Edit: Just noticed " blues" influence. So Little Walter, with honourable mention to Charlie McCoy for being a huge influence for harmonica in general.
Last Edited by Bass410man on Aug 14, 2016 9:42 PM
Muddy ( w/ Portnoy, Jacobs, Horton, Cotton, Smith, Butterfield, Etc.) Ofcourse I didnt Know who half of them were at the time.
And Junior Wells ( I know thats 4, but i couldnt leave him out)
Now I would Say:
Rice Miller ( I dont think this one needs explanation)
Ronnie Shellist
Both from Ronnies Albums and His harmonica123 lessons. I dig Ronnies take on everything he does. His playing style, his note choices, etc. He's a great player with his own Fresh recognizable style that's not overly flashy, which to me sets him apart from other players.
Walter Horton ( Again, No explanation Needed.)
And Adam Gussow.
I couldnt leave Adam out. ALOT of what I play is straight from him. Modified, twisted around and tweaked a bit, or sometimes not at all. Most of the stuff at the Core of my playing is from Adam. All his youtube lessons and most importantly his Tradebit Lessons make up the foundation of a majority of what I play.
Honorable Mention To: James Cotton, Rod Piazza and George Smith, Little Sonny, Steve Guyger, Paul Oscher, Jason Ricci ( If you count him as Blues), William Clarke, and Ofcourse Still Everything Put Out By Muddy and the Gang. The list could go on and on, But these are the Big Ones ----------
Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Aug 15, 2016 5:43 AM
Like Killa, I had pre-harp influences and post-harp influences. I really didn't get into the blues deeply until I took up harp a couple years ago.
Early influences (I just liked their sound): John Mayall Stevie Ray Vaughan Eric Clapton
I was most influenced to take up blues harp, and thus spurned my passion for blues, by a harp player named Lauren Williams from Maine (let me know if you recognize her).
So blues harp players are: Lauren Williams Dennis Gruenling Paul Butterfield
Those who keep me inspired on my own journey include Ronnie Shellist and Adam Gussow
It'd sure be hard to argue any of the choices in these posts, but I'm curious - did y'all start straight away with these blues greats, or were you like me and got brought to the blues by the skinny white boys who were resurrecting it back the late 60s & early 70s? The guys who hipped me to the blues are: - the first 2 J. Geils Band records were probably the first great harp I ever heard. BTW - my wife & I saw Peter Wolf play in a SoCal club on Fiday. Magnificent showman! - How many of y'all heard your first Sonny Boy when the NY Dolls played Don't Start Me Talkin on their first album? Johansen is the real deal. - and Mick & Keith, of course. Those English boys may play the blues real bad, but look what they covered. Love In Vain, Shake your hips, stop breaking down, prodigal son, King bee, little red rooster. Wow.
Well, Jon Gindick got me started and put harping in the realm of possibility for me. That's a pretty strong influence. After that, hard to say. I listen to so much blues. Kim Wilson, Paul Lamb, Walter Horton? But then Sonny Terry, Phil Wiggins, Corey Bell? Keeping it to three is a challenge. Good question, Goldbrick. And Sundancer, I think I'm like you. ---------- Phil Pennington
Gindick got me started as well. But the reason I wanted to is because I saw Charlie Musselwhite play at the 100 Club in London in 2008. http://www.whiskyfun.com/Gigs/Charlie-Musselwhite-100-Cl.html I decided 2 things that night: 1. Absolutely had to figure out how to play the harmonica someday 2. THATS what I want to look like when I'm 70! Charlie is the coolest looking 70 year old white cat ever.
I think I have to separate mine into two kinds of influences.
Blues masters that I listened to and tried to copy, and learn from.
(1) Sonny Boy 2 - When first starting out I got a SB2 CD and really got into it. At that point I wasn't ready for Little Walter. I loved what I heard from LW but it was completely foreign to me. I couldn't make any of the sounds he made and had no idea what he was doing. SB2 was simple and I could "hear" what he was doing. Of course the more I learned, the more I saw how hard it really was to play the SB stuff! Simple on the surface but hard underneath.
(2) Junior Wells - I love the way he leaves space in his playing and often doesn't play anything where you expect him to play.
(3) Howlin Wolf - What can you say about the Wolf. BIG tone without anything fancy. Love it.
Modern Players that helped me and taught me.
(1) Jon Gindick - He got me started making music. I owe it all to him.
(2) Dennis Gruenling - Taught me to tongue block and opened up a whole new world of sounds.
(3) Jason Ricci - Blew me away the first time I heard him play and showed me what could be done with a harmonica. He showed me a simple exercise in pentatonic scale patterns. It may seem like a little thing but it got me out of the rut of playing stock licks and got me thinking more creatively.
McBride ... I can feel that. The clinging to SBW2 at the beginning and not really feelin LW on the same level. Dont get me wrong, when Im in the mood for Walter His stuff cuts to the Core. But I don't relate to it quite the same way because I can't actually see it being played. In my head that is. (If that makes sense.) But Im at the point now, especially after that Kim wilson thread, that is starting to break through.
Sundancer ... I didn't get turned onto blues by Rock. Looking back there are endless rock songs that had stolen lines and phrases from famous blues songs, but I never traced them forward myself.
However my insight into alot of Blues (especially harmonica blues) was a little more humorous. I had always listened to Wolf since I dug my moms LPs outta my basement. So Wolf, Sabbath, etc. all because of mom. Lol.
But The first time i heard JR Wells Hoodooman Blues was in the Movie theater. In 2006 I was in the movie Idiocracy. Lmao. The Head of that song plays in that movie. After hearing it just that one time, after the movie i went out and bought the Album. The rest is history.
This is in terms of songwriting/delivery/guitar in the first two cases. There's a whole different list for harmonica (probably Jason Ricci, Junior Wells and Little Walter, with Howard Levy and Brendan Power trailing closely behind)
I was 11 when the Beatles released "Love Me Do" in 1963, that little bit of harp by John Lennon was the start of it!
I started playing in my early 20's. Big Walter Horton; there was a double albums out "Blues Jam in Chicago" where he played along with Fleetwood Mac and then I bought more of his albums I also bought the Album "Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds" and that switched me onto him. As I bought more Big Walter LP's some of them were half and half Big Walter and Carey Bell. I really liked the both of them. They were my early major influences
I had several Charlie Musselwhite albums, loved his playing but I was never really a fan of his singing though. Never really got into Little Walter.
In maybe the early 90's I came across Norton Buffalo after one of his trips to the Australian "Blues over Byron" festival which was televised here and I really liked his playing with Roy Rogers. I like his chromatic stuff too. I was really sad when he passed in 2009
In maybe the late 90's I started buying lot of John Popper music.
Then there's Jason who just blows me away. Wish I had another couple of lifetimes to maybe get a 1/4 or 1/2 as good him.
Here's a clip from the 90's of Norton Buffalo and Roy Rogers Rogers playing live at the Byron Blues festival
c1970-Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Allman Bros. c2010- Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy WII, Paul Butterfield. Funny how 20 year old music improves after an extra 40 or so years.....But I still love Clapton, Hendrix and the Allmans...
In the spirit of freely interpreting Goldbrick's good and provocative question, I'll frame it this way: Which blues players had the most powerful formative influence not just on my playing, but on my understanding of what the music is about: what sort of power it can manifest over people in live performance? Whose recordings and live performances did I spend the most deeply focused time immersed in, copying, imitating, trying to get the flavor of?
I don't think I can answer with just three names, but I can do it with six: three guitar players and three harp players:
Nat Riddles Sterling Magee Paul Butterfield Eric Clapton B. B. King James Cotton
Plus two sax players:
Houston Person Hank Crawford
If we're talking about the one original thing I've managed to do in the past decade, which is the blues/rock shredding that drives "Crossroads Blues" and "Sunshine of Your Love," then I need to add one more player, since I entered the woodshed trying to work out the implications of a specific handful of 1/16th note licks that he gave me back in 2000, and those songs are what resulted:
Jason Ricci
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 17, 2016 4:27 AM
My main harmonica influences and favourite harmonica players (I can't say that I play in their style but one trick from there one from here) are: Little Walter Big Walter Charlie Musselwhite Norton Buffalo Paul Delay Mark Ford Gary Primich Jason Ricci PT Gazell Dennis Gruenling and the biggest influence is William Clarke
My main influences in other music are: Willis Jackson Jimmy Forrest Grant Green Gene Ammons Bill Jennings Jack McDuff The Crusaders Steely Dan
Guitar players are actually more of an influence on my playing than harp players,so here's a list of fret masters who've influenced the way the way I make sounds with my instrument.
BB King Mike BLoomfield Johnny Winter Albert King John McLaughlin Larry Coryell Allan Holdsworth George Benson Jeff Beck
some saxophone players: Coltrane Cannonball Adderly Wayne Shorter Michael Brecker
and trumpet, especially trumpet: Freddie Hubbard Woody Shaw Miles Davis
In the spirit of the the actual literality of the title of the thread, I'll say Big Paul DeLay, Big Howlin' Wolf, and the late and great Big Candye Kane.
Then there was that bouncer at the King King Club, back when it was on La Brea. He was more of a "biggest black and blue influence".
Actually, I'd have to say Bill Clarke, Provine Hatch, and my next door neighbor Bill Robinson way back when I was a dumb kid living on the West Bank of NOLA. Those would be three. Not THE top three, but definitely stand out in my head as influential on me.
I could just as easily swap one for Kashmar when he and the Pontiax were playing the regular weekly gig in Oak View, CA.
The simplest answer is the San Diego music scene in the 1970's, New Orleans and the Biloxi music scene in the early 1980's, and the Los Angeles scene in the mid-80's.
---------- ~Buzadero Underwater Janitor, Patriot MBH poster since 11Nov2008
This topic has nothing to do with harmonica, though a blues harmonica player could be in the list. Goldbrick showed us what he meant by the influences he named.
So... taking the implied question literally, for me it's these in this order:
1. Robert Johnson 2. Muddy Waters 3. Howling Wolf
Robert for his deep, aching, otherworldly blues, Muddy for his pure unadulterated blues, and Wolf for his ferocity.
All of these singers affected me deeply when I first heard them on record. Robert and Wolf made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The three that got me going in 1968, Sony Terry,SBW2,Little Walter. And on guitar was Albert King,Jimi Hendrix and J.L.Hooker Looking at all this time though James Cotton has influenced the most...
USA Blues - Jimi Hendrix - bought my first album at 12 years old British blues - Early Fleetwood Mac Kiwi[NZ] blues - All the live bands at the bars/clubs and jams.
