|
Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
breakthrough song/album
breakthrough song/album
Page:
1
geordiebluesman
325 posts
Aug 10, 2010
6:44 AM
|
Hi Harpers, I think i may have posted this topic before but it was a long time back and we have many new members so i thought i would ask it again so here goes.
Do any of you guys have a song or an album that you studied that really acted as a taking off point for your playing?, something that moved things up a notch a made you start to feel like a player rather than just someone messing about with the harp?.
A song or album that started to really get you making that authentic chicago blues noise that most of us here long to make.
Think back and let us know so that those of us not so far up the road can start running to catch up
|
toddlgreene
1632 posts
Aug 10, 2010
6:50 AM
|
Paul Butterfield's version of Blues With a Feeling did it for me. His attack on the solo, plus the buildup he did near the end of the guitar solo(Mike Bloomfield)prior to his harp solo was unlike anything I'd heard from that period. I especially liked the fact he'd venture into single notes beyond the first six holes. Still LOVE that version, and that whole album(The Paul Butterfield Blues Band). In fact, it's on my list of tunes to play for our upcoming New Orleans Blues Harmonica showcase next month. Hopefully, we'll have some video footage.
----------
Crescent City Harmonica Club
Todd L Greene, Co-Founder
Last Edited by on Aug 10, 2010 6:54 AM
|
Buddha
2331 posts
Aug 10, 2010
6:55 AM
|
http://www.amazon.com/Beans-Taste-Fine-Kolstad-Wildman/dp/B00005M0TX
Beans Taste Fine was it for me, it was my introduction to OBs and this is the first album I heard with a harmonica player where I said "I want to play like that"
A decade later, I met Papa John Kolstad at the time he was re-releasing the album and I got to play all of the harmonica parts for a few years.
Every harmonica player should own this album
According to John Kolstad this was recorded from a series of live shows performed from 1967-1969
That means Turk is using OBs purposefully before Howard Levy.
----------
"All is bliss"
|
toddlgreene
1633 posts
Aug 10, 2010
7:00 AM
|
Whoa-Cool stuff, Buddha. Never heard of Turk before. Thanks for that.
----------
Crescent City Harmonica Club
Todd L Greene, Co-Founder
|
waltertore
835 posts
Aug 10, 2010
7:11 AM
|
For me it was first John Mayall. That led to jimmy reed, SBWII, Buster Brown, Slim Harpo, Model T Slim. Buster brown really grabbed me the most for sheer energy - check out john henry and slow drag. He is like the elmore james of the harp IMO. Then I heard Mark Werner of the Nighthawks play. That powerful amped distorted sound grabbed me for a bit and I jumped full tilt into it. Then I met Sonny Terry. I would help him get around when he played NYC. From that day on, I dropped the amped distorted sound for the natural acoustic tones. Walter
amazon.com mp3's are a great place to sample songs
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=buster+brown&sprefix=buster+br&ih=4_3_1_1_0_0_0_0_0_1.109_191&fsc=7
http://www.amazon.com/Sonny-Boy-Williamson/dp/B000QJHUWG
----------
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
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Aug 10, 2010 7:18 AM
|
Tuckster
704 posts
Aug 10, 2010
9:03 AM
|
J.Geils Band and the incomparable Magic Dick.
|
wolfkristiansen
41 posts
Aug 10, 2010
10:32 AM
|
My breakthrough album (in terms of learning to play harp), was "Slim Harpo Knew the Blues", released in 1970. It had to have been recorded before that, because Slim died of a heart attack in January of that year. He was 46. Just from listening, it sounds like the only real "album" he made, as opposed to collections of singles cobbled together to make an album.
But, I digress. I listened to the album a lot when I first got it, in 1973. One song I played over and over was "The Music's Hot". I loved the harmonica solo. I played it a lot. Then it struck me. I can learn this! I recorded it on my little Philips tape recorder. Play, rewind, etc., over and over, till I had it memorized. If you learn to play by copying (I did), slim Harpo is a good one to start with, because his playing is simple.
Once I had that song under my belt, I moved on to, surprise, "Juke" by Little Walter. Half the blues harp players of my era will probably admit to learning Juke at some point in their musical journey.
After that, it was a harder one-- "Mellow Down Easy", again by Little Walter. His solo in that one forces you to use the upper half of the harp, with a beautiful descending run from the 8th hole on a diatonic. The rhythm in that descending run is tricky. I never got it quite right, and I've never heard anybody else play it right, even when it sounds like they are trying to do just that.
You can't make your mark in the harp world by regurgitating memorized solos. Eventually, I moved on to creating my own riffs, runs, rhythms and solos. But my harp technique was acquired by memorizing favorite solos, as best I could, note for note.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
|
AV8R
34 posts
Aug 10, 2010
1:31 PM
|
Jack Bruce on the "Wheels of Fire" album.
Then John Mayall with Eric Clapton, although now days I don't consider Mayall to be that great of a harp player, but at the time I listened to that album a lot.
|
geordiebluesman
326 posts
Aug 15, 2010
4:35 AM
|
Hey guys thanks for the great replies and links, there are some interesting lines of study here that i will be following up, Cheers Geordie
|
barbequebob
1128 posts
Aug 15, 2010
5:44 AM
|
Toddgreene, I know Mike Turk personally and he`s an AWESOME Jazz harp player who just makes my jaw drop. He mainly plays chromatic now using the Renassance chro that was made by the late SPAH president Doug Tate & Bobby Giordano`s company Illus before Seydel took over production. He got two grants from the National Endowment of The Arts, one to study Jazz chromatic under Toots Thielemans and another to study Classical chromatic under Cham-Ber Huang.
----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
|
harmonicanick
837 posts
Aug 15, 2010
5:48 AM
|
I'm with you Walter - John Mayall as he was in the day,
Butterfield - now, Gary Primich...try Mr Freeze cd
|
Post a Message
|
