[Harp-L] how we learned harmonica in the olden times

["Steve Merola" <srmerola@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello harp-L
 In the early 60's my parents had just returned from a business trip to
Germany. They brought my guitar playing brother a Koch 10 hole chromatic. It
was the Christmas holidays and I had the flu and a very gross ear infection
that was killing me. I was bugging everybody and my Mom was afraid I'd make
the other kids sick so she handed me the Koch and said,"Go in your room and
stay there. You can play with this, your brother doesn't want it". (He
wanted a MB). I started by playing Christmas songs. Within 3 months I took
the Koch apart and couldn't get it back together right. I started playing
drums as well and heard "Love Me Do" and then the Rolling Stones. I went and
got a MB and started playing blues/rock. I got my hands on the Tony Glover
book and heard Paul Butterfield w/ Sam Lay and knew what I wanted to do.
Play both drums and harp. I listened to all the blues players the NY Public
Library had in their record collection and tried my best to copy them, but I
got lots more pro work as a drummer than a harmonica player and on my first
LP wasn't allowed to play harp because the guitar player (David Olney)
played better than I. On my second LP, however, the pianist, Roy Bittan,
convinced the producer that I could play. So I did my first harp recording
session in 1973 for Capitol with a pop band called "Tracks". In the mid 70's
I finally met Paul Butterfield and he explained that I'd never sound
anything like him without a great acoustic tone. I figured you got it or you
don't and I didn't like they way I sounded (I later learned I was simply
playing too hard), so I hardly played for more than 20 years. In 2001 I got
a call from someone who knew me in the "olden times" and he asked me to play
on his CD "Hot Monkey Love" (They're on CDBaby and the song I'm on is "Cross
Eyed Cat"). So there I was trying desperately to recreate something this guy
(the late Frankie LaRocka) heard me do over 20 years ago. I thought I sucked
but people are still telling me they love this performance! Go figure. A few
months after the session I was diagnosed with an illness and the "therapy"
they gave me put me into a severe depression. I was isolated (mentally) for
9 months. But I had a computer, harp-l, and several harps and as I am not
easily dismayed, got to work. I got in touch with a player from the EU and
he started sending me songs he wrote and recorded in his house, and I would
try to copy them. He taught me alot, and I think he knows it. I'm now
recording my own CD and doing some recording sessions for a very wide
variety of artists, ranging from jazz, to incredibly hard rock, to
children's songs. And I'm very happily back to playing chromatic as well as
diatonic.
I firmly believe that the appeal of a harmonica is that it can give us the
sound of someone who is isolated. Someone who feels alone or left out or
rejected. Everyone goes through periods like that or at least feels that
they are at some point in their lives. That's why we have an audience. I
thank my parents for making me stay in my room.
Peace
Steve Merola