I was driving into work this morning and heard the song that made me want to start playing the harp. It made me curious as to what song if any did that for you? Maybe it was a specific song, but a performer, movie, etc...
It's foggy, but I remember noticing Dan Akroyd from the Blues Brothers (I was 4-5 ys old when I saw it the first time).
I'd also like to note "Low Rider" and "Piano Man." These two tunes made me realize that I could play along with recordings with my Pocket Pal. I was 13 or 14 at the time. ---------- 12gagedan's YouTube Channel
I think it was Sugar Blue "Another Man Done Gone" from my brother's Live in Montreaux album. Maybe then Cream's "Traintime" sealed the deal, but my recollection is fuzzy
For me it was a kid in a highschool play that I saw when I was 10 or 11. The play openned with him just noddling around. I was hooked and knew that one day I would play the harp. Ten years later I finally got a harp and began the journey.
I started playing because my platoon didn't have a harmonica player. We were joking around about needing one because in all of those old war movies there's always a guy in the background playing something. I said, "I'll be that guy for you." After buying one I never could put it down.
The song that really got me ramped up to seriously learn this instrument is "Hootin' the Blues" by Sonny Terry. Really anything Sonny Terry.
2 tunes. "Piano Man" and "Take the Long Way Home". I remember my parents telling me to knock off when I would play along with either of these when it came on the radio...at 1:30AM. I couldn't help myself. I would listen for hours to the little Panasonic AM "ball" with the ear bug in so they wouldn't know that I was up so late. The jig was up when I started tooting along to the music.
I also was hooked by CCR and the riffs in "Keep On Chooglin, live" and "Run Through The Jungle". Great stuff.
In my early teens my mum was struck by encephalitis, a viral infection of the brain. She was ill and bedridden in a darkened room for a year. Mum's illness triggered my first period of mental illness; a reactive-depression which only really became apparent once she'd recovered. My dad felt we needed to 'get away' and booked a holiday in Paris - my first real trip abroad. I remember vividly some very strange feelings of being out of my body: side effects of the strong antidepressants, tranquillisers and sleeping pills I was taking. It was an extremely strange holiday!
Dad took us to the Pompidou Centre, and outside, amongst the scores of street performers, I watched the most vibrant busker playing harp amplified through a pignose amp hanging off a leather bandolier fully loaded with shiny silver harps. It was full of life energy, positive and uplifting, the voice-like sound of the harmonica truly spoke to me and whilst most of my memories of that holiday are a bit of a blur (for the reasons above) that performance stayed with me. A few years later, with my mental health restored, on a whim I bought my first harp and I've been hooked ever since.
I've since learned that the busker was Sugar Blue.
A friend that had a band asked if I ever thought about playing the harmonica. The first thing I thought of was "Magic Dick" of the J. Giels Band. I don't remember if it was a specific song.
A series of cowboy around-the-campfire songs that my immigrant grandfather loved. He gave me (and all the other grandkids) harps in our Christmas stockings when I was about 5 years old. In my earnest desire to please the old dude, I tried to learn those old western sounds.
A few years later, like my regional neighbor "TahoeMike", 'On the Road Again' reached out and grabbed my attention.
Pretty soon, I was snapping up just about any LP or 8 track that had even the faintest rumor of harmonica involvement.
---------- ~Buzadero Underwater Janitor, Patriot
Last Edited by on Aug 11, 2011 4:30 AM
Sunshine of your love - Cream, Stone Fox Chase - Charlie McCoy and On the Road again - Canned Heat.
'On the Road again' drove me nuts trying to find 'that' note on the solo -2-2-3'__,+4-4-5+6 "?"-5-4 > It was only very recently I discovered that Alan Wilson retuned the 6 draw reed, raising it by a semitone.
'Wilson is playing the retuned 6 draw to give a G, which he then bends down to a rather flat F#, followed by the D (5 draw) and the B (4 draw)'
Ronnie Shellist video got me interested in blues harmonica. The one that has him saying "Play one" at the end. Before that the fact that people play blues on harmonica has Never crossed my mind.
Then Gussow's first video. His playing on that Made me want to play. I was obsessed ever since.
There was a scene in the film Platoon where a soldier sings Oh Susanna as they walk into the jungle at night, I was pretty young when I watched it and that scene seemed pretty cool to me.
It may have taken me 20 plus years or so but when I finally picked up a harmonica I was pretty chuffed to learn it. I've only been learning for just over a year so I'm still pretty happy giving it a blast.
Greg ---------- Living the dream and learning the blues one little trouble at a time.
A little bit embarrassing but here we go, Bruce springsteen the river. I tryed so hard to try and copy him but couldnt. I had never heard of blues harmonica and now I'm a complete addict. ---------- "Everyone has to start somewhere."
I never taugh of learning the harp I wanted to learn guitar. I was searching youtube for Crossroads by Robert Johnson and found Adam Playing Crossroads Blues it was a real eye opener. I bought my first harp not long after.
Martin
---------- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Isaac Asimov
Well Ive always loved/listened to the blues. And as such, the harp was always there. But last year (July 2010) I was sitting at my pc listing to all sorts of blues songs. Well after a while of playing through the songs I brought up, I just wanna make love to you by Muddy Waters -harp playing by Little Walter- in the solo Little Walter hits a note (at about 1 minute & 11 seconds in)& holds it,for what seemed to be forever. crisp/clear & held for a long time. Now I had heard the song plenty of times before. But for some reason,that day. It just took a hold of me & shook me to my foundations. It was right then & there I knew. I -HAVE- to learn how to play the harmonica. It just blew me away. So the next day I went and got a harp and Ive been playing ever since. BTW- Sonny Boy Williamson II & Little Walter are my favorite harp players (in that order) & are very inspiring for me.
i suppose it would have to be the Rolling stones version of Come on , with brian jones on harp duties ! i must have been about 13 at the time , what got me playing harp was a local band who the lead singer and harp player was John Criuckshank who was in John lees Groundhogs ,Later just the groundhogs , ( he left to raise a family ) I went to schol with his two twin sons and they used to ask me over to their house and his gigs when i was about 15 , he had a green bullet harp mic and taught me a few techniques to get me on my way , also his band played in our local pub , doing all the old blues and soul classics , which is why i love all that music .a huge influence really for both harp and guitar
No particular song got me started. I liked the harp in rock songs and in blues. I kept noticing the harp in TV commercials and TV show themes. Once in a while I'd comment that I liked it, and one year a harp showed up under the Christmas tree.
The Aussies might remember Spectrum’s big hit of the early 70’s “I’ll Be Gone”. Every time I heard it for the next 30+ years (!!) I commented on how good it sounded. The missus finally bought me a Lee Oskar in C and a ‘How To Play Harmonica’ book and the addiction started. My biggest buzz related to this story? Mike Rudd (singer and harmonica player for Spectrum) running a workshop for six of us wannabee harp players at my house, focussing on the “I’ll Be Gone” riff – 35 years after it was a hit! Cheers Maka
Saw this little ditty 4-5 years ago on youtube, and it busted my hymen right then and there, left my soul...left it sitting there on the floor, and James stepped all over it, leaving it unrecognizable. It was another two years before I actually played my first note...
Some where around 1967 or so I went to a Jefferson Airplane concert in Vancouver the opening act was Muddy Waters with Mojo Buford on harp. Picked up a Marine Band and a Tony Glover book the next day. Still play MB's and have had a few customs from Richard Sleigh.
1972. College freshman. My first rock concert was John Mayall and the Blues Breakers, The Edgar Winter Group (doing the Frankenstein Album) and The Allman Brothers Band. I think I was impacted by John Mayall because I picked up my first harp about that time. I quickly picked up all the folk songs in what I now know to be First Position. But it was the harp solo on The Doobie Brother's Long Train Running that really got me going. There is also a pretty easy to learn harp solo on Deep Purple's "Lazy" that kept the ball rolling.
I know this ain't no blues song but the first time i remember harp on a record really making the hairs stand up was listening to Hawkwind with my mates Totaly stoned at some tiny bike rally in a compleate rapture over Hurry on Sundown
For me it was Aussie bush ballads as a child with Swan Tremolos, then any 70s prog rock with harmonica with tremolos and a 270 chrom for melodies, and finally blues in my late teens got me into the diatonics. :~}
Never was a specific song per se. Grew up on rock n' roll from the 60's and 70's (and some 50's). I always liked the harp when I'd hear it in that music.
Magic Dick of course (I can still picture exactly where I was sitting when I first heard Whammer Jammer on "Live" - Full House...WHOA!), but I also liked a lot of the rock front men who play harp as an adjunct to their vocals/songwriting; Jagger, Plant, Tyler for example, and bands that have somebody sit in and play on a cut or two; John Sebastian on The Doors' Roadhouse Blues comes to mind.
Eventually, studying what inspired those guys, led me back to Muddy, Wolf, Robert Johnson et al.
BTW, jimbo and rich, there's no shame in liking Springsteen or Dan Ackroyd's playing on She Caught the Katy...no matter what anyone says.
Last Edited by on Aug 11, 2011 10:53 AM
Can't remember the song, but saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Blew me away...
At MakaInOz, as a new (Ok, not so new) migrant I didn't know about I'll be Gone, but my harp teacher said it would be a good thing to busk with. He was right!
Sonny Boy Williamson "The Real Folk Blues" - the whole damn album. An 'older kid' played it for me when I was maybe a freshnman in high school and I was floored. It was the 'realest' music I had ever heard -and I can't say anything has surpassed it since. ----------
I accidently came across Ronnie Shellist on youtube around 5 yrs ago and was blown away.
I had no idea a harmonica could sound that cool, i immediatly went hunting for my cheap chinease £2 harp and started to learn, which then led me to find Adam and his lessons, 12gagedan, Jason Ricci then Sonny boy Williamson 2 and the rest is history, ive been hooked obsessivly ever since.
Thank you Adam and Dan and Jason if your reading this:o)
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http://www.youtube.com/user/fiendant?feature=mhum
Last Edited by on Aug 11, 2011 11:20 PM
No specific song really. I have loved the sound of the harp since I was a little boy. My Grandfather and Great Grandfather both tinkered on it. My Great Grandfather from Eastern Kentucky would sit on his front porch and play whatever came to mind.
However,,,once a coworker who was moving gave me his set of SP20s and a Lee Oskar a couple years ago since he was getting a new set I immediately went to Youtube and looked up harmonica lessons and Jason Ricci was the first video to pop up. That was it for me. Then I started discovering the old legends and such. I was hooked. A few weeks later SPAH came to town and I was able to make it on the last day. ---------- Bend it like Ricci - Me (Formerly known as Big Daddy Ray)
The train song in the movie Crossroads... I had a big river harp someone gave me and I tried to play it. But it didn't sound anything like in the movie so I thought I had the wrong harp. Then I saw Adam Gussow on youtube: he said "If you are a beginner you might sound like this..." I thought "Hey that sound like my harp!" And that's how I started.
Always loved the blues and playing around with the guitar. Last year I went to the Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, LA with my cousins and we were just casually drinking beer and listening to a band nearby. During the middle of the conversation a harmonica solo kicked in that caught my attention...note to self... "I wanna learn how to do that." Been hooked ever since!!
the first time i heard john popper play (run around) on the radio then saw him in the blues brother movie got me thinking obout it but when i really heard james montgomery play at the wachusett festival i really wanted to be like that on stage sucking the reeds right out of the harp till now i really suck lol
Champagne and Reefer! Muddy Waters, Rolling down a country road just outside of Franklin, Tn (Leepers Fork) with a friend of mine who passed away a number of years ago. Love you Quilla Bibb and thank you for turning me on to one of the most special things in my life! God bless. T.
