Good harp vs bad harp

["Vincent M. Daliessio" <vdaliess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My $.02:

Harp is often used in songs to evoke a mood or feeling and not to add any
actual melodic content. This is a dismaying trend, but it is an opportunity
for good harp players if we are willing to seek it out. 

In Springsteen's defense, he has been a practitioner of both "Good" and
"Bad" harp in his career. Many people do not know this, but he is a VERY
good piano player as well as a past master of the guitar, so any wild or
unmelodic harp parts he plays are done mostly for effect, and not because
he doesn't know what key he should be playing in.

I remember hearing an interview with the late Michael Hutchence of INXS in
which he describes how he was "fooling around with adding some harp" to a
record they were recording, when someone brought in Charlie Musselwhite to
have a go at it...Hutchence said Charlie played a riff over the song in
question and Hutchence "dropped his harp on the floor..."

Wayne sez;
>
> I have been a member of this digest for a very long time, but I usually
tend to read and not post very often.  I thought it would be fun to add my
two cents to this discussion.
>
> I have always broken down harmonica players into two categories: 1)
Harmonica Players and 2) Harp players.  I don't know why, it just seems to
work.
>
> Dylan, Young, and don't forget Springsteen, fall into the harmonica
player category, those who play traditional chord-type work.  
>
> Guys like both Walters, James Cotton, and Snooky Pryor fall into the harp
players category.
>
> To me it isn't really fair to compare the two, they are both very
different.  The harmonica players probably influenced just as many people
to pickup the instrument, in some way, as the harp players did, just
depends on what style of music you tend to like.
>
> I have a photo of Dylan on-stage with Muddy Waters at the Bottom Line in
NYC, and he is playing blues harp.  Anyone who ever heard him do that knows
that he can play.
>
> So that's my two cents.
>