The key is to mix tongue blocking with lip pursing; to use a small old tube amp miked up through the PA (in this case, an early 60s Kay 703 with one 8" speaker and about 5 watts); to use some sort of delay or reverb device (in this case, a Boss DD-3 pedal); to swing like Louis Jordan (extremely important! LJ was LW's major influence); to throw in warbles whenever possible and at a range of intensities; to use overblows in moderation (since LW didn't use them), and, most of all, to THINK like LW. Shift your embouchure slightly in a Littlewalterish direction. Above all, DON'T copy LW note for note, but just try to get some of the flavor.
Also, it helps to play with Dutch guys who revere his music and can really swing.
Little Walter condoms??! There's a joke about Big Walter in there, just waiting to come out. I'll leave it to someone else to formulate it better than me.
Inspirational playing Adam. I'll be studying that performance for a while.
Awww, man. No link to get some "Little Walter malt" beverage. Guess I gotta settle for the bull Nobody does it like the bull. Ok, sorry. J/k. Funny video, though. Thanks for sharing Ant. I liked your vid, too, Adam. ---------- "If you dont go within, you go without."
Funny video - Fritz must get asked if his mic.s "have that Little Walter sound" about ten times a week.
Why not sound like yourself ? If LW is a big influence - then sure - his sound will be reflected in yours-but IMO there is an overdone obsession with this particular quest among blues harp players.
No disrespect to our fearless and talented leader. Adam , you're an inspiration in your own right. ( And I love little old 5watt tube amps too.) ----------
No offense taken. I re-posted this particular video, with tongue-in-cheek commentary, precisely because I have no particular investment in sounding like Little Walter. I've spent far too much time, in fact, preaching to folk here about how modern harp players urgently need to find ways to get beyond LW's approach and pave new ground. My recent career has been devoted to that. By the same token, I've done my share of listening to The Great One, and when the context calls for it--as it did here--I am able to muster a decent homage. Of course, I DO use a few overblows and DON'T use full-time tongue-blocking and DON'T use the sort of mic LW used, and that's sort of my point. Honor the masters, but do your own thing.
Edited to add: I spent my share of woodshed time, during my younger days, copying LW's recordings. I'm glad I did. All blues harmonica students should do that. But all students should, at some point, recognize that it's time to move beyond their student phase--and that if they truly seek to honor the spirit of Little Walter, they MUST do this. Because moving beyond his student days was something LW did early, and fiercely. Read Scott Dirks' book. LW was always chomping at the bit, trying to play things that other harp players hadn't played and couldn't play. He was adapting the music of his time--and especially the small-ensemble swinging R&B of Louis Jordan--to the harp. He was out there on Maxwell Street soaking in the most contemporary possible currents of sound and finding a way of creating something new and exciting on the harp. A student of LW who is content to remain merely a student is--well, a student. And that's OK, if that's what you want to be. I realized early on that I wanted to be more than that. This doesn't mean that my LW studies were a waste of time. Quite the reverse: they prepared me well to step into a particular gig-bag and play the LWish stuff. But a whole evening of LW stuff, a whole career in that vein, holds no interest for me. Study the heck out of him. Squeeze the juice out. Get the flavor. Then do your own thing.
All by way of saying: bonedog, I couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for weighing in.
Last Edited by on Oct 20, 2010 12:42 PM
The funny thing is that there is NO one single mic or amp that LW had EVER used exclusively. A big part of mastering his sound is to NOT listen to only other harp players and from doing homework (something most players seldom ever do), it's clear he listened to quite a few other instruments and adapted things from what they did into his playing, especially horns and Louis Jordan is absolutely INCREDIBLY important as it was one of his biggest influences, and LJ influened many musicians in his time, not just blues players, and he was the single, biggest black music star in his day (ESPECIALLY among the black audiences), sort of the equivalent to Michael Jackson back in his heydey of the late 30's to mid 50's, and many blues recordings have tons of his influence along with that of T-Bone Walker, which was also a big influence on LW's sound.
From the videos that are now available, it has become clear to my mind he most definitely did both pucker as well as TB'ing, often switching in mid phrase.
There is also no doubt in my mind that he was very heavily influenced by both Sonny Boys as well as Big Walter as well.
I seldom play his tunes, and if I do, unless I'm being paid to do it, I refuse to play it note for note and I know more than a few big name players who definitely do play his stuff note for note. I tend to go for giving you his feel for how he thinks musically rather than the note for note approach, which to me says, musically you have a huge problem thinking for yourself.
In an old, now out of print book with mainly photographs, simply entitled, "Blues," Luther Tucker, one of his guitar players, said that often times when a horn player sat in on the bandstand with him, it wasn't unusual for LW to turn that around AKA play that very same solo the horn player played but on his harmonica. LW had said on occasion the reason why he played harmonica the way he did, which is essentially, a saxophone player's approach was that he wanted to play sax, but couldn't afford one. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Oct 20, 2010 12:48 PM
And the Marine Bands he used back then all came out of the factory tuned to 7 Limit Just Intonation, and there were no such thing as a customized diatonic back in his day. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I missed that bulge in your cheek Adam - I'm a little slow. Gotta "think like Little Walter" I guess. Thought I had fallen into the anti-matter "retro blues harmonica forum" for a second.
You have personally helped me (and lots of us) climb out of our ruts, - whatever they may be - and move forward. ----------
BBQBob: What's your gigging schedule over the Christmas holidays? I'll be staying at my mom's, about 200 miles south of Boston (just north of NYC) and I might be able to zip up there to check you out on a gig. My best man lives in Watertown and I'd have a place to crash. December 26th is the most likely. That's a Sunday. Is there a jam session you hang out at in the Boston area. Could be fun.
Edited to read: I just checked bostonblues.com. Looks like Johnny D's on the early side and the Cantab Lounge. Those are two great Sunday jams! Are you around? I'm serious. I'd like to come up and hang out--and play, of course.
Last Edited by on Oct 20, 2010 7:25 PM
@Adam/Bob: If Adam comes up, even to sit in on a jam session, I'd love to know. I think it would be a gas to sit on the sidelines and listen to the two of you.
---------- "Take out your false teeth, momma, I want to suck on your gums."-P. Wolf
Adam - make it a working trip and give a lesson whilest in town?? Or maybe hold a small workshop (Adam, BBQ Bob & Annie Raines??!)- for some reason there's very little of that in the Boston area but plenty of us needy players~ ---------- ~Banned in Boston!
Around Christmas, clubs tend to be really dead so I generally don't book much of anything during those holidays. I very seldom troll into the open jams. I just wish that the House Of Blues was still around in its much smaller, old Harvard Square location because they used to have a special invite jam rather than the usual open jam deal because unlike the open jams, the musicians in that jam were pretty much all very serious heavy hitters like Monster Mike Welch, Darrell Nulisch, Neil Gouvin, Per Hansen, Amodee Castenell, Sax Gordon, Annie Raines, Jerry Portnoy and then you had some really seriously smoking jams.
Dennis Gruenling contacted me about setting one up this way and I gave hinm a few suggestions but no club was interested at all. He did have one about a month and a half ago at some place in Chepachet, RI (can't remember the name of it, tho) that I wasn't able to attend. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Oct 21, 2010 1:36 PM
