hvyj
3146 posts
Oct 17, 2016
8:29 PM
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This is the title of an erstwhile out of print Brownie McGhee album on which Sugar Blue plays harmonica. I just found it currently available on iTunes.
Interestingly, SB has a great approach to the Piedmont blues style, although not everything on this album is Piedmont.
Sonny Terrry and Phil Wiggins (two famous Piedmont harp players) typically strangle the vocals with constant and continuous helpings of chug-a-lug
harp that has become identified with the Piedmont blues idiom, probably because of them. SB, however, let's the music breath, taking a more sophisticated somewhat sparser approach, sometimes playing single note lines, sometimes chordal licks, but never smothering the rest of the music. Very tasteful, very cool and not at all like his more familiar electric/amplified machine gun barrage of notes (although there are some immediately identifiable Sugar Blue musical statements when he moves to the upper register or straddles the middle and upper registers). Very artistically musical playing that not only displays SB's range, but is also a rich source of ideas about how to approach playing this style of blues on harmonica. Don't hesitate to download the whole album--there's not a bad tune on it!
Last Edited by hvyj on Oct 17, 2016 8:43 PM
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