Re: Bluegrass Harp was Walter 'Red' Parham



Tim Bennett wrote:

>You're right, I am abusing the term. What I'm really interested in is harp
>players performing songs that are most commonly done by bluegrass/country
>artists.
>
>Tom Dooley
>Ole Joe Clark
>Whiskey Before Breakfast
>Home Sweet Home
>
>Just as examples...
>
>Most non-musicians will refer to that as bluegrass even though it's not
>technically accurate. I should be more careful when talking to musicians!!!

You'd be better off with the terms "string band" or "old timey".
Having said that, I recall Mark Graham saying that he disliked the
term "old timey", as it sounded perilously close to "old tiny".

>Didn't mean to go off on the 'definition of bluegrass', I was really just
>fishing for artists/old recordings that people particulary liked.
>
>Thanks for your replies and your patience Pat!

No problem. 

Anyway, if you like the harp playing of Red Parham, DeFord Bailey and
Doc Watson, the name that immediately springs to my mind is Henry
Whitter (Doc even covered Whitter's tune "Rain Crow Bill"). Sadly,
very little of Whitter's harp playing has been reissued on CD. In
fact, compared with blues harp players, there are very few reissued
recordings of the great pre-war country and hillbilly musicians in
general. Document are making a lot of stuff available, but when I
inquired I was told that reissuing stuff such as Whitter's early solo
harp 78s would not be high on their list of priorities.

Yazoo's "Harmonica Masters" and Trikont's "Black and White Hillbilly
Music" have a few tracks that would probably interest you. Details on
this page:

http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q18.html

If you like Red Parham, you should also check out the 1920s recordings
of William McCoy, to hear where Red got his "Mama Blues".

Red Parham also turns up on "37th Old-Annual Old-Time Fiddlers
Convention". The LP version was Folkways FA 2434, but I'm not sure if
you can get it on CD. 

Speaking of Folkways, Sam Hinton recorded a few lovely old-timey
harmonica pieces on that label, although his albums usually primarily
featured his guitar playing. There is a nice Real Audio clip of Sam
playing "Arkansas Traveler" (simultaneous guitar and harp without a
rack) here:

http://www.sandiegohistory.org/audio/hinton/hinton.htm

I'd also strongly recommend you hear Mark Graham's playing, especially
his "Southern Old-time Harmonica" album: 

http://www.mongrelfolk.com/mark.html

Hope some of this is useful.

 -- Pat.





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