if you click on share... click embed then copy and paste in the box the video will appear ---------- tipjar
Last Edited by 1847 on Apr 09, 2013 5:15 PM
Yeah Gary good presentation,runaway great harp song,does buffalo use a c and a d,bflat chrom tuning sounds super.
Sent some of my suzukies promasters-manji's for reed repair tuneup.Man back in 5 days sounding good.Wanted to start a new thread giving Gary a good review,and still will.His service was top notch,and I'm probably like a number of guys shopping around,blowing out harps of all brands,my bad hard blowing habits are slowly leaving me,and I find between the big three Hohner,suzuki,seydel none of their reeds last longer for me.We are lucky that competition,and the small bus. repair guys keep us going with quality services.
Way to slick for me,but that's why he got to play with bonnie.Have every harp but the Db,very useful,and then my C chrom very much has got to learn when to push the button.
Last Edited by capnj on Apr 09, 2013 9:25 PM
This is a good one for chromatic, Norton offered that to the producers before trying the four harp attack-- Diatonic has a more immediate sound, some people think chromatic harmonica sounds like Zamfir!
I played a tune to my girlfriend in 3rd on chromatic, and the same thing on diatonic. She said the diatonic sounds like me now, chromatic sounds like me when I'm 20 years older. I'm no spring chicken, but I think I understand what she was saying...my chromatic playing lacks vitality! ----------
@ Dougharps So as long as certain notes aren't important! Gb is the note missing from the Power Chromatic which must be overblown--I think it's important over the Ab chord, but I haven't crafted a solo for Runaway. Which reminds me--is the solo from the record the same as the one from the Midnite Special YouTube video?
I certainly didn't mean to give the impression you could play an identical solo on one harp, just that you could play acceptably over the changes on an F harp without dis-chord. Coordinating 4 harps at speed in live performance of this song is not an easy thing to do, but it would be worth mastering if you are planning to perform this song on a regular basis.
Regarding the Midnight Special vs. Studio versions, they are close, but different. Some sloppiness live, but still absolutely wonderful. I remember seeing that show when it first aired, and I was amazed.
Thanks for posting easy links to these two, now I gotta practice! So I am starting to study these recordings--on the live version, Norton finishes his solo, plays over the G7 chord, with a Db harmonica. Impressive! That last note is a little funny tho . . .
Last Edited by Gnarly on Apr 10, 2013 11:47 PM
OK, in my research I find that this subject has been raised more times than anyone can count. So here is an account from Norton himself, from an edited post from another web forum.
"Well, Runaway that I did with Bonnie Raitt was kind of interesting. I was on tour with Steve in 77, we were playing the forum in Los Angeles and I got this message at my hotel. Urgent, please call. So I made my phone call for Bonnie and I had met Bonnie a few times and we had played some together, jammed a little bit. I really loved her playing, still do. They were trying to put this record together. So, I went by the studio and took a listen to what they were doing and I said I had to pick up some other harmonicas, so lets schedule for a couple of days from now. So a couple of days later, I came down with the most horrible case of the flu. I had a 100 and something odd degree fever.
But when I was thinking of Runaway, I was thinking of that Del Shannon (Norton imitates the solo) you know a real dorky solo! So I went in there and this track is grooving pretty good, but for some reason in my head, I got this Del Shannon thing going on and I'm trying to play chromatic on it and it's just not working. By then they'd already tried Tom Scott on sax. They'd tried Billy Payne on keyboards. They'd tried Bonnie on guitar and just hadn't come up with anything and I'm out there doing this dumb stuff on chromatic and it's just not working. So, they're ready to shine me on and I'm just sweating. I'm feeling horrible and not telling them that I'm sick. So they're about ready to cut me loose and I said "Look, I'll tell you what. Let me do what I would do if this was my record". And it takes four harmonicas to play that song the way I did it, and it's twice through, so it's eight harmonicas. Eight harmonica changes anyway. So, I put all my harmonicas all out ready to go, and they start the tape and I got my eyes closed and just playing the s**t and when I look up, they're just jumping up and down and screaming gin the studio and just raving about it.
That was it. I think I might have cleaned up one little spot on it. The rest is what you hear. But they'd already printed the record cover. Because they were so far behind on production that the first 40 thousand or 50 thousand albums that came out, didn't have anybody credited for the harmonica. So all these people were playing it, well you know, Buttefield had played with Bonnie on something before hand and Junior Wells had also recorded with Bonnie on some stuff in the past. So all these people, all these DJ's across the country played Runaway, which got a lot of airplay. It was the first song that she got that cracked that market open. All these people are trying to figure out who the harmonica player was. A lot of them thought it was Butterfield. A lot of them thought it was Junior Wells. And then they're hearing it's Norton Buffalo."
Last Edited by Gnarly on Apr 11, 2013 12:09 AM
Gnarly, yes, the question has been raised many time & I'd seen that post -great story. I asked if there was a reasonable option for playing it with one harp because 4 is a pain in... I'm pretty sure I could get it if I put in 3-4 hours but I need to do it (something) live and I just won't bother with switching 8 times. So F is going to be my plan.
use two sided tape tape all 4 harmonica's on top of each other that way you will not drop one or pick up the wrong one like norton did at the end of the solo ---------- tipjar
