March 24, 2023

Steve Guyger interview

Steve Guyger interview

Steve Guyger joins me on episode 82. Steve is from the Philadelphia area of the US and he absorbed the blues harmonica players when he first got into playing, with John Lee Williamson a big early inspiration. Steve was also great friends with the late Paul Oscher, making three albums with him. Steve also teamed up with the legendary Jimmy Rogers, over the course of fourteen years. Steve has released five albums under his own name, with a great mix of diatonic and chromatic blues. ...

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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Chromatic Blues

Steve Guyger joins me on episode 82.

Steve is from the Philadelphia area of the US and he absorbed the blues harmonica players when he first got into playing, with John Lee Williamson a big early inspiration. Steve was also great friends with the late Paul Oscher, making  three albums with him. Steve also teamed up with the legendary Jimmy Rogers, over the course of fourteen years. 
Steve has released five albums under his own name, with a great mix of diatonic and chromatic blues.
Steve’s long-standing band is the Excellos, who   are still performing more than forty years after their formation, and Steve is due to play in a Jimmy Rogers tribute in Switzerland with Dennis Gruenling and Nick Moss sometime soon.


Links:
https://severnrecords.com/artist/steve-guyger/

Blues Harmonica DVD on Hal Leonard:
https://www.halleonard.com/product/821042/blues-harmonica

Dennis Gruenling website:
https://badassharmonica.com/


Videos:

Steve's YouTube Music channel:
https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCkeHm0xNz2csT5fc4zP-84A

Paul Oscher playing bass harmonica on The Things I Used To Do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIPIrMNiR3M

Live concert with Excellos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50DvEI8VUlQ&t=3576s

I Can See By Your Eyes song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgJ9lFhEa00

Rock This House (live at Austrian Blues festival):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THqRX2PYBdQ

Sammy Lewis playing in 5th position:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyKLRO2x6uE

Snake Oil live performance (outro song):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IrQkiHJVdc


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

Support the show

01:34 - Steve lives near Philadelphia, in the US, in the same house he grew up in

01:57 - Radio Blues album is testament to his love of listening to music on the radio when he was young, and still to do this day

02:40 - First interest in music was Doo-wop singing, which got Steve into singing

03:17 - Guitar was first instrument before moving on to the harmonica

03:40 - Got first harmonica from sister-in-law when Steve was 17 or 18

03:53 - Friend at college introduced Steve to all the great blues harmonica recordings

04:34 - Before he heard Chicago blues Steve was playing mostly country style blues

04:49 - Blue Midnight by Little Walter was a big favourite of Steves, and other greats he listened to

05:17 - Billy Boy Arnold said:”Steve Guyger is one of the few guys who can really sing and play like Sonny Boy Williamson I”

05:26 - It was a book in which Muddy Waters said you had to learn to play with John Lee Williamson that turned Steve onto SBW I

06:11 - Recommended songs of John Lee

06:59 - Why John Lee was so influential on the generation of harmonica players that followed him

07:12 - Jazz Gillum was a contemporary of John Lee, but more a jazzy and first position player

07:35 - Can hear John Lee started using amplification towards the end of his career

08:01 - John Lee was murdered in 1948 at the age of 34

08:24 - Knew Paul Oscher very well, releasing three albums with Paul

09:31 - Paul Oscher, as well as being a great harmonica player, was also a great instrumentalist

09:58 - Learned some harmonica from Paul Oscher’s guitarist

10:54 - Steve worked hard at learning (Big) Walter’s Boogie

11:37 - Released three albums with Paul Oscher

12:03 - Paul Oscher played some bass harmonica and was a multi-instrumentalist

13:15 - Paul Oscher was the first harmonica player with Muddy Waters

13:41 - Steve is also friends with Jerry Portnoy

14:20 - Steve’s first band was called Rock Bottom

14:58 - Second band was The Blues Rockers

15:24 - Steve has played with the his band The Excellos since 1980, a name taken from the blues record label

17:23 - Played with Jimmy Rogers on and off for fourteen years. Jimmy Rogers played in the Muddy Waters and Little Walter Headhunters band in the late 1940s / early 1950s

17:56 - Jimmy Rogers was also an excellent harmonica player (he is know as a guitarist and singer)

18:51 - Jimmy Rogers played harmonica with Muddy Waters before Little Walter joined

18:54 - Steve got to play with Jimmy Rogers by originally writing him a letter

20:03 - Got together with Jimmy Rogers in 1980

21:47 - Went touring with Jimmy Rogers to Europe

22:34 - Played with Jimmy Rogers until about 1994

23:34 - How it could have been Good Rockin’ Charles rather than Big Walter on the song Walkin’ By Myself

25:00 - Big Walter was painting houses before he recorded Walkin’ By Myself

25:21 - The time when Muddy Waters devoted a live performance of I’m Ready to Steve’s mother

27:50 - Live At The Dinosaur was Steve’s first album release

28:33 - Last Train To Dover was first studio album Steve released, in memory of William Clarke

29:05 - Steve had a great time playing in Memphis, the home of the Blues

30:11 - Recorded a version of John Henry on chromatic

32:05 - Took some classical chromatic lessons when younger

33:05 - Past Life Blues album and influence of George Smith on Steve

34:33 - Released a duo album with Richard Farrell

35:40 - Steve bought lots of 78 recordings of the blues harmonica greats, including SBW II

36:55 - Radio Blues album is the last album Steve released, in 2008. There are songs in the vault Steve would like to release

38:01 - Steve’s songwriting process

38:18 - Past Life Blues album title comes from early songs he wrote

39:17 - Released a tutorial book / DVD called Blues Harmonica through Hal Leonard publishing, and importance of having a guitar player who can play some harmonica

40:28 - Places played when touring Europe and South America

41:57 - 10 minute question: play the harmonica upside down as well as the right way up

45:21 - Tone is a little different when playing upside down

45:37 - Diatonic of choice is mainly Hohner Marine Band and Old Standby, but played some of the Bends from Brazil

46:13 - Plays both 12 and 16 hole chromatics

46:49 - Different positions

47:11 - Fifth position song by Sammy Lewis

47:54 - Doesn’t play overblows, and doesn’t like to play too many notes

48:11 - Call and response of SBW II (Rice Miller)

48:56 - Steve is a tongue blocker

50:31 - Uses Fender Princeton amp now (no reverb), used to use a Fender Concert

51:37 - Also uses a small Gibson Skylark amp

52:13 - Jimmy Rogers told Steve that equipment in the 1940s was the same, except the amps were smaller

52:42 - Jimmy Rogers used to take over harmonica when SBW I was too drunk to play

52:59 - Gets mics from Dennis Gruenling

53:26 - King Biscuit Boy: Canadian harmonica players from the 1970s, gave Steve an Acstatic JT30 that was made in Canada

54:40 - Mics used to be available for cheap prices

54:46 - Plays on Dennis Gruenling’s Tribute To Little Walter album: I Just Keep Loving Him

55:20 - Doesn’t use any effects

56:00 - Echo Doo-wop song

56:44 - Future plans: due to play in Switzerland soon to play a tribute to Jimmy Rogers

57:23 - Musicians in Europe can play the blues well

WEBVTT

00:00:00.194 --> 00:00:01.995
Steve Geiger joins me on episode 82.

00:00:02.777 --> 00:00:12.067
Steve is from the Philadelphia area of the US, and he absorbed the blues harmonica players when he first got into playing, with John Lee Williamson a big early inspiration.

00:00:13.070 --> 00:00:17.795
Steve was also great friends with the late Paul Osher, making three albums with him.

00:00:18.315 --> 00:00:23.181
Steve also teamed up with the legendary Jimmy Rogers over the course of 14 years.

00:00:24.062 --> 00:00:29.268
Steve has released five albums under his own name, with a great mix of diatonic and chromatic blues.

00:00:29.986 --> 00:00:43.280
Steve's long-standing band is the Excellos, who are still performing more than 40 years after their formation, and Steve is due to play in a Jimmy Rogers tribute in Switzerland with Dennis Grunling and Nick Moss sometime soon.

00:00:44.101 --> 00:00:46.585
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:46.984 --> 00:00:56.335
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:58.457 --> 00:00:58.557
Music

00:01:10.786 --> 00:01:31.852
Hello, Steve Geiger, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:32.432 --> 00:01:33.513
Neil, it's a pleasure.

00:01:33.793 --> 00:01:34.153
Thank you.

00:01:34.174 --> 00:01:37.278
So you're talking to us from Philadelphia in the US?

00:01:37.718 --> 00:01:38.439
North of the city.

00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:40.903
We're in a little area called Bucks County.

00:01:41.144 --> 00:01:44.028
I'm more closer to Trenton, New Jersey than I am to Philly.

00:01:44.347 --> 00:01:45.248
And is that where you grew up?

00:01:45.450 --> 00:01:49.114
I'm actually still living in the same neighborhood in the same house that I grew up in.

00:01:49.435 --> 00:01:50.075
Oh, fantastic.

00:01:50.275 --> 00:01:54.462
So what was the music scene like around there and what got you interested in blues?

00:01:54.921 --> 00:02:00.849
Well, if you know the one record I have, a CD that came out on Severin called Radio Blues.

00:02:01.311 --> 00:02:01.490
Yep.

00:02:03.554 --> 00:02:03.774
Radio Blues.

00:02:04.066 --> 00:02:16.783
That

00:02:17.024 --> 00:02:19.366
radio sits on my bed stand now.

00:02:19.568 --> 00:02:20.408
The one on the cover, yeah.

00:02:20.748 --> 00:02:28.659
Yeah, I confiscated that in about 1957, 58, because the family was out watching TV and I wanted to listen to the radio.

00:02:28.881 --> 00:02:29.681
It was all AM.

00:02:30.114 --> 00:02:31.556
And I was zooming in on it.

00:02:32.176 --> 00:02:35.141
And I would, you know, catch a song, I'd like it, and I'd listen to it.

00:02:35.442 --> 00:02:36.764
So that's how I got into music.

00:02:37.284 --> 00:02:38.828
I was like that all the way through.

00:02:38.848 --> 00:02:39.549
I still am.

00:02:39.808 --> 00:02:43.996
So I believe that when you first started getting interested in music, you were into singing.

00:02:44.195 --> 00:02:47.320
Well, I was really into doo-wop, you know, the vocal group stuff.

00:02:47.480 --> 00:02:50.205
And, you know, started in the 40s, the vocal groups, you know.

00:02:50.225 --> 00:02:53.189
I guess little Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers.

00:02:53.972 --> 00:02:58.078
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:02:59.937 --> 00:03:00.734
Bye.

00:03:04.066 --> 00:03:08.229
So you were singing then, that's how you started out in music, was it?

00:03:08.569 --> 00:03:13.234
Yeah, I was absorbing all that, you know, that stuff from back then in the 50s and early 60s.

00:03:13.674 --> 00:03:17.257
In the late mid 50s, there was a lot of great disbalanced singers.

00:03:17.538 --> 00:03:21.480
I think then your first instrument was that you played guitar before you picked up the harmonica.

00:03:21.700 --> 00:03:34.032
Yeah, we were doing like a school play and this girl sat down and she was playing guitar and I said, well, so I got interested, but I don't know, me and the guitar, we're okay, but we just never connected like the harmonica.

00:03:34.032 --> 00:03:36.033
I started that when I was about maybe 12.

00:03:36.354 --> 00:03:37.816
I took lessons for a while.

00:03:37.876 --> 00:03:40.419
I still know most of that stuff, the rudiments.

00:03:40.739 --> 00:03:44.963
But my sister-in-law, when I was 17, maybe 18, she was dating my brother.

00:03:45.003 --> 00:03:46.925
She handed me her father's harmonica.

00:03:47.126 --> 00:03:50.389
And within two years, I started just catching on.

00:03:50.610 --> 00:03:53.233
I was starting to hear guys at school and people were playing.

00:03:53.473 --> 00:03:58.497
And then when I went to college, I met a buddy of mine, John Gunning, that we're still real good friends today.

00:03:58.737 --> 00:04:03.242
We were in a class together in college, and I found out that he was really into this stuff.

00:04:03.383 --> 00:04:07.948
So I grabbed him on the way out and he goes, well, meet me at this gas station on Friday night.

00:04:07.987 --> 00:04:08.429
So I did.

00:04:08.829 --> 00:04:10.330
So he was pumping gas there.

00:04:10.670 --> 00:04:12.173
He told me to watch the gas station.

00:04:12.233 --> 00:04:19.060
He went back to the neighborhood right behind him, came back with a portable record player with all these albums, which I had no idea.

00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:20.701
I didn't know anything about this stuff.

00:04:21.221 --> 00:04:23.605
I was listening to Muddy Waters originally.

00:04:23.925 --> 00:04:27.449
They used to come on this one rock station we had that would play blues.

00:04:27.649 --> 00:04:30.492
The original version of I've Got My Mojo Working that Muddy did.

00:04:30.752 --> 00:04:31.552
So I used to hear that.

00:04:31.634 --> 00:04:33.134
I didn't even know who Little Walter was.

00:04:33.274 --> 00:04:34.196
I didn't know any of these people.

00:04:34.557 --> 00:04:36.278
You were playing the harmonica at this stage, were you?

00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:40.365
Yeah, I was doing more like country blues without even knowing it.

00:04:40.464 --> 00:04:43.288
I did a lot of train stuff and things like that, you know.

00:04:43.709 --> 00:04:47.915
And then all of a sudden, everything started to change after that, after I heard this stuff.

00:04:47.975 --> 00:04:49.076
And then I'm out buying records.

00:04:49.338 --> 00:04:53.603
Yeah, I read somewhere that Blue Midnight from Little Walter was a real big one for you.

00:04:54.324 --> 00:04:55.045
That blew my mind.

00:04:55.326 --> 00:04:57.428
I didn't even know the harmonica could sound like that.

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

00:05:10.946 --> 00:05:16.598
You know, I mean, I got turned on to George Smith, you know, Little Walter, Big Walter, both Sonny Boys.

00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:26.401
Picking up on John Lee Williamson's Sonny Boy the First, Billy Boy Arnold in his recent biography described you as the one who can really sing and play like the first Sonny Boy.

00:05:26.701 --> 00:05:30.089
It was a book about muddy waters and a bluegrass player.

00:05:30.434 --> 00:05:36.139
And then Muddy Waters, they did a whole thing on Muddy, because if you didn't go through Muddy's band, you weren't considered a real blues musician.

00:05:36.459 --> 00:05:42.865
But in this book, Muddy said, if you didn't learn how to play like John Lee, Williamson, you weren't going to get this stuff right.

00:05:43.024 --> 00:05:45.947
And that was like a billboard saying that in big letters.

00:05:46.208 --> 00:05:47.908
That was like the gospel right there.

00:05:48.209 --> 00:05:48.910
I took it to heart.

00:05:49.230 --> 00:05:52.233
I started buying every record I could find on John Lee.

00:05:52.793 --> 00:05:56.437
And I bought all the blues classics by, was it Chris Statowitz put out?

00:05:56.757 --> 00:06:01.502
Then I would listen to anybody that was playing any of his songs and see what what was going on with all that.

00:06:01.961 --> 00:06:03.423
I just totally absorbed myself.

00:06:03.764 --> 00:06:10.834
My one guitar player that I work with, he's also one of my favorite harmonica players, Richie Scalise, can also play a lot of that stuff too.

00:06:11.115 --> 00:06:14.420
Which ones of the John Lee albums would you really point people at?

00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:16.802
Gosh, there's so many different songs that he did.

00:06:17.124 --> 00:06:19.346
You know, the first one was Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.

00:06:20.588 --> 00:06:30.141
Don't find the ones that I'm loving And I ain't going to let my airplane down

00:06:30.689 --> 00:06:40.802
You know, stuff like that, Sloppy Drunk Blues, which actually was recorded originally, if you didn't know this, by Ida Mae Mellon in the late 20s.

00:06:41.223 --> 00:06:44.533
You know, Scrapper and Blackwell did a version of that, and John Lee did too.

00:06:44.898 --> 00:06:46.822
He did one called Bring Me Another Half a Pint.

00:06:47.101 --> 00:06:49.286
And then, of course, you know, he did the Sloppy Drunk first.

00:06:49.826 --> 00:06:51.350
Then he did Bring Me Another Half a Pint.

00:06:51.591 --> 00:06:56.059
And then Jimmy Rogers, of course, with Little Walter blowing harp, you know, did Sloppy Drunk Blues.

00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:58.122
I don't know how many times I played that with Jimmy.

00:06:59.064 --> 00:07:05.798
So what do you think it is about John Lee's style that obviously he's kind of the precursor to all the big players in the 50s, wasn't he?

00:07:06.177 --> 00:07:07.939
Yes, in the 50s, he definitely was.

00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:12.463
I mean, everybody was influenced by him because he was really the guy that was out there.

00:07:12.624 --> 00:07:15.206
Jazz Gillum was also a great harmonica player.

00:07:15.586 --> 00:07:16.966
I can't play any of jazz stuff.

00:07:17.187 --> 00:07:18.228
To me, he's harder for me.

00:07:18.509 --> 00:07:20.129
Great singer, great songwriter.

00:07:20.329 --> 00:07:22.892
I take nothing from Jazz Gillum at all.

00:07:22.973 --> 00:07:26.456
I mean, I respect his playing and everything he did musically.

00:07:26.636 --> 00:07:29.458
But John Lee just had this thing that people seemed to like more.

00:07:29.658 --> 00:07:33.721
You know, the Good Morning Little School Girl, Shake the Boogie, whatever the songs were.

00:07:34.081 --> 00:07:34.742
Sugar Mama.

00:07:35.103 --> 00:07:41.269
You know, you can tell like towards the end, like in the late 40s, like when he did New Morning Blues.

00:07:53.942 --> 00:07:57.406
You could tell that he was amplifying, even if he wasn't amplifying on air.

00:07:57.726 --> 00:08:00.589
He was starting to play less chordal stuff and more single notes.

00:08:01.350 --> 00:08:02.612
Of course, we never got to see him.

00:08:03.353 --> 00:08:08.533
He passed away in Well, he got murdered, actually, in 1948, so at the age of 34.

00:08:08.553 --> 00:08:09.978
It's crazy.

00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:13.449
Really, he was still in the height of his career to me.

00:08:14.192 --> 00:08:14.432
Yeah.

00:08:14.754 --> 00:08:24.124
You know, from 1937 when he put out Good Morning Little Schoolgirl right up to 48, you know, his stuff was just, you know, and you could tell with the different guitar players because they were playing electric behind.

00:08:24.865 --> 00:08:28.228
So Paul Osher is someone that you were really good friends with as well.

00:08:28.247 --> 00:08:28.788
Yeah.

00:08:28.928 --> 00:08:30.971
So sadly he passed away in 2021.

00:08:31.271 --> 00:08:34.394
So I think he was part of your development as a player as well.

00:08:35.115 --> 00:08:38.379
Reading that you actually initially learned some harmonica from his guitar player.

00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:40.662
So, you know, what about your relationship with Paul?

00:08:40.994 --> 00:08:43.998
You know, as things went on, I had a job that I was doing.

00:08:44.538 --> 00:08:46.822
I hated up in Trenton because I swung shifts.

00:08:46.922 --> 00:08:48.464
You know, every week I'd be on a different shift.

00:08:48.644 --> 00:08:52.109
Well, I broke my wrist right after that in 75.

00:08:52.308 --> 00:08:53.210
So I was off.

00:08:53.691 --> 00:08:57.015
Well, first I met the guy, Richard Scalise, about two weeks before I went to see Paul.

00:08:57.416 --> 00:09:00.721
I used to go to Philly and pick up this newspaper from New York.

00:09:01.061 --> 00:09:04.745
They always advertised all the people playing up in the village and stuff like that.

00:09:05.106 --> 00:09:09.592
So I had a pretty decent car so I could drive up there.

00:09:10.273 --> 00:09:14.518
And Paul used to play at this place called Barber's My Way in Brooklyn, where he was from.

00:09:14.798 --> 00:09:19.264
So one Tuesday night, I went up with a buddy of mine, and we found a place.

00:09:19.585 --> 00:09:20.446
You know, Paul was there.

00:09:20.985 --> 00:09:21.846
You know, I introduced him.

00:09:22.248 --> 00:09:23.668
I did one number.

00:09:23.729 --> 00:09:26.211
I did like that Muddy Shuffle, Little Walters.

00:09:26.251 --> 00:09:27.173
Evan's Shuffle.

00:09:27.394 --> 00:09:29.115
And so that's what I did that night.

00:09:29.856 --> 00:09:31.238
Ola Dixon was on drums.

00:09:31.538 --> 00:09:34.962
Paul was on piano most of the night, which kind of blew me away.

00:09:35.102 --> 00:09:36.945
I thought he played just a moniker.

00:09:37.206 --> 00:09:37.566
Nah.

00:09:37.730 --> 00:09:41.134
I mean, he played piano that night, played some harp, not much.

00:09:41.514 --> 00:09:47.283
And then at the end, his guitar player, Frankie Bedini, Paul took the guitar from him and he started playing guitar.

00:09:47.302 --> 00:09:48.485
So it really kind of blew me away.

00:09:48.684 --> 00:09:55.053
And Paul was teaching me stuff right then about leaving space in between the notes, you know, your timing.

00:09:55.294 --> 00:09:57.697
So I got a lot out of Paul that first night.

00:09:58.239 --> 00:10:02.384
But when I got with Frankie, Frankie called me one day and said, where you been, man?

00:10:02.424 --> 00:10:03.326
We haven't seen you.

00:10:03.490 --> 00:10:05.631
So I started going up and hanging out with Frankie.

00:10:05.893 --> 00:10:08.716
And he lived in Queens, which is kind of further out from Brooklyn.

00:10:09.236 --> 00:10:12.941
And I used to drive by Paul's house because I knew where Paul lived on Flatbush Avenue.

00:10:13.380 --> 00:10:14.962
So I would go up and hang out with Frankie.

00:10:15.283 --> 00:10:16.825
I didn't know Frankie played a moniker.

00:10:17.466 --> 00:10:18.846
And the guy was a monster.

00:10:19.307 --> 00:10:25.916
I mean, he could do, you know, he could play like Junior Wells or Cotton or any of the other guys, you know, Little Big Walter and all that stuff.

00:10:26.336 --> 00:10:28.578
But he also could play, you know, like the Sonny Terry stuff.

00:10:28.818 --> 00:10:33.469
So then one day we went over to the Bronx and and met this guy, Gene Plotnick.

00:10:33.928 --> 00:10:37.534
Now, I don't know any of these guys, you know, until, you know, everything's all new to me.

00:10:38.135 --> 00:10:42.943
So I listened to Gene and Frankie playing, and I said, come on, do something.

00:10:43.345 --> 00:10:45.128
Gene goes, you know, play bass.

00:10:45.567 --> 00:10:50.817
So I started trying to learn to play the bass on the harmonica, even on the diatonics.

00:10:51.278 --> 00:10:53.541
So that became an interesting concept.

00:10:53.881 --> 00:10:58.909
Gene asked me to play Walter's Boogie one day when I was up there.

00:11:04.354 --> 00:11:13.880
And so I play what I thought was Walter's bookie.

00:11:14.062 --> 00:11:15.546
And then he goes, now go home and learn it.

00:11:15.874 --> 00:11:19.840
Well, I was pretty depressed driving home two and a half, three hours back to my house.

00:11:19.899 --> 00:11:23.125
But I'll tell you what, I told Gene about 20 years later.

00:11:23.205 --> 00:11:25.788
He says, man, that was one of the best things anybody ever said to me.

00:11:26.070 --> 00:11:26.149
Yeah.

00:11:26.169 --> 00:11:27.412
Because I went home and learned this stuff.

00:11:27.731 --> 00:11:30.015
And, you know, that's what you just sit there with the record.

00:11:30.296 --> 00:11:31.818
So you had a long association with Paul.

00:11:31.958 --> 00:11:32.340
Oh, yeah.

00:11:32.539 --> 00:11:34.884
I used to go see Paul constantly in New York.

00:11:35.063 --> 00:11:37.467
I would sit in with him, do a couple of numbers and, you know.

00:11:37.707 --> 00:11:39.169
You released three albums with him.

00:11:41.232 --> 00:11:42.274
I'm going home,

00:11:43.998 --> 00:11:44.077
baby.

00:11:44.097 --> 00:11:44.158
Woo!

00:11:45.313 --> 00:11:46.590
Thank you.

00:11:53.313 --> 00:11:57.677
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised, you know, that Paul, you know, wanted to do that stuff with me.

00:11:57.937 --> 00:12:01.140
Were you playing all the harmonica on these albums or were you swapping it with

00:12:01.260 --> 00:12:01.541
Paul?

00:12:01.760 --> 00:12:03.403
On the one on Paul played some stuff.

00:12:03.643 --> 00:12:06.205
He played the bass harp on the things I used to do.

00:12:07.285 --> 00:12:09.327
But

00:12:22.658 --> 00:12:25.582
Paul can play any I mean, he could play accordion.

00:12:26.163 --> 00:12:29.308
I think he even played saxophone and probably even trumpet.

00:12:29.428 --> 00:12:32.913
I think anything that guy picked up, he could play around with and get it going.

00:12:33.335 --> 00:12:34.976
I didn't know he knew country blues.

00:12:35.418 --> 00:12:38.282
And I was over Frankie's, you know, up in Queens.

00:12:38.322 --> 00:12:42.447
I'm coming back and I stop at Paul's and Paul's sitting on the bumper of his car.

00:12:42.467 --> 00:12:45.032
He goes, so you're trying to learn this stuff, huh, for Frankie?

00:12:45.393 --> 00:12:46.815
And he starts playing the same stuff.

00:12:47.134 --> 00:12:48.798
When I left there, I says, what doesn't he know?

00:12:49.282 --> 00:12:57.956
I actually, my buddy Lou Erlanger, who does a radio show, he's from up in New Hampshire, right on the border of New Hampshire and Connecticut.

00:12:58.336 --> 00:13:02.123
He's got a really, I have a great CD that I, actually a cassette.

00:13:02.462 --> 00:13:03.764
I got to get it back off of Lou.

00:13:04.145 --> 00:13:06.971
I recorded it on Paul back in the mid-70s.

00:13:07.390 --> 00:13:09.534
And Paul's playing unbelievable on this thing.

00:13:10.115 --> 00:13:11.518
His harmonica is just like...

00:13:11.649 --> 00:13:13.110
The sound quality is great, too.

00:13:13.312 --> 00:13:14.832
You know, we wanted to put that out.

00:13:15.193 --> 00:13:18.797
And so, of course, Paul Osher was Muddy Waters' harmonica player for a time as well,

00:13:18.817 --> 00:13:19.658
wasn't he?

00:13:19.697 --> 00:13:23.562
Yeah, he was the first, actually, the first white guy in his band, Muddy's band.

00:13:24.001 --> 00:13:25.644
But he didn't have anybody before that.

00:13:25.964 --> 00:13:29.147
You know, Paul Butterfield was around, but he never went on the road with Muddy.

00:13:29.508 --> 00:13:29.668
Yeah.

00:13:30.048 --> 00:13:33.491
So did you know Paul when that happened, when he joined Muddy's band?

00:13:33.652 --> 00:13:35.673
No, I didn't know Paul back in the 60s.

00:13:36.053 --> 00:13:37.255
I met him in 75.

00:13:37.655 --> 00:13:39.557
That was the earliest I met him, Paul.

00:13:39.809 --> 00:13:40.510
Yeah, sure, yeah.

00:13:41.152 --> 00:13:44.336
I mean, you knew another of Muddy Waters' harmonica players than Jerry Portnoy.

00:13:56.575 --> 00:13:58.398
Jerry and I are really good friends and...

00:13:58.562 --> 00:14:05.368
I used to tell Jerry, he says, if I couldn't figure out a song, like an instrumental, like off the wall or something, I'd come and I'd hear you play it.

00:14:05.447 --> 00:14:06.808
And I'd say, okay, now I got it.

00:14:07.149 --> 00:14:09.270
I could figure out what I wasn't doing right or something.

00:14:09.291 --> 00:14:09.370
Yeah.

00:14:09.410 --> 00:14:11.994
Jerry and I, you know, we, we stay, we stay in contact.

00:14:12.274 --> 00:14:14.176
And so you used to hang out and play around with him as well.

00:14:14.196 --> 00:14:15.937
Did you in the, back in the day?

00:14:16.336 --> 00:14:16.658
Oh yeah.

00:14:17.118 --> 00:14:18.438
I used to go watch Jerry a lot.

00:14:18.719 --> 00:14:19.941
You know, every time he was with Muddy.

00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.142
So then moving back to yourself then.

00:14:22.202 --> 00:14:24.605
So I think your first band was the Excelos.

00:14:24.965 --> 00:14:28.168
Well, actually we had a, I played a band called Rock Bottom.

00:14:28.467 --> 00:14:30.913
I, I named that group from Little Walters Instrumental.

00:14:44.193 --> 00:14:50.203
It was a bunch of guys from my area, Steve Crismar, Barry Brown, Danny Bending on drums.

00:14:50.565 --> 00:14:53.490
We had a saxophone player that came in, Bobby Michaels.

00:14:53.649 --> 00:14:56.475
I just played with him on Sunday in my neighborhood at a club.

00:14:56.775 --> 00:14:58.339
So, you know, that was the first one.

00:14:58.458 --> 00:14:59.541
It was another one.

00:15:00.201 --> 00:15:01.804
I had a band called the Blues Rockers.

00:15:02.385 --> 00:15:09.357
In 1980, I was hanging out with Ola Dixon and Danny Russo in New York at Dan Lynch's, you know, the Bill Dicey rant.

00:15:09.601 --> 00:15:10.863
And I used to go see Bill Dicey.

00:15:11.043 --> 00:15:13.304
Bill was a really good harmonica player, played guitar.

00:15:13.585 --> 00:15:16.967
I'd heard that he also played drums behind Sonny Boy, Rice Miller.

00:15:17.249 --> 00:15:19.410
And I guess the late 50s or early 60s.

00:15:19.530 --> 00:15:21.852
And I think there was another guy too.

00:15:22.092 --> 00:15:23.854
He might've played with Slim Harpo.

00:15:24.294 --> 00:15:26.576
So the band, The Xellos, when did they come into it?

00:15:26.836 --> 00:15:29.698
Well, I started going up to Boston to rehearse.

00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:32.581
I used to pick Ola up and go up there because she lived in the Bronx.

00:15:32.922 --> 00:15:34.663
And on my way up, I'd go up there.

00:15:35.224 --> 00:15:38.687
And the guitar player, George Lewis, we wanted to get a band together.

00:15:38.726 --> 00:15:39.327
And that's what we...

00:15:39.567 --> 00:15:40.789
he named it the Xellos.

00:15:41.129 --> 00:15:42.731
I didn't know much about Xello recordings.

00:15:42.971 --> 00:15:46.216
I was just strictly into the Chicago stuff at that time.

00:15:46.517 --> 00:15:49.740
I was very kind of ignorant to other styles of blues that was out there.

00:15:49.961 --> 00:15:54.788
You know, you had your Detroit stuff, which was very close to Chicago, you know, the different players out of there.

00:15:55.087 --> 00:15:55.788
But that's what we did.

00:15:55.808 --> 00:15:56.450
We named it then.

00:15:56.490 --> 00:15:57.250
And that was 1980.

00:15:57.311 --> 00:15:57.532
Are

00:15:57.892 --> 00:15:59.494
you still playing with these guys?

00:15:59.514 --> 00:16:01.797
I've got a concert of you playing them in 2021.

00:16:08.929 --> 00:16:12.285
Thank you.

00:16:14.241 --> 00:16:15.842
Oh, yeah.

00:16:15.883 --> 00:16:17.845
You know, it changed over the years.

00:16:17.924 --> 00:16:19.527
I mean, different guys would come in and go.

00:16:19.986 --> 00:16:23.309
But basically, like Sunday, we did a gig.

00:16:23.350 --> 00:16:24.490
We had Brian Bissese.

00:16:24.990 --> 00:16:28.193
We used to call him Brian B on guitar for a long time.

00:16:28.214 --> 00:16:29.534
A few other guys.

00:16:29.816 --> 00:16:30.775
That was the mainstay.

00:16:30.976 --> 00:16:33.278
You know, different guys would come in, you know, in and out.

00:16:33.538 --> 00:16:34.940
But that was the mainstay with that.

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:36.520
Brian on drums.

00:16:37.081 --> 00:16:38.582
Ola Dixon was still in the band.

00:16:38.802 --> 00:16:42.866
You know, we got a couple other guys named Chet Woodward and Randy Lippincott.

00:16:43.187 --> 00:16:43.788
Chet played drums.

00:16:43.807 --> 00:16:44.207
Randy played drums.

00:16:44.207 --> 00:16:44.969
and he played bass.

00:16:45.308 --> 00:16:46.509
We recorded back then.

00:16:46.551 --> 00:16:47.892
We never put the stuff out.

00:16:48.032 --> 00:16:54.658
A couple of songs that I, we went up North Jersey and recorded some stuff and recorded five songs just one day.

00:16:54.899 --> 00:16:57.682
Is this still, I mean, is this just a part-time band now?

00:16:57.701 --> 00:16:59.624
Is this your main band, still the XLLs?

00:17:00.065 --> 00:17:04.009
Oh yeah, that's the only band I've really ever played with in my area.

00:17:04.169 --> 00:17:06.811
Like last Sunday, this past Sunday, we played together.

00:17:06.991 --> 00:17:09.075
Now we got a guy named Rich McPherson.

00:17:09.115 --> 00:17:10.395
He goes under the name of Filthy Rich.

00:17:10.655 --> 00:17:12.597
Richie Scalise is still in there playing guitar.

00:17:12.939 --> 00:17:13.278
John F.

00:17:13.338 --> 00:17:17.351
Kennedy on the drums Gary Phillips on the bass and Bobby Michaels on tenor and myself.

00:17:17.857 --> 00:17:21.981
great yeah so you're still going strong after 40 years that's a good achievement

00:17:22.662 --> 00:17:22.902
yeah

00:17:23.343 --> 00:17:29.607
another amazing thing you did is that you played with Jimmy Rogers for getting on for sort of 14 years or so

00:17:29.708 --> 00:17:31.430
yes it was on and off 14 years yeah

00:17:31.789 --> 00:17:49.865
yeah so from about 1980 is this yes 1980 so just explaining to people if they don't know who Jimmy Rogers is so Jimmy Rogers was part of the headhunters of the great band of Muddy Waters in the what the early 90s late 40s early 50s where so Muddy Wall Jimmy Rogers and Little Walter.

00:17:49.925 --> 00:17:56.192
So a lot of those really early classic, amazing Little Walter songs with Muddy Waters or with Jimmy Rogers on that.

00:17:56.432 --> 00:18:00.436
And Jimmy was not to be messed with on the harmonica either, which I found out through James Cotton.

00:18:00.637 --> 00:18:06.844
Cotton told me, I think this was like in 1997, I went down to see James play in this little place in Philly.

00:18:06.983 --> 00:18:07.724
James went off.

00:18:07.785 --> 00:18:11.730
He said, if Jimmy had stayed on a harmonica, it would have been Little Walter and Jimmy.

00:18:11.990 --> 00:18:15.333
That's how much Cotton thought how good Jimmy played a harmonica.

00:18:15.753 --> 00:18:18.558
I only heard Jimmy tune up with one of my harps in 1981.

00:18:19.403 --> 00:18:21.332
They were monsters, you know, those guys.

00:18:21.633 --> 00:18:26.334
All that stuff that they recorded back then, you know, there's only one recording of Jimmy playing a moniker.

00:18:26.561 --> 00:18:31.150
And he actually re-recorded that song for Chess back in, I think, the mid-50s.

00:18:31.490 --> 00:18:33.073
You know, he played a monocle on that one.

00:18:33.133 --> 00:18:37.820
And it's pretty much like he was giving Snooki Pryor and Little Walter their styles.

00:18:38.060 --> 00:18:43.570
So, yeah, have you got any good stories about, you know, Jimmy Rogers with Muddy Waters and Little Walter, that outfit they had back then?

00:18:43.911 --> 00:18:44.792
Oh, yeah.

00:18:45.233 --> 00:18:47.718
You know, the stuff that they did back then was just crazy.

00:18:48.066 --> 00:18:51.009
When they walked into a club, that was about the end of the band that was there.

00:18:51.371 --> 00:18:53.753
Jimmy was actually playing a moniker before Little Walter got in.

00:18:54.035 --> 00:18:56.898
Tell us a story about how you managed to hook up with Jimmy Rogers.

00:18:57.219 --> 00:18:58.721
I tried to get with Jimmy in 1973.

00:18:58.862 --> 00:19:00.684
I wrote him a letter.

00:19:01.164 --> 00:19:03.588
Living Blues put out an article on Jimmy.

00:19:04.069 --> 00:19:08.236
Number 13, with Victorious Bivy on the front and Johnny Ace on bass.

00:19:08.776 --> 00:19:10.259
I was so into Jimmy at that point.

00:19:10.739 --> 00:19:15.365
Jim O'Neill, who ran Living Blues, I wrote him a letter to give to Jimmy.

00:19:15.787 --> 00:19:22.688
So I had about a month or so later, I get a letter back from Jimmy's wife, Dorothy, who I became very good friends with years later.

00:19:23.068 --> 00:19:26.252
So she was all excited that I was going to move to Chicago.

00:19:26.693 --> 00:19:30.038
And, you know, I figured I'd move out there, take lessons off of Big Walter.

00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:31.740
I'd be in like Flint, you know.

00:19:32.261 --> 00:19:32.923
I didn't do that.

00:19:33.703 --> 00:19:38.471
I did finally get to see Jimmy, but that was in the mid-70s, you know, playing in Chicago.

00:19:38.911 --> 00:19:41.855
You know, he'd have like, you know, different harmonica players up there.

00:19:42.316 --> 00:19:44.499
There was a guy from New York that played with him, Joe Burson.

00:19:44.859 --> 00:19:46.162
He passed away a long time ago.

00:19:46.561 --> 00:19:50.527
And then Big Walter would come in and sit in, especially on songs that Big Walter played on.

00:19:50.547 --> 00:19:52.588
I mean, that was nuts, you know, to see that.

00:19:53.150 --> 00:19:56.713
You know, I really didn't get to hang out with Jimmy in the 70s that much.

00:19:56.733 --> 00:19:59.938
He was either doing different stuff here or there.

00:20:00.458 --> 00:20:03.260
He didn't play the local circuit that much, you know, in Chicago.

00:20:03.862 --> 00:20:09.348
But when we got together in 80, we were playing up in Camden, Maine at a place called Mr.

00:20:09.409 --> 00:20:10.589
Kite's in Chicago.

00:20:10.786 --> 00:20:12.749
We were talking about it on the stage.

00:20:12.769 --> 00:20:14.932
We were rehearsing a little bit, you know, to get the sound up.

00:20:15.132 --> 00:20:16.413
And I said, you got this?

00:20:16.493 --> 00:20:17.316
He says, yeah, I got it.

00:20:17.576 --> 00:20:18.837
And Jimmy goes, we'll see.

00:20:19.198 --> 00:20:20.721
So that kind of like scared me a little.

00:20:20.901 --> 00:20:23.064
So I had to pump it up that night, you know, pump it up.

00:20:24.086 --> 00:20:26.548
So, you know, we played and we got along really good.

00:20:27.190 --> 00:20:29.272
I knew his songs and I just backed them up.

00:20:29.894 --> 00:20:35.041
One night we were at that place called in Boston, called the Tam O'Shanter in Brookline, Boston.

00:20:35.329 --> 00:20:44.144
And Coco Taylor's band there, Jerry Portnoy's there, a couple other harmonica players, I think Barbecue Bob and all these guys that was with Jimmy before I got with Jimmy, Barbecue.

00:20:44.644 --> 00:20:50.192
We're doing a song and we end this thing and Jimmy leans over to me and goes, give me an E, quick, quick.

00:20:50.492 --> 00:20:54.539
So I blew an E note on the A harp and he goes, kick something off quick, quick.

00:20:54.859 --> 00:20:56.702
So I kicked the sensitive metal off, Neil.

00:20:57.044 --> 00:20:58.946
And I said, damn, it's too fast.

00:20:59.086 --> 00:21:00.147
But I had to go with it.

00:21:00.808 --> 00:21:03.773
In the middle of the song, I hear this like yelling.

00:21:03.938 --> 00:21:08.022
I looked over and Jimmy's coming over to mic stand at me with his guitar.

00:21:08.463 --> 00:21:09.484
It was like the exorcist.

00:21:09.565 --> 00:21:12.989
I mean, I'm looking at this guy and we're all of a sudden now we're face to face.

00:21:13.569 --> 00:21:17.494
And he's playing this stuff on the guitar that I never heard before.

00:21:17.815 --> 00:21:19.277
And I don't think I ever heard since.

00:21:20.097 --> 00:21:21.880
The bottom stuff that he was playing behind me.

00:21:22.540 --> 00:21:25.505
And we played and nobody wanted to go near the stage after that.

00:21:25.904 --> 00:21:29.048
And we finished that song and Jimmy leaned over to me and starts chuckling.

00:21:29.068 --> 00:21:30.790
He goes, that's the way I like to back you up.

00:21:31.692 --> 00:21:37.712
And all I could think about was what were they like back in the 50s, him, Muddy, and Little Walter, when they're playing together.

00:21:38.574 --> 00:21:39.556
That's all I could think about.

00:21:39.915 --> 00:21:41.419
He never did anything like that again.

00:21:41.439 --> 00:21:47.607
I heard him playing some great stuff over the years, but that thing he did that night was just poof.

00:21:47.868 --> 00:21:48.890
Did you go touring with him?

00:21:48.930 --> 00:21:50.373
Did you go outside the U.S.?

00:21:50.913 --> 00:21:51.575
We did Europe.

00:21:51.894 --> 00:21:53.938
We did almost a month in Europe.

00:21:55.140 --> 00:21:58.345
Originally, we started coming into Scotland.

00:21:58.464 --> 00:22:01.250
We did Scotland for two days, went up to Ireland.

00:22:01.730 --> 00:22:04.653
Came back, we played England, and I don't know.

00:22:05.034 --> 00:22:06.895
We played just about everywhere around there.

00:22:06.935 --> 00:22:11.119
We played Switzerland, Sweden, all these different places.

00:22:11.921 --> 00:22:13.963
Was this in a band or was it a duo?

00:22:14.044 --> 00:22:14.784
Oh, it was a whole band.

00:22:14.845 --> 00:22:16.205
A whole band came over from Europe.

00:22:16.566 --> 00:22:18.327
At that point, we had Richard Scalas.

00:22:18.709 --> 00:22:19.630
He was playing bass.

00:22:20.130 --> 00:22:22.712
Little Jimmy, his son, was playing second guitar.

00:22:23.314 --> 00:22:26.998
We had Ted Harvey on drums and Piano Willie on piano.

00:22:27.490 --> 00:22:28.451
So that was the whole band.

00:22:28.612 --> 00:22:29.794
You know, it was like, it was great.

00:22:29.834 --> 00:22:32.759
We went, we were over there for quite, you know, I was amazed.

00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:33.921
Great experience.

00:22:34.201 --> 00:22:38.167
So you played on and off with him until he passed away in 1998.

00:22:38.269 --> 00:22:38.388
Yeah,

00:22:39.411 --> 00:22:40.291
actually about 1994.

00:22:40.412 --> 00:22:46.702
I kind of like, you know, we kind of like, he had different guys in the band that I wasn't that crazy about.

00:22:46.923 --> 00:22:50.529
So I, you know, I would go and see him every now and then, but that was about it.

00:22:50.721 --> 00:22:52.403
We didn't play that much together anymore.

00:22:52.884 --> 00:22:56.827
So he started his solo career after when he'd stopped playing Muddy Waters.

00:22:57.127 --> 00:23:01.633
He played That's Alright with Little Walter playing harmonic, which is a very iconic song.

00:23:01.792 --> 00:23:28.163
I know you don't love me no more, but that's alright Every night then I wonder Who's loving you tonight get away

00:23:28.182 --> 00:23:39.362
man he also played probably a lot of people's favorite harmonica blues harmonica song which was walking by myself with big walter

00:23:39.803 --> 00:23:49.181
big walter you know i was funny you know he had good rock and charles I was driving, and Jimmy was sitting in the front seat, and we were talking about all kinds of stuff.

00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:52.566
And Jimmy brought that whole situation up.

00:23:52.905 --> 00:23:56.852
And he goes, little Walter said, man, Walter was supposed to be in California at the time.

00:23:57.471 --> 00:23:59.875
Walter came back and says, man, I wanted to be on that recording.

00:23:59.915 --> 00:24:03.200
And Jimmy goes, I didn't want him or Big Walter.

00:24:03.500 --> 00:24:07.026
I wanted Charles, because Charles played that song with Jimmy on the stage.

00:24:07.298 --> 00:24:08.259
before they recorded it.

00:24:08.539 --> 00:24:09.461
Charles knew the song.

00:24:09.682 --> 00:24:10.804
This is Walking By Myself.

00:24:11.005 --> 00:24:11.265
Yeah.

00:24:11.625 --> 00:24:15.172
I mean, I thought Walter, Big Walter, you know, it's classic to me.

00:24:15.553 --> 00:24:18.198
His harmonica solos were classic.

00:24:29.038 --> 00:24:29.117
Yeah.

00:24:41.218 --> 00:24:45.544
Was Jimmy not happy with that recording then?

00:24:45.825 --> 00:24:49.910
I think he still was, but I think he just thought that Charles would have done better.

00:24:50.250 --> 00:24:51.132
Well, that's interesting, isn't it?

00:24:51.152 --> 00:24:53.055
Again, such an iconic harmonica song.

00:24:53.194 --> 00:24:55.157
Almost Big Walter didn't play in it, as you say, yeah.

00:24:55.577 --> 00:24:58.362
I think what Big Walter did on there was beyond.

00:24:58.382 --> 00:24:58.423
Oh,

00:24:58.903 --> 00:24:59.924
yeah, it's amazing, yeah.

00:25:00.244 --> 00:25:02.028
And, you know, they had to go get Big Walter.

00:25:02.288 --> 00:25:03.690
Supposedly, he was painting houses.

00:25:04.131 --> 00:25:07.035
I think he actually played in that stuff.

00:25:07.134 --> 00:25:09.278
I'm not sure, in his painting outfits.

00:25:09.634 --> 00:25:13.279
Well, he probably had bits of paint on his overalls.

00:25:13.579 --> 00:25:21.413
Yeah, yeah, or something, you know, because Charles skipped out and, you know, they were in a panic because they were recording and they needed to get these songs done.

00:25:21.634 --> 00:25:26.821
So moving on to another story about you hanging out with the greats, Steve, as you have, some great stories.

00:25:27.103 --> 00:25:31.329
So tell us a story about how you took your mother to see Muddy Waters show.

00:25:31.890 --> 00:25:35.836
Oh, yeah, that was in 1975, I think, 1975.

00:25:36.609 --> 00:25:39.833
See, I didn't know my mom was listening to the stuff that I was playing.

00:25:40.232 --> 00:25:45.638
One day she come by, you know, she goes, play this song, you know, by that guy, that minor one.

00:25:45.999 --> 00:25:47.319
And I'm thinking, thinking minor.

00:25:47.740 --> 00:25:48.882
I said, I know what you mean.

00:25:49.201 --> 00:25:49.642
I'm ready.

00:25:49.883 --> 00:25:50.522
So I put it on.

00:25:50.884 --> 00:25:55.688
The minute I dropped the needle on that album, my mom's face broke out in a big smile.

00:25:56.189 --> 00:25:57.390
That's the one she goes, that's it.

00:25:57.829 --> 00:25:59.872
So I guess it was about a year later.

00:25:59.892 --> 00:26:01.634
It was actually the first time I got to see Muddy.

00:26:01.913 --> 00:26:05.917
He was playing in a sort of club called The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA.

00:26:06.210 --> 00:26:07.290
on the west side of Philly.

00:26:07.530 --> 00:26:08.573
My mom followed me out.

00:26:09.252 --> 00:26:10.515
I had never seen Muddy before.

00:26:11.075 --> 00:26:15.500
There was a guy named Jesse Graves opening up, and I'd played with Jesse, so I knew him.

00:26:16.101 --> 00:26:16.942
So I went down.

00:26:17.001 --> 00:26:19.984
Muddy was right there, and we started talking about different stuff.

00:26:20.045 --> 00:26:29.375
And we were playing in different positions on the harmonic, and Muddy started laughing about it and says, yeah, we tuned the E string down on I'm Ready.

00:26:29.394 --> 00:26:33.220
And then I asked him, I says, you know, that's my mother's favorite song.

00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:33.960
She's here with me.

00:26:34.221 --> 00:26:35.221
Could you play that tonight?

00:26:35.682 --> 00:26:36.742
So I was it.

00:26:37.084 --> 00:26:37.944
I went back upstairs.

00:26:38.005 --> 00:26:38.826
I'm sitting with my mom.

00:26:38.965 --> 00:26:40.647
We're listening to the band and everything's great.

00:26:40.688 --> 00:26:41.608
And Buddy's up there singing.

00:26:41.809 --> 00:26:47.076
He does Hoochie Coochie Man, which is on that album I had sale on, was just before I'm ready.

00:26:47.517 --> 00:26:48.877
I don't know how that happened, but it did.

00:26:48.897 --> 00:26:50.359
My mom's hit me in the arm.

00:26:50.380 --> 00:26:51.300
That's one off the record.

00:26:51.622 --> 00:26:52.603
And I said, okay.

00:26:53.223 --> 00:26:56.627
I'm having a lot of fun watching my mom be all excited with this stuff.

00:26:57.169 --> 00:27:02.035
All of a sudden, Buddy looked out at the audience with the most sincere look I ever saw.

00:27:02.055 --> 00:27:04.478
And he just said, I don't know who this young guy is.

00:27:04.834 --> 00:27:08.719
He came here with his mother, and we're going to do a little song I recorded back in 1955.

00:27:09.921 --> 00:27:12.964
He started that, and my mom just had tears down her eyes.

00:27:13.906 --> 00:27:15.489
And that was it, and that was great.

00:27:22.137 --> 00:27:24.701
Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

00:27:34.145 --> 00:27:36.209
Let's move on to your albums then, Steve.

00:27:36.249 --> 00:27:39.615
So obviously we talked about you releasing a few with Steve Osher.

00:27:39.654 --> 00:27:42.179
So I think you've got five albums out in your own name.

00:27:42.398 --> 00:27:48.108
You mentioned Radio Blues earlier on, but the first one was Last Train to Dover in 97.

00:27:48.128 --> 00:27:49.671
Was this the first album you released?

00:27:50.192 --> 00:27:52.736
Well, I know the first one was live at the Dinosaur.

00:27:53.037 --> 00:27:53.317
Okay.

00:27:53.637 --> 00:27:59.326
You know, Steve Gomes, Steve Ramsey, Steve Freund, Dave Maxwell, and myself.

00:27:59.606 --> 00:28:01.029
And we never played together before.

00:28:01.281 --> 00:28:02.664
We had never dealt with that.

00:28:02.704 --> 00:28:08.738
When we got up on that stage, that was the first night we ever, we had rehearsed a little bit intermittently between everybody.

00:28:08.817 --> 00:28:11.644
I don't know, you know, I knew who Ramsey was.

00:28:12.226 --> 00:28:12.727
That was it.

00:28:12.886 --> 00:28:18.480
You know, I knew Dave Maxwell from playing, you know, from him playing with, you know, Paul Osher in The Village.

00:28:19.040 --> 00:28:21.405
And that was about it, you know, and I knew everybody.

00:28:21.538 --> 00:28:22.578
knew Gomes a little bit.

00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:29.267
You know, Steve Freund I actually knew because he was also in New York when I first started going up to New York in 75.

00:28:29.287 --> 00:28:29.667
So, Live

00:28:30.147 --> 00:28:33.192
at the Dinosaur, your first album, that's obviously a live album.

00:28:33.251 --> 00:28:35.855
So, The Last Train to Dover is a studio album.

00:28:35.894 --> 00:28:39.019
I think, was this album in memory of William Clark?

00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:40.080
It might have been.

00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:41.541
I think that I put it out for that.

00:28:41.622 --> 00:28:46.347
I met Bill over the years and Bill and I became pretty good friends after.

00:28:46.387 --> 00:28:49.711
He was actually touring the South with us.

00:28:50.232 --> 00:28:59.622
Not with us, but When I was on the road with Muddy back in like, when I went back on in the early 90s, early mid 90s, you know, we just became really good friends after that.

00:28:59.682 --> 00:29:04.445
And Jeanette said that Bill doesn't usually sit and watch harmonica players, but he did with you.

00:29:04.987 --> 00:29:07.750
I was all pumped up from being in Memphis, never been there before.

00:29:08.289 --> 00:29:15.056
And I just got fired up from all the, just the atmosphere, you know, going to WDAI where B.B.

00:29:15.115 --> 00:29:18.980
King did his first DJing, you know, just that whole scene down there.

00:29:19.580 --> 00:29:20.902
Because that's where it really all began.

00:29:21.281 --> 00:29:27.208
you know, all the electric Chicago stuff, you know, Wolf, Sonny Boy, they all came out of there, all them guys.

00:29:27.708 --> 00:29:29.450
And then they gravitated to Chicago.

00:29:29.809 --> 00:29:38.077
To me, you know, Memphis was a melting pot, you know, from all the areas that surrounded Little Rock, Arkansas, all that, you know, all those different areas.

00:29:38.739 --> 00:29:42.762
And on this album, you've got a song called Philly Shimmy, which is a harmonica instrument.

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

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

00:29:59.074 --> 00:29:59.957
that one that you wrote?

00:30:00.680 --> 00:30:02.828
Yeah, I would just come up with different stuff.

00:30:03.069 --> 00:30:04.957
Sometimes I would make them right up at the time.

00:30:04.977 --> 00:30:06.502
You know, I don't know.

00:30:06.804 --> 00:30:11.030
It's just some kind of gift I have that to be able to do that, you know.

00:30:11.352 --> 00:30:16.195
And something else that's really interesting on this album is you do a version of John Henry where you're playing it on chromatic.

00:30:26.464 --> 00:30:34.451
I don't think I've ever heard it on chromatic.

00:30:34.711 --> 00:30:36.794
Yeah, I don't know what got me into that.

00:30:36.933 --> 00:30:45.845
Well, you know, I started hanging out with little Sammy Dave When I met Sammy, the first night I met Sammy, I'd heard about him playing with the different guys I worked with.

00:30:46.465 --> 00:30:47.607
And I went to see him.

00:30:47.968 --> 00:30:54.017
I wanted to kidnap him and bring him back to my house and hang out with him because that's how heavy he was.

00:30:54.196 --> 00:30:58.542
He could sing all kinds of different stuff, like from the 50s, you know, different music.

00:30:58.844 --> 00:31:01.807
And his blues stuff was just, you know, he knew the stuff.

00:31:02.048 --> 00:31:03.190
It was amazing.

00:31:03.611 --> 00:31:06.013
Sammy started getting me into playing on chromatic instruments.

00:31:06.273 --> 00:31:08.977
you know, a little different, you know, because he was doing different stuff.

00:31:09.237 --> 00:31:14.383
And I remember being in Chicago, I guess this was in the early, early 80s.

00:31:15.044 --> 00:31:17.767
And I was hanging out with a guy named Big Bad Ben Murphy.

00:31:18.448 --> 00:31:22.972
And Ben was a guitar player who originally played a moniker behind Jimmy Rogers in the 50s.

00:31:23.433 --> 00:31:30.321
And he could still play because he took my harp and started playing juke, which I think everybody in the band could play at the time.

00:31:30.786 --> 00:31:35.750
One of the guys who used to hang out with us back then, he said, man, you got to learn to play juke on a chromatic.

00:31:35.972 --> 00:31:39.189
So, you know, years later, I started trying to do that, you know.

00:31:39.521 --> 00:31:41.123
And I got pretty good at that.

00:31:41.523 --> 00:31:45.247
And at the same time, that's when I picked up playing John Henry on there.

00:31:45.406 --> 00:31:46.468
I used to play that for Paul.

00:31:46.627 --> 00:31:50.852
Paul used to like it, you know, so I said, good, this is a good way of doing it.

00:31:51.311 --> 00:31:53.634
Not diatonic, you know, playing on chromatic.

00:31:53.713 --> 00:31:54.634
Fits well on there, doesn't it?

00:31:54.654 --> 00:31:57.637
Because there's not too many bends in that song, so it does fit nicely.

00:31:57.718 --> 00:31:58.438
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:58.699 --> 00:32:00.740
You just have to use a slide on a couple notes.

00:32:01.101 --> 00:32:03.843
I have to practice before I play it on stage now.

00:32:03.863 --> 00:32:04.763
I haven't done it in a while.

00:32:05.203 --> 00:32:09.488
Did I see somewhere that when you were younger, you sort of played classical lessons on chromatic?

00:32:09.488 --> 00:32:10.609
Is that something you did?

00:32:10.970 --> 00:32:11.791
I took lessons.

00:32:12.413 --> 00:32:17.780
I found out about a guy that was in Northeast Philly named Forrest Scott, and he was a classical harmonica player.

00:32:17.861 --> 00:32:20.464
He knew nothing about blues or any of that stuff.

00:32:20.505 --> 00:32:23.549
He knew country, but blues he didn't know much about at all.

00:32:23.789 --> 00:32:26.253
But his classical playing was phenomenal.

00:32:26.734 --> 00:32:29.659
I mean, he could Bach, Beethoven.

00:32:30.319 --> 00:32:32.143
I was just talking to somebody about that the other night.

00:32:32.683 --> 00:32:36.609
He could play the Flight of the Bumblebee just like, you know, as fast as you can imagine.

00:32:36.930 --> 00:32:59.176
So I learned a lot of stuff about, you know, tonal things off of him and, you know, the ins and outs of the chromatic, you know.

00:33:03.221 --> 00:33:03.261
So

00:33:05.314 --> 00:33:13.298
And on your next album, I believe, which is Past Life Blues, I think you released in 99, you've got a sort of George Smith song on there called Monkey on a Limb.

00:33:13.701 --> 00:33:15.144
You're playing chromatic on that one as well.

00:33:16.589 --> 00:33:16.670
Yeah.

00:33:38.273 --> 00:33:45.888
I did that song because my brother bought that album, Not of the Blues, and I'm not remembering the title.

00:33:45.909 --> 00:33:50.659
It's one he did on Chris Stachwitz, not Chris Stachwitz, Mike Lidbetter.

00:33:51.359 --> 00:34:00.137
He had the Blues, Blue Horizon albums, and he recorded this one on Durham Records for George Smith.

00:34:00.865 --> 00:34:02.667
That was one of the songs that stood out to me.

00:34:02.847 --> 00:34:04.490
I learned every song on that record.

00:34:04.609 --> 00:34:09.255
My brother bought it for me in 72 at Christmas, 71 or 72.

00:34:09.574 --> 00:34:10.255
Yeah, I think.

00:34:10.817 --> 00:34:12.177
And I just ate that record up.

00:34:12.958 --> 00:34:13.719
Yeah, I love it.

00:34:13.940 --> 00:34:16.123
And he also, you know, it's what he's playing.

00:34:16.202 --> 00:34:19.365
He's playing in sixth position on that.

00:34:19.746 --> 00:34:20.728
They're in C minor.

00:34:20.788 --> 00:34:30.177
And what you have to do is you have to blow the open C note, push the slide in, and then you're in sixth position there.

00:34:30.594 --> 00:34:31.556
And that was it.

00:34:32.117 --> 00:34:32.998
Great stuff, yeah.

00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:37.989
And then you played with a guy called Richard Farrell, and that's a duo.

00:34:38.009 --> 00:34:39.612
Were you playing acoustic harmonica in that?

00:34:39.632 --> 00:34:39.893
Come on!

00:34:39.972 --> 00:34:48.349
Come on!

00:34:55.969 --> 00:34:56.530
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:56.590 --> 00:34:58.052
Me and Richard did that.

00:34:58.152 --> 00:35:00.414
In fact, we just talked the other day for the first time.

00:35:00.474 --> 00:35:01.114
He's in Spain.

00:35:01.795 --> 00:35:03.916
He does a lot of stuff over there.

00:35:03.958 --> 00:35:05.259
He plays with different guys.

00:35:05.619 --> 00:35:09.202
I think he's been doing a little bit with Victor Puertes out over there.

00:35:09.483 --> 00:35:10.704
Great musician.

00:35:11.083 --> 00:35:12.806
Victor plays about every instrument, I think.

00:35:13.206 --> 00:35:17.469
I did some gigs with him when I was on the road with the guy from France who brought us over.

00:35:17.750 --> 00:35:23.235
I've got you doing a Sonny Boy 2 style on there, Rice Miller style, and a song called Cool, Cool Place to Go.

00:35:23.275 --> 00:35:23.715
Yeah, so...

00:35:25.889 --> 00:35:38.920
Yeah, that's a great, great, great song.

00:35:39.905 --> 00:35:45.512
I caught that off of that album that Chris put out of Sonny Boy's, all his stuff on trumpet.

00:35:46.134 --> 00:35:49.378
If he hadn't done that, I don't know if anybody would even have heard

00:36:00.590 --> 00:36:03.775
most of that

00:36:05.257 --> 00:36:05.356
stuff.

00:36:05.376 --> 00:36:10.170
You know, most of his early stuff, you either could find the 45s, or 78s.

00:36:10.570 --> 00:36:15.858
I wind up buying a lot of 78s of his stuff off a guy up in Massachusetts named Victor Perwin.

00:36:16.458 --> 00:36:19.844
And he had him and my buddy Larry that was hanging, took me up there.

00:36:20.304 --> 00:36:23.369
You know, I had spent, I don't know how much money that day buying stuff off of this guy.

00:36:23.389 --> 00:36:26.873
And he goes, did you show him that the Sonny Boy stuff is on trumpet?

00:36:27.635 --> 00:36:30.659
I panicked, you know, I said, so I didn't even have any money.

00:36:30.679 --> 00:36:33.041
I had a Sunday guy check, you know, I took it home.

00:36:34.063 --> 00:36:38.570
And I'll tell you, hearing that stuff on 78s, what a, what a difference.

00:36:39.329 --> 00:36:41.052
It's more like it's right there.

00:36:41.913 --> 00:36:49.202
I actually have Blue Lights by Little Walter, where there's no reverb in the beginning when he starts off on the chromatic there.

00:36:49.702 --> 00:36:50.222
It's not there.

00:36:50.583 --> 00:36:51.304
They didn't put it on.

00:36:51.324 --> 00:36:55.309
I don't know how they got it on the 45 and stuff, but they did.

00:36:55.989 --> 00:36:59.934
And then the album you mentioned earlier on, Radio Blues, you released in 2008.

00:37:00.135 --> 00:37:01.235
Radio

00:37:06.041 --> 00:37:06.141
Blues

00:37:16.929 --> 00:37:18.653
Is that the last album you put out?

00:37:19.355 --> 00:37:19.735
Yeah.

00:37:20.117 --> 00:37:29.697
Sad to say, David Earl, yeah, the owner has about 30, 35 songs of mine sitting down there of stuff that I recorded about at least 10 years ago now, if not longer.

00:37:30.018 --> 00:37:31.282
Somehow I have to get it off him.

00:37:31.713 --> 00:37:34.918
I guess I'll have to do one of those GoFundMe things and get some money.

00:37:35.458 --> 00:37:35.679
Yeah.

00:37:36.219 --> 00:37:36.780
Well, here we go.

00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:38.362
We can start it right here, Steve.

00:37:38.802 --> 00:37:42.907
We can start a GoFundMe to get your next album out with some great cuts.

00:37:43.047 --> 00:37:44.369
Yeah, I really do got it.

00:37:44.409 --> 00:37:45.431
But I got enough there for...

00:37:45.710 --> 00:37:49.394
I did a record with Dave backing up this other musician, this woman singer.

00:37:50.456 --> 00:37:54.621
And we were out eating and I said, Dave, why don't you just put a double record out on me?

00:37:54.822 --> 00:37:58.065
I thought he was going to choke on his food, you know, at the time.

00:37:58.746 --> 00:38:00.708
But I figured we got that many songs.

00:38:01.130 --> 00:38:01.369
Yeah.

00:38:01.793 --> 00:38:03.155
And I write a lot of different stuff.

00:38:03.235 --> 00:38:05.820
I never know when I'm going to write something.

00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:11.048
It's not like I could sit down like Neil Sedaka or any of those guys and sit down and start writing songs.

00:38:11.509 --> 00:38:12.291
Stuff just comes to

00:38:12.311 --> 00:38:13.311
you.

00:38:13.913 --> 00:38:17.018
And you got to be ready to write the stuff down or you lose them.

00:38:17.278 --> 00:38:26.793
Some of the stuff, like when you were talking about Past Light Blues, that's the reason that I called that that, because I had written some of those songs back in the early 70s.

00:38:27.074 --> 00:38:29.237
And I Can See By Your Eyes, I wrote that.

00:38:29.458 --> 00:38:30.780
That was like one of the first songs I ever

00:38:30.840 --> 00:38:43.304
wrote.

00:38:55.681 --> 00:38:59.447
I was walking my dad's dogs down in the woods behind me, and this song came to me.

00:38:59.728 --> 00:39:00.509
I just kept it.

00:39:00.869 --> 00:39:06.177
For some reason, that song stayed with me, and we finally got to record it on there.

00:39:06.838 --> 00:39:09.282
Yeah, so you're writing the lyrics as well, because you're a singer, of course, as well.

00:39:09.302 --> 00:39:11.143
You always sing with a band, yeah.

00:39:11.945 --> 00:39:14.188
Yeah, I do the best I can with my vocals.

00:39:14.548 --> 00:39:15.751
Some days are better than others.

00:39:15.851 --> 00:39:16.853
Yeah,

00:39:17.233 --> 00:39:23.262
so in 2010, you released a book and DVD instruction called Blues Harmonica through Hal Leonard.

00:39:23.362 --> 00:39:23.742
Yes.

00:39:23.882 --> 00:39:25.644
Yeah, that was because of Tom Radeye.

00:39:26.085 --> 00:39:27.306
I used Billy Flynn on that.

00:39:27.608 --> 00:39:30.992
Billy's a great, great guitar player, and he's also a great harmonica player.

00:39:31.612 --> 00:39:38.581
And that's like one of the things that, you know, when you think about it, when you think of Little Walter, he had Lewis Myers.

00:39:38.862 --> 00:39:40.545
Well, Lewis was a great harmonica player.

00:39:41.246 --> 00:39:45.391
Anywhere Little Walter would go on that harp, Lewis knew what was going on to back him up.

00:39:45.891 --> 00:39:47.693
You know, the same with me with Richard Scalise.

00:39:47.914 --> 00:39:48.856
Rich played a harmonica.

00:39:49.195 --> 00:39:50.398
We used to do our duo together.

00:39:50.561 --> 00:39:52.384
And people say, who's your favorite harp player?

00:39:52.403 --> 00:39:53.585
He says, well, he's sitting next to me.

00:39:53.905 --> 00:39:58.530
So I'd take the guitar and do my little plunking on the bass lines and Rich would play.

00:39:59.112 --> 00:40:00.853
So then they didn't say anymore.

00:40:02.235 --> 00:40:03.577
And Billy Flynn was the same way.

00:40:03.657 --> 00:40:04.838
Billy's a great harmonica player.

00:40:05.398 --> 00:40:06.420
That's what he started off on.

00:40:06.940 --> 00:40:08.842
And so we did that, yeah.

00:40:09.804 --> 00:40:10.364
Yeah, great.

00:40:10.443 --> 00:40:13.887
And I think that's still available to purchase.

00:40:14.469 --> 00:40:15.329
Yes, yes, it is.

00:40:15.769 --> 00:40:18.873
In fact, I just got a little tiny bit of money from them.

00:40:19.554 --> 00:40:20.394
Hal Leonard.

00:40:20.695 --> 00:40:24.418
I have not heard from some of the other companies, but that's the way that goes.

00:40:25.099 --> 00:40:25.840
Yeah, no, great.

00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:27.342
So it's great to have that out in the end as well.

00:40:28.041 --> 00:40:33.447
You say you played in Europe, so I've got a nice clip of you playing at the 4th Austrian Blues Festival.

00:40:33.487 --> 00:40:36.010
You're playing a Big Walter song, Rock This House.

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

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

00:40:50.306 --> 00:40:53.751
So yeah, you toured around Europe a few times and other places, have you?

00:40:54.592 --> 00:40:54.913
Oh, yes.

00:40:55.733 --> 00:40:59.760
Well, we started, like I said, I played Scotland, Ireland, England.

00:41:00.581 --> 00:41:05.487
I played Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway.

00:41:06.028 --> 00:41:07.150
I played France, Germany.

00:41:07.510 --> 00:41:08.994
I went to Russia and played.

00:41:09.514 --> 00:41:11.737
I went over there with the guys from Finland.

00:41:12.057 --> 00:41:14.181
Tommy Lehner is a great, great musician.

00:41:14.221 --> 00:41:16.403
He plays drums, guitar, and harmonica.

00:41:16.605 --> 00:41:17.967
And he's great at all three of them.

00:41:18.146 --> 00:41:20.070
In fact, he actually plays a little bit of piano too.

00:41:20.418 --> 00:41:22.260
And he's real good in one key.

00:41:22.280 --> 00:41:23.661
It's the only key he can play in, he says.

00:41:23.981 --> 00:41:26.065
But he does real good at it, you know.

00:41:26.465 --> 00:41:26.726
Yeah.

00:41:26.746 --> 00:41:28.608
But that, you know, we went to Russia.

00:41:29.148 --> 00:41:30.710
I played in Brazil.

00:41:31.371 --> 00:41:33.974
There's a lot of great, great musicians down in there, too.

00:41:34.534 --> 00:41:35.195
Really amazing.

00:41:35.556 --> 00:41:38.139
You know, Mexico, I played one time with Dennis Grunling.

00:41:38.721 --> 00:41:39.882
We went down for a couple of days.

00:41:40.101 --> 00:41:40.822
It was really nice.

00:41:41.463 --> 00:41:43.425
It's taking you around the world, the harmonica.

00:41:43.447 --> 00:41:44.007
Fantastic.

00:41:44.226 --> 00:41:44.507
Yeah.

00:41:46.190 --> 00:41:46.269
Yeah.

00:41:57.313 --> 00:42:03.422
A question I ask each time, Steve, is if you had only 10 minutes to play, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:42:04.202 --> 00:42:11.813
Very early on, I was in college for a little bit, and we had an art teacher named Frank Miller.

00:42:12.373 --> 00:42:16.079
I didn't know Frank played flamenco guitar, and he was a monster at it.

00:42:16.639 --> 00:42:32.889
He did a seminar, and the one thing that took me out with him is he flipped the guitar the opposite direction, He taught his students, whatever you play with the neck on your left side, flip it over and play with the neck on the opposite side.

00:42:33.210 --> 00:42:35.134
That always stuck in my head.

00:42:35.574 --> 00:42:39.019
So I said, if I want to learn something on harmonica, flip it over.

00:42:39.460 --> 00:42:40.822
So I would play juke.

00:42:41.242 --> 00:42:44.367
I started learning juke, I guess, in the late 70s.

00:42:44.788 --> 00:42:45.789
I started getting into this.

00:42:46.081 --> 00:42:48.505
It might even have been in the 80s, but I can't remember.

00:42:48.885 --> 00:42:53.130
So I started playing the opposite direction and trying to learn how to do that stuff.

00:42:53.170 --> 00:42:54.992
Because a lot of those guys played upside down.

00:42:55.373 --> 00:42:56.195
Little Sammy played.

00:42:56.574 --> 00:42:57.155
I'm not sure.

00:42:57.536 --> 00:43:03.983
I think Jimmy Rogers, if I'm not mistaken, actually played upside down, even though he played guitar, you know, straight up.

00:43:04.405 --> 00:43:05.266
He didn't play left-handed.

00:43:05.525 --> 00:43:08.369
You know, he used his right hand for strumming and left hand for...

00:43:08.769 --> 00:43:10.351
That's the first time I've heard that, Steve.

00:43:10.371 --> 00:43:13.715
Someone's saying that they'll turn the harmonica around and play it the other way around as well.

00:43:13.795 --> 00:43:16.297
Do you think that teach you a lot?

00:43:16.998 --> 00:43:19.039
Yeah, it teaches you what you know.

00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:21.842
And I always thought if I ever had a stroke, I'd be one up.

00:43:21.943 --> 00:43:23.244
I won't have to stop playing.

00:43:24.445 --> 00:43:26.347
I'll be able to keep playing the opposite direction.

00:43:26.407 --> 00:43:29.369
But I haven't perfected it all the way.

00:43:29.409 --> 00:43:30.210
It does.

00:43:30.650 --> 00:43:31.791
You have to change everything.

00:43:32.052 --> 00:43:32.793
I tongue block.

00:43:32.893 --> 00:43:40.253
So laying the tongue on the aperture of the harmonica, you have to change that and and different stuff, you know, so it's pretty interesting.

00:43:40.652 --> 00:43:42.715
Once you start to hear, then you can go with it.

00:43:42.976 --> 00:43:44.318
Yeah, I'll have to give it a try.

00:43:44.398 --> 00:43:46.400
I imagine that's quite difficult to begin with, is it?

00:43:46.900 --> 00:43:49.043
Ah, yeah, it's a little crazy.

00:43:49.523 --> 00:43:51.326
I will give that a go afterwards and see how I get on.

00:43:51.346 --> 00:43:51.827
I'll let you know.

00:43:54.349 --> 00:43:55.472
I could probably do that for you.

00:43:55.831 --> 00:43:57.293
I did bring harmonicas with me.

00:43:57.753 --> 00:43:59.956
If you want to quickly illustrate it, then cool, yeah, go for it.

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

00:44:08.481 --> 00:44:17.532
I'm

00:44:17.552 --> 00:44:18.614
playing it upside down now.

00:44:59.585 --> 00:45:00.967
Now here's the bass up the right way.

00:45:12.260 --> 00:45:12.800
Back over.

00:45:19.286 --> 00:45:19.547
Great.

00:45:19.606 --> 00:45:20.108
Sounds great.

00:45:20.128 --> 00:45:20.268
Yeah.

00:45:20.789 --> 00:45:25.313
And you know, if you notice the tone is a little different when you flip it over.

00:45:25.333 --> 00:45:25.534
Yeah.

00:45:25.826 --> 00:45:26.907
It's strange, you know?

00:45:27.188 --> 00:45:28.230
Yeah, it is a little different, yeah.

00:45:28.610 --> 00:45:29.210
No, that's amazing.

00:45:29.251 --> 00:45:29.972
That's a good ability.

00:45:30.012 --> 00:45:31.514
I'll be trying that out.

00:45:31.655 --> 00:45:32.436
You'll be cursing me.

00:45:32.456 --> 00:45:32.896
I'll probably

00:45:32.916 --> 00:45:33.637
get these phone lists.

00:45:34.119 --> 00:45:34.318
Yeah.

00:45:35.059 --> 00:45:36.242
I'll move on to the last section now.

00:45:36.322 --> 00:45:37.744
We're talking just about gear.

00:45:37.985 --> 00:45:43.152
So first of all, the harmonicas you play, I believe you're a Horner and Dorsey and you play marine bands, yeah?

00:45:43.813 --> 00:45:44.635
Well, I used to be.

00:45:44.994 --> 00:45:46.197
I'm not too much anymore.

00:45:46.217 --> 00:45:50.943
I did go with Ben's harmonica when that was there in Brazil for a little bit.

00:45:51.184 --> 00:45:54.269
They flew me down and they were giving me harmonicas, so why not, you know?

00:45:54.722 --> 00:45:57.509
But generally, you played the Marine Band for a long time, have you?

00:45:57.608 --> 00:45:58.871
Marine Band and Old Standby.

00:45:59.092 --> 00:46:00.295
They're the only two I really...

00:46:00.657 --> 00:46:02.260
I used the Blues Harps a little bit.

00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:03.003
They were okay.

00:46:03.583 --> 00:46:04.967
We had another company here.

00:46:04.987 --> 00:46:07.072
They were from Union, New Jersey.

00:46:07.534 --> 00:46:08.797
That was a harmonica company.

00:46:09.121 --> 00:46:11.224
Sugar Blue used to get his harps from the sky.

00:46:11.304 --> 00:46:12.344
I can't remember it.

00:46:12.806 --> 00:46:13.186
That's great.

00:46:13.306 --> 00:46:14.387
What about chromatics?

00:46:14.407 --> 00:46:15.648
What chromatics do you like to play?

00:46:16.028 --> 00:46:18.351
I use the 12 holes, mostly 64s.

00:46:18.932 --> 00:46:26.119
I like the older ones, you know, with the wood, you know, combs, you know, the 64s and the small one.

00:46:26.360 --> 00:46:35.070
But the problem with them is, and I know why they went to that plastic base, because the wooden ones, if they, in the wintertime, you had to watch, they crack.

00:46:35.554 --> 00:46:41.481
If you didn't keep moist, you know, some kind of humidity going on because they would shrink up, the wood would shrink.

00:46:42.043 --> 00:46:44.146
And then all of a sudden you got a harp and it doesn't set.

00:46:44.246 --> 00:46:46.909
You know, it was a great harmonica through spring, summer and fall.

00:46:46.929 --> 00:46:49.012
And then all of a sudden now it's done.

00:46:49.052 --> 00:46:51.735
And what about playing different positions on harmonica?

00:46:51.755 --> 00:46:53.679
Do you like to use different positions?

00:46:54.139 --> 00:46:57.302
Yeah, I basically will play first, second and third.

00:46:57.324 --> 00:46:59.005
I like fifth position.

00:46:59.362 --> 00:47:00.583
And what is the guy's name?

00:47:00.983 --> 00:47:01.684
Sammy Lewis.

00:47:02.286 --> 00:47:03.027
He was from Memphis.

00:47:03.447 --> 00:47:06.052
He did a 45 called You Lied to Me.

00:47:06.913 --> 00:47:09.476
And that was basically kind of like just a regular shuffle.

00:47:10.137 --> 00:47:11.159
That was on the one side.

00:47:11.559 --> 00:47:13.422
The flip side is Somebody Stole My Love.

00:47:13.563 --> 00:47:17.929
He plays in fifth position on that.

00:47:18.309 --> 00:47:18.590
You Lied to Me

00:47:30.402 --> 00:47:32.728
And that's pretty amazing because he plays great on it.

00:47:33.048 --> 00:47:39.789
And to me, that was like the first time I ever heard anybody playing amplified, you know, a blues harmonica in that position.

00:47:40.108 --> 00:47:41.092
I mean, it just stands out.

00:47:41.472 --> 00:47:42.777
He uses the same harmonica.

00:47:43.077 --> 00:47:44.541
He used a G for the, you know...

00:47:44.706 --> 00:47:50.092
you know, when they were playing in the key of D and then, you know, he went up and played it when they were playing in the next one.

00:47:50.552 --> 00:47:51.753
Well, fifth position is great, isn't it?

00:47:51.833 --> 00:47:52.795
It works really well.

00:47:52.855 --> 00:47:53.255
Yeah.

00:47:53.476 --> 00:47:57.119
And so do you play any overblows at all?

00:47:57.760 --> 00:47:59.121
No, I don't do overblows.

00:47:59.822 --> 00:48:02.065
Basically, I'm not a fast player.

00:48:02.405 --> 00:48:04.007
I don't consider playing a lot of notes.

00:48:04.849 --> 00:48:05.469
You know, what is that?

00:48:05.969 --> 00:48:10.815
You know, when I got with guys like Paul and stuff, it says, say what you say and mean what you say.

00:48:11.735 --> 00:48:13.057
Like you listen to Rice Miller.

00:48:13.282 --> 00:48:15.885
And he's, to me, is probably the best at this whole stuff.

00:48:16.726 --> 00:48:20.750
He's calling and responding to himself when he says something.

00:48:21.311 --> 00:48:23.853
You know, when you take a solo, you're supposed to say something.

00:48:24.014 --> 00:48:31.402
Like when I'm playing behind, when I was playing behind Jimmy Rogers or anybody, you know, I want to emphasize what Jimmy was saying there.

00:48:31.581 --> 00:48:32.603
That's what I'm doing.

00:48:32.643 --> 00:48:38.869
Like when you listen to the 50s saxophone players, you know, playing behind the doo-wop groups.

00:48:39.393 --> 00:48:40.255
That's what they would do.

00:48:40.434 --> 00:48:42.336
They were in any style of music back then.

00:48:42.637 --> 00:48:43.679
You know, that's what they did.

00:48:43.719 --> 00:48:46.742
They didn't go off and play like 60 million notes.

00:48:47.282 --> 00:48:51.806
You know, you're sitting there and you're, you know, I look at it and it says, well, where am I supposed to go now?

00:48:52.228 --> 00:48:54.289
You know, I don't even remember the song I was singing.

00:48:54.650 --> 00:48:56.172
And that's just the way I look at it, you know.

00:48:56.572 --> 00:48:59.295
And part of your sound is, you've already mentioned you're a tone blocker, yeah?

00:48:59.315 --> 00:49:01.878
So part of your sound is coming from being a tone blocker, yeah?

00:49:02.239 --> 00:49:02.458
Yes.

00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:07.804
When you listen to Rice Miller, you know, like here, real quick, here's some Sonny Boy.

00:49:08.806 --> 00:49:08.925
Mm-hmm.

00:49:22.402 --> 00:49:24.427
That would be like an intro to him.

00:49:25.449 --> 00:49:29.360
And that's the stuff he would play behind what he's doing on the harmonica.

00:49:30.403 --> 00:49:33.070
You know, Sunny Boy, that stuff he would do.

00:50:28.929 --> 00:50:29.451
Very nice.

00:50:29.530 --> 00:50:30.231
Very nice, Steve.

00:50:30.612 --> 00:50:31.152
Very nice.

00:50:31.554 --> 00:50:36.501
Moving on to amplifiers, I believe now you use a friend of Princeton, is it?

00:50:37.202 --> 00:50:40.827
Yeah, that's the one I have for pretty much my duo stuff.

00:50:41.367 --> 00:50:41.568
Yeah.

00:50:41.788 --> 00:50:42.710
Is that the 65?

00:50:43.110 --> 00:50:45.172
That's a kind of smallish amp, isn't it?

00:50:45.893 --> 00:50:47.737
Yeah, it suits.

00:50:47.797 --> 00:50:52.704
And, you know, we're not playing as loud that much anymore, you know, which is great, you know.

00:50:52.724 --> 00:50:57.030
And I actually, that's what I had to use my 410 concert that I had.

00:50:57.409 --> 00:50:58.351
I don't know what happened to it.

00:50:58.391 --> 00:51:02.117
I went and turned it on earlier before all the guys got there.

00:51:02.297 --> 00:51:04.842
And when I went to turn it on again, it just wasn't out working.

00:51:04.862 --> 00:51:05.744
So I don't know what happened.

00:51:06.666 --> 00:51:09.050
Luckily, I have my Princeton right there.

00:51:09.371 --> 00:51:10.411
It's not a reverb.

00:51:10.472 --> 00:51:11.835
I don't have a reverb one.

00:51:12.074 --> 00:51:12.596
I wish I did.

00:51:13.117 --> 00:51:13.918
Is it an original one

00:51:13.978 --> 00:51:14.039
or

00:51:14.059 --> 00:51:14.679
is it a reissue?

00:51:15.240 --> 00:51:16.362
No, it's an original.

00:51:16.583 --> 00:51:18.565
It's early 70s.

00:51:18.585 --> 00:51:21.851
So it wasn't the black, what they call blackface.

00:51:22.273 --> 00:51:22.914
It's a silver.

00:51:23.106 --> 00:51:28.514
silver that was right around and the early silvers were pretty close to the way the black ones sounded you know

00:51:28.735 --> 00:51:37.110
yeah and and so you prefer a kind of fender ramp it's not been customized for harmonica or anything you just prefer those fender amps to you over these kind of purpose-built amplifiers

00:51:37.150 --> 00:51:50.387
yeah i i also used to the gibson skylark with the one with the one i think it's an eight inch or ten inch little tiny amps i recorded my first record on seven records on that with one of them You know, the past life blues.

00:51:50.568 --> 00:52:11.657
That's what I use.

00:52:11.998 --> 00:52:13.000
It's a really small amp.

00:52:13.360 --> 00:52:15.123
Here's one thing that Jimmy Rogers told me.

00:52:15.384 --> 00:52:15.784
It's funny.

00:52:15.824 --> 00:52:20.753
We were playing in D.C., And we were getting ready to go both into our hotel rooms.

00:52:20.813 --> 00:52:25.119
And Jimmy started telling me, he says, you know, we use all the same stuff you guys use.

00:52:25.398 --> 00:52:27.961
You know, the microphones, of course, the same harmonicas.

00:52:28.222 --> 00:52:32.586
And he says, but we use smaller amps because they didn't have those big amps back then.

00:52:33.047 --> 00:52:37.251
That was the only difference between what we did back in the, he's talking about back in the 40s.

00:52:37.652 --> 00:52:39.675
Now, you know, he used to back up John Lee.

00:52:40.096 --> 00:52:42.077
Jimmy used to play guitar behind John Lee Williams.

00:52:42.858 --> 00:52:45.521
And he told me John Lee would get a little, you know, tipsy.

00:52:45.858 --> 00:52:51.286
and drinking, and he'd pass out, and Jimmy would take over the harmonica, and the place was going nuts.

00:52:51.626 --> 00:52:56.574
And then Sonny Poole would get mad and wake up and grab the harp out of Jimmy and go, back to Qatar, he goes.

00:52:56.594 --> 00:52:58.577
And Jimmy was laughing about it, you know.

00:52:58.677 --> 00:52:58.878
Yeah.

00:52:59.579 --> 00:53:07.371
And talking about microphones, I believe you source your microphones from Dennis Groenling, who, of course, has a fantastic harmonica and microphone business, yeah.

00:53:07.771 --> 00:53:09.393
Well, Dennis has got them, you know.

00:53:09.695 --> 00:53:12.358
I think he's got the monopoly around the world, doesn't he?

00:53:14.222 --> 00:53:14.302
Yeah.

00:53:14.561 --> 00:53:22.114
he certainly does i've got one of his uh so yeah he's uh he does a great job i don't know where he finds them all but yeah he does have some uh some great mics yeah

00:53:22.594 --> 00:53:54.068
me neither i'm amazed you know i used to be able to see him everywhere i mean i don't know if you ever heard of a harmonica player from toronto named the king biscuit boy he recorded some stuff back in the late late 60s very early 70s I went to see him in New York.

00:53:54.108 --> 00:53:54.929
I only met him once.

00:53:55.329 --> 00:53:59.235
He opened up for Electric Flag at the bottom line in 1974.

00:53:59.596 --> 00:54:01.237
And he had an aesthetic.

00:54:01.318 --> 00:54:02.219
I didn't know where you got him.

00:54:02.480 --> 00:54:03.442
I didn't know anything about him.

00:54:04.043 --> 00:54:05.344
And he looked at me.

00:54:05.364 --> 00:54:07.106
He says, you really like this microphone, don't you?

00:54:07.367 --> 00:54:07.807
I said, yeah.

00:54:07.827 --> 00:54:08.628
He says, here.

00:54:09.070 --> 00:54:09.771
And he gave it to me.

00:54:10.291 --> 00:54:11.012
I had it for years.

00:54:11.092 --> 00:54:12.856
I'm not sure where it's at anymore.

00:54:13.356 --> 00:54:14.458
That was a crystal then, was it?

00:54:15.079 --> 00:54:15.298
Yeah.

00:54:15.418 --> 00:54:17.643
And it had a sticker on there.

00:54:17.922 --> 00:54:22.068
It didn't have like the little rivets, you know, to keep where it was made at, you know.

00:54:22.510 --> 00:54:22.590
Yeah.

00:54:22.722 --> 00:54:23.724
So that fell off.

00:54:23.784 --> 00:54:26.150
That's why I couldn't remember which one it was.

00:54:26.391 --> 00:54:27.614
But it was actually made in Canada.

00:54:27.673 --> 00:54:31.543
Estatic had a company in Canada, which is pretty amazing.

00:54:31.824 --> 00:54:33.226
So do you prefer crystals?

00:54:33.728 --> 00:54:34.088
Yeah.

00:54:34.730 --> 00:54:37.317
I used to use the other ones, the ceramics.

00:54:37.556 --> 00:54:37.757
Yeah.

00:54:38.050 --> 00:54:38.411
But

00:54:38.431 --> 00:54:39.934
yeah, so a bit of both, but yeah, cool, yeah.

00:54:40.273 --> 00:54:43.701
Yeah, I hate to say it, but we used to buy them all day long for 15 bucks.

00:54:43.960 --> 00:54:45.164
Yeah, I know, it's crazy, isn't it?

00:54:45.384 --> 00:54:45.885
It's insane.

00:54:46.125 --> 00:54:49.913
And you play on Dennis Groening's Little Walter tribute album, don't you?

00:54:49.952 --> 00:54:50.773
I Just Keep Loving Him.

00:54:50.853 --> 00:54:51.054
Yes,

00:54:51.375 --> 00:54:51.835
yes, we do

00:54:51.876 --> 00:54:52.117
a couple

00:54:52.157 --> 00:54:52.838
of numbers together.

00:55:11.393 --> 00:55:13.396
So that was back in 2008, I think.

00:55:13.436 --> 00:55:14.798
Yeah, so you played with Dennis, yeah.

00:55:14.918 --> 00:55:15.559
Yeah, yeah.

00:55:15.860 --> 00:55:17.822
We stay in contact quite a bit, you know.

00:55:17.882 --> 00:55:19.784
He's a great guy, great player.

00:55:20.266 --> 00:55:22.708
Do you use any effects at all, any effects pedals?

00:55:23.811 --> 00:55:24.632
No, no.

00:55:25.112 --> 00:55:26.855
What you hear is basically what I do.

00:55:26.875 --> 00:55:26.954
Yeah,

00:55:27.355 --> 00:55:29.458
so no reverb or delay even?

00:55:30.199 --> 00:55:31.760
I don't think that there's a need for that.

00:55:32.643 --> 00:55:33.103
There may be.

00:55:33.342 --> 00:55:36.648
I mean, sometimes, you know, if you're playing something like Blue Lights,

00:55:37.088 --> 00:55:38.590
you

00:55:38.630 --> 00:55:41.054
know, you want that echo sound.

00:55:41.346 --> 00:55:43.208
That hollow sound that they got.

00:55:43.248 --> 00:56:05.612
It basically, as the doo-wops groups would say, I'm looking for an echo.

00:56:06.132 --> 00:56:07.273
If you've ever heard that song.

00:56:07.614 --> 00:56:10.838
See, what happened is, you know, they used to sing on the streets a lot.

00:56:11.010 --> 00:56:14.797
Then all of a sudden, they found out, wow, I go in the hallway, listen to this sound.

00:56:15.137 --> 00:56:17.422
I go in the subway, listen to that sound.

00:56:17.902 --> 00:56:20.327
And all of a sudden, everything opened up.

00:56:20.768 --> 00:56:25.757
I sing better when I'm in a bathroom in a club where it has that echo sound.

00:56:26.056 --> 00:56:35.293
The song is basically, I'm looking for an echo, an echo to a sound.

00:56:35.746 --> 00:56:36.806
And that's it, you know?

00:56:36.947 --> 00:56:37.166
Yeah.

00:56:37.588 --> 00:56:40.329
My voice is a little messed up today, so I'm not going to, I don't know what

00:56:40.369 --> 00:56:40.769
happened.

00:56:40.789 --> 00:56:41.030
No, super.

00:56:41.391 --> 00:56:41.530
Yeah.

00:56:41.550 --> 00:56:44.353
So, so yeah, just final question then, Steve, and great to speak to you.

00:56:44.414 --> 00:56:46.275
So about your future plans, what are you doing?

00:56:46.295 --> 00:56:47.516
Have you got any gigs coming up?

00:56:47.615 --> 00:56:48.697
Are you still getting out and playing?

00:56:48.896 --> 00:56:50.478
Well, yeah, we're out playing.

00:56:50.739 --> 00:56:56.864
I'm waiting for my passport to come back because I'm supposed to come to Switzerland and play with Nick Moss and Dennis and those guys.

00:56:56.903 --> 00:56:57.324
We're doing it.

00:56:57.465 --> 00:56:59.847
We're supposed to be doing a tribute to Jimmy Rogers.

00:57:00.166 --> 00:57:00.628
Ah, great.

00:57:00.827 --> 00:57:05.311
I'm in contact with Richard Farrell and he's thinking about trying to get me out there.

00:57:05.612 --> 00:57:06.213
When, would that be

00:57:06.512 --> 00:57:34.282
oh god i don't know you know when we'd be doing it and i still talk to you know all the different guys i play with you know got a herbie dunkel you know from austria tommy leno i you know we keep in touch yeah then my buddy in france and pascal de mars was the drummer yeah he booked us you know a lot yeah and all these different guys over there and there's a lot of them and i find that most of the musicians in europe can play this stuff great i really haven't heard many guys who couldn't pull it off

00:57:34.563 --> 00:57:36.184
yeah we love it we love it all around the world yeah

00:57:36.405 --> 00:57:38.307
yeah it really is it's amazing

00:57:38.909 --> 00:58:08.847
so thanks so much for joining me today steve geiger thank you once again thanks to zidel for sponsoring the podcast be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zidel1847.com or on facebook or instagram at zidel harmonicas thanks to tom ellis for once again helping me with the research for this episode Tom is currently writing a detailed article on Steve, which is due out in May 2023, so watch out for that for more great info on Steve.

00:58:09.668 --> 00:58:12.853
Also thanks to Kathy, who helped set up the interview with Steve.

00:58:13.474 --> 00:58:16.398
Apparently Kathy likes to hum along to Steve's harmonica playing.

00:58:16.699 --> 00:58:17.820
We should get that on record.

00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:29.235
My exciting announcement today is that the podcast passed the 50,000 download mark last week, so thanks so much for everyone who's listening and making those numbers what they are.

00:58:29.255 --> 00:58:31.057
Here's to the next 50,000.

00:58:31.777 --> 00:58:39.592
So remember again to check out the podcast website at harmonicahappyhour.com and the Spotify playlist where most of the tracks referenced can be heard.

00:58:40.394 --> 00:58:45.244
Now let's finish with Steve playing us out with a live version of his instrumental Snake Oil.

00:58:45.284 --> 00:58:46.365
Snake Oil