[Harp-L] Howdy

[Jim Crutchfield <jdcrutch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Harpists!

I'm new to the list and thought I should introduce myself.  My name is 
Jim Crutchfield.  I was born and raised in Virginia, the Cradle of 
Civilization, but have lived in New York City for the past eleven years 
or so.  Probably going back home soon--who knew all those songs about 
homesick Southerners were for real?  (Blind Boy Fuller's "I'm a Stranger 
Here" came up in the iTunes shuffle just last night and brought a tear 
to my eye.)

I've been playing the harp since I was a kid (in the early 1970s), but 
never really worked seriously on technique until about twenty years ago, 
when I finally got up the courage to play in a band.  A pal and I 
started up "Things in Action" in 1991, which we billed as a "loud 
acoustic" duo--him on guitar and vocals and me on vocals, harmonica, 
tambourine, and whatever other easy instruments I could fit in.  We 
played mostly what gets called "indy rock" (i.e., won't fit in pigeon 
holes), most of which was highly inappropriate for a guitar, two voices, 
and a harmonica; but we had a surprisingly big sound (mostly thanks to 
Alex's gigantic Guild guitar and his superb ability to adapt full-band 
arrangements to a single guitar), and we collected a loyal little 
following in Norfolk.  I went back and forth between straight harp and 
cross harp, depending on the song, and played through a Shure "Green 
Bullet" and a solid-state Peavey 60-watt guitar amp with a "dirty" 
channel that approximated an overdriven tube amp tolerably well (not 
well enough for a purist, I'm sure, but it was what I could afford, and 
it was loud, which was what mattered in the dives we tended to play 
in).  The nicest compliment I ever got for my harp playing was from a 
tough-looking, bearded biker who came to Cogan's one night with his Old 
Lady--how they landed there I can't imagine, since it wasn't anywhere 
near the biker scene.  He came up to me at a break and said, "It's good 
to hear a *real* harmonica player."  I've never been sure what he meant 
by that, but I takes 'em as they comes.  Things in Action broke up after 
about six years, but Alex moved to NYC shortly after I did, and we still 
play an occasional benefit or private party.

In 1992, I joined a well-established folk band called Dramtreeo, who had 
lost a member and wanted me to take his vocal part.  They (wisely) 
wouldn't let me play banjo or guitar on stage, but they were happy to 
have the harmonica.  That's almost entirely straight harp, except when 
we do an occasional blues or rock number for fun.  (Our bass player, 
Carlton Lillard, also plays with the H. M. Johnson blues band out of 
Norfolk, and he'll occasionally cut loose on a blues with Dramtreeo, 
just to shake up the folkies.)  And it's all through the vocal mike, a 
beat-up old Shure SM-57.  Dramtreeo is still going, though we only play 
a few times a year now, and never practice anymore except on stage.  
Through most of the '90s we were playing two weekends a month locally, 
and making fairly frequent trips to festivals and concerts around the 
Chesapeake Bay region.  We played Lincoln Center's Roots of American 
Music Festival twice, the only times I've ever gotten applause for a 
harp solo.  (Our web site is at http://www.southernbranch.com/dramtreeo, 
though it hasn't been updated in about ten years and is full of dead links.)

I moved to New York in 1999, thinking I'd get into some kind of 
performing here, but that hasn't worked out very well, partly because my 
day jobs have been irregular and time-consuming (that is, when I haven't 
been working my sizable butt off, I've been worrying about not having 
work, and scrambling to find some), but mainly just because I haven't 
had the nerve to put myself out there enough.  Other than some 
open-mikes and an occasional reunion with Alex, I haven't done much 
(though I do go home to play with Dramtreeo whenever we have a 
gig--about four or five times a year these days).  I'm sick of not 
performing regularly, though, and I'm trying to get serious again about 
it again.

That means rebuilding my chops on the harp, among other things.  I was 
never really hot stuff--I could never play "Whammer-Jammer", and some of 
Little Walter's licks just plain mystify me--but I'm at least 
/accurate/, and I can sound pretty good when I'm in practice.

If I move back to Va. as planned (it all depends on the work situation, 
here and there), I'll probably settle in Richmond, which has a great 
music scene, and try to put a band together.

Like most of us, I imagine, I started out on Hohner Marine Bands and 
Blues Harps, but when I started playing for money I switched to Lee 
Oskars (except when I need the low, whangy sound of the Marine Band 
14-holers).  I've never had a chromatic--don't want to waste money on a 
cheapo, and the price tag for good ones has always held me off--but I'm 
thinking more and more about getting one of the Hohner Toots Thielemans 
models and seeing what I can do with it.  (I was at an open mike at a 
Manhattan jazz club a week or so ago, and a fellow did a couple of 
numbers on a fancy chromo that really slew me.)  Surfing the web for 
advice on getting started with a chromatic was what led me to discover 
this list.

Well, that's my story.  I'm already getting a lot out of the list, and I 
want to thank you all for putting your knowledge out here for the rest 
of us!  I'll be posting some questions soon.

Aeiou,

Jim Crutchfield
Long Island City, NY