Harp Surgery

Our First-Ever Blues Harp Albums (Part 1)

Elwood

Which record got you hooked on blues harmonica? This week the Harp Surgery team goes back to Original Spin…

Elwood’s choice:

I’ll never forget the day I decided to take up blues harmonica. I was 18 years old, doing a crappy internship in a run-down part of the most boring town in England, and I decided to go shopping for music in my lunch hour. I can’t remember where I found the CD, but I do remember it just jumped right out of the shelf at me: Blue Skies, by some soulful-looking fellow named Muddy Waters.

The first track was ‘Mannish Boy’. I don’t recall the first listening per se, and yet I know exactly how it must have felt, because this bellowing, ball-tightening number still sends giant surges of electricity down the ole tendons. With Muddy on vocals, Willie Big Eyes Smith on drums, Bob Margolin on guitar and Johnny Winter on slide, the track’s signature riff has James Cotton on harp. I’d never heard of James Cotton, but that electric riff came shredding through my earphones like demonic buzz-saws being shot outta Satan’s crossbow.

I was hooked. Read more

Son of Dave – Part 2 : “I’m not really a very clever harp player”

Elwood

Son of Dave interviewLast month we interviewed the Son of Dave. Here’s the second half of our chat with the beat-boxing harmonica man: this time, he rants about drum-machines, America, nun-raping pop songs, and why he wears sunglasses indoors.

…So I asked some of our readers if they had any questions for you. Here’s one from Adam Gussow.
SoD: He has a question for me?

Why, he has three questions.
SoD: Get the fuck out of here! Well, hi Adam.

Here’s his first question: do you tongue-block or lip-purse, and does that sort of technical question interest you or bore you?
SoD: Tongue block, now stop boring me. Read more

Choosing a Microphone: Acoustic vs Amplified?

Greg

The Harmonica Microphone Series beginsElwood’s Note: “I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to harmonica mics. When you ask me what my favourite element is, I normally choose between earth, wind, water and fire. I thought “Impedance” was a stigmatised medical condition which affects 50 percent of all men. That’s why we asked Greg Heumann at BlowsMeAway Productions to run a blog here at the Harp Surgery for the next few weeks, giving you (and me) a crash course in microphones and all the fiddly bits inside them. Greg is a performing harp player who’s been making custom mics since 2004, and he’s forgotten more about microphones than I will ever know.“

Choosing a microphone: Acoustic vs Amplified?

Biscuit microphone, courtesy of Harmonica MasterclassIn choosing a microphone, the most important question of all is “What do you want to sound like?”

There are two classes of sound, with infinite variety in each class. If you’re a classical musician, you’ll probably stand in front of a stand-mounted microphone and you want the amplified sound to cleanly reflect the tone of your playing – giving the closest representation of what it would be like to be in the same room with you, with no microphone or amplifier at all. We call this kind of sound “acoustic” even though it may in fact be picked up with a microphone. Read more

Win A Copy Of The New William Clarke CD

The Good Doctor

So many smiles down through the years

CD 01Harps down, heads up! Harp Surgery has been chatting with the lovely Jeanette Lodovici, former wife of the late great William Clarke, about her latest CD release: William Clarke – Live Bootleg Cassette Anthology. Read on to find out how you can win a copy!

Jeanette explained how the project came about: “There are so many pirate recordings out there of my late husband. Two of his fans sent me some of this bootleg music. Unfortunately it was poor quality, so I sent it to three different studios and finally we got a decent sound out of this badly recorded material.

I still had my doubts on the quality of the recording though. I promised Bill that I would never put anything ‘bad’ out of him. So I sent a few songs to eight people I respect. Seven of them told me it was great stuff and the quality really didn’t matter. Well, I went with the majority. Read more

Tip of the Top – Sonoma Chicken Coop, Campbell CA, Sat 27.Sept 2009

The Good Doctor

Old School’s Cool

TOTT copyright 2009 David Durkee

During its first months on line, Harp Surgery posted a review of Jason Ricci’s show at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco. The event was a double leap of faith. Firstly we’d never encountered Jason’s radical playing before and secondly we’d never published a live gig review. Since cutting our teeth on both counts, Mr Ricci has become a firm friend and Harp Surgery has accumulated a small library of gig write-ups.

Readers of the Jason Ricci review may recall we forged another important friendship that night in Frisco. Aki Kumar is an honours graduate of the great Dave Barrett’s Harmonica Masterclass. A skillful musician and a true gentleman, Aki’s in high demand on the SoCal blues circuit both as a guest performer and as front man for his own stellar lineup Tip Of The Top. The Harp Surgery caught up with Aki in San Jose and, bearing in mind recent debate concerning old versus new harping, the experience was somewhat poignant. Read more

Son of Dave – Part 1: Same Old Sound, Maybe New Sunglasses

Elwood

Son of Dave
 An interview with blues harmonica man Benjamin Darvil

Son of Dave found his coolness through the only legitimate means available to us skinny white guys: Wearing your granddad’s clothes and a creepy grin, and making bizarre, gut-busting music that goes oomph-a-doomph in the night. The one-man beat-boxing, harmonica-playing phenomenon has a new album coming out on March 22: Shake a Bone. The Harp Surgery’s Apprentice found him in the Blues Kitchen, North London, lurking behind a pair of sunglasses and a huge plate of Tex-Mex. Here’s what he had to say… Read more

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