Jan. 22, 2022

Tom Ball interview

Tom Ball joins me on episode 54.

From Los Angeles, but long time resident of Santa Barbara, he started playing guitar in the popular local folk scene before Sonny Terry turned him on to the sound of acoustic harmonica.
He then met Kenny Sultan, to form possibly the longest surviving acoustic blues duo. They have now been performing together for over 42 years and have recorded eight albums together. As well as session work for commercials, television and film, and toured the world together.

On top of this Tom has over 300 album credits as a sideman with other artists, has written three harmonica instruction books, a guitar instruction book, two fictional books and released some solo guitar albums.

Links:
http://tomballkennysultan.com
http://www.tomball.us

Discography:
http://www.tomball.us/discography.html

Sonny Terry licks book:
https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=178&searchcategory=0&refer=search&type=product&keywords=sonny+terry+licks

Little Walter / Big Walter licks:
https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=276&searchcategory=8&refer=new

Music Library sampler clips:
http://tomballkennysultan.com/gallery.html

Videos:

Filthy Rich with Kenny Sultan:
https://youtu.be/jH18jbva4c4

David Barrett interview: demo of wah and growl
https://youtu.be/IH_fzzS9mwI

Nagasaki Sails From Uranus:
https://youtu.be/4Hw4Utb5ZvQ

NHL festival 2003:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zBgQ7jTLi8

Spah 2012, playing Don’t Get Around Much Anymore:
https://youtu.be/YkgPNAZQ6Bs

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

01:18 - Born in LA, and has lived in Santa Barbara for many years

01:36 - Started out playing guitar, then harmonica on a rack

02:06 - Heard Sonny Terry playing to put him on the path of playing harmonica

03:38 - Ash Grove club in Los Angeles had lots of blues acts appearing

04:20 - The wealth of harp players from the West Coast of the US

05:18 - Didn’t continue playing harmonica on a rack with guitar for too long

05:41 - Started out singing age 15, in his first blues band, and advantage of singing and playing harp together

07:16 - Tom is singer and harmonica player in duo, but done lots of sideman work as harmonica player only

07:57 - Tom has released four solo guitar albums, with another one about to be released

09:00 - How guitar playing has informed his harmonica playing

09:30 - The need to diversify to make a living as a musician

10:15 - Tom has been in a duo with Kenny Sultan for over 42 years

11:07 - Usually there albums are 50/50 split of just duo then duo plus guest musicians

11:30 - How the duo formed with Kenny and payment for first gig

13:18 - Tips to emulate the long career Tom has enjoyed in the duo

14:01 - Picked up a lot of work being close to LA

14:46 - Duo performs a mix of originals and covers, with the covers more obscure songs

16:10 - Tom writes the lyrics for the duo, which are witty and have good blues themes

17:32 - Recorded 8 albums with Kenny Sultan, first one ‘Confusion’ in 1981

18:17 - Second album ‘Who Drank My Beer’

18:25 - How they persuaded Flying Fish records to sign them to their label, who they recorded four albums with

19:29 - First live record was 20th anniversary concert

19:59 - Haven’t recorded a duo record since 2005, and the demise of the blues album

20:38 - Covered a few of Blind Blake’s songs

23:40 - It Should’ve Been Me song written by Tom

24:02 - Covered Sonny Terry songs and the

25:01 - Has written several instructional books, including of Sonny Terry & Little Walter / Big Walter licks, and two fictional books

26:32 - Tom is a pucker player and Sonny Terry and Little Walter / Big Walter approaches

27:20 - Produces a great growl and wah on the harmonica

30:01 - Doesn’t play a lot of electric harmonica on albums, but usually a few songs on each

31:24 - The 20th Anniversary Live album

33:18 - Played a 40th anniversary concert in 2019 (which wasn’t recorded)

34:41 - How Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee relationship deteriorated towards the end

35:56 - Tom released a harmonica orchestra single where he plays all the different harmonicas

36:58 - How to make it easier to play the bass harmonica

37:58 - Session work, with over 300 album credits to his name, helped by proximity to LA

39:32 - How approaches non-blues session work

41:23 - The great tone that Norton Buffalo achieved

42:24 - Has created a music library to be picked up for tv programmes, etc.

45:39 - Recorded some sessions for Levi commercials in the 1980s

46:59 - Lots of TV appearances around the world, including falling over on-stage live on Hungarian TV

48:15 - Played in the same festival as Paul Simon and Bob Dylan

48:53 - Appeared at the NHL festival in the UK in 2003 and two appearances at SPAH

49:38 - Does a little private teaching

49:57 - Played at the Olympic Games in LA in 1984

50:54 - 10 minute question

51:26 - Doesn’t use overblows and wealth of learning material available now

52:33 - Likes to play Hohner Special 20 harmonicas and Blue Moon customisation

53:19 - Different tunings

54:04 - Different positions

54:23 - Tom plays quite a lot of fast licks

54:51 - Some of the puckering techniques Tom uses

55:32 - Acoustic and electric mics used, and recording process

57:08 - Amps

58:11 - What did over pandemic and future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.386 --> 00:00:01.987
Tom Ball joins me on episode 54.

00:00:02.008 --> 00:00:13.204
From Los Angeles, but long-time resident of Santa Barbara, he started playing guitar in the popular local folk scene before a sunny terrier turned him on to the sound of acoustic harmonica.

00:00:14.244 --> 00:00:18.992
He then met Kenny Sultan to form possibly the longest surviving acoustic blues duo.

00:00:19.472 --> 00:00:29.466
They have now been performing together for over 42 years and have recorded eight albums together, as well as session work for commercials, television and film, and toured the world together.

00:00:29.890 --> 00:00:34.576
On top of this, Tom has over 300 album credits as a sideman with other artists.

00:00:35.218 --> 00:00:43.210
He has written three harmonica instruction books, a guitar instruction book, two fictional books and released some solo guitar

00:00:46.034 --> 00:00:55.229
albums.

00:01:07.522 --> 00:01:09.444
Hello, Tom Ball, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:10.165 --> 00:01:10.865
Well, hi, Neil.

00:01:10.906 --> 00:01:11.286
How are you?

00:01:11.325 --> 00:01:12.227
Thank you for having me.

00:01:13.028 --> 00:01:13.968
No, it's a real pleasure.

00:01:14.028 --> 00:01:17.072
I've been listening to you for many years, so it's great to have you on.

00:01:17.552 --> 00:01:24.240
You're a Californian player on the West Coast there, the US, and I think you were born in Los Angeles initially, and now you live in Santa Barbara, yeah?

00:01:24.781 --> 00:01:25.462
Yeah, that's right.

00:01:25.542 --> 00:01:29.706
Yeah, I was born in West LA, and I've been in Santa Barbara for about 45 years now.

00:01:30.248 --> 00:01:30.608
Great.

00:01:30.688 --> 00:01:35.534
So what got you into playing the harmonica in LA and then up to Santa Barbara?

00:01:35.906 --> 00:01:38.608
Well, I was playing guitar since I was about 10.

00:01:38.968 --> 00:01:42.632
And at that point, there was what I like to call the big folk scare.

00:01:42.671 --> 00:01:48.757
All the Kingston Trio and those kind of collegiate folk music acts were very popular, and you heard them on the radio.

00:01:48.996 --> 00:01:51.259
And I got sucked up into that because I played guitar.

00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:58.445
And then by listening to that, I got exposed to people who played harmonica with a rack, Eric Anderson, and of course, early Bob Dylan.

00:01:58.706 --> 00:02:04.911
So I went out and got a harmonica and bent myself a little rack out of a coat hanger and kind of learned how to breathe along with it.

00:02:05.070 --> 00:02:10.336
And then by listening to the radio, I got exposed to Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, and that really twisted my head.

00:02:10.776 --> 00:02:15.962
I'd never heard anybody play in the harmonica like that before, so I figured I'd better start exploring this instrument.

00:02:16.002 --> 00:02:25.552
In those days, there was no books or DVDs or any kind of instructional material, but playing along with Sonny Terry was what really put me on the path.

00:02:25.872 --> 00:02:31.960
As you probably know, he liked to record using an A harp and playing in the key of E, and most of his songs are in the key of E.

00:02:32.259 --> 00:02:33.461
Quite a few are also in F.

00:02:33.662 --> 00:02:40.968
So if you have a B-flat harp and an A harp and you play in cross position, you sort of accidentally find yourself playing some of the right stuff.

00:02:41.289 --> 00:02:42.550
He didn't use an amplifier.

00:02:42.591 --> 00:02:43.731
He didn't use effects.

00:02:43.992 --> 00:02:45.093
He didn't play chromatic.

00:02:45.133 --> 00:02:46.354
He didn't overblow.

00:02:46.695 --> 00:02:48.557
He played in second position all the time.

00:02:48.617 --> 00:02:51.420
So it sounded like what your harmonica sounded like.

00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:55.824
And I found that playing along with his records was very much instructional for me.

00:02:56.265 --> 00:02:58.087
I more or less copped all of his licks.

00:02:58.168 --> 00:03:05.134
And little by little, I got exposed to the electric guys, you know, Little Walter and James Cotton and Big Walter and all those people.

00:03:05.455 --> 00:03:07.137
But it was Sonny Terry that got me into it.

00:03:07.638 --> 00:03:07.897
Yeah.

00:03:07.937 --> 00:03:12.682
And again, you added to the long list of people whose first inspiration was Sonny Terry.

00:03:12.703 --> 00:03:15.967
It's incredible the amount of people on here who say Sonny Terry was the first they heard.

00:03:16.026 --> 00:03:20.251
And I think that was partly down to the fact that he was the one who was being played on the radio a lot back then.

00:03:20.771 --> 00:03:26.737
Well, there weren't any sort of acoustic blues radio shows that I could find back then, but there were lots of folk music shows.

00:03:26.777 --> 00:03:30.322
And so, you know, you'd hear, you know, Joan Baez or Ian and Sylvia.

00:03:30.361 --> 00:03:32.223
And I liked that music and I would listen to that.

00:03:32.343 --> 00:03:36.288
But interspersed, you know, they'd play Lead Belly or Lightning Hopkins or Brown and Sonny.

00:03:36.508 --> 00:03:38.251
That really, really caught my ear.

00:03:38.691 --> 00:03:44.276
Luckily, we had a club down in LA called the Ash Grove, an amazing club that was down there for about 20 years.

00:03:44.497 --> 00:03:50.463
And they brought in all of these people, not only the blues guys, but the folk guys and lots of jazz and lots of gospel.

00:03:50.743 --> 00:03:54.348
For two bucks, you could go see Muddy Waters and Lightning Hopkins.

00:03:54.848 --> 00:03:55.889
There was always two acts.

00:03:56.169 --> 00:03:57.771
And you didn't have to be 18 years old.

00:03:57.812 --> 00:03:58.632
You could be a minor.

00:03:58.872 --> 00:04:04.198
And so I pretty much lived at the Ash Grove and got my whole musical education out of that place.

00:04:04.258 --> 00:04:07.382
And there's a lot of people down here in LA that could say the same thing.

00:04:07.421 --> 00:04:12.948
I've heard in interviews, I've heard Tosh talking about the Ashgrove and Ry Cooter and Dave Alvin.

00:04:13.008 --> 00:04:14.689
And it was like a lighthouse.

00:04:14.770 --> 00:04:17.211
It was a beacon for people interested in this music.

00:04:17.312 --> 00:04:18.834
And I pretty much lived in the place.

00:04:18.934 --> 00:04:19.535
I mean, I loved it.

00:04:19.795 --> 00:04:26.783
There's a great wealth of harmonica players coming from the West Coast, yourself and Rick Estrin and William Clark and Rob Piazza.

00:04:26.822 --> 00:04:29.706
Lots of people have had on the show from the West Coast.

00:04:29.865 --> 00:04:31.447
What is it you think about the West Coast?

00:04:31.468 --> 00:04:35.632
Was it that scene, the Ashgrove, maybe in Los Angeles, something else around the West Coast?

00:04:35.632 --> 00:04:36.173
To

00:04:36.213 --> 00:04:36.632
an extent.

00:04:36.713 --> 00:04:40.257
I mean, the Ashgrove more or less focused on acoustic harmonica players.

00:04:40.297 --> 00:04:41.557
They did have some electric bands.

00:04:41.738 --> 00:04:52.569
There was also another scene going on, you know, in the ghetto down in Watts and Florence and, you know, South Central LA, where you had George Smith and Drift and Slim and, you know, all those kind of people that lived in LA.

00:04:52.810 --> 00:05:00.377
And I think a lot of the people like Bill Clark and Rod and Kim, you know, they were more involved in the electric blues, the West Coast sound.

00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:02.540
For me, I was more into the acoustic stuff.

00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:05.584
But we all interconnected and we all knew each other, sure.

00:05:05.584 --> 00:05:18.223
So

00:05:18.283 --> 00:05:21.449
you mentioned that you started off playing with harmonic on a rack and guitar.

00:05:21.468 --> 00:05:24.673
Is that something you gave up quite quickly, trying to do that combination?

00:05:25.026 --> 00:05:28.389
Well, yeah, what I found is I couldn't really excel at either.

00:05:29.149 --> 00:05:32.471
You know, trying to do both, it just split my personality up.

00:05:32.612 --> 00:05:38.918
I ended up being a worse guitar player and a worse harmonica player because I had to sort of think about two things at one time.

00:05:38.997 --> 00:05:41.319
So I just figured I'll do one thing at a time.

00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:43.802
And were you singing back then as well?

00:05:44.182 --> 00:05:51.569
Not until I was about 15, I got involved in this band called the Yerba Buena Blues Band, all of whom were older guys than myself.

00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:53.029
They already had some gigs.

00:05:53.189 --> 00:06:15.254
They were working at clubs on the sunsets strip and we did some of those uh well we did the first love in in Elysian Park on Easter Sunday 1967 I was 16 years old and it was all these um all these San Francisco peanut butter conspiracy and the doors but we were able to play that and we played some clubs and it was uh it was great it was great fun and at that point that's when I began singing

00:06:15.553 --> 00:06:26.625
great yeah and obviously you're you're a singer and harmonica player as well as a guitar player which we will touch on as well so you know that combination of singing and harmonica plays is that what you've done from that age saying you've always been the main singer from then?

00:06:27.045 --> 00:06:27.747
I guess I have.

00:06:27.987 --> 00:06:32.913
I mean, I don't consider myself a great singer, but I can hold a tune and play harp.

00:06:33.192 --> 00:06:40.379
For me, it's easier to sing and play harp than it is to just play harp because, you know, you're mostly inhaling when you're in second position playing harp.

00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:42.201
And then, of course, you're exhaling when you're singing.

00:06:42.262 --> 00:06:44.004
So it gives you a chance to get your wind back.

00:06:44.324 --> 00:06:49.029
When you're only playing harp, to me, it's like the opposite problem that horn players have.

00:06:49.290 --> 00:06:53.153
You have to stop to expel air rather than horn players have to stop to get air.

00:06:53.374 --> 00:07:10.367
So for me, it was easier to do both play phrases on harp in between the vocals than to just be a harmonica player.

00:07:16.930 --> 00:07:28.502
it's a question i touch on a lot on here which is you know how necessary is it to be the singer if you're a harmonica player obviously is that a decision you consciously made you know to make yourself you know more prominent in the band

00:07:29.103 --> 00:07:46.302
well most of what i did for the last 40 plus years has been in a duo you know with kenny and um kenny doesn't sing so you know i i ended up singing by default really but of the almost 300 records I've played on, I would say 90% of them, I'm not singing at all.

00:07:46.341 --> 00:07:56.713
I'm just a sideman.

00:07:57.793 --> 00:08:00.540
Well, just talk a little bit more about your guitar playing.

00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:04.348
So as you say, you started off playing guitar and you do play guitar to a good level.

00:08:04.367 --> 00:08:04.528
Yeah.

00:08:04.567 --> 00:08:08.136
So you've got, I think, four solo guitar albums released to your names.

00:08:08.677 --> 00:08:10.120
You know, what about your journey with guitar?

00:08:10.139 --> 00:08:12.805
Is that something you've obviously kept up all through your career?

00:08:13.377 --> 00:08:13.798
Oh, yeah.

00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:15.740
In fact, I'm recording another album right now.

00:08:16.081 --> 00:08:17.723
I'm about three quarters done with it.

00:08:17.963 --> 00:08:20.865
Yeah, that was my first instrument, and I still love to play it.

00:08:21.086 --> 00:08:25.290
But what I found is I'm not particularly good at playing guitar with other people.

00:08:25.610 --> 00:08:31.177
I tend to regard it as a solo instrument, and I'm a fingerstyle player, so I have to work up these solo pieces.

00:08:31.817 --> 00:08:37.724
Sometimes they're blues, but more often they're almost an amalgam of classical and other types of music.

00:08:38.325 --> 00:08:41.827
So the guitar gives me a chance to stretch out and play other idioms.

00:08:43.714 --> 00:09:04.798
Any particular way do you think the guitar playing has informed your harmonica playing?

00:09:04.994 --> 00:09:05.494
Well, sure.

00:09:05.553 --> 00:09:15.883
I mean, in that by playing guitar first, at least I had a knowledge of what a chord was and what a three chord progression was and, you know, what a fifth was and what a minor seventh was.

00:09:15.964 --> 00:09:19.886
So it made it easier to learn harmonica by having a background in guitar.

00:09:19.986 --> 00:09:28.674
But then they sort of separate too, you know, as you get better on both of them, because kinds of music that I'm exploring on harp are so much different than what I'm exploring on guitar.

00:09:28.715 --> 00:09:28.894
So,

00:09:29.154 --> 00:09:29.695
you know, it's both.

00:09:30.115 --> 00:09:30.515
So great.

00:09:30.556 --> 00:09:32.418
So you mentioned Kenny Sultan there.

00:09:32.457 --> 00:09:34.960
So we'll talk about your duo now with Kenny.

00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:35.360
Kenny.

00:09:35.701 --> 00:09:40.966
And then we'll get on also later to the fact that you also alluded to the fact that you've worked on lots of sessions.

00:09:41.005 --> 00:09:44.549
So you've had this kind of double life, haven't you, as a musician of your career?

00:09:44.850 --> 00:09:45.250
Well, yeah.

00:09:45.311 --> 00:09:48.695
I mean, I think you pretty much have to if you want to do this for a living.

00:09:48.914 --> 00:09:53.620
You can't rely entirely on live gigs unless you're really, really popular.

00:09:53.740 --> 00:09:56.623
And this kind of music is never going to be the flavor of the month.

00:09:56.763 --> 00:10:09.496
So I've kind of learned early on that if you want to do this for a living, you better have some other income streams, whether it's playing on other people's records or maybe writing songs, getting some mechanical royalties, writing books, teaching.

00:10:09.517 --> 00:10:12.259
I mean, there's all these other ways that you can drum up some money.

00:10:12.379 --> 00:10:15.703
So I've explored a lot of that in session work.

00:10:15.864 --> 00:10:19.727
But the main thing I do for performance is playing with Kenny in a duo.

00:10:19.847 --> 00:10:23.351
And we met in 1979 and started playing together.

00:10:23.392 --> 00:10:25.134
And it took off from there.

00:10:25.234 --> 00:10:26.095
And we're still together.

00:10:26.294 --> 00:10:26.875
It's amazing.

00:10:27.355 --> 00:10:28.177
It is incredible.

00:10:28.216 --> 00:10:28.437
Yeah.

00:10:28.476 --> 00:10:31.880
So I've read that you're America's good time blues ambassadors.

00:10:32.841 --> 00:10:33.722
Nice quote about you.

00:10:33.763 --> 00:10:49.698
So I also read that you are the longest surviving blues duo because obviously Sonny Terry and Brown and McGee aren't going Sepperson Wiggins I think were the other ones vying for that title but now at I think 42 years together you're the longest surviving acoustic blues duo in the US is that right?

00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:51.383
Well that's what I'm told yeah

00:10:52.802 --> 00:10:54.583
You must get on well with Kenny, do you?

00:10:54.943 --> 00:10:55.344
Well, we do.

00:10:55.423 --> 00:10:56.325
Yeah, we're good friends.

00:10:56.544 --> 00:10:58.466
And we travel well together.

00:10:58.547 --> 00:11:00.649
And we're compatible musically.

00:11:01.028 --> 00:11:03.051
Neither one of us steps on the other person.

00:11:03.451 --> 00:11:04.851
We both give each other a lot of room.

00:11:05.173 --> 00:11:05.633
We get along.

00:11:05.653 --> 00:11:06.193
We're good friends.

00:11:06.594 --> 00:11:07.475
So it works out well.

00:11:07.835 --> 00:11:09.015
And of course, you are a duo.

00:11:09.056 --> 00:11:11.859
But some of your albums, it is a full band, isn't it?

00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:12.698
You've got a rhythm section.

00:11:12.739 --> 00:11:13.679
You've got fiddles.

00:11:13.700 --> 00:11:14.620
You've got a mandolin.

00:11:14.821 --> 00:11:16.582
So there are other instruments in there as well.

00:11:17.043 --> 00:11:17.523
Yeah, there are.

00:11:17.663 --> 00:11:24.210
Usually, one of our albums will be, oh, roughly half will be just Kenny and I and the other half we were going to have some guests.

00:11:24.711 --> 00:11:27.274
The last two records we did were just Kenny and I.

00:11:27.674 --> 00:11:29.898
But prior to that, yeah, we would have other people on there.

00:11:30.438 --> 00:11:32.682
So let's talk about how you guys got together.

00:11:32.761 --> 00:11:37.207
I think you say you met in 1979, I think in Santa Barbara.

00:11:37.849 --> 00:11:38.470
Yeah, yeah.

00:11:38.509 --> 00:11:50.280
I had just moved to town and I had found this group of people here in town called the Santa Barbara Blues Society, and they were putting on shows, and they put on a show with Big Mama Thornton and Eddie Cleanheaded Vinson.

00:11:50.522 --> 00:12:01.431
Kenny was at the show, and now my wife had seen him performing prior to that, and so she pointed him out to me, and I went over and said hi, and we got together a couple days later, and we played together, and it worked.

00:12:01.490 --> 00:12:06.576
It clicked, and he says, well, he says, I'm going to be playing on the local college radio station.

00:12:06.615 --> 00:12:11.759
This is a little station out at UCSB, and he says, I'm trying to drum up some business for my team.

00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:15.423
And if you want to come out and jam with me on the radio, why don't you do that?

00:12:15.464 --> 00:12:16.784
And I said, yo, yeah, man, I'd love to.

00:12:16.825 --> 00:12:22.490
So we get out there and we're playing on the radio and phone rings and it's this little club in Santa Barbara.

00:12:22.532 --> 00:12:26.956
And they said, if you want to come in on Friday night, we'll give you a pizza and 15 bucks.

00:12:27.236 --> 00:12:30.399
So I says to Kenny, you want to do this for a pizza and 15 bucks?

00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:32.402
And he says, well, hold out for free beer.

00:12:32.642 --> 00:12:33.682
So I did.

00:12:33.722 --> 00:12:34.604
They hired us.

00:12:34.644 --> 00:12:36.787
So we went down there and played and it went well.

00:12:36.866 --> 00:12:39.269
And next thing you know, we're playing there pretty regularly.

00:12:39.328 --> 00:12:41.130
And then we started playing other places.

00:12:41.191 --> 00:12:47.962
And, you he got better and we got a little better known and before you know it it's 43 years later you've

00:12:48.865 --> 00:13:05.193
traveled all around the world you've you know you played all sorts of places haven't you

00:13:05.601 --> 00:13:07.004
Yeah, we've done a lot of traveling.

00:13:07.044 --> 00:13:10.692
We haven't gone anywhere in the last few years, you know, with the pandemic and all.

00:13:11.013 --> 00:13:12.355
Yeah, we have done a lot of traveling.

00:13:12.375 --> 00:13:15.721
I had a lot of fun and it's been a good career so far.

00:13:15.883 --> 00:13:18.106
You know, hopefully we can keep it going another 40 years.

00:13:18.889 --> 00:13:26.264
So for younger people starting out or maybe not so young, do you think there's been any particular secret to your success?

00:13:26.524 --> 00:13:27.306
What's your view on that?

00:13:27.745 --> 00:13:34.030
Well, for one thing, I think it's a lot harder for today's young musicians coming up because there's no real record industry anymore.

00:13:34.231 --> 00:13:37.654
And you can't make any money off Spotify and things like that.

00:13:37.735 --> 00:13:38.534
It's pennies.

00:13:38.916 --> 00:13:48.283
I've heard stories about people who have played on or have gold records out and they're still living in a studio apartment because the amount of money you get is so minimal.

00:13:48.543 --> 00:13:49.485
So yeah, it's tough.

00:13:49.725 --> 00:13:54.850
But the main thing I think is, like I was talking earlier, is have as many revenue streams as possible.

00:13:54.870 --> 00:13:56.150
Never give up your copyrights.

00:13:56.410 --> 00:14:01.056
Try to write your own materials if you can, and try to get your material covered by other people.

00:14:01.235 --> 00:14:11.086
Living so close to LA for us paid off because there's a film industry down there, TV and commercials down there, and you can get work backing that stuff up.

00:14:11.287 --> 00:14:15.510
And I would say never turn down a recording session, even if it's terrible musicians.

00:14:15.571 --> 00:14:21.297
Do it anyway, because if nothing else, the engineer in the studio will hear you play and maybe hire you for another session.

00:14:21.376 --> 00:14:22.798
So I never turn anything down.

00:14:22.899 --> 00:14:23.679
You can't afford to.

00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.121
For me, it was better not to have a safety net.

00:14:26.442 --> 00:14:30.754
My parents would tell me, well, this music stuff is good, but get a degree, have a safety net.

00:14:30.875 --> 00:14:35.952
But if I had done that, I would have fell back on it, and I probably never would have succeeded as a musician.

00:14:36.013 --> 00:14:38.421
So for me, I'd say, who needs a safety net?

00:14:38.461 --> 00:14:39.384
Just go for it, man.

00:14:40.546 --> 00:14:41.886
Yeah, no, great advice.

00:14:41.966 --> 00:14:45.590
And congratulations again on such a long career.

00:14:45.690 --> 00:14:46.270
It's superb.

00:14:46.711 --> 00:14:50.934
So yeah, another thing characteristic about your acts is a lot of the songs are written by yourself.

00:14:51.095 --> 00:14:55.278
And funnily enough, the last few people I've had on the podcast, they've been similar.

00:14:55.318 --> 00:14:58.000
I've had Rick Estrin, he writes a lot of his own songs.

00:14:58.221 --> 00:15:01.744
Billy Boy Arnold, the last one, he wrote a lot of his songs further back.

00:15:02.205 --> 00:15:04.567
So it's really important to write your own material, your own lyrics.

00:15:05.047 --> 00:15:06.629
Yeah, we don't write all our own stuff.

00:15:06.869 --> 00:15:09.610
I'd say we're 50-50 originals and covers.

00:15:09.811 --> 00:15:32.274
But when we do cover a song we try to cover something that's unknown i mean we're not going to go out and re-record you know jimmy reed bright lights big city i mean because who could improve on that so we try to pick really obscure material and i've been a 78 collector all my life so i have a big big record collection and it's really easy to dig back and find something that nobody knows about and then you can cover and people think it's yours because they've never heard it before

00:15:32.696 --> 00:15:32.916
yeah

00:15:33.135 --> 00:15:35.499
so you know we do that a lot as well yeah we cheat

00:15:36.078 --> 00:15:47.831
yeah good idea so yeah but it's interesting because i think a lot of you know kind of blues covers bands would want to do the more well-known ones because they get recognized but you've kind of gone the opposite way and think yeah we'll do the more obscure ones and you know make it more unique

00:15:48.011 --> 00:16:05.029
yeah i think so i mean it's one thing to try to cater to a live audience and another thing you know when you're recording i mean do we really need another record of you know key to the highway i i just don't see it but i can understand playing that live and sometimes we play it live because people you know they know it and they like it it's it's a little bit different when you record

00:16:05.331 --> 00:16:20.567
yeah and another thing which is typical of your songs is a it's a lot of fun in them i think you know you write about women gambling and drinking yeah some good blues themes right there and that is but you know they're all very uh they're all very witty very interesting who writes most of the lyrics

00:16:21.086 --> 00:16:45.767
i'm the lyricist it was a conscious decision i think because i remember being 16 and singing with the yerba buena blues band and you know we're singing all these old blues and i'm singing about you know working in coal mines and you know riding my mule and i'm like a 16 year old kid from the suburbs i never did any of this stuff so i felt like a hypocrite and so it you know made more sense to write songs about the stuff I know about which like you say is you know women and gambling and drinking and travel

00:16:45.947 --> 00:16:54.144
and do you think that has been a part of your success that you know these songs have been appealing to people you know to listen to the lyrics I hope so Yeah, so there's some great examples of that.

00:16:54.163 --> 00:16:58.326
I think Perfect Woman's a good one, where the lyrics are fantastic.

00:16:59.067 --> 00:17:01.889
Well, thanks.

00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:11.378
That was fun to write.

00:17:12.479 --> 00:17:17.864
Is

00:17:17.903 --> 00:17:19.384
that your wife, then, the Perfect Woman?

00:17:20.506 --> 00:17:22.949
My wife is a major improvement over the perfect woman

00:17:23.169 --> 00:17:25.873
i'll include that bit so you get some brownie points if she listens to the

00:17:26.012 --> 00:17:26.673
yeah thanks

00:17:28.376 --> 00:17:36.969
so so let's talk then uh through your your recording career with with kenny so uh i think you've done eight duo albums first one back in 1981 confusion

00:17:37.028 --> 00:17:41.234
life is so confusing believe i got to lose my mind

00:17:44.338 --> 00:17:49.086
wow

00:17:51.137 --> 00:17:54.901
That was a record label owned by a friend of ours named Peter Feldman.

00:17:55.161 --> 00:18:00.705
Mostly that label was a label for instructional material, how to play bluegrass fiddle and things like that.

00:18:00.925 --> 00:18:04.328
Although he did do some reissues by early country musicians.

00:18:04.529 --> 00:18:08.292
And he liked our stuff and offered to bring out a record and nobody else wanted to.

00:18:08.432 --> 00:18:09.614
And Peter was a good guy.

00:18:09.673 --> 00:18:10.454
So we said, sure.

00:18:10.535 --> 00:18:15.798
And that record came out and then decided we would benefit by having a little bit better distribution.

00:18:15.898 --> 00:18:20.963
So we sent that record to Kicking Mule Records, a label that had been founded by Stefan Grossman.

00:18:21.023 --> 00:18:21.625
They signed us.

00:18:21.644 --> 00:18:24.346
So we did a record for them called Who Drank My Beer.

00:18:24.567 --> 00:18:29.232
And then we decided to go for Flying Fish after that and see what they would do.

00:18:29.272 --> 00:18:31.035
And they rejected us for a long time.

00:18:31.174 --> 00:18:32.355
They said, you don't tour enough.

00:18:32.596 --> 00:18:34.577
Well, what can you do when you don't tour enough?

00:18:34.637 --> 00:18:40.345
Well, what we started doing was I'd go on vacation to New Orleans with my wife and I sent a postcard to Flying Fish.

00:18:40.545 --> 00:18:41.365
We're out here on tour.

00:18:41.385 --> 00:18:47.311
And I get friends from all over the country to send them postcards I had written saying, we're here, we're on tour.

00:18:47.332 --> 00:18:49.875
And it would have a postmark of Wyoming or something.

00:18:49.894 --> 00:18:58.391
So after a while, Flying was the first one that bloodshot eyes won yeah bloodshot eyes

00:18:58.811 --> 00:18:59.333
was the first

00:19:15.394 --> 00:19:17.076
And then Too Much Fun.

00:19:17.116 --> 00:19:19.240
And then Filthy Rich.

00:19:19.299 --> 00:19:23.224
And then the head of Flying Fish Records passed away unexpectedly.

00:19:23.465 --> 00:19:25.268
And the label was sold to Rounder.

00:19:25.409 --> 00:19:29.173
So we negotiated with Rounder and did another record called Double Vision.

00:19:29.535 --> 00:19:31.938
And then we figured it was about time to do a live record.

00:19:31.978 --> 00:19:35.703
So we went ahead and professionally recorded a real good concert.

00:19:35.824 --> 00:19:36.865
We sent it off to Rounder.

00:19:36.924 --> 00:19:38.627
And they got back and said, well, you know what?

00:19:38.847 --> 00:19:39.890
Live records don't sell.

00:19:40.193 --> 00:19:41.335
You know, we're not interested.

00:19:41.434 --> 00:19:42.096
So, okay.

00:19:42.256 --> 00:19:47.079
Well, by then we had some connections with a record label in Germany called Taxim Records.

00:19:47.500 --> 00:19:50.002
And they wanted to start a US division.

00:19:50.083 --> 00:19:54.987
So they signed us and they brought out the live record and another one later called Happy Hour.

00:19:55.247 --> 00:19:58.509
As it turned out, the live record outsold all of the studio records.

00:19:58.769 --> 00:19:59.631
You know, we've done all those.

00:19:59.711 --> 00:20:02.373
We haven't done a record as a duo in a few years now.

00:20:02.993 --> 00:20:03.875
I was going to ask about that.

00:20:03.914 --> 00:20:06.957
I think your last album with Kenny is 2005, is it?

00:20:06.977 --> 00:20:07.498
The

00:20:07.518 --> 00:20:08.157
Happy Hour one.

00:20:08.578 --> 00:20:11.240
That is the last Tom and Kenny record yeah yeah but you're

00:20:11.260 --> 00:20:13.022
still playing together you're still performing together

00:20:13.423 --> 00:20:13.703
oh yeah

00:20:14.044 --> 00:20:16.686
yeah yeah so any particular reason you haven't done another album

00:20:17.086 --> 00:20:42.233
oh i've been too lazy to write lyrics and you know and also i think partly nobody's buying cds anymore it's hardly cost effective these days to bring out an album unless you're a big star because you're only going to get back pennies on the dollar i mean for me i'm still recording a guitar record because a solo guitar record is you know pretty cheap to make but when you're doing a duo record you know you're going to have expenses and i'm not sure you can sell enough copies be still warrant going through that anymore

00:20:42.755 --> 00:20:59.492
yeah it's a very interesting point it's almost like creating an album is almost like a vanity project these days isn't it you've got to put a lot of money into it up front yeah and like you say you know you're not going to sell lots of cds so you know you might sell some at gigs but now most people are streaming yeah so how are you ever going to make that money back

00:20:59.712 --> 00:21:12.487
well you probably won't but you know at this point i'm doing this guitar record because i mean i know i'm not going to make my money back but it's something i want to do and i'm not getting any younger and i you know i'd like to be able to leave another piece of my legacy behind you

00:21:12.527 --> 00:21:12.666
know

00:21:12.826 --> 00:21:13.407
life is short

00:21:13.807 --> 00:21:16.351
oh yeah for sure yeah it's nice getting it down isn't it

00:21:17.571 --> 00:21:26.060
well i want to be filthy bitch and hang around with some beautiful chick and get respect wherever i go

00:21:27.423 --> 00:21:27.502
i

00:21:27.522 --> 00:21:29.223
want to be rolling in

00:21:29.765 --> 00:21:47.403
it's quite a worry this particularly around the albums isn't it like you said producing an albums unless you've got a record company paying for you whether we're going to get a lot less of lower level albums where you know particularly in the sort of music that we like you have we're talking about blues music here there's not a lot of uh big record companies paying to produce those albums is there

00:21:47.723 --> 00:22:31.911
well not anymore no no i mean not like the old days you know there used to be a ton of independent labels you could count on that would actually give you a budget to go out and record now now the thing is that budget would be used against your future artist royalties and you wouldn't start to see any royalty until all of that budget including mastering and advertising and all that was paid back out of your artist royalties so you probably weren't going to see any money down the road but at least you wouldn't have to spend your own money to make the damn record you know so I don't know I mean we've done it both ways but our little niche of music is never going to sell the kind of stuff you know that mainstream music sells so it doesn't make much sense to do another record not right now anyway now maybe things will change in the future I hope they do

00:22:32.392 --> 00:22:44.473
Anyway you've got a good catalogue out there you talked through some of the albums and picking out a few of the songs so one from the Butcher Eyes albums The song that I actually play in an outfit is That'll Never Happen No More.

00:23:02.049 --> 00:23:05.952
But that's a good example of a song which is a little bit more obscure, but a great song, yeah?

00:23:05.972 --> 00:23:08.035
So does that fall into that type?

00:23:08.675 --> 00:23:09.115
Well, sure.

00:23:09.155 --> 00:23:10.837
I mean, Blind Blake is one of our heroes.

00:23:11.238 --> 00:23:20.625
Both Kenny and I are fingerstyle guitarists, and some of the first tunes that ever perplexed me and made me into a better guitarist were Blake's songs.

00:23:20.726 --> 00:23:22.748
And That'll Never Happen No More is one of his.

00:23:23.008 --> 00:23:25.369
He's one of my heroes, really, musical heroes.

00:23:25.430 --> 00:23:27.352
I mean, you can't get better than Blake.

00:23:27.392 --> 00:23:28.333
He's got that bounce.

00:23:28.792 --> 00:23:30.674
He's got that syncopated bass line.

00:23:30.755 --> 00:23:32.016
The ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

00:23:32.016 --> 00:23:33.858
kind of bass line that nobody else has got.

00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:40.028
And on the Too Much Fun album, again, that album title shows the kind of fun approach you had to everything.

00:23:40.208 --> 00:23:43.613
You've got a song with some great lyrics again called It Should Have Been Me.

00:23:45.276 --> 00:23:59.467
It Should Have Been Me On

00:24:01.567 --> 00:24:07.272
Filthy Rich, do a Sonny Terry song, Tater Pie on there, which shows your homage to Sonny Terry.

00:24:07.473 --> 00:24:10.936
Yeah, that was one of the first songs I learned on harp was Tater Pie.

00:24:10.957 --> 00:24:15.460
What happened was the first Sonny Terry record I owned was called Sonny is King.

00:24:15.721 --> 00:24:16.500
It's still in print.

00:24:17.082 --> 00:24:17.701
I have the album.

00:24:18.143 --> 00:24:19.324
Yeah, great record.

00:24:19.364 --> 00:24:24.949
And side one is all Sonny with Lightning Hopkins on guitar and side two is Sonny with Brownie on guitar.

00:24:25.108 --> 00:24:28.372
What I discovered was everything on side one was played with an A harp.

00:24:28.592 --> 00:24:33.277
So I could put that record on when I was young and I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I had the right harp.

00:24:33.517 --> 00:24:36.279
All you needed was one harp and you could play for, you know, 25 minutes.

00:24:36.619 --> 00:24:38.701
And I learned almost every song on that record.

00:24:38.922 --> 00:24:42.125
Tater Pie and Change the Lock on the Door and She's So Sweet.

00:24:42.266 --> 00:24:43.326
And it just goes on and on.

00:24:43.346 --> 00:24:44.087
It's great stuff.

00:24:44.288 --> 00:24:45.749
Yeah, that's Tater Pie.

00:24:45.910 --> 00:24:46.951
Sonny's one of my heroes.

00:24:57.281 --> 00:25:03.647
And of course, you've written a book of Sonny Terry licks.

00:25:04.248 --> 00:25:06.930
And then you've also written a book of Little Walter licks as well.

00:25:06.990 --> 00:25:08.211
So which one came first?

00:25:08.571 --> 00:25:12.634
Well, the first one was even before either of those two, and it was just called Blues Harmonica.

00:25:12.755 --> 00:25:14.497
Then the Sonny came second.

00:25:14.656 --> 00:25:16.378
Big Walter, Little Walter came third.

00:25:16.419 --> 00:25:18.559
And then I did a couple of guitar books as well.

00:25:18.840 --> 00:25:20.342
And then I like to write fiction as well.

00:25:20.561 --> 00:25:23.704
Well, yeah, you've written, I think, two fictional books out now, aren't they?

00:25:24.345 --> 00:25:26.988
I'll put links onto the books onto the podcast page.

00:25:27.248 --> 00:25:32.673
But talking about the Lit books that you've written there, as you say, Sonny Terry one and the Lit Walter, Big Walter one.

00:25:32.693 --> 00:25:35.096
So when you did that, how did they come about?

00:25:35.135 --> 00:25:35.616
I think what

00:25:35.656 --> 00:25:43.005
happened is Kenny got approached by Centerstream Books, which is a division of Hal Leonard, to bring out a couple of guitar instructional books.

00:25:43.384 --> 00:25:45.887
And they were successful, you know, and he was telling me about it.

00:25:45.948 --> 00:25:47.410
And he says, you ought to call this guy.

00:25:47.450 --> 00:25:48.931
Maybe he'd do some harmonica books.

00:25:48.951 --> 00:25:51.134
So I called him up and he was amenable.

00:25:51.473 --> 00:25:55.999
So I did this book and it came out and sold quite a bit more copies than I would have expected.

00:25:56.298 --> 00:26:16.997
And so I decided to do another one and you know after a while i had done about five of them but nowadays nobody buys books either because they're all pirateable you can go online if you wanted that sanitary book you could google it and find it for free online and you can find the music for free too so nobody's buying books anymore so there's no future in that either it's it's gone down it's like cds have

00:26:17.397 --> 00:26:26.806
yeah so when you were putting together the licks did you did you use exact licks so you have to change them slightly you know what was the process we're doing the selecting the licks that you did

00:26:27.490 --> 00:26:30.311
I pretty much did them the way they did them with one exception.

00:26:30.573 --> 00:26:33.255
The waltzers, of course, tongue block and I don't tongue block.

00:26:33.454 --> 00:26:38.179
So, you know, I was puckering the stuff they were tongue blocking, but I was hitting the same notes either way.

00:26:38.298 --> 00:26:43.163
So I pretty much left it up to the student whether or not they want to do this, you know, via tongue blocker or pucker.

00:26:43.483 --> 00:26:50.210
I do tongue block when I want to hit splits or hit octaves or, you know, block out something, but I don't tongue block to hit single note bands.

00:26:50.470 --> 00:26:52.131
I just pucker to hit single note bands.

00:26:52.191 --> 00:26:53.472
So it's a combination of the two.

00:26:53.792 --> 00:26:55.894
And Sonny didn't hardly ever tongue block.

00:26:55.914 --> 00:27:00.078
He was 99% puckerer And of course, both Walters were strict tongue blockers.

00:27:00.138 --> 00:27:03.643
So it's kind of hard to be absolutely perfect when you do these kind of books.

00:27:03.722 --> 00:27:12.332
But I figure that anybody that's got a good enough ear to hear where it's not exactly perfect probably also has a good enough ear that they don't need a book to begin with.

00:27:12.352 --> 00:27:12.832
I don't know.

00:27:12.852 --> 00:27:15.394
It's fun to do, but I'm not really going to do it again.

00:27:15.434 --> 00:27:16.977
No.

00:27:17.396 --> 00:27:20.000
So you mentioned, well, obviously you're a pucker there.

00:27:20.019 --> 00:27:25.226
And one thing which you get great is you get a really great growl and a really great wall.

00:27:27.407 --> 00:27:53.519
back to california so yeah this this great growl you get on the on the harmonica you talk about that

00:27:54.381 --> 00:27:56.619
yeah um Well, it's done by inhaling.

00:27:57.160 --> 00:27:57.681
You can't do it.

00:27:57.701 --> 00:27:59.163
At least I can't do it, exhaling.

00:27:59.663 --> 00:28:04.890
And what it is, is it works best on like holes, one, two, three, four, five, maybe.

00:28:04.990 --> 00:28:13.842
And three, of course, is exceptionally good because as you know, hole three inhaled has the most bendability of, you know, can get three half steps out of that.

00:28:14.261 --> 00:28:23.634
So if you bend that note all the way down to its most bendable area to the absolute bottom of the gutter and then keep going.

00:28:23.895 --> 00:28:26.278
For me, at least, this growl just happens.

00:28:26.478 --> 00:28:29.460
I mean, it's something, it's like snoring in reverse.

00:28:29.641 --> 00:28:36.946
It's like, I mean, it's a obnoxious kind of sound, but it's really effective if you don't overuse it.

00:28:37.247 --> 00:28:40.470
So it's an inhaled thing and it's done at the deepest part of a bend.

00:28:41.211 --> 00:28:43.492
And the other thing is you get a tremendous wall.

00:28:43.692 --> 00:28:48.837
You know, one of the best walls I've heard, and obviously you're playing acoustic most of the time, so What about that great wall that you can get?

00:28:49.218 --> 00:28:49.518
Thanks.

00:28:50.378 --> 00:28:52.320
I've heard people that do it better, but thank you.

00:28:52.520 --> 00:28:54.002
I think it helps to have big hands.

00:28:54.303 --> 00:28:55.243
I do have big hands.

00:28:55.525 --> 00:28:59.648
And it also, because I'm not holding a handheld microphone, I tend to hold the harp.

00:28:59.848 --> 00:29:05.955
Well, if you can envision yourself, you're around a lake and you're really thirsty and you make a cup with your hands in order to bring water to your mouth.

00:29:06.135 --> 00:29:07.336
That's the way I hold a harmonica.

00:29:07.376 --> 00:29:08.459
It goes right in that cup.

00:29:08.699 --> 00:29:12.923
And so if you have big hands, it completely covers the instrument, except for the front.

00:29:13.144 --> 00:29:17.327
The front, of course, will get covered by your face if you have a big face, which I do.

00:29:17.327 --> 00:29:24.075
So I'm not afraid to put my right thumb over holes 7, 8, and 9 because I'm probably not going to be using those very much.

00:29:24.315 --> 00:29:28.740
And then what happens is the harmonica is completely surrounded by either hand or face.

00:29:29.121 --> 00:29:36.949
That enables you to get a real big wah because you can open your hands at will, partially or fully, to alter the tone of the harp.

00:29:37.429 --> 00:29:43.296
Yeah, so really blocking off any air escaping from your hand cup is key to that, yeah?

00:29:43.715 --> 00:29:44.537
Yeah, it is, sure.

00:29:44.797 --> 00:30:01.075
And I can't do that, I've noticed, on the few occasions when I play electric harp and use a bullet mic I'm not able to get a great big wah out of that because you know the mic is in my hands too now I'm I have a lot of admiration for the people who can break off those big wahs while they're holding on to a mic because I sure can't do it

00:30:01.535 --> 00:30:09.983
so yeah you mentioned that so on your albums typically on quite a few of them at least there's generally one or two which are played amplified and then the rest of them are acoustic yeah

00:30:10.484 --> 00:30:11.586
they're mostly acoustic yeah

00:30:12.326 --> 00:30:20.820
any particular you know reason for that you know any approach that you just like to play acoustic and then just throw a couple in for to mix up the sound to play amplified

00:30:20.861 --> 00:30:53.303
yep that's exactly right yeah we just want to throw one or two in there to break things up so Because otherwise it can be sonically sort of boring, really, when you only got two instruments and they're both acoustic.

00:30:53.383 --> 00:30:59.111

Tom Ball interview

Listen On

Featured Episodes

Diatonic harmonica Episodes

Blues harmonica Episodes

Harmonica author Episodes

Recent Episodes

Diatonic harmonica Episodes

Chromatic harmonica Episodes

Blues harmonica Episodes

Retrospectives Episodes

Female harmonica player Episodes

Chromatic blues Episodes

Classical chromatic Episodes

Classical diatonic Episodes

Browse episodes by category

Support On

Featured episodes

Little Walter retrospective

Charlie Musselwhite interview

Donald Black interview