Lee Oskars?

[Barry Schaede <barrys@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At least the Meisterklasse that Rick plays are relatively easy to 
disassemble and adjust.  Marine Bands are next to impossible to work on.  
I was at a harmonica workshop this weekend.  Billy Branch of the Sons of 
Blues was doing it in conjunction with Blues week here. One of the 
atendees mentioned that he'd heard that Hohner had licensed a Japanese 
company to make computer controlled machine made versions of Hohner 
products.  Any truth to this rumor?  Winslow you seem to have your finger 
on the pulse of the industry.  Mr. Branch had some interesting things to 
say about white people playing the blues.  He claimed that if he moved to 
Russia and starting playing Russian folk music he'd never be the best at 
it because it isn't his music.  Not his culture.  He wouldn't have grown 
up steeped in it.  A few people left after he said this.  The audience 
was all white.  An intersting phenomena if you ask me.  Billy also railed 
against the racist practices of the music industry.  He mentioned the 
success of SRV in particular as a good example of this kind of 
unfairness.  Albert King gets next to nothing while SRV flies around in 
helicopters.  The Elvis pPresley syndrome is what he called it.  FJM