Bonnie Raitt asked Norton Buffalo to put a harp sos on her cover of "Runaway" in the 90's, which to me made it a much bigger hit. Buffalo explained to an interviewer that he'd been sick for a couple of days but when he got the call he grabbed his stuff and headed for the studio to do the solo. He listened to the song once through and then proceeded to use 5, that's FIVE, harps to put together one of the most memorable solos on a rock song. Then he went back home to bed. I have not found the video where he was doing that solo yet. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
it was not a first take on runaway. he spent quite sometime, using a chromatic, no one was happy with the results, it was suggested a sax player be called in.
norton told the producer, if this was my record i would use a diatonic harp, they agreed to one more pass, the rest is history, and yes he used 4 harps for the solo. that record came out in the seventies.
norton personally told me this,then proceeded to stack 4 harps on top of each other, and gave me a lesson right then and there. what a terrific person. and a great inspiration. ----------
i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica "but i play it anyway"
@1847, do you remember what harps and what positions? I just listened to this for the first time. What a cool sight watching Norton change harps so smoothly! ---------- Ridge's YouTube
I heard Norton personally say, after NOT getting what they wanted on the chrome, that he asked for one overnight to work it out. Went home, worked it out on diatonic, came back next day and laid it down in the studio. I've seen the video where he swaps the harps and holds them in his armpit, but when he demonstrated it for us (this was at a Barrett Harmonica Masterclass several years back) he did it by holding all 4 harps at once between his palms, fingers all pointed up.
I've tried it. I can barely get them into position in my hands - I SURE as hell can't get my lips around them to play them. But I saw him do it. ---------- *************************************************** /Greg
