A post in the Sugar Blue thread got me looking on YouTube for a particular commercial in which Howlin' Wolf was the soundtrack. I found one--although probably not the commercial the poster had in mind. But we should have a thread in which we post YT and other videos of TV commercials in which blues harmonica--and non-harmonica classic blues, if you want--is used to sell stuff. I may well enshrine this thread somewhere on this website after the dust settles, so please behave, everybody:
Here's another, sorta:
And, uh, this one doesn't really fall within the rules I've, ah, just established, but it's wild and crazy, and there's sorta an R&B soundtrack. Sorta.
Here's a gem from 1980:
A contemporary commercial for Danneker harps, featuring Jamey Garner:
I'm kind of blurring the lines between TV commercials and YouTube commercials, but heck: there's a lot of stuff out there:
Here's a TV commercial:
Here's a commercial featuring Lamont "Harmonica" Harris and his wife. No harmonica in the commercial--but it makes you wonder what Harris is about:
I hope this isn't considered hijacking, but Adam, has it been discussed earlier here why the use of harps in commercials is more prevalent than its overall place in popular music would suggest?
My harmonica radar goes nuts when I'm around a television. I'm constantly hearing little bits of harmonica in show intros, outros, and cuts to commercials. That's probably a different thread though, haha.
Howlin' Wolf – Smokestack Lightnin' – Budweiser commercial 1995 in the UK. (Sorry I couldn't find the ad on it's own, only as part of this compilation. Starts around 1:05 mark):
Sonny Terry – Wooping the Blues – EON Energy commercial in the UK
Thanks for posting the Dannecker video. Total freestyle, ad lib playing as I danced my way down an old Texas dirt road. Pretty rough, but was tons of fun. Antony Dannecker's harps are wonderful to play!!!
The 'fine print' on those Viagra ads is enough to dampen any mood. More than four hours? I notice Mythbusters has some wailing harp whenever they are about to do something foolhardy and dangerous; it also come into play when some rural type is about to enter a swamp to catch a gator with his bare hands or some such. It seems to be short hand for dumb, foolish and reckless. There's probably a PhD thesis in there somewhere.
Here's one from Oz, with Jim Conway (my teacher) on harp.
