Fwd: [Harp-L] RE: Roy Acuff's Harpmen

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

On his own albums (1960s?) Jimmie Riddle played both chromatic and 
diatonic, often alternating back and forth several times within a 
tune. He tended to play chromatic either in the home key or one 
semitone up (slide in, wiggled out and back in for grace notes) and 
diatonic in second position, which he played pretty well.

I'm not sure when Wheeler joined Acuff - the late '50s or 
early '60s? - perhaps someone has accurate knowledge on this. Some of 
the recordings from the late '60s and early '70s have various 
combinations of Wheeler or Riddle, or both of them (remake of Freight 
train blues with Riddle on chromatic and either Wheeler or McCoy on 
diatonic), or sometimes Charlie McCoy, on harmonica. Riddle held down 
the piano chair during that period with Wheeler as the main harp 
player, but he still occasionally played harp.

In the '40s I believe Wheeler had not joined Acuff, still trying to 
be a star in his own right on the edge between country and so-called 
hillbilly boogie (which helped set the stage for rockabilly a few 
years later). Riddle seems the most likely suspect for '40s era 
recordings, as his later recording show he played diatonic quite well.

Winslow

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Henderson, Peter" 
<Henderson@xxxx> wrote:
Rick,

Jimmie Riddle did indeed play the short harp - though not often and 
not
as well as he played chromatic. 

Trip ~ NYC


Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 15:54:16 +1100
From: "Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Roy Acuff's Harpmen
To: <harp-l@xxxx>
Message-ID: <s1b723be.078@xxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Anyone got dates for who played harp with Roy Acuff when? I've got 
some
radio transcriptions from the 40s with diatonic
played in 1st position. I would have said from the date that it was
Jimmie Riddle, and to me the style sounds like
Riddle (with the button missing) But I never heard Jimmie R. play
anything but chromatic. I know Onie Wheeler played
harp with Acuff, I think from the 50s until the end (with Riddle on
piano) but I never heard Onie play anything but Lost
John stuff in 2nd position.
I don't imagine there will be too many replies to this post, but it's
been bugging me for years.
Cheers,
Rick Dempster


_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
--- End forwarded message ---