Aug. 30, 2025

Victor Puertas interview

Victor Puertas joins me on episode 142.

Victor Puertas grew up just outside Barcelona, discovering the blues in his early teens, splitting his passion between harmonica and keyboards. At 18 he traveled to the US and had the chance to meet his idol, Gary Primich.

Back home, Victor formed The Suitcase Brothers with his brother Santos, who had given him his very first harmonica at age 13. For over 27 years the duo have been exploring acoustic country blues, with their latest album, a tribute to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, earning recognition from the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society.

Victor continues to perform in the duo as well as with other bands, where he showcases his deep love of the blues.

Links:

The Suitcase Brothers: https://suitcasebrothers.com/

The Suitcase Brothers albums on Bandcamp: https://suitcasebrothers.bandcamp.com/

Victor Puertas & The Mellow Tones on Bandcamp: https://victorpuertasmellowtones.bandcamp.com/music

Videos:

The Suitcase Brothers performing live at the FEN Festival, Berlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6115tQ6WU&t=3s

Victor Puertas & The Mellow Tones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oooYZqq_J7g

Harpin’ By The Sea workshop on Gary Primich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC63Zz-tDAE

Playing with Steve ‘West’ Weston: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rCkKFRJOIM&list=RD3rCkKFRJOIM

Konstantin Reinfeld at the Seoul International Harmonica Festival 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi73OEN_ZxI

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

01:31 - Victor is from a small town outside Barcelona

02:06 - Spent some time in the US age 18, meeting various blues luminaries when visiting his brother who was living in Austin, Texas, at the time

02:59 - Went to Austin especially to meet Gary Primich, who is Victor’s harmonica idol

03:13 - Tried to move to Maryland in the US, where he spent some time with Mark Wenner, harmonica player from The Nighthawks

04:17 - Started playing harmonica age 13, a harmonica and blues ‘freak’ from then on in

04:30 - Brother inspired Victor to start playing music, and gave Victor his first harmonica

05:27 - Listened obsessively to a blues radio show in Spain, which exposed him to a lot of blues music when young

06:04 - Also plays keyboard and hammond organ, but harmonica is his true love

06:34 - Has played keyboards since age 15 and was self-taught, with sister also a good piano player

07:46 - Victor recommends listening to a lot of the music you’re trying to learn

07:58 - Some of the advantages of learning by ear

08:18 - Junior Wells harmonica instructional where Junior wasn’t able to communicate too well on how to play harmonica

09:02 - Shares the same birthday as Sonny Terry, October 24th, and performs a lot of Sonny Terry material in his duo with his brother: The Suitcase Brothers

10:02 - The Suitcase Brothers play lots of country blues

10:25 - Joe Filisko inspired Victor to play pre-war harmonica

10:59 - Paul Lamb and Adam Sikora are two other influential Sonny Terry style players

12:13 - 2023 album Love, Truth and Confidence: Tribute to Piedmont Legends Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee won an award from the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society

12:57 - Recorded the Love, Truth and Confidence album live to a tape recorder, overdubbing some guests later was the only change to the sound

13:36 - Some of the advantages of recording live to capture the moment and the value of including ‘mistakes’ in the music

14:19 - The blues scene in Barcelona helped develop Victor, but it’s not what it was (like lots of cities around the world)

14:55 - Twenty or so years ago blues artists in Barcelona had to travel to the border with France to buy blues albums

15:23 - The pioneers of blues in Spain one generation ago

16:28 - Mostly heard American blues on the Spanish radio station

17:05 - The Barcelona Blues Society works to promote the blues but there is a lack of venues in Barcelona these days

17:35 - People just don’t attend live music in the same numbers due to competing things for our time and also a lack of support from the government

18:47 - How the local music scene seems to be missing in the music world of today

20:19 - Gary Primach is the biggest influence on Victor playing the harmonica, and Victor shared a stage with him in Austin

21:38 - Victor is planning to release some instructional material on Gary Primich

22:26 - Victor’s favourite albums by Gary Primich are Botheration, Company Man and Mr Freeze

23:19 - The time Victor put into the harmonica in his teenage years

24:15 - First song that Victor learned on harmonica was a rock version of Mary Had A Little Lamb

24:57 - Brother Santos gave Victor his first harmonica and started playing his band when he was age 14 and planned to become a full-time musician

26:13 - Has worked as a professional musician since his mid-20s, which includes playing keyboards, hammond organ and teaching music in addition to playing harmonica

27:01 - Some of the similarities of the Hammond organ to the harmonica and the Electro-Harmonix B9 Organ Machine pedal is used by some harmonica players

28:39 - Started playing in a band with his brother called Blues 14, before they started The Suitcase Brothers

29:38 - Changed to acoustic style of playing when started The Suitcase Brothers

30:41 - Placed 2nd at the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis with The Suitcase Brothers

31:58 - Represented Spain at the European Blues Challenge in Berlin in 2011 where someone described The Suitcase Brothers as sounding too American (which Victor took as a compliment)

33:10 - The Suitcase Brothers have released five albums

33:45 - Playing with your brother can be a challenge at times!

34:06 - A Long Way From Home album had guest appearances from Jerry Portnoy and Paul Oscher, and Victor became very good friends with Jerry

35:29 - Jerry Portnoy wrote the liner notes for the album, including the comment: “Victor's stunning, unparalleled harmonica genius”

36:32 - The Love, Truth and Confidence album was recorded to capture the amount of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhees songs The Suitcase Brothers played together

36:41 - The Suitcase Brothers are still playing together and plan to make an album of original material next

37:17 - Released two albums with the band Victor Puertas & The Mellow Tones, although that band is no longer going

39:07 - Victor has played with various other bands, including Chino Swingslide and Koko-Jean & The Tonics

39:45 - Plans to start a new band soon

40:03 - Has played with the Swedish band Trickbag, standing in for Steve West Weston, who Victor is good friends with

41:27 - Latest album is with Luca Giordano & the Netto Rockfeller Trio, which was recorded in Brazil

43:25 - Has done some work as a session musician, including on the soundtrack for the Spanish film: El Bola, which won four Goyas in 2001

44:23 - Does some teaching but not at the blues school in Barcelona as that has now sadly closed down

45:09 - Recently taught at the FEN Festival in Berlin and also at another workshop with Konstantin Reinfeld and Filip Jers

46:10 - Ten minute question

46:44 - Mainly a tongue blocker but also uses some pucker

47:01 - Plays some blues chromatic

47:44 - Speaks highly of Antonio Serrano as a top chromatic player and his chromatic tuition book

48:52 - Victor is a Hohner endorsee and plays Marine Band Deluxe and the Crossover

49:17 - For amps and mics isn’t too picky, likes Gibson and Fender amps and crystal and CR element mics

49:44 - For acoustic mic uses a Shure SM57 beta and prefers this over the Shure SM58

51:27 - Mainly plays in 2nd and 3rd position, with some 1st and 4th

51:58 - Uses Country tuning and interested in the Will Wilde tuning and the Going Up The Country tuning

52:32 - Overblows: uses them a little and wants to develop them futher and a story where Howard Levy demonstrated excellent overblows on an out of the box harmonica

54:37 - Effects pedals: delay and Kinder anti-feedback pedal

55:16 - Future plans include gigs in Europe, recording a new album and creating a Gary Primich instructional

WEBVTT

00:00:00.098 --> 00:00:02.339
Victor Puertas joins me on episode 142.

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Victor grew up just outside Barcelona, discovering the blues in his early teens, splitting his passion between harmonica and keyboards.

00:00:12.808 --> 00:00:16.853
At 18, he travelled to the US and had the chance to meet his idol, Gary Primich.

00:00:17.693 --> 00:00:25.140
Back home, Victor formed the Suitcase Brothers duo with his brother Santos, who had given him his very first harmonica at age 13.

00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:37.911
For over 27 years, the duo have been exploring acoustic country blues with their latest album, a tribute to Sonny Terry and Brown and McGee, earning recognition from the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society.

00:00:38.331 --> 00:00:44.557
Victor continues to perform in the duo as well as with other bands, where he showcases his deep love of the blues.

00:00:45.156 --> 00:00:47.618
This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas.

00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:57.368
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas.

00:00:59.929 --> 00:01:00.030
Music

00:01:24.194 --> 00:01:26.766
Hello Victor Puertas and welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you for having me.

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It's a pleasure to be

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here with you, Neil.

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So thank you, Victor.

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You're talking to us from Barcelona and you were born in a small town near Barcelona.

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Yeah, actually, I just moved back to my small town.

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It's pretty close to Barcelona.

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It's like 20 minutes.

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But I've been living in Barcelona downtown like the last 15 years thanks to a friend of mine that he was renting me an apartment there.

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And he's a musician too.

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So I had a special deal with him about the renting.

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Anyway, but I just moved back.

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to my old town and starting all over, I think, in a way.

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And you also spent some time living in the U.S.

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Yeah, that's when I was young.

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The first time I went there, it was more than 20 years ago.

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I was 18 years old, and my brother was living there in Texas, in Austin, Texas, and he invited me and actually a couple of friends, and we were there just to see the blue scene, just to enjoy the city.

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was amazing i think it's still amazing it's not the same anymore but i think there's no cities into the blues music anymore uh if you know what i mean but uh austin was a nice city uh in terms of blues music you you got everybody was living there 20 years ago and you got you had gary primich living there it was james cotton living there it was kim wilson in austin was kind of like uh the place to be a long time ago and uh and i went there especially for that was my main goal to meet my idol and to keep learning about the harmonica and about his technique and his phrasing and then after that I met somebody when I was 20 something and I moved I tried to move to Maryland and the only good thing about that trip it was meeting Mark Wenner from the Nighthawks he's kind of a legend on the harmonica music world.

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I was living 100 meters away from his house.

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So he treated me so good while I was living there.

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He took me to some of his concerts.

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And when he knew that I was moving back to Barcelona because I didn't have the green car, I couldn't stay in the country, he gave me a present.

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He gave me a harmonica mic, one of the green bullets that he had.

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And it was a very nice guy.

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You know, it's just a normal guy.

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You know what I mean?

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Yeah.

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So it's a good pilgrimage.

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to the U.S.

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because you started playing the age 13, yeah?

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So you'd been playing five years.

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You were definitely into your blues and harmonica at that stage.

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Yeah, I was kind of

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a harmonica freak and mostly a blues freak because, like my brother, I played music most of it because my brother, because he's a musician too.

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He's older, eight years older than me, and he was the one that introduced me to the music and especially to the blues music more most of the guys that i i've been meeting in my career in my life they used to come from the rock or the another kind of music you know i got into the blues right away i didn't i never to be honest i don't feel good about it saying this but uh i i didn't go through rock music through deep purple or any kind of rock music or even rock and roll i went straight to the blues We had a great blues radio show in Spain called Tren 3, which means like the train number three.

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It was hosting by Jorge Muñoz.

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He was kind of my teacher when I was a teenager because I was listening to his radio show every day, every, every day.

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And I was listening to Little Walter without knowing it was Little Walter.

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It was a big impact in my life.

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At that stage where you're playing the harmonica, you Did you realize the harmonica was the thing for you?

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I'm 43 now, and I still don't know what's for me, but I love harmonica.

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I play other instruments because I like it, but my first love and the one that I really, really, really love playing 24-7 is harmonica.

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I don't know why.

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Because

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you also play piano, Hammond organ, and guitar, yeah?

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I wouldn't say I play guitar,

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to be honest, but I like it a lot, and it helps me sometimes to to write some songs, and it gives you another perspective to write a song.

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But I play keyboards.

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There was a piano in my parents' house, and I used to play piano since I was 15 or 16.

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Like

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you said, you were a blues nut.

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Did you have sort of formal piano lessons, or were you straight into playing blues piano, and how did you learn that?

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I'm not proud of

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it, but I learned by ear.

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We in my family, I got to do it with my brother, and And then we have a sister who was smarter than my brother and myself, and she started a normal career, so she didn't become a musician.

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But she was a great piano player.

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She took piano lessons, and she studied the classical music with a piano.

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And I went straight to the boogie-boogie, listening to Honey Piazza, Rob Piazza's wife, and these guys, and of course, Pintop, and all the piano players.

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And I went straight to that.

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And it was funny because my sister is way better piano than I am.

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She can read everything.

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But she couldn't swing it.

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And it was like I couldn't tell her how to do it, to be honest.

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So, yeah, it's funny.

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So I'm not saying to play blues, you don't need to go to school because it's not true.

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But I would recommend to listen to hundreds and hundreds of albums

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Yeah.

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And, you know, learning by ear, particularly in an oral tradition like blues, you know, that's the way all the people in the past learned to write.

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So I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

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And in many ways, it makes you more fluid, doesn't it?

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And able to get the feel rather than having lessons.

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And it's all a bit more rigid then, isn't it?

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Yeah, I think you can do both.

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I still remember this in Junior Wells' instructional that he was trying to teach some harmonica, but he didn't know how to teach what he knew.

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And he knew a lot.

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He knew a lot.

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And anyway, I don't know if you know about this instruction about Junior Wells, but it's funny because he's trying to explain something that is inside of him.

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You know, it's the blues itself.

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I don't think that there were words to explain what he was playing in a way.

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And you can try to teach techniques and stuff and the tongue and the hands and blah, blah, blah.

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But then there's something you cannot teach inside of everybody.

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And that's something you can find.

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You have to find it your way, your own.

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Another interesting fact about you and your blues connections is you share the Sonny Terry's birthday, October the 24th.

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Yeah, that's crazy.

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And then you do, of course, we'll get into, you mentioned your brother there.

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So this is your brother Sansosh, yeah, the one you're in the suitcase brothers with.

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Yes, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, so you guys do a lot of Sonny Terry stuff, yeah.

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And in fact, you won a kind of a Sonny Terry award with one of your albums, didn't you?

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Yeah, well, I would say I love Sonny Terry.

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I don't know if I do it good, but I love Sonny Terry.

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He's one of those guys you can be trying to play like him all your life and you're not going to get it.

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I love Sonny Terry.

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We love Sonny Terry Brown and McGee.

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We did a lot of other stuff in the country blues and Piedmont blues and all these kind of Sittas and Wiggins and Paul Richelle and all the pre-war stuff.

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We love so many kind of acoustic blues.

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But Sonny and Brownie were one of the biggest influence for us.

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Yeah, but there's so many.

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I mean, I went to the pre-war harmonica...

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because of Joe Felisco.

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I mean, Joe Felisco is another guy.

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There's many names in my short or long life, I don't know yet, that I have to thank, and Joe Felisco is one of them.

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Without Joe Felisco, I wouldn't get into the pre-war and the country blues that

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deep.

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Thank you.

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Then, of course, Paul Lamb is another guy that you have to listen to it if you want to learn some Sonny Terry stuff.

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There's another guy that I met a few years ago in Berlin called Adam Sikora.

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I don't know if you heard about him.

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He's amazing.

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Adam was on my Retrospective for Sonny Terry episode, which also had Joe Felisco.

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Yeah, so Joe recommended Adam to me.

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So absolutely, yeah.

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I know Joe Felisco, and he's like the master of masters.

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And then I met Adam, and this guy, he really sounds like, like Sonny Terry and everything he plays is unbelievable so yeah I'm just another guy trying to keep that tradition I really like traditional harmonica blues harmonica I'm not super crazy about fancy stuff or some other stuff on the harmonica but I admire so many players that they don't play blues but they play harmonica and I love them too when I heard so some other stuff.

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That's why I play keyboards.

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That's why I feel like, okay, I can go somewhere else with the keyboards and with the harmonica, I feel so good just staying there, you know, stuck in the blues.

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Yeah.

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So this album that you've been very modest about, so in 2023 with the Suitcase Brothers, you played Love True from Confidence, Tribute to the Piedmont Legends, Sonny Terry and Brown and McGee, which won you an award by the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society.

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You look back at me That

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CD, we did it because we stopped playing for a while when my brother moved to the States a few years ago, and he moved back here, and then we thought about, hey, let's do another one.

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And the difference with this lassity is that we recorded live we recorded with a with a tape recorder with two mics on it no mixing you could masterize a little bit you could you know change the low thing and the high part or whatever but you couldn't you couldn't mix at all it was a tape recorder that I found a second hand and that was it and it's pretty pretty natural in a way

00:13:25.292 --> 00:13:29.275
yeah so no retakes or anything all just pure first take Yeah,

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actually, we had some guests and we added it later, but everything was through the tape.

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Yeah,

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it's interesting because, you know, during the podcast, I've seen a few albums which have won awards recorded in that way.

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So there's definitely something about recording that way, doesn't it?

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Which, you know, catches the moment and the energy rather than, you know, doing, you know, overdubs and all these sorts of things.

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Yeah, I mean, taking advantage of the technology is good and we have it there.

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why not but at the same time that the simplicity and the unique thing about doing something that you cannot do it twice that sometimes is good too and mistakes are part of the music too and music without mistakes is kind of weird to me

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yeah absolutely so as mentioned going back to your roots in Barcelona so I know you sort of when you grew up in the Barcelona blues scene there's a good blues scene and you know some way you could develop yourself yeah yeah yeah it was a it is

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still like I was saying there's no cities with the same how to say this with the same music scene anymore or that's how I feel when I when I travel but Barcelona was it was a nice more nice place in the in the back in the day because when I was 18 20 21 25 even 20 something there was a lot of great players and And they used to tell us how they used to get good albums, good blues albums.

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Because back in the day, they couldn't find it anywhere here in Spain.

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So they used to go to the border with France, and they used to buy the vinyls there.

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And that's crazy.

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And we're talking one generation in the past.

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Because I'm 43, I'm talking about guys that now they're 50-something, 60-something.

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They were the pioneers of...

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of the blues here in my country.

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And I'm talking about Big Mama Monse.

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I'm talking about Danny Nelo, who's, I mean, saxophone players here.

00:15:38.794 --> 00:15:41.517
He's the king here in Spain.

00:15:41.576 --> 00:15:43.940
You got the late Amadeo Casas.

00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:45.301
He passed away a few years ago.

00:15:45.321 --> 00:15:49.086
And those guys were the pioneers here.

00:15:49.206 --> 00:15:56.472
And then you got Ñaco Goñi from Madrid, Tonki de la Peña from Madrid, Mingo Balaguer.

00:15:57.073 --> 00:16:28.184
Those were the guys we used used to listen uh when when we started playing and mingo balaguer was from the caledonia blues blues band it was it was huge here in the in the 80s and 90s Those were our first teachers here in Spain.

00:16:28.466 --> 00:16:31.447
You mentioned the Spanish radio station which played blues.

00:16:31.488 --> 00:16:36.091
Was that a mixture of American and others, as well as the Spanish blues?

00:16:37.253 --> 00:16:39.335
Jorge, the guy, used to play...

00:16:39.554 --> 00:16:42.557
I mean, he used to play mostly American music.

00:16:42.937 --> 00:16:47.601
Sometimes he used to play bands from Spain, but not many.

00:16:48.123 --> 00:17:27.523
He used to do a special about harmonica trains one day, and then another day, a Texas guitar players and then yeah saxophones from Chicago from the 50s 60s or so so he was he was I mean he got everything so yeah about the blues in Barcelona we have a Barcelona Blues Society for a long time it's working it's working good people is really trying to make venues and do things for the blues audience or for the blues lovers and the only problem nowadays is There are not many places to play, actually.

00:17:27.564 --> 00:17:33.670
There's still people that love the blues, but we don't have clubs and bars and things like that.

00:17:34.411 --> 00:17:34.691
Yeah.

00:17:35.392 --> 00:17:36.413
Yeah, it's funny.

00:17:36.432 --> 00:17:46.123
I was reading something the other day, and it was about in the past, and it was someone talking about a music scene, and it was like the 1950s or something.

00:17:46.384 --> 00:17:49.227
And they were saying that now there's television.

00:17:50.028 --> 00:17:50.768
It's just different.

00:17:50.949 --> 00:17:51.749
Things have changed.

00:17:52.230 --> 00:17:54.192
And they were talking about doing a music club.

00:17:54.192 --> 00:18:10.589
and this was back then in whatever year it was and they're saying people won't come anymore because they just stay at home watching television it's like that that's just it's changed now it's different and i know we've been through through from some transitions and um covid and the internet and yeah it seems to just been hit and hit more isn't it

00:18:11.150 --> 00:18:45.287
i totally agree yeah yeah i i cannot say it's because of covid because it wasn't if it's true that that the audience was going down and down in some places in barcelona and that's the that was the the mainly reason to to them to close the place but uh at the same time the government is not helping in barcelona it's hard to find a a place with all the permissions and stuff to to have music like live music and uh i don't know how to change that to be honest but uh but uh yeah we need more music for

00:18:45.467 --> 00:19:15.137
sure we just keep playing it's funny though isn't it because you know big bands still seems as popular as ever and yet the ticket price is certainly in the uk you know the ticket price are really high there's always complaints that the ticket prices are way too high and yet that more kind of grassroots you know roots and local music scene has really suffered and yet the big expensive gigs seem to be still very popular but they seem to be missing that but that's obviously a crucial stepping stone to go from the local scene until you know upper level and then getting getting to that level seems to be missing these days right

00:19:16.038 --> 00:19:28.452
yeah yeah well it's the same here that i got a friend here putting some posts on facebook talking about this like like uh in in small towns where We got these summer venues for the little towns.

00:19:29.032 --> 00:19:33.337
And they spend a lot of money in quite big names, like you said.

00:19:33.758 --> 00:19:35.299
But there's nothing in between.

00:19:35.339 --> 00:19:38.703
There's no, like you said, there's no local bands.

00:19:38.804 --> 00:19:42.867
They don't support local people anymore, to be honest.

00:19:43.608 --> 00:19:46.511
Barcelona became Primavera Sound.

00:19:46.731 --> 00:19:53.920
And then, you know, those humongous festivals that make millions or thousands of euros.

00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:55.662
and that was it.

00:19:55.882 --> 00:19:56.542
That's it.

00:19:56.823 --> 00:19:59.826
There's nothing in between, like you said.

00:19:59.865 --> 00:20:05.792
There's no little bars for, you know, duos and trios.

00:20:05.853 --> 00:20:08.394
I'm not even talking about blues.

00:20:08.434 --> 00:20:12.138
I'm talking about whatever kind of music you want to have.

00:20:12.779 --> 00:20:13.320
It's not easy.

00:20:13.740 --> 00:20:17.865
Yeah, well, we keep on fighting the good fight and playing, so keep getting out of there.

00:20:18.266 --> 00:20:19.307
Yeah, definitely.

00:20:19.626 --> 00:20:23.652
So you mentioned Gary Primark, who's a big influence to you.

00:20:23.672 --> 00:20:30.959
I know you You did a session at the UK's Hoping By The Sea where you talked through his playing and you picked out a couple of his songs.

00:20:31.619 --> 00:20:34.163
So as you said, you met him when you were over in Austin, Texas.

00:20:34.182 --> 00:20:35.904
You got to play with him as well, didn't you?

00:20:35.924 --> 00:20:37.226
You shared a stage with him at some point.

00:20:38.106 --> 00:20:39.028
Yeah.

00:20:39.689 --> 00:20:42.692
Still these days, for me, it's my biggest influence.

00:20:42.832 --> 00:20:52.021
I remember being 15, 14, 15, 16 years old, listening to a Gary Primitch over and over and over and over.

00:20:52.061 --> 00:20:53.784
My parents were like, oh, come on.

00:20:53.903 --> 00:21:02.353
I mean, there's so many other players, some other CDs to play, but I was obsessed about him and his playing.

00:21:03.114 --> 00:21:08.058
And then, yeah, I went to, like I said, I went to Austin.

00:21:08.078 --> 00:21:11.282
I met him there, and he was very kind.

00:21:11.363 --> 00:21:14.625
I mean, my brother was the translator there.

00:21:15.086 --> 00:21:16.428
My English was way worse.

00:21:16.587 --> 00:21:20.772
And I said, yeah, it was, you know, nothing important.

00:21:20.813 --> 00:21:23.315
It was not a fancy gig.

00:21:23.335 --> 00:21:59.866
It was a in a terrace in a restaurant and they invited me and it was the best day in my life to be honest and yeah half the recordings it was unbelievable to play with him and like I said yeah I love Gary Primich the way he plays I would love to work on some instructional about Gary Primich in the future in the very near future if I got time And yeah, I did some, some songs in the, with, with our, to our friends in, uh, Harping by the sea.

00:22:00.047 --> 00:22:00.186
Yeah.

00:22:00.807 --> 00:22:01.387
Harping by the sea.

00:22:01.407 --> 00:22:01.608
Sorry.

00:22:01.628 --> 00:22:01.749
Yeah.

00:22:02.229 --> 00:22:03.190
And it was, it was great.

00:22:03.230 --> 00:22:03.410
Yeah.

00:22:03.450 --> 00:22:06.952
I did some, uh, taps for, for the, for the songs.

00:22:06.992 --> 00:22:09.075
And yeah, I don't know if you like Gary Primmidge.

00:22:09.095 --> 00:22:09.496
Do you like.

00:22:10.175 --> 00:22:10.656
No, I do.

00:22:10.757 --> 00:22:11.176
Absolutely.

00:22:11.217 --> 00:22:11.376
Yeah.

00:22:11.396 --> 00:22:15.701
Some of these songs, I, my favorite song of his is triple trouble, which I really love.

00:22:16.361 --> 00:22:17.281
So, uh, yeah.

00:22:17.563 --> 00:22:17.782
Yeah.

00:22:17.803 --> 00:22:32.587
I mean, so I do that, but Gary Primmidge, I haven't really, like, uh, I'm not been, you know, hugely into him, but I've certainly, you know, listened to him quite a bit and so yeah i should um i should check him out further so um what's your favorite uh album of his uh i have

00:22:32.709 --> 00:22:55.248
my heart is between botheration i would say and company man maybe But I do like some of them.

00:22:55.327 --> 00:22:56.648
Well, Mr.

00:22:56.689 --> 00:22:58.830
Freeze, there's some songs there that I love them.

00:23:00.291 --> 00:23:04.276
Yeah, those three, I would say, those are my favorite.

00:23:04.855 --> 00:23:07.117
Well, yeah, it's great to get into somebody like that.

00:23:07.178 --> 00:23:09.700
Yeah, you say become completely obsessed with somebody.

00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:12.363
I think that's an important part of developing, isn't it?

00:23:12.383 --> 00:23:14.484
You know, people listening, that's what you need to do, right?

00:23:14.505 --> 00:23:18.768
You need to really get into someone and obsess about them and really dig into how they play, yeah.

00:23:19.729 --> 00:23:20.549
Yeah, definitely.

00:23:20.589 --> 00:23:20.829
Because

00:23:20.990 --> 00:23:22.131
for me, it was not a...

00:23:22.991 --> 00:23:29.638
When you get old, we all know that, but when you get old, you got other thing to do in your life.

00:23:29.679 --> 00:23:41.030
But when I was 13, it was music or playing soccer on the street with my friends and wasting my time on the street playing with my friends.

00:23:41.070 --> 00:23:44.034
And I chose playing harmonica.

00:23:44.295 --> 00:23:45.536
And for me, it was like a game.

00:23:45.596 --> 00:23:47.377
It was nothing serious.

00:23:47.838 --> 00:23:51.603
I didn't have my parents saying, oh, you have to do this for three hours.

00:23:51.682 --> 00:23:52.943
No, I was there for six hours.

00:23:52.943 --> 00:24:28.574
hours a day sometimes without thinking about it because I loved it and every day especially when you're 13, 14, 15 and your brain is like like a sponge it's like so fast now I'm 43 now I'm kind of lazy and my brain is not like a sponge anymore but yeah those days was amazing man I remember the first song that I learned I know this is a contradiction because I said I was into the blues all the time, but the first song I learned was from Mary Had a Little Lamb.

00:24:28.955 --> 00:24:29.979
The song was kind of

00:24:35.758 --> 00:24:35.837
like...

00:24:37.953 --> 00:24:47.602
So as you're saying there, you spent some time, obviously when you're younger, it wasn't until your early 20s you decided to pursue a career in harmonica, yeah?

00:24:48.343 --> 00:24:52.586
Yeah, like I was saying, it was kind of like a game.

00:24:52.666 --> 00:24:54.548
It was like just having fun.

00:24:54.587 --> 00:24:56.410
It was not really serious.

00:24:57.270 --> 00:25:02.115
Since the beginning, my brother, he was the one that gave me my first harmonica, actually.

00:25:02.674 --> 00:25:05.998
And I started playing in his band when I was 14.

00:25:06.038 --> 00:26:13.470
And then I never thought about to be honest I never thought about being a musician I love music I love blues and I love all kind of good music but I never thought about hey now I want to be a musician never ever it was kind of like a natural thing I when I was 18 I stopped studying because I was not a good student and I didn't know what to do I started working in a hospital for several years and then I was combining working and playing and one day when I was 20 something 20 I would say 24 25 I I said hey let's let's try this like like a regular job and and it was pretty hard in the beginning because well it's always hard but but still going on and if someday I have to work doing something else I would be happy to because I like music that's that's that's the point I don't care if it's professional or not I mean being an amateur doesn't mean anything because you can be the best being an amateur you don't want to be poor yeah yeah

00:26:14.030 --> 00:26:20.217
so so since you made the decision to you know pursue a career in music you've been able to make your living that way since then you've

00:26:20.657 --> 00:26:40.138
yeah yeah yeah yeah i i never thought uh how long i was going to be working as a as a musician but it's still i'm still there and i'm 43 now and it's true that not only playing harmonic is is helping a lot i mean because i play other instruments and And I love teaching, too.

00:26:40.219 --> 00:26:41.960
I love to teach music.

00:26:42.121 --> 00:26:45.344
I record for some other people.

00:26:45.523 --> 00:26:49.008
And, you know, I like to do everything related to music.

00:26:49.407 --> 00:26:54.473
And it's mainly piano and Hammond organ that you're playing, your other instruments.

00:26:55.194 --> 00:26:59.058
Yeah, mostly keyboards and organs.

00:26:59.098 --> 00:27:01.221
Especially organ is one of my favorites.

00:27:01.641 --> 00:27:09.596
So the Hammond organ is interesting because I've talked to a lot of people who play piano or keyboards, but Hammond organ kind of goes Some similarities with the harmonica, would you say?

00:27:09.635 --> 00:27:10.619
Yeah,

00:27:10.721 --> 00:27:11.202
definitely.

00:27:11.364 --> 00:27:12.809
It sounds pretty

00:27:12.930 --> 00:27:16.605
organic.

00:27:27.970 --> 00:27:34.876
and all that kind of vibrato you got on the organ that you can choose what kind of vibrato or chorus.

00:27:35.257 --> 00:27:39.602
Those effects, they're very similar to the harmonica, to be honest.

00:27:39.761 --> 00:27:44.906
Actually, I got some friends, they use that pedal called B9, I think it's called.

00:27:45.448 --> 00:27:49.531
It's like a pedal you can use to sound like an organ.

00:27:49.551 --> 00:28:05.963
B9 hey

00:28:06.064 --> 00:28:37.814
what's happening y'all jason richie from blue moon harmonicas and i'm here to tell you that blue moon harmonicas are the way you can customize them yourself or you can get tom to do them the website is a rabbit hole we're talking about custom combs custom cover plates throwbacks refurbished pre-wars double reed plates anything you can imagine aluminum, ABS, plastic, phenolic resin, wood, any kind of comb you want, any kind of cover, Tom Halczak's your man.

00:28:37.854 --> 00:28:39.115
He's got you.

00:28:39.655 --> 00:28:47.604
So in your career then, as you said, you played with your brother Santos, and you're in one of the better known duos called the Suitcase Brothers.

00:28:48.085 --> 00:28:50.086
Was that how you started out playing?

00:28:50.126 --> 00:28:53.471
You started playing with your brother in that duo or something else before then?

00:28:53.871 --> 00:28:57.795
The first band was kind of a rock Americana band.

00:28:57.835 --> 00:28:59.396
I was just playing a little bit.

00:28:59.557 --> 00:29:04.422
And then, some months later, we started a band together called Blues 14.

00:29:05.022 --> 00:29:16.394
And actually, it was funny because it was called Blues 14 because my brother, when he was 20-something, he moved to London and it was a club called Blues 14.

00:29:16.795 --> 00:29:21.000
That's why we put the name of the band like the club in London.

00:29:21.740 --> 00:29:23.301
And that was a long, long time ago.

00:29:23.321 --> 00:29:25.884
I was 15 years old, 14, 15.

00:29:26.405 --> 00:30:11.982
It was a five-piece band, pretty electric stuff uh we used to play a lot of collins and and jimmy walgam stuff and and you know chicago stuff is mostly in and and then after a few years we we started thinking about starting a duo with my brother and we realized that there was so different kind of blues besides the chicago blues and we got into the um country blues the pitbull blues and all the finger picking stuff and in in a way we still It started all over because my brother used to play electric guitar and then he started playing with fingerpicking acoustic guitars and the way you play harmonica without amplifiers is different too.

00:30:27.521 --> 00:30:33.007
We started the duo when I was, let me see, 16.

00:30:33.027 --> 00:30:37.170
So that means, like, yeah, a long time ago.

00:30:37.190 --> 00:30:38.250
27 years.

00:30:38.270 --> 00:30:40.834
27 years, exactly, yeah.

00:30:41.253 --> 00:30:46.397
When you were in the US, you entered the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2013 and placed second.

00:30:46.458 --> 00:30:48.240
So is that a big deal for you guys?

00:30:49.340 --> 00:30:49.861
Not really.

00:30:49.901 --> 00:30:51.903
Not really.

00:30:52.042 --> 00:30:57.488
I mean, we did it because we wanted to do it and because my brother was living there in the States and it was kind of...

00:30:57.488 --> 00:30:59.630
It was kind of like a challenge.

00:31:01.332 --> 00:31:03.954
It was called Loose Challenge, International Loose Challenge.

00:31:04.315 --> 00:31:07.077
That was exactly the word for us.

00:31:08.038 --> 00:31:13.965
It was exactly a challenge for us to go there and see if we were doing the right way.

00:31:14.185 --> 00:31:14.746
You know what I mean?

00:31:14.807 --> 00:31:16.989
I mean, we were not born in the States.

00:31:17.108 --> 00:31:21.773
We are not Afro-Americans born in Mississippi or whatever.

00:31:22.114 --> 00:31:26.618
We are from a small town close to Barcelona from 1981.

00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:56.530
from 1973 so we were just you know to show what we do and to see the reaction kind of you know we were not expecting anything of course we were you know kind of nervous and everything to go to the semi-final first and then the final and everything but mostly it was just enjoying the moment freaking out that we were there in the finals that was it that was it that was the whole purpose yeah

00:31:56.891 --> 00:31:57.811
yeah because stuff, yeah.

00:31:58.133 --> 00:32:04.019
But you've also entered other ones, like you represented Spain at the European Blues Challenge in Berlin in 2011, so.

00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:28.025
Yeah, yeah, we did, always the European, we try to do the same like in the States, so we did this European Blues Challenge they started a few years ago, and I think we did the first, maybe I'm wrong, but I think we did the first year with my brother, like you said, representing Spain in 2013, 11, and I think that was the first year for the European Blues Challenge, if if I'm not wrong.

00:32:28.144 --> 00:32:28.325
Yeah.

00:32:28.965 --> 00:32:31.548
And, uh, and we didn't do anything to be honest.

00:32:31.648 --> 00:32:35.913
I, I still remember, uh, there's a, there's a funny story.

00:32:35.992 --> 00:32:39.576
We, we met some guy from an English guy.

00:32:39.836 --> 00:32:47.746
I'm not going to say a name because to be honest, I don't remember, but he was a kind of a big fish, uh, on the, on the blues rock management stuff.

00:32:47.766 --> 00:32:52.750
And, and the guy, the guy came to us and say, Hey guys, you sound good.

00:32:52.990 --> 00:32:53.991
You're good guys.

00:32:54.053 --> 00:32:56.555
You, you play good, but you sound too American.

00:32:57.256 --> 00:33:00.919
Uh, And that was like, okay, thank you, I guess.

00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:08.905
He was saying it like, it's not exactly what you should do, but hey, we took it as a compliment.

00:33:08.945 --> 00:33:09.426
No,

00:33:09.686 --> 00:33:10.968
definitely.

00:33:11.087 --> 00:33:14.711
And so you've had a few albums out with the Suitcase Brothers, the duo.

00:33:14.750 --> 00:33:17.073
Your first one in 2002, Living With The Blues.

00:33:17.113 --> 00:33:22.178
And then a few more, 2007, Walk On, 2011, Getting Out Of Town.

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

00:33:36.162 --> 00:33:44.648
And then an interesting one, 2015, A Long Way From Home, where you had Jerry Portnoy and Paul Osher, who was playing slide guitar on the album.

00:33:45.490 --> 00:33:50.714
Yeah, we were not really thinking about recording too much with my brother, because that's another point.

00:33:50.734 --> 00:33:56.159
I don't know if you've got siblings, but playing with your own brother, it's not easy sometimes.

00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:04.487
It's very special and very unique and very good in many ways, but in other points it can be difficult.

00:34:04.507 --> 00:34:06.127
So that's why we didn't record that many albums.

00:34:06.127 --> 00:34:14.235
That one in the States is very special because, yeah, I met Jerry Portnoy a few years before that recording and we became really good friends.

00:34:14.315 --> 00:34:18.259
He was very supporting my career.

00:34:27.326 --> 00:34:36.094
¶¶¶¶

00:34:39.554 --> 00:34:44.438
More than a blues harmonica idol, he became a really good friend.

00:34:44.697 --> 00:34:49.021
And so we decided to say, hey, let's see what he says.

00:34:49.262 --> 00:34:50.824
We got the no already.

00:34:50.884 --> 00:34:51.885
So let's see what he says.

00:34:51.945 --> 00:34:53.865
And he said yes.

00:34:53.905 --> 00:34:58.891
And he came to Austin, Texas to record with us for free.

00:34:58.951 --> 00:35:05.436
I mean, he never asked for any money, which is unbelievable because it's Jerry Porno.

00:35:05.896 --> 00:35:27.199
And then when we were there, he had a really good relationship with Paul Usher so he said hey Paul you want to come to play a few songs and then we had Paul Usher actually Jerry while he was there he tried to bring James Cotton to but that was impossible can you imagine James Cotton Jerry Pornhub and Paul Usher in

00:35:28.260 --> 00:35:38.871
the recording so Jerry wrote the liner notes to that album in which he described you as Victor's stunning unparalleled harmonica genius so that's a pretty high praise from Jerry there

00:35:39.291 --> 00:35:39.911
well I don't know.

00:35:39.952 --> 00:35:40.853
Maybe he was drunk.

00:35:42.295 --> 00:35:42.775
I don't know.

00:35:42.795 --> 00:35:44.157
I didn't pay any money to him.

00:35:44.757 --> 00:35:45.538
Very nice guy, yeah.

00:35:46.139 --> 00:35:52.766
Yeah, and then we talked about the 2023 album, the Love, Truth and Confidence ones, this tribute to Sonny Terry Brown and McGee.

00:35:53.186 --> 00:35:55.188
So that's a couple of years ago.

00:35:55.208 --> 00:35:56.030
Any more plans?

00:35:56.070 --> 00:36:01.074
Are you still playing with your brother or is it, like you say, he's back now in Barcelona near you, is he?

00:36:01.856 --> 00:36:02.956
He's here in Barcelona.

00:36:02.996 --> 00:36:07.862
They moved back here a long time ago and then we've recorded this tribute to Sonny and Brownie.

00:36:09.284 --> 00:36:14.469
Oh, I am We

00:36:32.829 --> 00:36:37.054
recorded that album to finish like a circle.

00:36:37.313 --> 00:37:13.432
You know, we were playing so much Sonny Terrenbrand we decided to record something and now we want to continue doing stuff together actually we're still playing together we've been in Berlin a few days ago and we're going to Galicia this next Friday and then we got something in Czech Republic Germany again so we're still working we still love each other and the idea is recording something original for the next one and maybe tape recording too because it's pretty cool but I don't know if it's going to be that crazy vintage.

00:37:14.695 --> 00:37:15.034
So cool.

00:37:15.054 --> 00:37:15.396
Yeah, great.

00:37:15.436 --> 00:37:16.617
So you guys are still playing together.

00:37:16.637 --> 00:37:17.077
Good to hear.

00:37:17.358 --> 00:37:18.860
So you've been in a few other outfits as well.

00:37:18.900 --> 00:37:24.987
So you've also got your Victor Pruittas and the Mellow Tones, which is more of an electric blues band.

00:37:33.038 --> 00:37:33.117
Yeah.

00:37:41.153 --> 00:37:42.474
Yeah, I used to have that band.

00:37:42.534 --> 00:37:45.898
I'm not active anymore with that band.

00:37:46.478 --> 00:37:52.864
I play with the guys from time to time, with the guys that I had in my band, but I don't have the band per se.

00:37:52.943 --> 00:37:55.186
I don't have the Victor Puertas and the Mellow Tones.

00:37:55.346 --> 00:38:05.034
I stopped that because I started playing with other projects, playing organ especially and keyboards, and I stopped with my own band because I felt like that.

00:38:05.255 --> 00:38:11.701
We did a couple CDs and it was good, but now I want to do something else.

00:38:11.780 --> 00:38:18.148
Actually, I'm trying to put some new band together with some other players because I miss playing electric.

00:38:18.407 --> 00:38:19.568
Yeah, but that was an electric band.

00:38:19.608 --> 00:38:22.692
You were constantly playing electric harmonica with that Melotones band.

00:38:23.032 --> 00:38:28.358
Yeah, that was exactly the songs that I wanted to play those days.

00:38:28.998 --> 00:38:30.179
We used to play a lot of J.B.

00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:30.701
Lenoir.

00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:34.144
We used to play some traditional Chicago stuff.

00:38:34.465 --> 00:38:41.072
It was a five-piece band with two guitars, kind of trying...

00:38:41.072 --> 00:38:59.485
fabulous standard verse uh idea in a way yes but very traditional very traditional blues blues chicago blues band and we did a few a few things we we went to norway a couple times we did friends a lot and two albums together

00:39:07.617 --> 00:39:09.882
As you said, you played in various other bands.

00:39:09.902 --> 00:39:17.733
You played with Chino Swingslide, which is a good name for a blues guy, and Coco Jean and the Tonics.

00:39:17.793 --> 00:39:20.197
I think you played a lot of Hammond Organ with them, didn't you?

00:39:21.539 --> 00:39:32.418
Yes, actually, these days, I would say this last year with the Suitcase Brothers, Coco Jean and the Tonics is one of my mainly bands these days.

00:39:45.186 --> 00:39:59.518
but like I said, I want to start this new band, because I really miss playing Bobby Blanche stuff and Little Walter, all the classics, and getting the mic and getting some feedback from the harmonica.

00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:15.932
Yeah, and then a few other things you played in as well, but another interesting thing you've done is you've played with the Swedish band Trickbag, who Steve Westwesson, who I had on the podcast very early on, he sort of regularly plays with them, but you stood in for him a of times

00:40:16.673 --> 00:41:07.193
yeah with Steve I met him I went to London just to go to one of his shows actually and again the same thing it was pretty cool he invited me to play a little bit with him and it was nice I mean Steve is one of my favorite players here in this part of the world he's the way he plays is it's very musical it's very natural it sounds like nothing you know it's like natural for me the way he sounds in which is not easy With Steve, we met many other times.

00:41:07.293 --> 00:41:14.739
And in one of the shows they have with Trickback in Norway, I was playing with Crystal Thomas, with a singer from Louisiana.

00:41:14.940 --> 00:41:17.983
And that was the moment they told me, hey, we got a gig.

00:41:18.583 --> 00:41:20.925
Steve cannot make it and you want to do it.

00:41:21.005 --> 00:41:26.429
And I was so happy because Trickback is another one of those bands you have to listen to.

00:41:27.190 --> 00:41:32.815
And then your latest album you've released in 2024, Nighttime Boogie, with Luca Giordano.

00:41:32.815 --> 00:41:34.717
and the Neto Rockefeller Trio.

00:41:51.556 --> 00:41:52.677
This is recorded in Brazil, yeah?

00:41:53.318 --> 00:41:55.260
Yes, actually, yeah.

00:41:55.659 --> 00:41:57.242
That's one of the last CDs.

00:41:57.623 --> 00:42:01.045
Luca Giordano is an amazing Chicago guitar player.

00:42:01.065 --> 00:42:37.644
He used to play a lot with Chris Kane he back up Jay Thames he's always backing up a lot of great artists and we met in France a few years ago and he said hey you want to come to Brazil because he travels a lot to Brazil he goes there once a year at least and he told me like hey want to do a record together and I said of course and we went there I met Neto Rockefeller there he's a great guitar player from Brazil and we're recorded with his trio, Neto Rockefeller Trio and Luca Giordano, and they invited me.

00:42:38.005 --> 00:42:38.626
And it was great.

00:42:38.646 --> 00:42:41.889
It's just a bunch of blues songs.

00:42:42.230 --> 00:42:43.471
Luca got some originals.

00:42:43.692 --> 00:42:48.115
I think I got one original, too, and we mixed everything together.

00:42:48.217 --> 00:42:49.378

Victor Puertas interview

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