Re: high-end diatonic blues



According to Henry Gould:
. 
. A friend of mine gave me a homemade compilation of early harp blues from
. the 20s & 30s.  Unfortunately no list of players or song titles.  What
. was interesting to me was that 90% was being played very soprano -
. up at the high end of the harp.  Some amazing trills & bird-sounds
. often thrown in.  This is high-end old-timey stuff you don't hear in
. your average contemporary r& b playing today.  Annie Raines I
. heard playing some on the G Keillor show.

That could be the wonderful Yazoo collection "Harmonica Blues," which 
features Deford Bailey, Jaybird Coleman, Jazz Gillum and others. It's an 
album every blues harp player should have in their collection.

.    Any words to the wise on this from you wise dilated harpolaters
. out there?  I haven't even tried playing like this yet (though I do
. the occasional high-end bend).  Is this old style mostly straight
. or cross- harp?  Has this thread been worn thin and unraveled
. already?   --Henry Gould

I think it's mostly straight harp, but some of those guys were remarkably 
innovative - apparently some of them used overblows way before Howard 
Levy "discovered" them. A lot of those guys played with jug bands or 
string bands and played mostly high end stuff so they could be heard over 
the other instruments. I haven't heard him play, but I've heard that 
Joliet Joe Filisko is a master of this style.

*************
Steve Levine         "If you don't love the blues you must have a 
slevine@xxxxxxxxxx    hole in your soul."         
*******************                  -Jimmy Rogers




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