Re: Old Mystery (Happy Harmonica albums)

[CHRISTOPHER PAUL HARRIS <cpharris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A late addition to the good information provided by Jack, Richard, Danny and 
Kim's book on this topic... 

The arrangements for the "Show Stoppers" album  was 
done by the late Dave Doucette.  I would guess he might have had 
something to do with the arranging on "The Great Harmonica Hits", but I can 
only be sure about "Show Stoppers".  Years ago Dave gave me a tape of 
"Show Stoppers" to copy and told  me that he had done all the
arrangements. 

(Sorry if this was discussed in previous messages I might have missed.  I 
set myself to "NOMAIL" in an effort to avoid the temptation of harmonica 
mail.  I've since come to my senses and set myself to "MAIL" again.)

BTW, Dave Doucette was a great person (as well as an excellent 
player and arranger).  I was always amazed when he would 
completely tune my badly out of tune (chromatic) 64 in a half hour 
(without tuner or piano; he possessed perfect pitch) and charge me 
just $5.  Another great player gone too soon.  Sigh...

 -- christopher
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On Thu, 17 Nov 1994, Journ-Jack Getz wrote:

> Years ago I found a couple of albums in a dimestore bargain bin titled
> "Happy Harmonica."
> 
> Turned out to be a Harmonicat-style group doing Harmonicat-style tunes
> totally anonymously. The artists were not identified either on the
> album cover or the disk label. There were no album notes on the back
> cover.
> 
> The musicians were pretty highly skilled - at least to my ears - but
> the recordings were unpolished in that grunts and teeth clicks were
> audible on some songs.
> 
> Does anybody know who the heck these folks were? Might I have stumbled
> onto some Harmonicat outtakes or bootleg tapes?
> 
> Jack Getz
>