“He was wearing a pink tuxedo and patent leather shoes. He towered over me… Suddenly he was quivering with anger, his finger in my face. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know where I’ve been.” - Whose Blues?, Adam Gussow.

Note: This is a long post, so I’m going to reward those who read to the bottom by revealing the identity of the man in the pink tuxedo who challenges Adam Gussow backstage in the late 1990s.A few weeks ago I posted a review of the first part of Adam Gussow’s collection of essays: Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York. Therein I promised that the second half of the collection is where you’ll find the really good stuff: bundled under the header “Talking the Talk”, these are essays on ways of thinking about the blues.

Gussow’s lined up some great essays on blues literature (novels, memoirs and plays arising from the bluse tradition): This is Gussow the scholar at work, giving us the reading list for a freshman class in bluesology, and you’d do well to take a look. There are a few conference papers in there, one on Faulkner, and one on racial violence. There’s also (for those who would find this maddeningly abstract and theoretical) a practical guide to “Sitting In” at your first jam session. Preview it here.

But where these essays hit the spot is in Gussow’s discussions of what I’ll call the politics of the blues. A lot of harp players don’t want to hear about politics. I’ve been told more than once: “Forget about it, man; just blow!” There’s also no shortage of harp masters with great tone and a truckload of scorching licks, but who are completely inept when in it comes to the higher thinking about how to position onceself within the genre… ideologically.

Hey! Stop snoring, this is important.

Ignoring the politics of blues music is like ignoring the crocodile swimming in your Coco Pops. You do so at your peril.

For harp players, the founding fathers were almost exclusively disenfranchised African Americans with barely two coins to rub together. Nowadays it’s a global practice, featuring a broad range of participants but with strong representation from white American and European males.

This is a culture borne out of unspeakable violence, oppression and dispossession – a history that can’t be owned by most people reading this blog. To steep yourself in that legacy is to grapple with some pretty heavy issues about race, privilege, entitlement, and authenticity. Can white men (or women) sing the blues? Can a white person even have the blues? (Or does he just get sad?) There’s also a question of appropriation: Should a well-scrubbed English boy like Mick Jagger be allowed to sing something written by Willie Dixon, who once worked the soil on a Mississippi prison farm?

But what is the real blues? And who gets to own it? These are questions explored in the second half of Journeyman’s Road, but for the purposes of this post I’ll put the spotlight on just one essay: Whose Blues?, a funny, provocative article that should be compulsory reading for aspiring blues players. Subtitled “Eight Infuriating (or Hope-Inducing) Half-Truths about the Modern Blues Scene”, this essay sees Gussow complicating the hell out of all the tired old 2-D arguments (many of which I trotted through in the paragraphs above). At the same time, he manages to point out a bunch of political beartraps that contemporary fans of the blues are constantly blundering into. (Also see that essay for further details about the man in the pink tuxedo: a younger, hotter-headed Adam Gussow publishes a critique of some well-known harp players. One of them takes offence, leading to a heated, pink-tuxedo’d backstage exchange.)

For starters, Gussow has long pointed out that blues has always been a creole form: there’s never been such thing as “authentic” blues, so you can stop worrying about that. And they say in blues you’re either black and authentic or you’re white and faking it, right? How, Gussow asks, can one explain the fact that as a white man in New York he tutored a number of older black men in harmonica? And an American Indian blues band playing SRV Texas shuffles? Just where the hell do they fit in? And what does it mean when people talk about ‘keeping the blues alive’?

“What many whitefolks want to keep alive, to be blunt, is what might be called the Pristine Black Folk Subject, the postmodern reincarnation of the Old Time Negro.”

Sound familiar? I’m always surprised when someone remarks that African Americans “turned their back on blues.” [Even Jerry Portnoy said it in a Harp Surgery interview.] You may as well lament people turning their back on doing the Charleston.

The middle class white folk who so gleefully took up the blues mantle in the 1960s are obsessed with the authenticity of poverty: everyone likes a bit of authentic black bluesmanness, to the extent that it becomes a fetish. To quote a multitude of regional sales managers in ugly hats: “Them’s the real blues.” (By the way: any person who attended a decent school and got three meals a day does NOT have the right to say “ain’t” just because they’re wearing an ugly hat.)

Resolving these issues – or at least calling a mental truce with them – is crucial for anyone who plans to sit in for twelve bars of anything. Gussow can get you partway there.

…And the guy in the pink tuxedo? Well, I can’t be sure, but my money’s on Rick Estrin. Hope he doesn’t get to read this…

What do you think? Let’s hear it in the comments box.

We recently featured a post about Split Rivitt, a largely unknown band from the UK’s R&B boom of the early 1980s. From our last post, you may recall that England’s 2009 Ashes Test victory over Australia had reminded the Good Doctor of the BBC’s Test Match Special theme, Soul Limbo by Booker T. & The MGs. Only an alternative version by Split Rivitt, who replaced the Hammond lead of the original recording with a searing new harmonica line (also tabbed). You can download the track from Amazon here.

During our research we interviewed Peter Shertser of Red Lightnin’ Records, the track’s producer, as we could find out nothing about the band on line. Being the generous sort he is, Peter kindly promised the Harp Surgery team exclusive access to his Split Rivitt archive material. Well Otis dropped off the clippings this morning, so with our thanks to Peter, we are delighted to now bring you our ‘Rivitting’ scrap book.

Master tape

Here is the master tape box information with 24 track divisions from the band’s recording of Soul Limbo, made at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth. It shows Peter Shertser of Red Lightnin’ Records as the Producer and indicates the instrument on each track. Tracks 13 and 14 show Mark ‘Harpdog’ Hughes’ lead harmonica (HCA LEAD), while tracks 18 and 19 show a mysterious Scottish harp. “we were aiming at our own wall of sound”This lends weight to Peter’s comment ‘we added more harp on top and bounced it all down. I seem to remember asking him to harmonise and layer it. We were aiming at our own wall of sound.’ Peter continues, ‘Scottish harp refers to my own nomenclature. It was so I could remember what it sounded like, in this case the Scottish bagpipe sounding harp. Listen to the layers on a BIG hi-fi and you may hear it in the mix.’ We hear it Peter – this is why the word ‘abrasive’ appears in so many of the reviews from that time!

‘The track never truly got the exposure it deserved because the distributor, Pinnacle, got into financial difficulty. But it was on BBC Radio 1’s A list and got a lot of airplay. In fact it charted briefly in the top 20. I don’t know how the track was chosen originally. I have always been a big Booker T. fan, so maybe I had something to do with it.’

‘Anyway I love off-the-wall stuff. I once recorded the Dambusters Theme with a Punk Band and tried to sell it to the Germans. It didn’t get very far. ‘ [The Propellers - Ed.]

Getting the Humph

Here’s the article about Humphrey Lyttelton which Peter mentioned last time (from the Daily Mail 18.Dec 1980) by Tim Satchell. ‘There are two types of people in life’ says jazz trumpeter, broadcaster and music historian Humphrey Lyttelton, ‘the prefects and the snotty-nosed-kids. And I’ve always been one of the latter.’ Surprisingly, he can’t sight read music. ‘But I do have a photographic memory for parts.’

Home is a three-sided house he had built, despite local opposition, in Barnet, Hertfordshire. He has a sound-proofed “There are two types of people in life. The prefects and the snotty-nosed kids”practise room, which has proved useful as his younger son David, 22, is a drummer with the new wave band Split Rivitt. ‘I like their music. I think he’s really rather good,’ says Humph.

‘My other son, Stephen – he’s 25 – studied the classical guitar and he’s still working in music, but in the sensible, business side with a record store chain. ‘ But while Lyttelton’s Eton contemporaries like Francis Pym and Lord Carrington are running the country, Humph is happy searching through the jazz archives.’

‘I do sometimes come across people I was at at school with. But in general our paths don’t cross. I wouldn’t want to change anything, you see. They’re the prefects in life – I’m still the snotty-nosed kid.’

Read all about it

The cuttings in the image to the right are from the music press of the day. Peter Shertser remembers: ‘I organised what was supposed to be a package tour with Billy Boy Arnold & The Groundhogs, and Tommy Tucker & Split Rivitt. Unfortunately they ended up in different parts of the country at the same time and Tony McPhee subsequently dropped out of The Groundhogs!’

New Music News, in the build up to the“contenders in the current dredge-it-up climate” tour, writes: ‘The Red Lightnin’ R&B tour starts next month, featuring Tommy Tucker, Billy Boy Arnold and Split Rivitt. Arnold will be backed by a British band, featuring Tony McPhee on guitar, fellow ex-Groundhog Alan Fish on bass and former Rory Gallagher drummer Wilgar Campbell.’

Time Out adds: ‘The latest visit by American keyboard-playing bluesman Tommy Tucker.. augurs well and marks the continued expansion of the blues/r&b organisation Red Lightnin’ , represented here as promoters, while they also make a foray into the singles market with Split Rivitt, who back Tucker on stage.’

Meanwhile Sounds review the single: ‘None for me, thank you, but both [with Keep On Running by The Details] obviously serious chart contenders in the current dredge-it-up climate. Rivitt make the playlist in seconds flat with this abrasive rehash of Booker T.’

Live at London’s The Venue

‘One evening of the tour’, recalls Peter Shertser, ‘was recorded live at Virgin’s Venue in Victoria, London. I licensed it to Catfish Records but never saw a penny in return. Alexis Korner and Billy Boy’s brother, Romeo, joined the band on stage that night. It was fantastic.’

The photo to the left is was taken at the jam session immediately after the evening. ‘On stage are Billy Boy Arnold (dark suited to the left) with Mark ‘Harpdog’ Hughes on harp to his left (also in a dark top). At the left hand mic is Billy Boy’s brother Romeo who, by the way did a great rare 45 many years ago with a blues/reggae beat featuring harmonica! I cannot remember who the other black singer was – someone from a big band; Aswad or similar. Then next to him is the lamented Barney and in the far right corner Martin Stone. On keyboards is Steve Darrington.’

Split Rivitt live at The Polytechnic of North London (PNL)

Ah yes, the Good Doctor’s alma mater, the left-wing bastion of sausage, chips, beans and tea that was the Polytechnic of North London. From the New Musical Express (NME), the newspaper that captured the Zeitgeist of the late 70s / early 80s revolution in UK popular and underground music with its radical, and often controversial, squalls of muso-journalism: “..Check this, blues fans – he can play a chromatic!”‘Completing the line-up is the very able Mark ‘Harpdog’ Hughes on gob-iron who’s obviously heard a track or two of Little Walter (a good place for any mouth-harpist to start), but who is apt to break into a more flowing, melodic style from time to time, particularly on the slower material – which I find refreshingly adventurous. Check this, blues fans – he can play a chromatic!

I say they’re funky but I don’t mean they’re a ‘funk band’, the like of which usually bore me to teeny pieces . For one thing they still have that abrasive sound of yer classic R&B and for another they do songs as opposed to endless two-chord jams, which has the effect – it seems to me anyway – of making them more ‘personal.’

What’s the word?

And finally, from Black Echoes music newspaper: ‘..that record [Soul Limbo] is only one facet of a band with much more to say about white men playing black licks, as Mark explained.’

‘We got an R&B…well maybe a little more bluesy..tag over the last couple of months because we did that tour with Tommy Tucker and Billy Boy Arnold and the Red Lightnin’ thing and we were doing a much bluesier set. So when people came and saw us there was a lot more blues for that reason. But now – although I don’t know how many gigs we’re gonna be doing for a while – the blues element of the set will be taking a back seat.’

‘But with regards to your earlier comment about the Q Tips and The Step (two recently formed r&b/soul revival bands) without wanting to get involved in an inter-band conflict, and I think I can safely speak for everyone on this, I don’t actually have a lot of respect for them, because as far as I’m concerned they are just re-doing old numbers.’

And after being reminded that their current single is a hit tune from 1968? …’just a way of showing that was part of our [musical] roots. we’ve messed about with reggae and soul and with rhythm and blues and we’ve developed more of a sound now and I think when we record the songs we’ve been writing it’ll be more of our own sound.’

Acknowledgement

Thanks and full credit to Peter Shertser of Red Lightnin’ Records for sharing his Split Rivitt scrap book with the Harp Surgery.

In memory of Barney Jeffrey.

[UPDATE: Part 2 of the review is now live.]

Well, as I was saying – it’s the end of a Gussow era but not the end of the Gussow era. There’ll be no more free YouTube lessons, but there’s more Gussow wisdom to be harvested for the apprentice blues player – assuming you’ve not yet read Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York.

“In the skilled blue-collar trades,” writes Gussow, “a journeyman is a way station and job category: no longer an apprentice, not yet a master.”

Well, there you have it. This delightful patchwork of essays, scatter shot and rapid-fire in their wisdom, chronicles Gussow’s journey to becoming a master – and he’s crammed in every titbit of wisdom accrued along the way. It’s like a little street manual on how to graduate from your apprenticeship and start the sometimes weary trudge towards mastery. There are threads on blues culture, threads on jam session etiquette and ‘sitting in’, threads on blues history and blues future. And the result is a palimpsest which, when held up to the light, might just give us new ways to understand ourselves.

I’ve not read Mister Satan’s Apprentice. It’s been out of print since long before I started learning harp. [And according to a recent email from Amazon the reprint is delayed ‘til sometime between Nov ‘09 and Jan ’10.UPDATE: publication date is November 20th. Pre-order here or here.] Pity, because Journeyman’s Road would best be reviewed with an eye on Mister Satan’s Apprentice, but bear with me.

“If Journeyman’s Road has a theme,” writes Gussow, “it’s the complexity of the dance and depth of the search that marks the blues performer’s chosen path.” The bulk of this is made up columns penned for Blues Access magazine between 1996 and 1999, but there are a few academic papers towards the end, and I’ll get to those later.

The book, like this review, is split into two parts [watch out for second installment in the coming days]. First “Walking The Walk”, the memoir section. Here he writes about working his way up as a street musician, building on and filling in the gaps of Mister Satan’s Apprentice (which was written before Mister Satan’s nervous breakdown, their separation and eventual reunion). He also writes extensively about the New York blues scene and profiles many of the key figures thereof. He delivers a requiem for the now-closed Dan Lynch bar, whose Saturday-Sunday jam sessions were Blues HQ back in the day.

The ‘New York Blues Scene’ segments may seem a little parochial to readers who aren’t from the States and I found myself skimming the pages. However, Gussow finds the groove once again with a series of essays grouped under the title ‘Breakdowns And Revivals’: about his estrangement with Mr Satan, about the road to spiritual restoration after his heart gave out and really about finding a way to heal New York City after 9/11.

Perhaps he has a weakness for hyperbole. You could even say his earlier columns sometimes lapse into purple prose (hey, this from the guy who coined the phrase “delightful, scatter shot, rapid-fire, patchwork”). And yet when he writes in the groove, he can conjure better than anyone that deep, chest-swelling desire that all young blues players feel in their heart – a feeling that you can’t know until you burn to play the blues, until your yearning is so strong it threatens to choke you. So sometimes his hyperbole nails it, because the emotions he articulates are themselves hyperbolic.

You may see what I mean when you read the section where he describes his trip to a blues festival in Senegal. Confronted with the vast stretch of blue ocean whence African slaves were transported — the “Middle Passage” — his eyes start to well up.

I’d been in Europe a half-dozen times, but I’d never seen the broad body of the Atlantic from this side. It’s a long, long way across, I thought… I’d read much about the Middle Passage, as white American academics who teach African American literature do. But I hadn’t felt the Middle Passage, as a human proposition about an impossibly painful displacement, until that moment.

Ooh. There it goes again, a shiver. The last time I felt this faint choked-up feeling, I’d just watched the trailer to the forthcoming Satan & Adam documentary.

In short, this is not a self-indulgent homage-to-me autobiography. This is a smart, incisive and dynamic study of blues lives, and if you want to understand how to live one yourself — indeed, to understand what a blues life is at all — you’d do well to get a copy for your bookshelf. Gussow’s a guy who knows what it’s all about, and he wants to share it with us. But you already knew that, didn’t you? So get the book, dummy!

Stay tuned for Part 2 review of Journeyman’s Road, because the second half of the book (“Talking the Talk”) is where he’s hidden the really good $#!t…

Elwood is the guest blogger for The Harp Surgery’s Apprenticeship Series. In his spare time he’s a grad student in London. Follow him on Twitter, if you like.

Don’t just sit there, check out our Music Store and order a copy now. You’d be stark staring mad not to. This is a phenomenal piece of work. It is THE comprehensive tutorial book we’ve all been sitting around hoping someone, some day might eventually drop in our laps. You probably know the basics – and Winslow reviews these in his clear and engaging way – but what about that scary stuff beyond blow bending, octaving, tongue blocking and first, second or third positional playing?

For too long now we’ve been led, often erroneously, from entry level into the realms of intermediate playing and then abandoned like a McDonalds wrapper in the car park of life. Anything else has to be begged, borrowed or stolen from resources on YouTube or from pros who suffer extreme poverty of time. So we tend to give up and our development is curtailed. For ever. Alternatively the available information is so horribly technical that a nice cup of tea with Otis, or a comfy chair and re-run of Friends is infinitely more compelling.

Yeah Baby!

With the entry level skills covered, Author Winslow Yerxa takes us on to all those dangerous places other harp books shy away from, or YouTube broadcasts digress from, and blows the doors right off. And all the time you are thinking to yourself YEAH BABY! What is the practical use of fourth, fifth and twelfth position? How do you make sense of modal playing? How do you get into overbending? Where’s Country and Celtic at? Have I got the balls to play in public? How about amplification? Am I qualified to undertake my own repairs? How can I slow my favourite tracks down and pick the bones out? The answers are all here. And they are provided in an accessible format which leaves you feeling enlightened, relaxed and hungry for more. Plus there is an audio CD and tab to bring everything to life.

Lying in the Florida sunshine this summer, I found myself repeatedly slapping the text and hugging my wife – not the other way round. Or else thinking to myself, this is exactly what we’ve been telling students at the Harp Surgery all these years and we thought we were being radical. Save your comments. Many pages in my copy now have big pen circles and excited comments hastily scribbled in the margin for easy reference. Since then, I have had the delightful experience of meeting the author Winslow Yerxa at his Jazz Chromatic workshop in Berkeley CA. He’s as great in action as he is in print. Check out this joyous presentation by the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers and you’ll see what I mean.

Some of you may have encountered Winslow on the Harp-L forum. He is a teaching associate of Jon Gindick and Dave Barrett. He also recently worked with Howard Levy on his instructional DVDs and contributes to the amazing Harmonica Sessions newsletter. This should tell you everything.

In part 2

We introduce you to the man, the mind, the wit and the legend that is… Winslow Yerxa. Till then, get the book!

I first picked up a copy of this excellent book by Kim Field shortly after the updated edition was published by Cooper Square Press in 2000. At that time I was only interested in the blues, which meant half the content went unread. But this is a goldmine I keep coming back to. As my appreciation of all things harmonica matures, so Kim Field’s work garners greater relevance.

It should be stressed that the emphasis of Kim Field’s research is on the North American harmonica heritage, although the UK’s Tommy Reilly is awarded five pages in the Classical Music chapter and there is brief mention of the burgeoining British bands of the 1960s in the Rock and Roll chapter. Nonetheless, Field’s work combines the best aspects of a good read and a very handy reference resource.

There are twelve chapters in all, plus an intriguing epilogue and afterword. In the opening chapter, Field charts an ancient journey from the South East Asian roots of the free reed instrument family to the harmonica’s eventual landfall in the USA.

The first Hohner instruments to reach the United States may have been sent to some relatives of Matthias Hohner who had emigrated to Chicago. Hohner signed his first export agreements with buyers in the United States in 1862, and the firm began introducing harmonicas named after popular Americam musical heroes, including the Marine Band (a bow to John Philip Sousa’s celebrated aggregation) and the Caruso.

Harmonica bands of the 1930s and 1940s such as Borrah Minevitch’s Harmonica Rascals, and The Cappy Barra Harmonica Ensmble are the focus of the third chapter. The harmonica first went professional in America on the stages of the vaudeville theaters that were at the heart of the country’s entertainment scene from the late 1880s until the end of World War II. Every chapter is loaded with trivia and anecdotes, and the book is punctuated with some excellent black and white stills of the reviewed artists.

In the fourth chapter we are introduced to some famous harmonica soloists, including Larry Adler, Pete Pedersen and Charles Newman. “As a boy, Adler briefly studied piano at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music; legend has it he was expelled at the age of ten for not being able to resist a perverse urge to play ‘Yes We Have No Bananas’ at a piano recital. Adler’s own recollection is that ‘I was rejected because of my total absence of aptitude and an incorrigibly bad ear.”

The proceding chapters guide us through the Folk Music harmonica tradition by way of players such as Sonny Terry, Peg Leg Sam and Phil Wiggins, the Country Music harmonica tradition with DeFord Bailey, Charlie McCoy, Don Brooks and the like and on into the blues. Within the blues section, coverage starts with Jaybird Coleman and Jug Band players such as Will Shade and Noah Lewis. Focus is then shifted to the Chicago roll call, before a final nod at swamp blues in the guise of Slim Harpo.

From Jerry Portnoy, Kim Field quotes the following classic moment: I hung up the phone and I lost it. I went bananas. If you want to be a brain surgeon, well, there is a course of action you can take – go to medical school, study, and become a brain surgeon. But for blues harp players, there was only one job, and the planets had to align pretty good for it to happen. When I hung up the phone, I ran out of that house and didn’t even close the door. I was filled with nervous energy and I just ran right up the street to a friend’s record store and burst in the door and said, ‘Muddy Waters just hired me.’ Man, it was the greatest moment of my life, except for maybe when my children were born.

Our journey then explores the landscape of Rock And Roll harmonica, beginning with a brief tribute to the British bands of the 1960′s. ‘[Brian Jones]..was a cat who could play any instrument,’ Keith Richards told Rolling Stone. ‘I went out one morning and came back in the evening and Brian was blowing harp, man….All these blues notes comin’ out.’ Centre stage are Bob Dylan, Paul Butterfield, Lee Oskar, Magic Dick and Kim Wilson. “Although friends remember him experimenting with the harmonica by the time he was in ninth grade, Dylan didn’t get anywhere with the instrument until after his run-in with [Jesse] Fuller.”

A tribute to Stevie Wonder is the only entry in the Soul chapter. Soul music is a territory where the harmonica seems to have found few inroads – but stay tuned for further research on this site. Jazz then heads the agenda with reference to Toots Thielemans, William Gallison and Howard Levy. Chicagoan Howard Levy came to the harmonica as a pianist, and from the beginning he refused to accept the inherent chromatic limitations of the instrument. Anyone who has ever tried overblows will be familiar with Levy’s boundary breaking achievements.

The penultimate chapter covers some intriguing material entitled Hollywood. If you’ve ever wondered who tinsel town’s session harmonica players for TV and film were, the answer probably lies within these pages. Tommy Morgan for instance not only recorded for Hang ‘Em High, The Colour Purple, All That Jazz and Annie, he also played the theme tunes to Rockford Files, Dukes of Hazzard, Newhart, and Sanford And Son. Perhaps even more famously, he blew Bass harmonica on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album.

The closing chapter in Field’s book takes us into the realms of Classical harmonica. The stiffest opposition to encroachment by the harmonica has been put up by orthodox devotees of classical music Fields writes. He then plots the contributions of John Sebastian, Cham-Ber Huang, Stan Harper, Tommy Reilly and Robert Bonfiglio, concluding that the humble harmonica cuts across boundaries and at the same time is evocative of everything American.

In his Epilogue Field touches on the eternal problem of the harmonica’s accessibility. Something which makes it at once easy to play but hard to master. Indeed it can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. Ultimately, everyone who ever picked one up did so for the same reason. We just love it: If I don’t blow my harp, I hurt. God put that on me to make me play. That happened every day. All my life. [DeFord Bailey]

I believe there has been a further revised edition of this wonderful tome, complete with a fresh cover design. No doubt there will be more. Whatever the cosmetic changes, the substance and flow of Kim Field’s subject matter is sensitively handled and extremely rewarding. I know I will be thumbing its pages for many years to come. Published by Cooper Square Press, Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers is available on Amazon.

From the author..

I just now came across the review of my book, Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers, on your Web site. Sorry it took so long for it to come to my attention. I not only wanted to thank you for one of the best reviews that my book has ever gotten, but for your excellent Web site. It’s really well done and is a great resource for anyone interested in the world’s finest instrument. Unlike too many sites, it’s very well written, too. Cool stuff. I go back to the days when there were very few resources for harp players. It’s just phenomenal what is out there today, and your site is one of the best.

Thanks again and keep up the great work!

Kim Field

Can you recommend a good book for learning blues harp?

I am often asked this question and the answer is yes. One I often prescribe is Blues Harp from Scratch by Mick Kinsella, published by Wise Publications. I remember its first incarnation, Play Blues Harp In 60 Minutes, which I picked up at a Johnny Mars master class in Brighton a few years ago. It was a pocket size manual and CD which, although brief and not error free, was actually very easy to get along with. It was well structured, concise and free from inaccuracy. Of course you could never really learn blues harp in one hour, that takes years rather than minutes, however this was a great little entry guide.

The revised and extended A4 version is great. As you would expect, it introduces you to the C major scale and breathing exercises straight away, before tackling Oh Susanna and Amazing Grace in first position. With the basics familiarised, Mr Kinsella moves into cross harp using the basic, bend-free, blues scale 2D 3D 4B 4D 5D 6B with more exercises. Two lovely blues tunes follow, Easy Street and Trouble Free Blues, both of which educate the newcomer in the art of chord changes and promote technique building such as glottal stops, short runs and repeated blues licks across holes 1 and 2. The tunes can be challenging at first, but they help to build important foundation skills.

Here she comes, around the bend

Next comes note bending. Exercises and study pieces for holes 4 and 6 draw bends are tackled first, followed by the more difficult 3 draw and 2 draw bends, complete with a selection of riffs. Full tone and part tone bends are then explored before moving into direct bending and additional riffs using the full blues scale 2D 3D’ 4B 4D’ 4D 5D 6D and back.

With the bottom end charted, later lessons focus on blow bending in holes 7, 8 and 9. These are dealt with in short order compared to the draw bends. Some more information on blow bend technique would be beneficial, however there is always the CD to listen to for guidance. Wah-wahs, head rolls and tongue rolls are mapped out next, although in my opinion tongue rolls are a slight red herring. Then throat vibrato, jaw vibrato and finally note splitting. The last study piece, Lake Shore Drive, draws all the newly mastered skills together over a wonderful concluding Chicago shuffle.

Mick Kinsella guides you expertly through the essentials of blues playing with clarity and in a musical way. The tab doesn’t just comprise arrows and numbers, it has formal notation too. This is good. Newcomers should learn to associate their playing with traditional score, complete with note values, rests and time signatures. The study pieces are not designed as backdrops for special effects. They help to build an understanding of how tunes progress through chord changes towards resolution (unless of course you’re vamping over a mesmeric one chord wonder such as Shake Your Hips or Boogie Chillen). There are still one or two typos in the tab and scores, but you’ll quickly spot and correct them for yourself.

My only suggestion for improvement is that when the package is updated, the study pieces and exercises on the CD would benefit not just from Mick’s examples, but also from shadow tracks. This way students can build confidence playing along in tandem before venturing into their first solos.