Feb. 22, 2023

Todd Parrott interview

Todd Parrot joins me on episode 80. Todd is a gospel harmonica player who was inspired to play harmonica after first hearing it in church. He went on to join the church band and has gone on to develop a heavenly tone on the instrument. Todd listened to a lot of country harmonica and was influenced from several players from that genre, including Terry McMillan. Todd released a self-produced solo album, Songs From The Harp, where he learned to play several instruments to accompany his har...

Todd Parrot joins me on episode 80.

Todd is a gospel harmonica player who was inspired to play harmonica after first hearing it in church. He went on to join the church band and has gone on to develop a heavenly tone on the instrument. Todd listened to a lot of country harmonica and was influenced from several players from that genre, including Terry McMillan.

Todd released a self-produced solo album, Songs From The Harp, where he learned to play several instruments to accompany his harmonica playing, as well as using other musicians. He is also a sought after session musician, appearing on albums from numerous recording artists.

Todd has run the Carolina HarpFest harmonica camp and is a regular at the annual SPAH event. He makes use of alternative tunings, makes his own combs and is an overblow player.

Links:

Todd’s website:
http://www.toddparrott.com/

Carolina Harp Fest:
http://www.toddparrott.com/carolina-harp-fest.html

Joe Spiers Custom harmonicas:
https://spiersharmonicas.com/

Hohner Golden Melody live launch stream (23/02/23):
https://www.hohner.de/en/community/news/news-details/product-launch-event-livestream

Videos:

Playing with Buddy Green at SPAH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvN9XsOEdWA

Playing Amazing Grace at SPAH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ2kom7jv6g

Todd reviews Joe Spiers custom harps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzrEg97RzLI

Todd playing a Golden Melody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZj5hCsx8vo

Reviewing Brendan Power’s Slip Slider harmonica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7vZCgf8Zc4

Demonstrates harmonica with 7 draw tuned down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hUCd03PDAM

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

01:44 - Todd is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and music scene there

02:20 - Todd is a Gospel harmonica player, with country and other genres thrown in

02:40 - Heard harmonica from father playing country music on the radio with harmonica in it, and grandfather played harmonica a little

02:57 - First heard harmonica when a visiting player performed in church. That got Todd hooked

03:40 - Bought a harmonica off this visiting player: a Huang Silverstone Deluxe diatonic (produced by Chamber Huang)

04:05 - Bought a Hohner harmonica shortly afterwards

04:35 - Still has first harmonica and occasionally plays it

04:53 - Playing church music

06:18 - Was 13 when got first harmonica and discovered harmonica on the radio and father’s tape recordings

06:50 - Listened to Mickey Raphael playing with Willie Nelson

07:18 - Terry McMillan was a big influence on Todd, with Terry playing on lots of recordings

08:31 - Buddy Greene and Charlie McCoy were other influences on Todd

09:35 - Didn’t listen to the blues players, with the lack of their influence meaning Todd developed his sound differently than a lot of harmonica players

10:10 - Also plays keyboard / organ, using it as first to learn some chords to relate to harmonica

11:53 - Todd was mostly playing in church bands, mostly melodies as hadn’t learnt anything about improvising

13:20 - First session was playing on a radio commercial age 15, playing blues licks

14:52 - Picked the harmonica up quickly in the supportive environment of the church

18:40 - Similarities between Gospel and Country harmonica and how to play them

21:24 - YouTube opened up the world of harmonica for Todd and people found him for some session work

22:13 - Todd has released an album called Songs From The Harp, released in 2014

23:32 - Gospel songs on the album

24:27 - Took three years to record the album and detail on how some of the songs were put together

26:05 - Todd recorded many of the other instruments on the album, learning some of them especially for the project

27:45 - Had already learnt some bass to fill-in for church band

28:22 - The other musicians playing on the album

31:09 - I Need Thee Every Hour song is a solo piece borrowed from Buddy Greene

32:04 - Plans to release another solo album, but recorded in a studio with Todd only playing harmonica

33:02 - Recorded on a country album by Bill Tripp

33:36 - Played with Mark Miller in Atlanta and why to never turn down a gig

34:57 - More session work recording on other musicians albums

36:13 - Album with Gabriel Bello of Stevie Wonder songs

37:36 - Live recordings playing with Buddy Greene at SPAH

38:04 - Todd teaches harmonica, and organised the Carolina HarpFest harmonica camp

39:25 - Appearing at SPAH this year, the 60th anniversary of the event

39:35 - Involvement in other harmonica workshops

40:13 - Heartily recommends going to SPAH

41:21 - 10 minute question, including playing in 6th position on a country tuned harmonica

43:21 - Playing along with whatever is on the radio is a good way to prepare for sitting in with bands, finding the notes that work

43:53 - Todd often uses a harmonica tuned with the 7 draw down, which has sort of become known as the Todd Parrott tuning (although he wasn’t the first to use it)

45:51 - Plays some Joe Spiers custom harmonicas

46:18 - Would do some basic set-up of own harps before using Joe Spiers ones

46:49 - 7 draw being tuned down was inspired by Pete Elder

47:43 - Maybe Todd should have Seydel manufacture the 7 draw down tuning

47:49 - Todd is a Hohner endorsee and mainly plays Golden Melodies, with a new Golden Melody being released by Hohner in early 2023

49:02 - Likes using Brendan Powers slip-slider harmonica

50:21 - Makes his own custom combs

51:40 - Todd uses overblows to play licks from low end of harp on the top end

53:53 - Embouchre: pucker player mainly

55:42 - Doesn’t play much chromatic

56:28 - Has a Lone Wolf Harp Train 10 amp and a Lone Wolf Harp Attack pedal

56:54 - Has one of the original Hohner Blues Blaster mics

57:12 - Uses any vocal mic going, has a Bulletini and Ultimate 58

WEBVTT

00:00:00.162 --> 00:00:02.025
Todd Parrott joins me on episode 80.

00:00:02.507 --> 00:00:07.256
Todd is a gospel harmonica player who was inspired to play harmonica after first hearing it in church.

00:00:07.717 --> 00:00:12.346
He went on to join the church band and has gone on to develop a heavenly tone on the instrument.

00:00:13.208 --> 00:00:19.301
Todd listened to a lot of country harmonica and was influenced from several players from that genre, including Terry McMillan.

00:00:20.225 --> 00:00:29.536
Todd released a self-produced solo album, Songs from the Harp, where he learned to play several instruments to accompany his harmonica playing, as well as using other musicians.

00:00:30.437 --> 00:00:35.281
He's also a sought-after session musician, appearing on albums from numerous recording artists.

00:00:36.262 --> 00:00:41.527
Todd has run the Carolina Heartfest Harmonica Camp and is a regular at the annual spa event.

00:00:42.029 --> 00:00:47.073
He makes use of alternative tunings, makes his own calms, and is an overblow player.

00:00:48.033 --> 00:00:50.558
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:50.979 --> 00:01:00.319
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:39.841 --> 00:01:41.665
Hello, Todd Parrott, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:42.224 --> 00:01:43.466
Thanks so much for having me, Neil.

00:01:43.507 --> 00:01:44.128
Great to be here.

00:01:44.489 --> 00:01:48.754
So you're speaking to us, I believe you live in North Carolina in the U.S.?

00:01:48.855 --> 00:01:49.094
Right,

00:01:49.376 --> 00:01:50.016
right outside the

00:01:50.096 --> 00:01:50.778
Charlotte area.

00:01:51.078 --> 00:01:52.640
What's the music scene like around there?

00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:58.688
Well, I think there's probably more music in the Raleigh-Durham area than there is in Charlotte.

00:01:58.709 --> 00:02:01.914
There's, of course, a nice blues society here.

00:02:02.433 --> 00:02:11.174
But other than that, it's not quite the same as it is in where I'm from originally, Raleigh-Durham, because of all of the colleges and universities.

00:02:11.193 --> 00:02:15.163
There's just a lot of stuff happening, especially in downtown Durham these days.

00:02:15.263 --> 00:02:19.954
But Charlotte, yeah, not kind of slim pickings here, at least as far as I know.

00:02:20.354 --> 00:02:25.986
You're a, you know, largely a kind of gospel harmonica player, other types as country and other genres, which we'll get into.

00:02:26.026 --> 00:02:31.258
But yeah, it's great to speak to someone, I think, probably for the first time from that sort of gospel kind of angle.

00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.969
So I think you first heard harmonica when someone came into church playing it.

00:02:35.991 --> 00:02:39.038
And that's how you first discovered you wanted to play harmonica.

00:02:39.425 --> 00:02:50.717
Yes, but prior to that, my father always listened to country music, and so I would hear harmonica on the television with Boxcar Willie and all of the country artists that he would listen to.

00:02:50.758 --> 00:03:07.537
And then my grandfather would give us harmonicas because he played a little bit, but I was never really into harmonica until I heard it first when this guest speaker came because they were announcing that he was going to play the French horn, which we all know what a French horn is.

00:03:07.616 --> 00:03:08.277
It's nothing like a...

00:03:08.737 --> 00:03:09.278
harmonica.

00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:11.925
And I think they were thinking French harp.

00:03:12.246 --> 00:03:15.192
So as a 13 year old kid, I was thinking French horn.

00:03:15.231 --> 00:03:17.677
This guy's going to come and pull out a French horn and play.

00:03:17.717 --> 00:03:18.439
I got to see this.

00:03:18.539 --> 00:03:21.126
And so when he showed up, it was actually a harmonica.

00:03:21.165 --> 00:03:22.307
And so I was fascinated.

00:03:22.688 --> 00:03:25.975
And he was with us for maybe two or three nights.

00:03:26.356 --> 00:03:30.740
And He was selling harmonicas, and I kind of went and bought one.

00:03:30.780 --> 00:03:35.165
My mom told me not to do so, and she said, don't waste your money on that harmonica.

00:03:35.586 --> 00:03:39.853
But it was my money, so I went ahead and bought the harmonica, and then it kind of just stuck.

00:03:40.112 --> 00:03:40.372
Great.

00:03:40.393 --> 00:03:42.235
Do you know what sort of harmonica was that?

00:03:42.616 --> 00:03:43.198
Oh, yeah.

00:03:43.298 --> 00:03:48.885
Actually, back then, it was a Wong Silvertone Deluxe, and I still have that in Chamber Wong.

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He used to work for Hohner.

00:03:51.331 --> 00:03:52.413
He and his brother Frank.

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And when they left Hohner, they started their own company.

00:03:55.776 --> 00:03:58.939
Some of the harmonicas were really good during that time.

00:03:58.979 --> 00:04:00.841
And some of them were really bad.

00:04:00.860 --> 00:04:03.044
It just depends on luck of the draw.

00:04:03.424 --> 00:04:05.765
But I got a good one and it played really well.

00:04:05.846 --> 00:04:07.828
And then I moved very quickly to Hohner.

00:04:07.848 --> 00:04:13.674
And I think my first Hohner was probably a Blues Harp or maybe an American Ace.

00:04:13.954 --> 00:04:14.474
One of the two.

00:04:14.574 --> 00:04:16.317
I may have bought them at the same time.

00:04:16.336 --> 00:04:17.598
That was the old one.

00:04:17.826 --> 00:04:30.985
blues harp before the ms series and then after that we quickly moved to marine bands because there was a music store in town that that carried marine bands and so i got an a a d and an e and then i was really hooked

00:04:31.447 --> 00:04:34.951
great and this first one you got the chamber one that was a diatonic

00:04:35.312 --> 00:04:44.206
it was a diatonic key of c diatonic and it played great and i still have it and every once in a while i'll pull it out and play a few licks on it's just kind of nostalgic but

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That's great.

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I'm sure there's probably not that many people who have their very first harmonica.

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I definitely don't.

00:04:49.516 --> 00:04:51.059
So yeah, it must be quite nice to have that.

00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:52.961
Yeah, it's pretty beat up, but it plays well.

00:04:53.341 --> 00:04:58.310
So this guy then, he was, you heard in church, the kind of first time you really discovered.

00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:00.913
Was he playing church music on the harmonica?

00:05:01.173 --> 00:05:03.336
Oh yeah, yeah, just with the church musicians.

00:05:03.377 --> 00:05:10.206
And you know, with church musicians, especially back then, it was all just volunteer musicians.

00:05:10.326 --> 00:05:12.951
No one really got paid to play music.

00:05:13.252 --> 00:05:21.564
Nowadays, churches have a whole team and they have a music director and sometimes a staff of musicians, but it was still really good.

00:05:21.603 --> 00:05:22.985
The music was really good.

00:05:23.247 --> 00:05:25.048
And I think he was playing an F harmonica.

00:05:25.470 --> 00:05:30.898
It just was fascinating because I'd never seen harmonica up close and live like that.

00:05:31.038 --> 00:05:32.701
So it really caught my ear.

00:05:32.721 --> 00:05:34.744
And I thought, man, that's really cool.

00:05:34.783 --> 00:05:38.970
And I'd always thought prior to that, harmonica can't be too hard to play.

00:05:39.411 --> 00:05:48.612
This is just as a kid, because I would think, you know, you don't have to press any buttons or You just move up and down, which we know it's more to it than that.

00:05:48.713 --> 00:05:50.194
But a lot of that is true.

00:05:50.214 --> 00:05:52.699
You know, just moving around the harmonica, you can get what you need.

00:05:52.759 --> 00:05:58.947
I had no idea about bending notes or anything like that, but I was kind of curious, I guess, about harmonica.

00:05:59.389 --> 00:06:02.973
And then when I saw that, I had to take the plunge.

00:06:18.754 --> 00:06:20.956
How old were you when you got this first harmonica?

00:06:20.976 --> 00:06:21.959
13 years old.

00:06:22.600 --> 00:06:25.704
And so after you'd heard this, and obviously, again, he was in a church band, right?

00:06:25.745 --> 00:06:28.288
So how did you start discovering harmonica music?

00:06:28.329 --> 00:06:30.913
Or how did you then progress to learning harmonica?

00:06:31.613 --> 00:06:37.041
Well, I really didn't have access to any of the blues guys or blues records.

00:06:37.502 --> 00:06:41.007
So I had to pretty much just play whatever I could get my hands on.

00:06:41.108 --> 00:06:47.077
I was kind of like a scavenger going through the radio and going through my dad's country music.

00:06:47.298 --> 00:07:13.324
tapes at the time cassette tapes and listening to players like mickey raphael because that was who you found a lot like with all the willie nelson albums Johnny Cash had some harmonica.

00:07:13.345 --> 00:07:16.129
Okay, so you listened to a lot of country players then.

00:07:16.189 --> 00:07:17.850
That's the sort of music you had access to.

00:07:17.911 --> 00:07:22.497
So I know that a player that really influenced you was a guy called Terry McMillan.

00:07:22.838 --> 00:07:23.098
Right.

00:07:23.278 --> 00:07:23.317
I

00:07:23.358 --> 00:07:24.940
was pretty much a scavenger.

00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:27.524
My dad had all the country stuff.

00:07:27.603 --> 00:07:29.607
My mom had gospel music.

00:07:29.927 --> 00:07:31.009
My sisters did too.

00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:34.233
My siblings were all much older than me.

00:07:34.894 --> 00:07:37.677
So I would go through their records and their music.

00:07:37.877 --> 00:07:40.562
But when I found Terry McMillan, yeah, that was kind of...

00:07:41.410 --> 00:07:42.733
cool find.

00:07:42.754 --> 00:07:44.759
I was like, wow, what a great tone.

00:08:03.553 --> 00:08:05.057
He played on everybody's records.

00:08:05.358 --> 00:08:06.240
He was on everything.

00:08:06.281 --> 00:08:10.790
He was on all of the big country label production records.

00:08:11.252 --> 00:08:14.038
And he was also on the mom and pop stuff, independent labels.

00:08:14.139 --> 00:08:17.588
Even one of my high school teachers said, you ever heard of Terry McMillan?

00:08:17.627 --> 00:08:18.589
I said, oh, yeah.

00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:20.612
He said, well, he played on one of my records.

00:08:21.995 --> 00:08:25.040
And this was just a school teacher who did music on the side.

00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:28.807
But I guess he went to Nashville and made an album and Terry McMillan was there.

00:08:28.846 --> 00:08:30.348
So he showed up all over the place.

00:08:30.389 --> 00:08:32.253
So Terry McMillan, Buddy Green.

00:08:32.732 --> 00:08:38.462
I was given a Buddy Green cassette as a birthday present and totally fascinated.

00:08:38.702 --> 00:08:39.725
Just fascinated.

00:08:55.042 --> 00:08:58.559
After that, Charlie McCoy, believe it or not, a kid on the school bus.

00:08:58.946 --> 00:09:02.931
gave me a Charlie McCoy cassette called One for the Road.

00:09:02.971 --> 00:09:04.293
That was the name of the album.

00:09:04.352 --> 00:09:06.856
And that was my first introduction to Charlie McCoy.

00:09:06.876 --> 00:09:17.770
And again, I was blown away and kind of blown away that this kid on the school bus would have a Charlie McCoy cassette in a time when everybody was into metal bands and big hair and all that stuff.

00:09:17.831 --> 00:09:22.837
This kid, for some reason, had a Charlie McCoy tape, but I'm so glad that he did.

00:09:22.857 --> 00:09:26.663
That was just a very happy coincidence.

00:09:26.964 --> 00:09:28.306
So those three players...

00:09:28.802 --> 00:09:31.873
are mostly what I cut my teeth on.

00:09:31.893 --> 00:09:33.820
There were other things along the way.

00:09:33.899 --> 00:09:40.065
You found other players here and there, but I didn't have access to Little Walter or Sonny Boy or any of the great blues players.

00:09:40.644 --> 00:09:45.408
So I never really got into that style as far as tongue blocking and that sort of thing.

00:09:45.649 --> 00:09:48.192
But I still think those players were great.

00:09:48.231 --> 00:09:55.258
I wish I would have had access to other things, but in a way, I'm kind of glad that I took the path that I did because it kind of shaped my sound.

00:09:55.638 --> 00:09:56.239
Definitely, yeah.

00:09:56.259 --> 00:09:57.679
I mean, absolutely going to say that.

00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:05.606
It's really interesting that you're coming from that angle because the vast majority of harmonica players obviously started with blues or at least were heavily influenced by blues.

00:10:05.687 --> 00:10:10.371
So yeah, it's great and it's giving you that sound, as you say, which we'll get into more as we carry on talking.

00:10:10.471 --> 00:10:13.154
You also play keyboards and organ now as well, don't you?

00:10:13.174 --> 00:10:14.937
So did you start learning that afterwards?

00:10:15.177 --> 00:10:16.359
Afterwards, yeah, because I

00:10:17.158 --> 00:10:22.184
didn't really play anything before harmonica except maybe a recorder in elementary school.

00:10:22.404 --> 00:10:24.927
All the kids were kind of made to play the recorder.

00:10:25.448 --> 00:10:26.269
So that was it.

00:10:26.470 --> 00:10:28.211
The harmonica was my first instrument.

00:10:28.312 --> 00:10:36.966
And then my mom played piano and my dad bought her one of those fancy pianos that where you Push the button and the whole band just takes off playing.

00:10:37.168 --> 00:10:40.908
It was one of those Yamaha keyboards with all the bells and whistles in.

00:10:41.250 --> 00:10:46.975
I started playing piano just because my brother was playing boogie-woogies and stuff like that.

00:10:47.014 --> 00:10:48.836
And I got him to show me, hey, what are you doing here?

00:10:48.856 --> 00:10:51.859
And he didn't really play, but he showed me what he was playing.

00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:55.802
Then I was able to learn the boogie-woogie, which gave me my 1-4-5.

00:10:56.582 --> 00:11:01.267
And I didn't even know what 1-4-5 meant, but that was a 12-bar blues.

00:11:01.648 --> 00:11:11.556
And so we would, on this piano, record the basic boogie-woogie, and then we'd go back on another track and record high piano licks and go on another track and do something else.

00:11:11.576 --> 00:11:14.099
It was just more of a joke than anything else.

00:11:14.198 --> 00:11:17.783
We would just play it back and laugh because it sounded like we were really doing something.

00:11:18.443 --> 00:11:20.265
It was multi layers of piano.

00:11:20.605 --> 00:11:27.594
But from that, I started messing with the piano and then using my harmonica to look at the piano chords and sound things out.

00:11:27.913 --> 00:11:31.557
So I never really started with piano to try to be a piano player.

00:11:31.577 --> 00:11:42.254
I still don't consider myself a fluent piano player, but I do know a lot of chords and I do understand now when I hear a piece of music, the chords that are being used.

00:11:42.735 --> 00:11:47.522
And so it helps me know what notes to choose if a diminished chord comes across.

00:11:48.182 --> 00:11:55.873
From this stage where you started playing harmonica with your brother and the keyboard and you're learning piano, how did you progress to start playing more harmonica music?

00:11:55.913 --> 00:11:58.216
What were you playing with church bands or other things?

00:11:58.336 --> 00:12:01.780
Yeah, just playing in church because I was really just playing melodies.

00:12:02.201 --> 00:12:05.145
I didn't know anything about improvising.

00:12:05.570 --> 00:12:11.080
Other than what I've heard other harmonica players do on these records, if they took a short solo break.

00:12:11.100 --> 00:12:15.267
But as far as like a 12-bar blues solo, I had no idea how to do that.

00:12:15.366 --> 00:12:16.389
I was just playing melody.

00:12:16.448 --> 00:12:19.774
So if I played in the church, it was just to come up and play a solo.

00:12:19.835 --> 00:12:25.785
They thought it was really cool that a teenager like me was advancing with the harmonica.

00:12:26.177 --> 00:12:27.659
It was kind of like a novelty.

00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:30.764
So I would come up and play melodies, basically.

00:12:31.345 --> 00:12:34.068
Were you learning those melodies from written music or by ear?

00:12:34.149 --> 00:12:37.032
Just by ear, just from other things that I could find.

00:12:37.393 --> 00:12:41.599
Buddy Green, even Terry McMillan had a gospel project out.

00:12:41.859 --> 00:12:43.421
I think that didn't come out until 92.

00:12:44.261 --> 00:12:51.331
So prior to that, it was mainly Buddy Green and just whatever I could find to mimic.

00:12:51.731 --> 00:12:54.975
There were a few other gospel players at that time.

00:12:54.995 --> 00:12:56.018
And back then...

00:12:56.481 --> 00:12:59.466
People would just give you cassettes of people.

00:12:59.525 --> 00:13:01.950
It was kind of weird how it all came together.

00:13:02.490 --> 00:13:10.562
But I started playing also with like accompaniment with other groups, little quartets and groups just within the church.

00:13:10.662 --> 00:13:16.370
I mean, I was too young to go playing gigs and things like that because I was 13, 14.

00:13:16.389 --> 00:13:24.520
And I think one of the first things I did too when I was around 15 was played on some radio commercial that...

00:13:25.121 --> 00:13:28.466
this guy was doing for his father-in-law's restaurant.

00:13:28.506 --> 00:13:34.576
So I just went to the local music store and that was my first recording experience.

00:13:34.716 --> 00:13:37.318
But yeah, I never really played a lot of gigs.

00:13:37.340 --> 00:13:39.322
It was mainly just songs.

00:13:39.602 --> 00:13:43.307
And then my brother did play blues on the guitar.

00:13:43.347 --> 00:13:45.991
So he would play the 12 bar blues and tell me to play something.

00:13:46.011 --> 00:13:47.653
And I said, well, what do you want me to play?

00:13:47.673 --> 00:13:48.816
I don't know, just jam.

00:13:48.956 --> 00:14:00.244
And so I kind of learned that just from playing with him and just playing licks that I'd learned from these gospel records and maybe play a warble or something like that over the 12 bars.

00:14:00.806 --> 00:14:03.350
Just by ear, just pick things out.

00:14:04.131 --> 00:14:04.392
Great.

00:14:04.432 --> 00:14:07.538
Do you have a copy of that recording, your first commercial recording?

00:14:07.818 --> 00:14:08.860
No, I wish I did.

00:14:08.921 --> 00:14:10.624
I can't even remember the name of the restaurant.

00:14:10.644 --> 00:14:12.027
I think it was in Florida.

00:14:12.067 --> 00:14:18.342
This guy that had this recording gear at the music store that was in the Raleigh Durham area.

00:14:18.663 --> 00:14:21.067
I think his father-in-law had the restaurant in Florida.

00:14:21.106 --> 00:14:26.693
So I don't even know, but it was something like the commercial went something like, Oh man, my band's got the blues.

00:14:26.734 --> 00:14:28.856
We're on the road and we're hungry.

00:14:28.876 --> 00:14:30.519
We can't find a good place to eat.

00:14:30.558 --> 00:14:31.941
And so it's like a slow blues.

00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:35.245
And then he says, I know let's go to whatever the restaurant name was.

00:14:35.284 --> 00:14:41.332
And then the music picks up and everything kind of kicks in high gear.

00:14:41.352 --> 00:14:44.128
And I just thought it was a funny, idea for a commercial.

00:14:44.148 --> 00:14:45.649
And the harmonica worked out well.

00:14:45.669 --> 00:14:51.538
And by that time, by 15, I guess I had a little bit better handle on how to play blues licks.

00:14:52.058 --> 00:14:53.221
I was always around music.

00:14:53.301 --> 00:15:00.831
So, you know, being in the church and hearing lively music and hearing choirs and listening to the choir director teach the parts.

00:15:00.952 --> 00:15:08.023
And I just kind of had a good ear and a good feel for music because of the way I grew up.

00:15:08.243 --> 00:15:09.745
So the harmonica was...

00:15:10.241 --> 00:15:15.870
I didn't learn overnight, but it came probably a little bit faster for me just because of that.

00:15:15.890 --> 00:15:21.941
And having my mom there to help me with what key something was in or she'd play piano and let me play.

00:15:21.980 --> 00:15:26.948
I do have some recordings of that where I had been playing maybe four months, six months, one year.

00:15:26.969 --> 00:15:29.953
So they're kind of funny to go back and listen to now, but.

00:15:30.177 --> 00:15:30.999
They weren't too bad.

00:15:31.038 --> 00:15:34.183
So it sounds like the church was a great place for you to learn.

00:15:34.224 --> 00:15:37.990
You know, you were performing in front of people and I'm sure a very supportive group as well.

00:15:38.270 --> 00:15:38.630
You're playing.

00:15:38.851 --> 00:15:40.413
Is that a really good environment to learn in?

00:15:40.894 --> 00:15:41.755
Oh yeah, I think so.

00:15:41.777 --> 00:15:46.163
Again, all the musicians were volunteer and all the singers were volunteer.

00:15:46.323 --> 00:15:48.927
So they weren't too critical of my bad notes.

00:15:49.448 --> 00:15:51.792
They just thought it was cool because it was harmonica.

00:15:52.192 --> 00:16:00.240
But then, You know, at other functions, youth camps and things like that, I would get asked to play and there'd be a bigger audience.

00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:03.485
So I got invited up to play at things like that.

00:16:03.605 --> 00:16:08.250
And a lot of times when people hear you play, they would want you to sit in with them.

00:16:08.272 --> 00:16:12.857
You know, these singers and musicians, hey, we're doing this song tonight.

00:16:13.458 --> 00:16:15.400
Can you play harmonica with us?

00:16:15.461 --> 00:16:18.505
And I had no idea what to play at first.

00:16:19.667 --> 00:16:21.330
I was like, well, sure, but...

00:16:21.793 --> 00:16:22.676
What do you want me to play?

00:16:22.895 --> 00:16:23.317
Oh, I don't know.

00:16:23.437 --> 00:16:24.238
Just play whatever.

00:16:24.278 --> 00:16:28.767
So it was kind of like just stepping in the water, being pushed in the water.

00:16:28.807 --> 00:16:29.969
You got to sink or swim.

00:16:30.570 --> 00:16:36.080
But very quickly, I learned because of the records I was listening to.

00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:42.792
I was very much influenced, of course, we already said by Terry McMillan and Buddy Green, but these guys played on records.

00:16:42.851 --> 00:16:43.754
So I learned licks.

00:16:43.953 --> 00:16:44.956
And with Terry McMillan...

00:16:59.169 --> 00:17:08.858
He had a handful of licks, probably more than that, but he had several licks that he would transpose and transplant into different songs.

00:17:08.919 --> 00:17:17.386
He had a system, and I learned very quickly how to take those licks and adapt to other songs and put fills in there.

00:17:17.406 --> 00:17:20.210
I wasn't really good at soloing, but I was good at playing fills.

00:17:20.650 --> 00:17:21.411
Yeah, so I was going to

00:17:21.471 --> 00:17:22.192
ask you about that.

00:17:22.211 --> 00:17:28.438
That's what I really enjoy doing still today a lot is just playing fills, but that's kind of how...

00:17:29.281 --> 00:17:32.445
I progressed with just playing with this group and that group.

00:17:33.567 --> 00:17:34.669
Can you play this song?

00:17:34.689 --> 00:17:36.912
So I'd have to listen to this song and learn it.

00:17:36.971 --> 00:17:43.800
But as far as joining a band, no, I never did anything like that when I was young.

00:17:44.241 --> 00:17:52.212
It was just, again, just rolling with the punches and trying out different things.

00:17:52.272 --> 00:17:55.596
But that was a good experience because I had to learn quickly.

00:17:55.616 --> 00:17:57.819
A lot of times I had to learn these things quickly.

00:17:58.862 --> 00:17:58.942
Yeah.

00:17:59.233 --> 00:18:02.039
Later, the piano helped greatly.

00:18:02.059 --> 00:18:05.448
I know we talked about the piano, but that helped greatly because I knew the chords.

00:18:05.468 --> 00:18:09.676
I knew where we were and I knew what licks would fit over those chords for the most part.

00:18:10.259 --> 00:18:16.772
Curve ball every once in a while may throw me off, but for the most part, I knew what to do and how to get around

00:18:16.792 --> 00:18:17.054
those changes.

00:18:40.738 --> 00:18:42.865
So one thing I was going to ask about that.

00:18:42.905 --> 00:18:47.344
So you're obviously listening to, it sounds like, mostly country music and country harmonica.

00:18:47.384 --> 00:18:51.901
So how did that adapt to gospel and what the similarities and things you could use there?

00:18:52.321 --> 00:18:53.462
Oh, it's very similar.

00:18:53.522 --> 00:18:54.364
Country and gospel.

00:18:54.384 --> 00:19:11.082
A lot of times, even at the spa conventions, we will combine country and gospel into one jam or into one seminar because a lot of the gospel is country-style gospel or southern gospel, as they call it, which I was never really a big fan of southern gospel.

00:19:11.122 --> 00:19:16.227
Some of it is okay, but the harmonica work is what caught my ear.

00:19:16.288 --> 00:19:18.190
So I didn't care what it was.

00:19:18.230 --> 00:19:20.104
If It had harmonica in it.

00:19:20.304 --> 00:19:22.326
I wanted to hear it and learn it.

00:19:22.807 --> 00:19:30.715
And then, of course, with gospel music, then you have contemporary style pop, I guess, if you want to call it that.

00:19:31.257 --> 00:19:36.182
You have choir music, which is more of a, that's its own thing.

00:19:36.221 --> 00:19:42.750
If you think about the Blues Brothers, where they go to the church and James Brown is the pastor there.

00:19:42.882 --> 00:19:43.603
I've seen the lot.

00:19:43.643 --> 00:19:43.863
Yes.

00:19:44.423 --> 00:19:44.523
And

00:19:44.544 --> 00:19:45.486
they're singing that song.

00:19:45.526 --> 00:19:50.712
Let us all go down to the old landmark or let us all go back to the old landmark, you know, that style.

00:19:50.792 --> 00:19:53.696
But harmonica fits well in that because you just play blues league.

00:19:53.717 --> 00:19:55.940
So there's really just two ways to approach it.

00:19:56.319 --> 00:20:08.356
If it's a country style song, gospel or country or whatever, or if it's a pop song, you're going to play happy notes is what I call it, you know, which most people would say major pentatonic or major scale stuff.

00:20:08.936 --> 00:20:14.932
And if it's a bluesy gospel song, or a bluesy country song like Folsom Prison.

00:20:14.972 --> 00:20:17.635
You can use notes from the blues scale.

00:20:17.675 --> 00:20:18.696
Sometimes you can use both.

00:20:18.737 --> 00:20:20.239
Folsom Prison's a good example.

00:20:20.278 --> 00:20:24.002
You can use country Charlie McCoy style licks and bluesy licks.

00:20:24.123 --> 00:20:26.425
So there was really just two ways.

00:20:26.486 --> 00:20:28.648
It really didn't matter about the style.

00:20:28.749 --> 00:20:31.672
It was more about the feel of the song and what it needs.

00:20:32.153 --> 00:20:41.930
Just like an interior decorator, I guess, could come in and look at the room and decide what type of curtains and what type of pictures to hang on the wall.

00:20:42.571 --> 00:20:45.759
After you've played so many songs, you kind of get a feel for what it needs.

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:52.651
And if you listen to the chords and the melody, if you played with Ray Charles, you definitely want to play bluesy licks

00:20:53.893 --> 00:21:08.696
yeah so great so i don't know you said you haven't necessarily sort of been with touring bands or anything so you know how did your music develop because obviously you have gone on to record with other artists and we'll get onto that shortly so you know so how did you you know how did you progress from playing with other people and things

00:21:09.597 --> 00:21:47.134
well you know for many years just i just uh played harmonica but had a normal life you know this was before youtube and and before the well not before the internet but before youtube and sharing harmonica i just had a regular job and i would play harmonica on the side but i think i think youtube really even though i haven't posted anything in a long time i think that really exposed me to the harmonica world and just to other musicians i get a lot of calls and have through the years i've gotten a lot of calls to do sessions for people and i don't really know how they have found me.

00:21:47.174 --> 00:21:52.519
It's kind of funny how it works, but that's a good question.

00:21:53.079 --> 00:21:56.643
Well, your great playing is one answer to that, Todd.

00:21:57.343 --> 00:21:58.565
Thanks, man.

00:21:58.585 --> 00:22:03.588
Again, it's really interesting because it sounds like you've kind of developed in many ways in your own sort of little bubble.

00:22:03.769 --> 00:22:13.096
Like you said, the internet's obviously a big part of that and you've listened to other players, but it's really interesting and people have discovered you and you've done quite a lot of session work and everything, haven't you?

00:22:13.778 --> 00:22:17.260
You've also got an album out which you released yourself called songs from the harp.

00:22:17.300 --> 00:22:18.801
So what year did you release that one?

00:22:20.243 --> 00:22:23.866
That came out right at the end of 2014, December of 2014.

00:22:23.906 --> 00:22:28.511
But I worked on that for a long time because I played many of the instruments there.

00:22:28.551 --> 00:22:31.034
So yeah, that was a very long process.

00:22:31.094 --> 00:22:32.796
A lot of work went into that.

00:22:32.955 --> 00:22:38.020
And that's kind of like a collection of songs that I played through the years.

00:22:39.162 --> 00:22:46.262
One of the songs on there, Unclouded Day, was the first song that I ever played When I got up and played my first solo in church.

00:23:02.371 --> 00:23:05.857
And that was also a song that my mom would play.

00:23:06.529 --> 00:23:10.454
For me to practice, you know, just to try to learn how the song went.

00:23:10.595 --> 00:23:21.909
And so I put that on the record and put a little bit of a saloon style as best I could piano, because that kind of reminds me of the way my mom used to play.

00:23:21.989 --> 00:23:25.192
So I did that just as a tribute to her, sort of.

00:23:25.212 --> 00:23:27.977
So we both kind of laugh about that.

00:23:28.096 --> 00:23:30.579
But that was the first song that ever played.

00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:35.917
So I wanted to put that on the album and And then some of the others are just, you know, I'll Fly Away.

00:23:35.958 --> 00:23:57.422
And Amazing Grace, gospel songs have pretty much...

00:23:57.890 --> 00:24:02.865
Everybody knows or plays if they go to a harmonica convention, you'll hear those songs played.

00:24:03.186 --> 00:24:05.153
I just wanted to put my own version out there.

00:24:27.041 --> 00:24:27.423
Great.

00:24:27.482 --> 00:24:30.886
So talking more about the process, you say you'd finished it in 2014.

00:24:30.926 --> 00:24:33.391
So when do you think you started this?

00:24:33.510 --> 00:24:35.993
Or was it a case of just knowing those songs for a long time?

00:24:36.013 --> 00:24:36.054
Oh,

00:24:36.494 --> 00:24:39.318
probably around 2011, maybe.

00:24:39.358 --> 00:24:45.587
Some of the stuff that was on there were tracks that I had recorded from several years prior.

00:24:45.667 --> 00:24:48.632
And they were just sitting on a hard disk recorder.

00:24:48.672 --> 00:24:51.675
And then we took them and put them in Pro Tools and redid some of them.

00:24:51.736 --> 00:25:09.385
And so some of the tracks from the Train song, drum track on that was that was me just playing with the brushes but we put that into pro tools and made it sound a little better and i redid things but yeah it was really just amazing that the project came together as well as it did

00:25:09.686 --> 00:25:21.521
yeah but you'd obviously made a decision that you wanted to get together a collection of songs which you were calling an album so yeah so oh yeah and it sounds great so is this your your only single your only solo album so far

00:25:22.721 --> 00:25:24.807
Yeah, so far, yeah, that's the only one.

00:25:25.227 --> 00:25:27.231
And I did that because I was doing a lot more.

00:25:27.251 --> 00:25:31.260
At the time, I was doing a lot more playing out in churches.

00:25:31.381 --> 00:25:40.560
I would just go in and either do an entire set or a lot of times just go play two or three songs as a part of their Sunday morning service.

00:25:40.661 --> 00:25:42.664
And then I would sell CDs.

00:25:43.298 --> 00:25:46.961
And I've been doing that off and on since probably 2001.

00:25:47.582 --> 00:25:51.465
Even when I was working just a regular job, I would go out and play on the weekends.

00:25:51.546 --> 00:25:54.028
But I never really got into much playing with the band.

00:25:54.067 --> 00:25:56.730
It was always just kind of solo work.

00:25:57.391 --> 00:26:01.255
Well, I've got to say for everyone listening, it's a fantastic album, some fantastic playing from Utah.

00:26:01.275 --> 00:26:02.895
So I definitely recommend people to check it out.

00:26:02.935 --> 00:26:05.159
Obviously, there'll be links to your website and everything to find it.

00:26:05.199 --> 00:26:07.300
But you say you played a lot of the instruments yourself.

00:26:07.340 --> 00:26:08.942
What were those other instruments?

00:26:09.462 --> 00:26:12.846
Well, the keyboard, piano, organ, bass, guitar.

00:26:13.218 --> 00:26:15.400
on all of the songs except for one.

00:26:15.420 --> 00:26:19.904
And then drums only on the train song.

00:26:19.924 --> 00:26:22.028
I can play drums, but I'm not a drummer.

00:26:22.127 --> 00:26:24.329
So I only played on the train song.

00:26:24.349 --> 00:26:29.997
And that was just with brushes and tambourines and stuff like that, percussion instruments and things.

00:26:30.096 --> 00:26:35.643
But I don't consider myself to be a fluent anything except for harmonica.

00:26:35.843 --> 00:26:40.788
So the other things I worked really hard to try and make it sound as good as possible.

00:26:42.594 --> 00:26:48.021
So, yeah, again, how did you go about approaching learning these different instruments to record with?

00:26:48.803 --> 00:26:50.384
Well, just through the years,

00:26:50.885 --> 00:27:04.505
playing piano and having a piano with all the bells and whistles on it where you could play multi-track, record multi-track, piano, bass guitar on the piano, you know, just set it on a bass guitar setting.

00:27:04.545 --> 00:27:05.866
There was drums on the organ.

00:27:05.926 --> 00:27:18.317
So I spent a lot of time, besides playing harmonica, I spent a lot of time analyzing songs and listening to what all the parts did, the bass and the organ and the keyboards and the drums.

00:27:18.478 --> 00:27:27.926
And on this piano that I had, a lot of the demonstration patterns or rhythms, like there was a boogie woogie on there, there was a bossa nova, there was all kinds of things.

00:27:27.967 --> 00:27:33.532
And it would be like the full band playing, but it had faders and you could isolate each instrument and listen to it.

00:27:33.893 --> 00:27:42.592
So I spent a lot of time doing that and then trying to play piano chords myself or listening to records and trying to figure out chords.

00:27:42.612 --> 00:27:44.374
I was really fascinated with chords.

00:27:45.276 --> 00:27:50.063
And then I started playing bass guitar probably, I don't know, sometime in the late 90s.

00:27:50.522 --> 00:27:55.329
But that was just to fill in because the church where I attended needed a bass player.

00:27:55.490 --> 00:27:59.056
So I started just playing bass.

00:27:59.517 --> 00:28:06.807
And so I kind of had a good feel for what everything was supposed to do and how it was all supposed to gel together.

00:28:06.866 --> 00:28:22.367
But I still don't consider myself uh proficient in any of those with the record i just took my time and punched in if i needed to i would play the bass guitar line but if i missed a note i could go in and fix it you know very easy to do these days

00:28:22.667 --> 00:28:24.670
have you got other musicians playing on the album as well

00:28:25.431 --> 00:29:21.261
oh yeah i got brent mason on four tracks now brent mason is a nashville guitarist who plays on all the country records but i was able to get him because everybody's doing sessions now in their home studios the industry has changed a little bit so it was as simple as just contacting him and when he heard the songs he said yeah i'll be happy to to play on this stuff so that was fantastic to get brent mason and then on one of the songs jesus hold my hand which is another old hymn the same guy that wrote i'll fly away wrote jesus hold my hand so On that track, I got a guy named Herb Shuker.

00:29:21.342 --> 00:29:24.968
He played drums for Randy Travis for many years.

00:29:25.729 --> 00:29:28.031
Now, I didn't necessarily ask for him.

00:29:28.071 --> 00:29:30.556
That's something that Brent Mason organized.

00:29:30.635 --> 00:29:32.838
But Brent Mason got Herb Shuker.

00:29:33.019 --> 00:29:39.367
And then Gary Lunn, who's another phenomenal Nashville session player, plays bass.

00:29:39.989 --> 00:29:46.077
And so the three of them did the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, and the bass guitar, the chorus.

00:29:46.178 --> 00:30:35.403
tracks for that song i put a little bit of piano on there and then some of the other parts like the fiddle and the banjo and the dobro there was a guy in pigeon forge who's a fiddle player and he he played the fiddle and he knew the guys that did dobro and banjo i think they all at one time worked worked at dollywood or something like that so they they were excellent with that type of style and i must say on that song too mike caldwell who we recently lost he was a dear friend that was his arrangement he arranged jesus hold my hand because i wanted it to have a really country sound and he was a pro at that so and i even credited him in the album cover inside the the cover for his arrangement of jesus hold my hand so rest in peace mike

00:30:36.483 --> 00:31:13.117
yeah fantastic yeah so some some great songs on there you've mentioned a few there but uh picking a few out myself so you've got a few different styles haven't you got that the great speckled bird which is country harmonica and then you've got since uh i let my burden down which has got more of a distorted tone a bit more of a sort of rock feel so quite a different few different genres and a solo harmonica piece i need the every hour so

00:31:33.730 --> 00:31:34.790
And I need the every hour.

00:31:34.810 --> 00:31:41.979
I asked permission from Buddy Green to do that because that's kind of similar to the way he did it on his album.

00:31:52.471 --> 00:31:54.573
But I said, man, this is such a great sound.

00:31:54.613 --> 00:31:57.556
Would you mind if I did that and put my own twist to it?

00:31:57.576 --> 00:31:58.596
He said, oh, yeah, go ahead.

00:31:58.636 --> 00:32:00.659
These songs are perfect for harmonica.

00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:02.361
So he had no problem with it.

00:32:02.421 --> 00:32:02.942
So yeah.

00:32:03.233 --> 00:32:04.435
Thank you, Buddy Green, for that.

00:32:05.196 --> 00:32:05.857
Yeah, great album.

00:32:05.877 --> 00:32:07.500
So you've got plans to make another one?

00:32:08.521 --> 00:32:16.654
Yes, I would like to do another one, but I think next time I would probably go somewhere like Nashville and let them track everything.

00:32:16.674 --> 00:32:22.202
I don't want to do anything next time but play harmonica, maybe do a little bit more vocal stuff.

00:32:22.262 --> 00:32:33.739
I'm not a vocalist either, but I think it would be fun to do some songs on the album that are similar to what we were talking about with The Blues Brothers and James Brown.

00:32:33.778 --> 00:32:40.575
In fact, that song, Let Us All Go Back to the Old Landmark, is really a great song for a choir and for harmonica.

00:32:40.615 --> 00:32:42.159
You can do some really cool stuff.

00:32:43.261 --> 00:32:48.294
So I'd like to do some stuff like that on there and just see how it turns out.

00:32:48.334 --> 00:32:49.416
I think it'd be really fun.

00:32:49.986 --> 00:32:53.608
But yeah, no more one-man band stuff for me.

00:32:53.648 --> 00:32:54.990
I'm going to have to get some

00:32:55.049 --> 00:32:55.530
musicians.

00:32:55.931 --> 00:32:57.432
I'm sure you learned a lot, though, doing it that way.

00:32:57.451 --> 00:32:58.713

Todd Parrott interview

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