[Harp-L] Re: Harp-L Digest, Vol 41, Issue 54

["Rebecca Davis Winters" <wordworkshop@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:40:42 -0800 (PST)
> From: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Any fans of Canned Heat's "Blind Owl" Wilson?
>
> There has been considerable discussion onlist in the past on the
> retuning used for On the Road Again, with the consensus that 6 draw was
> raised a semitone.
>
> Have there been other instances of retuning on recordings by Al Wilson?


My conclusion is the same regarding the #6 draw reed used for "On the Road
Again".

Yes, there are a handful of other recordings with similarly retuned
harmonicas utilized by Wilson. I will endeavor to compile a list of the
items I'm aware of. If recollection serves me, "An Owl Song" might also
involve a retuned harmonica, and I'm pretty sure there is also one somewhere
on the "Hooker & Heat" album.

Did any of Wilson's contemporaries, or predecessors, retune their
harmonicas? I'm not saying that he was the first to do it by any means, but
I think at that time, it was quite uncommon. To my understanding, harmonica
reed filing and retuning has been a fairly recent (last couple of decades)
phenomenon, and that Wilson was quite unusual with his retuned instruments.
However, I have not made in-depth studies of other players and therefore am
not entirely certain of this.