RE: [Harp-L] jason ricci

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting. To set the record straight, those comments I made were a
mixture of *my* interpretation of comments I'd seen on Jason's site
*and* things I've heard others say in response to the "Popper" question.
I don't know the playing of Popper or Sugar Blue well enough yet to form
my own opinion. I guess I need to listen to some of their stuff. But
most importantly, I want to make sure that nobody takes what I said as
any direct quote from Jason's site. While his site has very opinionated
comments, and he makes it clear he's not a fan of their styles or
chromatic playing, it didn't say any of the things *verbatim* I had in
my post. And he didn't say any of those playing styles or players were
bad, just that they're "not his thing".

I checked out the article Shane posted. Again, interesting. Popper does
talk about cross-harp but doesn't call it that "That's like when you're
using a C harp to play in G, so you get the flatted seventh". And they
talk about tongue blocking and using it for chords to accompany notes. I
stand corrected! (but do they use it?). I don't think Popper made his
stated goal of "King of the Blues" though! But he did some things with
the harmonica that the public at large liked, and thus did a service by
bringing it to the forefront as a "real" instrument in their eyes of
course, for what that's worth. Listening to the radio, I don't hold much
stock in what the "public at large" considers to be good music, haha.
I'm sure there's more to Popper than "Run-Around", I'll have to give him
a listen.

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of SHANE1198@xxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 6:36 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] jason ricci

In a message dated 12/23/2004 4:32:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Jason talks
about that quite a bit, discussing Popper and Sugar Blue. Those guys are
mostly 'speed' first position type of guys. They don't use the 'blues
harp' type techniques of bending, octaves, things like that very often.
Then Jason hasn't listened to either one of them because almost EVERY
Blues 
Traveler song is played in 2nd Position. Both John and Sugar, obviously
use 
bends, John's Playing may not be Typical Blues Harp, but the 2 Sugar
Blue CD's I 
have are pretty Straight up Chicago Blues, with the incredibly fast
runs. The 
Two met once at a studio and were interviewed together in some magazine.
John 
told him of his dream as a youth to battle Sugar and sell all he owned
and 
follow Sugar around if he lost. Sugar invited him to play on his next CD
but I 
guess it never materialized.
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