I am always interested to know how players learned to play, if they had teachers/mentors, used books or spent years with a record player trying to figure things out for themselves.
I often wished the interviewer would ask- What would you want me to ask you about? Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I guess this re-iterates Walter's post, but let him talk about what/who inspired him, don't "steer" the interview, don't bring up players/topics if he doesn't mention them first.
Last Edited by on May 10, 2011 6:28 AM
I know Johnny fairly well and have spoken to him at length over his influences and harmonicas, gear, etc over the years, swapping thoughts and ideas a lot. His influences are as you'd expect them to be. Big Walter, William Clarke, Kim Wilson, George Smith, Sonny Boy II.
I think spending more time on how he approaches learning songs and techniques would be more beneficial to most people, rather than the standard "Who influenced you?" questions.
It depends on the setting and any time constraints. I'd ask very different questions depending on whether I was posting a whole interview or just segments. Personally, I like to let someone talk at length, just sort of guiding the conversation and a recorder. You get great quotes that way. People tend to talk about a couple predictable types of topics: Something they are excited about right then (often great stuff), stuff they are promoting (while the 'stuff' they are promoting may be great listening to a sales pitch isn't, and stuff they think you'd be interested in (again, often great stuff.) Depending on what they decide to talk about you can refocus them.
Ask for three things that set him apart from how he sees other people doing things.
Ask for some funny harp stories.
Too many interviewers cut off interesting stories too quickly.
