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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Pat Ramsey - definition of modern blues harmonica?
Pat Ramsey - definition of modern blues harmonica?
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HarpNinja
3411 posts
Aug 19, 2013
7:00 AM
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I was listening to his work with Johnny Winter and then his first studio album. Would he not serve as a poster child for modern blues harmonica?
I think what makes his case most compelling is his adherence to using the blues scale over blues changes in cross harp. He doesn't change positions very much or us any overly sophisticated note choices...doesn't even overblow.
His tone is very bluesy, although maybe not super fat, but it is a very unique sound. The whole band sounds modern, IMO, but had you planted Pat in with a traditional band, his licks would still work great.
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Mantra Customized Harmonicas
My Website
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TheoBurke
453 posts
Aug 19, 2013
7:12 AM
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What sets Ramsey apart from most other blues harmonica players is that he combination of power, speed and clarity in his playing, made all the more attractive with his effortless legato style. His solos, song to song, are thought out and handily arranged in the creation of tension and release. I listen to Ramsey continually and usually think "I can do that", since what he performs stays within the confines of blues and funk structures, but a closer listen reveals him to be a master musician at work. He is the sort of fast harmonica I like, quick, clean, tight with the band, not accelerating so fast as to become a grating blur of fumbled notes. I consider him a master blaster.
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Ted Burke
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheoBurke?feature=mhee
http://ted-burke.com
tburke4@san.rr.co,
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6SN7
351 posts
Aug 19, 2013
11:06 AM
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I remember the first time I heard Pat Ramsey on JW's "White, Hot and Blue." His harp was very distinctive and out front in the mix, something that surprised me since I was listening to a JW album. Pat really play with his own voice on this record and didn't sound like anyone else on the blues scene at the time. Bobby T also lent a distinctive touch with his drumming, which made this record sound original. To put the time of the recording in context, I think the T-Birds and the Nighthawks were pretty popular at the time in the clubs JW was playing.
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1847
992 posts
Aug 19, 2013
11:57 AM
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top tier upper echelon harp player...definitely
poster child not so sure
whats is considered modern blues harmonica?
it is 2013 he was very popular in the late eighties early nineties. he passed away 5 years ago
i would consider the venerable adam gussow or perhaps adam ricci
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master po
i get a lot of request when i play
"but i play anyway"
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HarpNinja
3412 posts
Aug 19, 2013
12:02 PM
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While I would totally consider both Adam and Jason modern blues, Pat adherse more technically to the trad blues idiom than the other two.
The wealth of their most popular work is very far removed from the typical context of blues harmonica. Pat's is much closer.
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Mantra Customized Harmonicas
My Website
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Frank
2631 posts
Aug 19, 2013
12:16 PM
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A Lot of these players need to be seen LIVE to really appreciate their musicianship...I remember hearing some of Rick Estrins playing on cassette before I got to see him live and thinking - this is okay...but live, he proved to be an absolute monster harmonica Master and a total unforgettable experience hearing and seeing him live for the first time.
Same with Pat...I got see him live once and it was a life changing experience as far as hearing upclose the mastery he possessed. I didn't leave thinking about traditional or modern - just that what I witnessed was uniquely his, his voice, his vision.... talent out the whazoooo :)
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arnenym
179 posts
Aug 19, 2013
12:21 PM
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I always like Johnny Winter. First time i heard "White hot and blue" i was blown away. The solo on "Last night" is still my favourite. I was grateful the day i could digitalize it and later buy a better digital copy of this record. I worn out one vinyl and the second is on the way to go..
Later i bought 2 cd's from Pat. He wrote back to me and send three cd's because Sweden, where i live, is so far so away from US and he was honored.
With that said i think he was a great and humble person too.
Last Edited by arnenym on Aug 19, 2013 12:23 PM
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timeistight
1326 posts
Aug 19, 2013
12:40 PM
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Ramsey was one of Jason Ricci's earliest and biggest influences, so if you dig Jason you should definitely check him out.
By the way, I owned "White Hot and Blue" on vinyl when it first came out, but I guess it got lost in the wars. I can't seem to find a CD or on iTunes. Anyone know where to get a copy?
Last Edited by timeistight on Aug 19, 2013 1:08 PM
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HarpNinja
3413 posts
Aug 19, 2013
1:04 PM
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Jason Ricci wouldn't be Jason Ricci without Pat. You can hear that they come from the same place with how they approach phrasing. Jason takes it to the next level.
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Mantra Customized Harmonicas
My Website
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mr_so&so
723 posts
Aug 19, 2013
1:23 PM
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I can't comment on Pat Ramsey, unfortunately, but I just want to plus-one Frank's comment above about seeing someone perform live to fully appreciate him/her and what is possible. Having seen our patron, Adam Gussow, do his thing live this year, what stuck with me was the hugeness of his tone and obvious mastery of the instrument that stood him apart anyone else present.
I noticed the same phenomenon (the experiencing it live thing) when as a kid I saw a golf demonstration by a pro-level player, which blew away anything I had seen done previously.
You really do need to experience it done live right in front of you to know what to shoot for yourself.
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didjcripey
600 posts
Aug 19, 2013
2:43 PM
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One of my favourites from him:
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Lucky Lester
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Frank
2632 posts
Aug 19, 2013
2:53 PM
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I've only seen PRO golfers up close once and I swear to God - when they tee'ed off it sounded like a friggin rocket being launched by NASA...
IT's been probably 20 years since I've seen Satan and Adam perform - I drove to Cleveland from Pittsburgh to catch the Show - I do remember it was ROCKIN, both those guys were outstanding...
I got to see a video of Adam interviewed by Dave Barrett a while back and that was an eye opener to me for just how talented he is :)
Last Edited by Frank on Aug 19, 2013 2:54 PM
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hooktool
64 posts
Aug 19, 2013
3:34 PM
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www.patramsey.com has two cd's available through CD Baby and there are three on iTunes-Live in Key West, Live at Big Bend, Its about Time.
John
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arnenym
181 posts
Aug 20, 2013
4:20 AM
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I love the answer he give after 2.10 minutes..
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kudzurunner
4205 posts
Aug 20, 2013
5:12 AM
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At one point several years ago, with the creation of a manifesto for modern blues harmonica--lower-case, not upper case--in mind, I compiled a list of eleven players who, to my mind, exemplified the modernist (or audibly modernizing) trend within contemporary blues harmonica playing. In several cases I included representative recordings. Not to hijack the thread, but here's the list. It's not a Top-11, just a representative list to sketch the outlines of the territory in question and get the conversation going--and although Pat Ramsey isn't on it, he's certainly a good fit. The list includes minimalists, maximalists, and quite a few points in between:
1) Carlos del Junco
2) Sugar Blue (One More Mile, Pontiac Blues)
3) Jason Ricci (Down at the Juke, Mellow Down Easy, Goenophany)
4) Billy Branch (Son of Juke)
5) Hakan Ehn
6) Lyndon Anderson
7) Wade Schuman
8) Adam Gussow (with S&A: Sweet Home Chicago, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Thunky Fing Rides Again; solo, Crossroads Blues)
9) Brandon O. Bailey (Whammer Jammer, Blues Ball)
10) Son of Dave (Hellhound)
11) Paul Delay
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 20, 2013 5:17 AM
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6SN7
352 posts
Aug 20, 2013
6:27 AM
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Most those guys on your list were not even around in 1978. Delay, Blue and Branch were pioneering stylists at the time, but those others were not on the scene. I be more interested who was on your list when you were 20. The late 1970's saw a resurance in the popularity of Blues music and was lead by bands like the T-Birds, James Cotton, The Nighthawks, Clarke, Piazza along with traditional players like Walter Horton and George Smith. Muddy Waters had appeared in the Last Waltz and made 3 albums with Johnny Winter and Cotton that were unlike any others blues album up to that point, particularly with regards to production values.
I would be more interested who you thought was modern in 1978, at the time "White,Hot and Blue" was released.
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Aug 20, 2013 6:31 AM
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jbear
22 posts
Aug 20, 2013
7:12 AM
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When you say manifesto, were you trying to define what the 'modern' part of 'modern blues harmonica' actually implies?
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kudzurunner
4206 posts
Aug 20, 2013
9:50 AM
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@jbear: Yes, but I never wrote the manifesto
@6SN7: When I was 20, I had no conception associated with the words modern and traditional. It never occurred to me that there were some blues players who were trying to get a new sound, a sound that bespoke its own contemporary moment, and some, driven by reverence and/or nostalgia, who were trying to get an older, more familiar sound that bespoke an earlier moment. It never occurred to me that the history of blues was a history of the tension between an older (or old-sounding) blues sound and a current/contemporary/future-leaning sound. I figured that out later--and realized that some players and many fans had never figured it out.
Back then, I was just interested in learning how to play blues guitar and blues harmonica. I loved it all and made no distinctions.
If you're asking me who I would now list as players who, in 1978, were the equivalents of the players on the list above--i.e., players who were, more or less consciously, trying to innovate rather than recuperate and preserve, trying to streamline and speed up, trying to signify on "the old stuff" as a way of saying "It's old and I'm new" (and no one player does all those things in equal measure, but every modern player does one or more of them), then I'd probably start with the following players who were active modernizers in 1978. This list can surely be added to--and I'm not entirely sure about Newell:
Magic Dick
James Cotton
Mike Turk
Paul Butterfield
Pat Ramsey
Norton Buffalo
Little Sonny
Pierre Beauregard
Lee Oskar (more R&B than blues, but definitely a modernist)
Richard Newell (King Biscuit Boy)
Cotton's playing on 100% COTTON, driven by his funk-rock ensemble, was notably modern, but his playing on the three albums you mentioned was the opposite of modern. The albums were Johnny Winter's attempt to recapture an old classic Chess sound--the one-mic-in-the-middle-of-the-room sound, as it were. Cotton and Big Walter were a part of that.
Kim Wilson has one foot in both camps. The first T-Birds album, GIRLS GO WILD, came out in 1979. Kim's instrumentals were definitely aiming for something new-ish--a fusion of Chicago harp with Texas shuffles--but Kim also had an extremely traditional, anti-modern side driven by his hunger to be an old black Chicago blues player grooving on the once-innovative, now-classic sound of 1952.
Kim made this point in almost exactly those words in Kim Field's book. "When Muddy Waters talked me up in the papers, that was success to me," he said. "To have all those guys that you listened to on records all those years while you were playing, for them to treat you like an equal and put you out there like that with them--that's success. I really think I'm one of them. In act, I KNOW I'm one of them" (229). We know from what Cotton and others have said that Muddy wanted his harmonica players to sound just like Little Walter in 1952. Cotton had to fight Muddy on that. Kim gained Muddy's admiration (and Jimmy Rogers's) by proving he could get the old Muddy Waters sound. Because Kim's a great artist, he put some of himself into the mix. But his foundational impulse--one of his two impulses, and the more important--was to go with the old sound. He's an interesting player, though, because, especially with the T-Birds (on instrumentals such as "Down at Antone's," for example), he was also trying for something new-ish and different, if not what I'd call space age. But he was ahead of Paul Osher, Danny Russo, Lenny Rabenovetz, the NYC guys who were all very traditional at that point.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 20, 2013 10:16 AM
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timeistight
1331 posts
Aug 20, 2013
10:25 AM
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What about Madcat Ruth? I saw him play a couple of times at SPAH last week and he really knocked me out.
I know he's deeply rooted old-time harp styles, but over his long career he's shown that he can adapt his playing to a wide variety of genres, including fusion and straight-ahead jazz. He can play blazingly fast without getting repetitive or sloppy. And, he's got a pedal board that can make those wacky sounds the kids these days like.
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kudzurunner
4207 posts
Aug 20, 2013
11:22 AM
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Madcat definitely deserves mention in this thread. I remember the first time I heard Madcat on "Christopher Columbus" by the Brubecks. A quick search tells me that that recording was released in 1974, so it was soon after that. Madcat is a fascinating case, because he's got one foot strongly in a country blues tradition and the other, quite uniquely, in the non-traditional meter jazzy stuff that Chris Brubeck plays. And yes, he uses lots of weird percussion and super-fast stuff, pushing the envelope that way even as he works some down-home tonalities.
He may be unique in how intensely he works both directions of the traditional/modern split without ever losing a sense of who he is. I saw all this quite vividly when he played here in Oxford with Brubeck a couple of years ago.
So yes: he belongs on both lists. He's one of the few who does.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 20, 2013 11:23 AM
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barbequebob
2323 posts
Aug 21, 2013
9:54 AM
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He's a great player and a helluva nice guy.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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6SN7
353 posts
Aug 21, 2013
3:38 PM
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Hi Adam, thanks for that response.
I have mentioned on other posts here I grew up in Southern RI which was a hot bed of blues and RnB performers back in the 1970"s. Sugar Ray Norcia, Roomful of Blues and Johnny Nicholas were the local boys and almost every weekend they held court at a local club called the Knickerbocker Cafe. A host of "old timers" played with these guys at the club: Big Walter, SP Leary, Roosevelt Sykes, Johnny Shines, Luther Johnson, Muddy Waters, Big Joe Turner, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Sil Austin, Buddy and Junior, to mention a few. The "new guys" that showed up included: Ronnie Earl, Ron Levy, Dave Maxwell, James Montgomery, LA Jones, Chris Turner, and the bands included the T-Birds,Nighthawks, Asleep at the Wheel, Lamont Cranston, Son Seals, and one memorable Thanksgiving Night, SRV came through to drop Lou Ann Barton off to start her tenure with Roomful and was the warm up act. So we had a pretty active and fertile scene and to be honest, we were able to watch up close traditional and modern blues colliding together. It was an exciting time to be a blues fan. So this was the time when "White Hot and Blue " came out, to put it in context.
I have to take exception to your characterization that the 3 Muddy Waters records sounded like one mic Chess records. It is clear from the opening 12 bars of "Mannish Boy" that there were more mics on the drums than any Chess record used. The production values were a hundred times better and sounded like no Chess record I ever heard. Chess records sounded the same whether played on a cpmpact player player or a HiFi stereo, a muffled funky sound. Hard Again roared when played on a high end stereo and you could hear everyone in the band.
As for your list, I would hasten to add Mark Wenner, KIm Wilson, and William Clarke.
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Aug 21, 2013 3:42 PM
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1847
1000 posts
Aug 21, 2013
11:10 PM
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while some of us were playing "air guitar"
to live at the fillmore, my guess is pat ramsey
was working out harp parts to this record
i hear dicky and duane in his playing
here is a very cool tribute to duane
listen to billy's slow deliberate vocal part
derek seems too cop a few gibbon's slide licks momentarily
this is a stunning version
wake up mama turn your lamp down low!
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master po
i get a lot of request when i play
"but i play anyway"
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MN
263 posts
Aug 22, 2013
3:54 AM
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Would Pat serve as a poster child for modern blues harmonica? To me, he certainly would! Both he and Sugar Blue (see his work with the Stones during this same era as White, Hot & Blue) combined speed and a new sort of tone that was very modern and electric. Sort of like Little Walter 2.0.
I first saw Pat in 1987 when his band was opening for Johnny Winter in Fort Lauderdale. I was a young (18) blues nut, but not yet much of a harp player. That fall I went off to college at Florida State in Tallahassee, where Pat was living at the time. I have no idea how many times I saw him play during my college years, but it's likely north of 100. I was blown away by his speed and clarity -- and ability to get his harp low-down and nasty when the song called for it. In retrospect, what was interesting to me about that band (beyond his harp mastery) was A] his great singing, and B] the selection of tunes. On any given night, you'd hear ripping, jammed-out versions of ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" or the Commodores' "Brick House," a Cream song or two, or something by James Brown, plus of course, a few blues standards, and a healthy dose of stuff from Cross-Cut Saw's "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know" record.
BTW, 1847 mentioned "i hear dicky and duane in his playing." Later on, I got a chance to interview Pat for a newspaper article, and also got to meet him and correspond via e-mail. He was very vocal about that ABB influence. Duane and Dickey were massive influences in his playing. I never really heard him talk about harp players too much, though he had huge respect for both Little Walter and Magic Dick.
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1847
1001 posts
Aug 22, 2013
7:32 AM
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not sure why this did not post
pilot error perhaps
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master po
i get a lot of request when i play
"but i play anyway"
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1847
1005 posts
Aug 22, 2013
12:53 PM
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now were back to the early 70's
butterfield is coming up fast
should we just skip to little walter
and be done with it?
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master po
i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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MN
265 posts
Aug 23, 2013
2:13 AM
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Early 70s?
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kudzurunner
4212 posts
Aug 23, 2013
4:59 AM
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Mark Ford would be a good addition to the 1978 list. I don't know if he was actively on the scene then, but yes, he fits the definition.
And yes: Little Walter was arguably the guy who embodied the meaning of "modern blues harmonica." He changed the game. After his advances of the early 1950s, certain familiar ways of playing the instrument sounded old. Since you can hear the influence of John Lee Williamson (the prevailing "old" style) strongly in "Stuff You Gotta Watch" (1951) and since Walter has suddenly become an amped-up sax in "Juke" (1952), the magical transformation is happening somewhere in there.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 23, 2013 4:59 AM
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wheel
238 posts
Aug 23, 2013
6:48 AM
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I think Jim Liban is one who must be in every list. He still do the very modern and fresh things on harp. In 70s he played "always there" by Ronnie Laws and "Let's Straighten out" by Latimore and etc. He also used effects with harmonica.
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my music
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Martin
465 posts
Aug 23, 2013
8:06 AM
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Chromaticblues mentioned Jean Jacques Miltau. And quite rightly. By that time he could certainly hold his own against all of those guys on your list.
Ha has one big disadvantage though: he´s French.
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The Iceman
1117 posts
Aug 23, 2013
9:53 AM
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Dave Burgin is also an early pioneer. His approach was unique and opened the door for artists like Carlos del Junco.
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The Iceman
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6SN7
355 posts
Aug 23, 2013
10:31 AM
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I had never heard of Mike Turk until Adam mentioned him and check out some of his jazz performances on youtube. Then, I saw yesterday he is playing with Dave Maxwell, the great Boston based piano player who gigged with Freddie King in the 1970's.
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