Todd Parrott
1137 posts
Aug 30, 2013
5:54 PM
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Found this video of a young Norton Buffalo in 1975, playing a Golden Melody. Solo is at 1:45.
He was such a great player.
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Kingley
3080 posts
Aug 31, 2013
3:22 AM
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Thanks for posting this Todd. Norton was indeed a great player and I suspect that a lot of the newer players or the strictly blues listeners may not be very familiar with him.
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FMWoodeye
786 posts
Aug 31, 2013
3:33 AM
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@Kingley....true enough. I had never heard of him until
Todd told me about him. His body of work is definitely worth checking out. There are also some country players I checked out and came away with my hat in my hand. Some of those country boys can really kick some diatonic ass.
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GMaj7
273 posts
Aug 31, 2013
4:50 AM
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One of my customers recently acquired some unreleased jams and recordings from Norton's wife. There is some really interesting music in there. His phrases were musical and always landed within the chord progression. He made the other musicians sound better and came in exactly at the right time. Most impressive was that nothing in there was overly technical, it was just good. I'm not crazy about the "Folk" sound, but Norton made it sound sweeter than twin fiddles..
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Greg Jones
16:23 Custom Harmonicas
greg@1623customharmonicas.com
1623customharmonicas.com
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6SN7
358 posts
Aug 31, 2013
4:55 AM
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Up until 1977, my harp listening was pretty much exclusively blues. That is until I discovered Norton. He was so radically different from any harp player I had heard to date, and to these ears was the first "modern" harp player I had heard. And it was two songs of his in 1977 that did it. One was his work with Bonnie Raitt on "Runaway."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPzcZNgVfpA
This is such a classic, I have never seen another harp player do this justice, only keyboard players. I would love to hear a harp by harp analysis of this one. I know this is a lip synch performance, but how many different harps and positons does he do in this song?
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Aug 31, 2013 4:58 AM
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chromaticblues
1455 posts
Aug 31, 2013
5:28 AM
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I was very surprised how well he fit with Steve Miller and his band playing live.
I saw him a number of times through out the 80's with Steve Miler. To be honest I wasn't expecting to be overwelmed by Norton because I'm not a fan of "country harp" or the (what I call) the Nashville sound. I know there are alot of people that do it very well. I'm just not a fan of it that's all, but I was a fan of Steve Miller so I thought oh well Steve Miller and a harmonica player. I'll try it!
So yeah I probably saw them together about 8 times!
Flawless seemless perfect display of play the music instead of playing my licks in the gaps.
He played a solo once with the chromatic on the song "Wild Mountain Honey". It was some of the best harmonica I have ever heard! I was amazed at his ability to play the chromatic better than most people play the diatonic!
Alot of people are great in different ways, but I haven't heard anything better.
It was that good!
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Todd Parrott
1138 posts
Aug 31, 2013
9:45 AM
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And check this out.... I found this one while checking out some other Norton videos. Harp solo starts around 1:28, but listen to the run he plays at 2:15. Good stuff. I have the album version of this song, but I like the solo of this live version better. I don't really think of Norton as a country player, though he does do the country stuff very well. He's a hard one to categorize. I think even some of the stuff he played in the 70's was way ahead of its time, and I even hear small traces of John Popper style licks here and there on some of his songs. Perhaps he was an influence on guys like Popper?
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Kingley
3085 posts
Aug 31, 2013
9:57 AM
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" I don't really think of Norton as a country player, though he does do the country stuff very well. He's a hard one to categorize."
I agree Todd. Norton always struck me more as a musically rounded musician than a genre specific one.
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