 --> 00:19:38.203
This was a big production.

00:19:38.223 --> 00:19:39.424
Wow.

00:20:04.271 --> 00:20:14.211
So I personally don't have a lot of insight into how all of it went, but they covered their bases and consulted a lot of experts.

00:20:14.592 --> 00:20:21.325
And I think it's really cool that it sort of activated that number of people in the harmonica community.

00:20:21.384 --> 00:20:23.509
So also props to Kenya, you know.

00:20:23.828 --> 00:20:24.190
Definitely, yeah.

00:20:24.417 --> 00:20:29.582
I had a few things to say about the realistic look of the performances for me.

00:20:29.643 --> 00:20:36.729
So like I did some of the sessions, this was a tremendous amount of recording work for me for getting the lesson side of it.

00:20:37.189 --> 00:20:45.256
I probably recorded something like 150 hours, something like that, like a tremendous amount of recording.

00:20:45.296 --> 00:20:49.480
Like I said, I recorded a lot of songs that aren't heard that they didn't use.

00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:50.881
They just cut them all together.

00:20:50.921 --> 00:21:33.853
And some of the sessions I did in person with Nick but not many most were at home and I could go you know especially for a lot of Dylan's music you know he sings a verse he plays a verse he sings the verse he plays a verse there could be five I think I did one where there was like 10 harmonica solos in the song you know something like that eight or ten like a tremendous number of interludes right and for me to do that it was much more convenient to kind of be able to go section by section from home even phrase by phrase and just kind of dial it in, nail something, give them a couple variations to choose from of like a phrase and kind of go phrase by phrase.

00:21:33.873 --> 00:21:37.239
And I felt like in the end, I did a pretty darn good job with it.

00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:45.012
But when I watched the movie and had to think about Timmy making it all the way through takes of the whole song in a believable...

00:21:46.049 --> 00:21:49.957
Whether he's playing it, whether he's miming it, it doesn't really matter.

00:21:49.997 --> 00:21:56.648
That seems so much more difficult than me kind of being able to go phrase, nail it, record, boom, next phrase.

00:21:56.969 --> 00:22:00.816
You know, he's got to sort of be believable across a whole performance.

00:22:01.953 --> 00:22:05.176
I don't know what they used in the final thing that you hear.

00:22:05.217 --> 00:22:07.778
You know, I just see the credits same as anybody else.

00:22:07.858 --> 00:22:21.590
But after they were done filming, we did do an extra round of revisions specifically of things that they didn't think what we were hearing looked like what they decided to go with for the film cut.

00:22:22.050 --> 00:22:28.076
And I think they had me replace some of those things just so that what you saw matched the sound better.

00:22:28.096 --> 00:24:12.487
I think in some cases they were also maybe happy with what Timmy had played on set but wanted to you know one of the things that I don't have too much insight that's really fascinating is on a project that's so music based the considerations of mixing right you there's like scenes where somebody Joan Baez is outside the club she kind of hears distantly Masters of War going down in a club and then she kind of walks down a tunnel and there's all these sound changes that are happening to some recording so I think partially some of the process was not necessarily about correcting what I played or Timmy played or anything like that but actually making sure they had captured a sound that would give them flexibility so in terms of being able to mix it and I don't really know how the production audio is recorded it's obviously not in a studio with a guy just sitting in front of a microphone you know people are walking around and so there was a round of revisions like that and I don't know all of the reasons but I think a lot of it was strictly mixability you know scenes where Bob gets up you know there's that scene in the studio where Newhart is starting to play and he Bob's in the background and gets up and plays like we went in and redid that stuff kind of painstakingly and I don't know if they would have used it I think they were just doing it mostly to have mixing options so big project a lot of harmonica players and makers involved and really cool and it would be really interesting interesting to at some point in time grill like some of the guys on mixing and production in terms of how it all you know came together because it's it's a big process you know

00:24:13.188 --> 00:24:30.226
one thing for sure is the harmonica does feature pretty heavily in it there's plenty of harmonica as you said rob there's little scenes where they're just harmonicas just played just for a little you know a few seconds like with woody guffrey and these sorts of things so the harmonica is definitely prominent in there you know as it is was with dylan you know he did use the harmonica a lot so good work all around guys

00:24:30.926 --> 00:24:41.157
yeah i just wanted to say also, you know, Ross did an amazing job on this because they picked the songs that, okay, we're going to do these songs or we're not sure if we're going to use them all.

00:24:41.558 --> 00:24:44.582
So Ross had to go back and start with Dylan recordings.

00:24:45.241 --> 00:24:47.644
First of all, he's a professional harmonica player.

00:24:47.684 --> 00:24:49.366
We all kind of play harmonica.

00:24:49.666 --> 00:24:50.567
That's what we do, right?

00:24:50.887 --> 00:24:52.309
Liam and you too, Neil.

00:24:52.450 --> 00:24:53.731
And this is what we do.

00:24:54.291 --> 00:25:01.680
And now we've got to back everything up, forget a lot of the fancier stuff we know and analyze what Dylan is doing.

00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:04.306
which is very hard to analyze.

00:25:04.365 --> 00:25:07.673
It's a very unorthodox way of playing harmonica.

00:25:07.814 --> 00:25:08.675
It's his own way.

00:25:16.032 --> 00:25:21.599
And then Ross had to take these songs and they're expecting to hear it to sound like Dylan.

00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:24.984
So, and he, and I think he did a, you did a fantastic job doing that.

00:25:25.786 --> 00:25:30.353
When I heard, I heard the prerecords, I said, wow, this is, this is not easy to do.

00:25:30.472 --> 00:25:34.357
Cause I've had, I've, I've been thrown in some of these situations like this too.

00:25:34.439 --> 00:25:36.842
I remember doing a, a Judy Collins record.

00:25:36.882 --> 00:25:38.865
Judy plays Dylan, sings Dylan.

00:25:43.952 --> 00:25:47.678
How does it feel to be

00:25:50.114 --> 00:25:54.577
And this was back in the 90s, and she wanted me to try and sound more like Dylan.

00:25:54.678 --> 00:26:02.163
And I realized, and as I conferred with Russ about this, we had a couple of phone conversations about teaching Timmy.

00:26:02.644 --> 00:26:10.451
We said, man, this is a lot of work to break down Bob Dylan's stuff and then copy it enough to make it sound like Dylan.

00:26:10.872 --> 00:26:17.238
We play harmonica, and we come up with our own stuff, and we've been playing for a long time, and we play it professionally.

00:26:17.258 --> 00:26:18.798
We want to have our own sound.

00:26:19.318 --> 00:26:20.079
And what happened?

00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:43.003
is a lot of times in the real world you get a call hey can you sound like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young hey can you sound like John Popper because that's all they know in their world is that that's hey that he's the guy right you know and now we have to copy that and it becomes like wow I don't know I think uh I got into some trouble here you know

00:26:43.625 --> 00:27:04.462
that's the thing about this project that fascinates me and I wanted to ask you Ross because I've taught a few Dylan tunes and I find that despite his lack of maybe technical prowess, his solos are fiendishly difficult to interpret and internalize, and I would say more so than more sophisticated players.

00:27:04.584 --> 00:27:07.645
So I'm wondering what your process was.

00:27:07.766 --> 00:27:14.551
I wonder if you could say a little bit about how you went about learning to play like him or replicate some of these solos.

00:27:14.932 --> 00:27:17.634
Yeah, I mean, thank you guys both for that.

00:27:17.974 --> 00:27:23.599
I put in a lot of time on this project, felt honored to get it.

00:27:23.599 --> 00:28:09.548
I felt lucky I think if they had done the pre-production in New York Rob would have crushed the whole thing too so I was just kind of lucky to get in there myself and I think like many harmonica players Dylan is somebody I'm obviously aware of I would venture to guess at this point in time he's probably the most iconic most famous harmonica player to me anyway you know I think he's such a huge figure in music you know and that image of the guy with the rack harmonica you know it's like if you see a picture of Dylan it likely has a harmonica in it you know Stevie you know is obviously one of the most iconic musicians as well but you know when you see the picture of Stevie it's him sitting at the keyboard and you know it's not necessarily a harmonica in his face you know.

00:28:09.568 --> 00:28:09.588
I

00:28:10.150 --> 00:28:24.346
just wanted to touch on that because I think Dylan probably is the most iconic player on a rack and maybe started the whole revolution of singer-songwriters using a harmonica on a rack and I think that you know it's what you're saying there I think I can't think of anybody else who sort of are all the same.

00:28:25.185 --> 00:28:27.587
You know, maybe Rob can speak to that.

00:28:27.748 --> 00:28:46.744
I do know, like, Woody Guthrie, his hero, at least early on, played some really, I didn't actually, until getting into this, realize he was a mighty fine harmonica player who played some really convincing, beautiful, like, he's on my list of guys to do a deeper dive on.

00:28:46.904 --> 00:28:55.071
I don't know if he played in a rack or not, but it's similar to the acoustic guitar vocal harmonica.

00:28:55.112 --> 00:28:59.739
Oh, assume he did because he does play the guitar and sing at the same time so i think he must have done

00:29:00.339 --> 00:29:09.836
he sounds freaking really great though like if he was playing that in iraq that is impressive and i have also read i think jess fuller the san francisco bay blues

00:29:10.036 --> 00:29:14.663
okay yeah san francisco bay blues and i there's another one called lost train blues

00:29:21.334 --> 00:29:21.374
so

00:29:21.986 --> 00:29:31.125
And it's like you said, Neil, he's playing guitar and harmonica.

00:29:31.527 --> 00:29:32.970
It's got to be a wreck.

00:29:33.009 --> 00:29:39.865
And that's probably what Dylan first got interested in, because he's digging Woody's music.

00:29:40.226 --> 00:29:42.288
and Woody's playing guitar and harmonica.

00:29:42.327 --> 00:29:44.048
So it's some pretty impressive stuff.

00:29:44.430 --> 00:29:50.474
Of course, there was Jimmy Reed, but he was a straight-ahead blues guy and doing his own thing with it.

00:29:50.894 --> 00:29:57.421
Yeah, and if we're talking about someone who's obviously massively popular like Dylan was, you mean, obviously, Woody Guthrie, you know, he's a bit more niche, right?

00:29:57.701 --> 00:29:58.501
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:29:58.561 --> 00:30:08.309
So another quick aside is I think, like Rob, I have gotten a certain number of requests when recording to, you know, sound like so-and-so, that kind of thing.

00:30:08.369 --> 00:30:14.737
But normally, it's like grab some element of their essence that would work for this track.

00:30:14.757 --> 00:30:17.019
It's not sound exactly like them.

00:30:17.078 --> 00:30:20.942
It's more like, you know, capture a little bit of that vibe and we'll be happy.

00:30:20.983 --> 00:30:26.348
And so with this one, Nick, the producer of the music, was very detailed with me.

00:30:26.489 --> 00:30:31.795
I would give him quite a bit of credit in terms of how it ends up sounding and the coaching.

00:30:31.815 --> 00:30:51.020
You demonstrating or showing the recording of an iconic studio version of a song, as opposed to one of the club or more informal performances that we see on screen.

00:30:51.441 --> 00:30:55.247
Those ones he wanted basically about as spot on as could be.

00:31:04.642 --> 00:31:13.983
For the more informal ones, there were I think pretty much most of the time a reference live recording of Dylan that we were looking at.

00:31:14.044 --> 00:31:15.785
Now, in some cases, they extended scenes.

00:31:15.825 --> 00:31:20.528
They did things where there wasn't a specific reference for it.

00:31:20.890 --> 00:31:22.891
And with those ones, we were a little looser.

00:31:22.931 --> 00:31:31.659
He wanted to hear some variations, sometimes wanted to see if we could kind of improve or bring something to the Dylan versions that we were looking at.

00:31:31.979 --> 00:31:35.582
So for me, really, the process, first of all, I didn't use a rack.

00:31:35.662 --> 00:32:00.788
I thought about it, but I'm not a, I'm not in the habit of that kind of playing and to be able to do take after take somewhat accurately especially like when we were in the studio with people around my accuracy on the rack would just wouldn't be there to do take after take kind of getting the same something similar you know getting similar trying to be able to improve on takes rather than just kind of hope for the best

00:32:01.249 --> 00:32:05.913
so a quick question you just on that so you didn't use a rack did you avoid using any hand effects

00:32:06.234 --> 00:32:44.796
I did and I caught myself messing that up from time to time I kind of tried to hold it sort of more or less like a little bit unstable you know so maybe it helped a little bit with the kind of dirtiness lack of cleanliness of single notes but also yeah there were certain times where I was trying to do stuff that was more challenging for me and I wanted the stability maybe of a traditional grip and I would I would feel that guy coming in there to make little hand effects and yeah and would have to police on that and the one exception to that, and I don't know what they used again, like I said, it's hard for me to say, was the Woody Guthrie playing on a record scene.

00:32:45.096 --> 00:32:56.347
That was one of the, that and maybe the scene in the studio I mentioned with Newhart doing Railroad Bill, I think is the song, where Dylan is not in a rack.

00:32:56.428 --> 00:33:05.557
So I think we did give some consideration to maybe using some very light hand effects.

00:33:05.718 --> 00:34:08.519
Something that was not so drastic that it sounded like a totally different thing than the rack Dylan were used to but something that maybe suggested it was a little different so for me I watched some videos with Dylan just to kind of get a little bit of the physicality you know seeing what his cheeks are doing a little bit obviously with the rack maybe it changes how far into the mouth one can get the harp in terms of how I'm used to doing it and really I just went and tried try to get a sense of his physicality on the instrument to some degree and I have to say that's one of the things I was really impressed with with him he has I think I'm a pretty soft player most of the time that's my kind of default mode and he has like a really strong like rhythmic in out powerful kind of you know he can sort of hammer that in out in out kind of thing without the envelope of a swell as you kind of move from one on breath direction.

00:34:13.346 --> 00:34:49.126
and so you know I tried to look at things like that as best I could one of the big challenges with Dylan especially on the more energetic pieces was the sort of trade-off for me between accuracy of attempting to do something that was maybe note accurate to what he had done with capturing the hectic kind of vibe like one of the first songs I think the first song Nick wanted to record for me was You're No Good where this is one of the up-tempo like Dylan Say what you want about, I know he is much maligned, as you said, by the harmonica community.

00:34:49.146 --> 00:34:56.164
There aren't many guys that have that kind of rhythmic chop that he has, you know, chop like a violin chop.

00:35:10.369 --> 00:35:11.231
It's accurate.

00:35:11.331 --> 00:35:18.376
He's playing guitar at the same time, so he's locked in with himself, even as the time may fluctuate a little bit.

00:35:18.836 --> 00:35:30.186
And so I found just physically some of that stuff pretty challenging, and there were trade-offs in terms of being able to nail something accurately versus having the kind of raucous energy.

00:35:30.226 --> 00:35:38.333
Sometimes I feel like maybe I could have captured the spirit more accurately at the expense of the accuracy of the notes.

00:35:39.074 --> 00:35:40.335
That was certainly a trade-off.

00:35:40.335 --> 00:36:14.355
but with him that's pretty much what I did went through it and like attempted to kind of get a sense of the tone there were a lot of times like maybe like I said Nick did maybe want to polish some of the edges around Dylan's playing maybe you know certain tones a little less strident on the recording that's another thing we're up against is the period nature of the recordings you know how I'm recording it at home is not how Dylan was recording it so you know we're separated by I guess 50 or so years, 50 to 60 years.

00:36:14.376 --> 00:36:15.737
It sounds a little different.

00:36:15.838 --> 00:36:17.601
I'm trying to get a similar tone to him.

00:36:17.621 --> 00:37:29.516
So Liam, I basically was just painstakingly kind of phrase by phrase attempting to match like the amount of extra notes besides you know what maybe a central note would be you know kind of the chordal nature of his playing trying my best to match that to match the tone and I will tell you the Sonny Terry scene it's not you know represented in the shape that I recorded it but that was the same thing I spent basically all freaking day on that I had some good text conversations with Joe Felisco going back and forth about like hey any tips any suggestions and that similar like Sonny's tone is very specific I think the nature and the level of this production also unlike you know can you do something inspired by or whatever might happen on a normal studio session I wanted to really do these guys justice Dylan I wanted to do justice I wanted to do Sonny Terry justice and make it you know when you watched it people that know what those guys did could say hey this is a nice tribute and representation I like what they've done here rather than this is very surface level look look at Sonny Terry, you know, or this is a caricature of Bob Dylan's playing.

00:37:29.556 --> 00:37:33.320
So for me, it was really just very microscopic.

00:37:33.420 --> 00:37:41.170
I had the advantage of being able to do it largely in my own time and just get microscopic about the whole thing.

00:37:41.349 --> 00:37:47.076
So you mentioned, obviously, you don't quite know which parts are in the movie, Ross, but what there is, is there is a soundtrack.

00:37:47.597 --> 00:37:51.099
And on that soundtrack, which is available, there are six songs where you're playing.

00:37:51.139 --> 00:37:54.384
And then there's the one song that you're playing, Rob, which shows I was young when I

00:37:54.543 --> 00:38:07.293
left home.

00:38:09.474 --> 00:38:12.960
So everyone can go and listen closely to your actual recordings.

00:38:13.762 --> 00:38:16.307
That's you playing on those six songs, Rosh.

00:38:16.467 --> 00:38:18.052
As far as you understand, yeah?

00:38:18.452 --> 00:38:20.115
Yeah, I mean, that's the credits.

00:38:20.295 --> 00:38:23.282
I see how that interfaces with the versions we see in the movie.

00:38:23.342 --> 00:38:24.806
I don't really know.

00:38:25.467 --> 00:38:26.208
It's great.

00:38:26.248 --> 00:38:27.050
I'm proud of it, man.

00:38:27.170 --> 00:38:27.630
Really proud.

00:38:39.650 --> 00:38:44.753
So, I mean, we're talking here about how you studied Dylan's playing to make it all sound authentic.

00:38:45.094 --> 00:38:46.155
So, Liam, bringing you in.

00:38:46.235 --> 00:38:50.378
So, you run the very successful Learn the Harmonica website.

00:38:50.860 --> 00:38:55.384
If anyone hasn't seen your smiling face on YouTube teaching harmonica, then I don't know where they've been.

00:38:55.824 --> 00:38:57.545
So, you've done a great job with that.

00:38:57.606 --> 00:39:05.351
So, you did, six years ago now, a Bob Dylan week where you look specifically at five Bob Dylan songs and you tab them out.

00:39:05.431 --> 00:39:07.514
So, first of all, we can point people out.

00:39:07.534 --> 00:39:13.101
If they want to learn how to play like Bob Dylan, then And you've done that, so you've picked out through five songs.

00:39:13.601 --> 00:39:14.623
So what did you do for that?

00:39:14.663 --> 00:39:17.766
From the approach that I've seen, you do it quite melodically, don't you?

00:39:17.788 --> 00:39:18.728
Sort of picking out the tune.

00:39:18.748 --> 00:39:21.693
But maybe talk about what you did for those five videos you made.

00:39:22.914 --> 00:39:26.059
Yeah, so it actually goes back a little bit further than that.

00:39:26.179 --> 00:39:27.561
One of the very first...

00:39:28.353 --> 00:39:30.958
YouTube videos I made was a Dylan tune.

00:39:30.978 --> 00:39:37.327
I can't remember what the first one I did was, but I did a couple where I was trying to pick out his solos as they were.

00:39:37.347 --> 00:39:41.434
And then to be honest with you, Neil, it was so tricky.

00:39:41.454 --> 00:39:43.998
And that's why I wanted to ask Ross what I did earlier.

00:39:44.018 --> 00:39:50.550
It was so tricky that I think I did a couple of the songs where I was just picking out the melody, almost the vocal melody.

00:40:04.514 --> 00:40:30.280
And it was kind of easier that way, because it is really difficult to follow what he's doing, because he is idiosyncratic and unpredictable, and especially, I think, if you've trained yourself to play an instrument, you might have your own sound, but there will be certain parts of your technique, certain licks, or just ways of moving around the instrument that you will have in common with most harmonica players, whether you like it or not.

00:40:30.978 --> 00:40:34.320
And Dylan kind of breaks the mold with a lot of those things.

00:40:34.920 --> 00:40:37.262
So it was a really difficult thing to teach.

00:40:37.503 --> 00:40:45.289
But that said, it was a very natural choice for me because Dylan really was the reason I took up the harmonica.

00:40:45.670 --> 00:40:56.179
And I am, to a certain extent, you know, a Dylan defender because I grew up with my dad's record collection contained a lot of the 60s folk stuff, you know.

00:40:56.500 --> 00:40:58.561
He also had a lot of Neil Young records, so I was hearing them.

00:40:58.621 --> 00:41:03.007
But the number one stuff in it in his collection was Bob Dylan.

00:41:03.128 --> 00:41:06.916
So I was hearing all of those early albums and that made me pick up the harmonica.

00:41:06.996 --> 00:41:15.813
So when I got into doing YouTube videos and lessons, it was inevitable I was gonna teach some Dylan because he was my first harmonica hero.

00:41:16.418 --> 00:41:21.202
Interesting watching it, because as you say there, his idiosyncratic style is quite difficult to teach.

00:41:21.503 --> 00:41:32.954
When I was watching it, I was having the feeling that you probably didn't want to go down that route, because it's quite hard to teach it, but also you don't really want the people learning in that way, because it's kind of not right, in one sense, you know what I mean?

00:41:32.994 --> 00:41:34.596
So you kept it a bit more clean, right?

00:41:34.976 --> 00:41:35.317
Yeah.

00:41:35.516 --> 00:41:48.664
I was going to say, Liam, did you find that Dylan paid a lot of attention to the melody in his own weird way, He didn't strictly play it, but the melody was very important to him.

00:41:48.784 --> 00:41:53.289
You could always hear him referring to it every once in a while, going back to it.

00:41:53.590 --> 00:42:00.500
Hence, the first position thing was very important to him because he wanted to always quote a little bit of that melody.

00:42:01.442 --> 00:42:02.302
Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:02.362 --> 00:42:22.449
And I've always approached my teaching in what I hope is a sensitive way, by which I mean I try to point out my students in the right direction, but also leave enough space for them to work things out on their own to a certain extent.

00:42:22.528 --> 00:42:31.740
I don't believe in spoon feeding as much as there are times when you need someone to just tell you how to do something if you need it done quickly, on a deadline, whatever.

00:42:32.842 --> 00:42:59.739
So I find that if I'm teaching the melody, often it's a skeleton for people to then either adapt in their own way to play something that's a bit more their own signature or adapt to try and get closer to what Dylan was playing because as you say a lot of his playing within it somewhere is a real respect for the melody.

00:43:13.090 --> 00:43:22.052
Yeah, I think too, like with the two guys that I had to sort of track down for this movie, Sonny Terry and Dylan.

00:43:22.092 --> 00:43:27.237
Yeah, so like there are very superficial elements to somebody's style that we can grab, right?

00:43:27.257 --> 00:43:36.304
If you play a little rhythm and do a little bit of whooping, you know, most harmonica players realize that that has some relation to Sonny Terry or whatever, right?

00:43:36.445 --> 00:44:19.123
But the devil is in the details and I think a lot of the stuff that we hear with those two players in particular, but you know, a lot of harmonica players in general, is not stuff that lends itself well to tabs and you know it is the nuance of tone production it is the nuance of dynamics and phrasing and time so I think that is a big challenge and I personally it's interesting so Between doing studio versions of these songs, some of them also are featured in live performances in the movie, so I had to learn and transcribe live versions of Dylan's songs that I also did the studio version.

00:44:19.143 --> 00:44:29.311
It was something probably to the order of 30 different songs, mostly fully transcribed, sometimes with other variations of my own or that kind of thing.

00:44:29.992 --> 00:44:37.447
And I think knowing the scrutiny that that project would be under, just in terms of the number of people who would see it and how iconic he was.

00:44:38.114 --> 00:44:47.081
that I ended up, I think, getting under the hood of those nuances of sound in a way that I really hadn't, I don't think, with even my favorite players.

00:44:47.161 --> 00:45:05.637
It makes me think I really should because, you know, it's one thing to learn some of the melodies somebody might play, you know, like a superficial, well, I shouldn't say superficial, say you learn somebody's solo on something, you know, it's not something I've done a lot of, but it has been very helpful for me when I have in terms of building vocabulary.

00:45:05.677 --> 00:45:46.992
But to go the next step and really like have done that times 20 or 30 for that person and attempting to get the nuances of their sound and you know that the tone how much they let another note bleed in try to really capture the essence of it so you could create a solo in that style that's a level of study in detail that I think I could probably get a lot out of just about any player studying that way and I was shocked that with Dylan I learned so much about the harmonica about music about how to use the harmonica in any kind of music, but obviously in this particular case, singer-songwriter, this kind of folk material.

00:45:47.735 --> 00:45:55.454
And there was just a tremendous amount to be gained from that detail of study, and it was heavy.

00:45:55.969 --> 00:46:06.259
You know, when they started posting stuff online and social media and interviews with Timmy and he had coaching, harmonica coaching and guitar coaching.

00:46:06.739 --> 00:46:15.067
And I remember somebody, maybe it was one of the harmonica forums where they said, you needed a coach to play like Dylan?

00:46:15.726 --> 00:46:18.630
And I'm thinking like, you know, you go ahead and try it.

00:46:19.170 --> 00:46:33.264
You go ahead and try it for one song and you'll see what people don't realize the time that Ross put in as a studio player to turn the corners and reverse some of his ways of playing to make it sound.

00:46:33.284 --> 00:46:37.347
Because Dylan had his own sound, very much so.

00:46:37.829 --> 00:46:44.675
And then later on, guys like Neil Young were copying guys like Dylan and Bruce Springsteen were copying guys like Dylan.

00:46:45.137 --> 00:46:48.559
We call it folk harmonica, but it was a very unique thing.

00:46:49.041 --> 00:46:51.023
People laugh about his style.

00:46:51.083 --> 00:46:52.864
It's, oh, you know, he just blows in and out.

00:46:52.905 --> 00:46:54.186
You don't need to coach him on that.

00:46:54.487 --> 00:46:58.050
And when you start nailing down some of the parts to these songs.

00:46:58.431 --> 00:47:02.976
And like I had said earlier, he pays a lot of attention to the melody and then he doesn't.

00:47:03.396 --> 00:47:10.824
And Dylan could play second position too, as Ross can tell you, because some of these songs were in second position.

00:47:11.184 --> 00:47:11.764
Yeah, yeah.

00:47:11.985 --> 00:48:03.309
That's the thing too that I think people need to realize about Dylan is when you're playing solo like he is, he, you know, the harmonica was his only melodic instrumental foil between all of these verses and he I think does an exceptional job and maybe a job that we don't really hear on evidence by many of the great blues players necessarily of being able to capture a variety of different moods you know he has these up tempo like really chopping out kind of things like you're no good where he he sort of it's super high energy you know and I remember there was a live version of it's all over now baby blue from I think Newport in 65 that I had to copy and he did all these like really fast arpeggio kind of things that almost kind of has like a little bit of a John Popper flavor.

00:48:16.226 --> 00:48:46.106
know something totally different right and then he has his sort of simpler melodic things where maybe he only just holds a note for a really long time you know he did that uh like man of constant sorrow would be one you know where it is very melodic but also just holding a note for a really long time Then there's the stuff Rob was talking about where he sort of is...

00:48:46.882 --> 00:48:54.409
playing the melody in between verses, you know, and it's sort of an abstracted version of the melody and it's not the same each time.

00:48:54.449 --> 00:48:57.471
But he had a lot of different moods that he captured.

00:48:57.490 --> 00:49:03.637
And as a solo performer, you know, you may say, well, you know, he's limited or this kind of thing.

00:49:03.677 --> 00:49:10.282
You know, he couldn't blow over the changes on You're No Good with the same fervor of like a great jazz player.

00:49:10.342 --> 00:49:25.557
And he, you know, plays these uptempo things and it's not with the same accuracy and vocabulary of a top And what you could say that if you wanted, but he's capturing all these moods by himself as a foil to his songwriting and performance.

00:49:25.657 --> 00:49:29.402
And it is a lot of variety to what he is doing.

00:49:29.943 --> 00:49:31.525
It's very unpredictable.

00:49:31.945 --> 00:49:38.231
I think a lot of times, you know, I'm not really sure, but it seems very relatable to people as well.

00:49:38.271 --> 00:49:43.418
There's something to me about I don't want to call his music amateurish because it's amazing.

00:49:43.458 --> 00:49:44.358
It's not amateurish.

00:49:44.378 --> 00:49:46.262
It's something that people look for.

00:49:46.722 --> 00:49:48.242
Yeah, I think it was out of role almost, didn't it?

00:49:48.262 --> 00:49:50.385
And that's what's made it very appealing to people.

00:49:50.405 --> 00:50:05.318
That's a better word, and I think the harmonica really evokes that in a way, and you hear that with all the guys that Rob was mentioning, you know, Springsteen, Tom Petty, you know, Billy Joel, Neil Young, all these guys, a lot of them had the best bands in the land.

00:50:05.398 --> 00:50:46.059

The harmonica playing of Bob Dylan with Ross Garren, Rob Paparozzi and Liam Ward

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