[Harp-L] re: ricci rave and harmonica blowout

[BradKava@xxxxxxx]

Hi all. I was offline for a couple of weeks and missed the debate on my rave 
about Jason Ricci...Thanks Michael Peloquin, for coming to my aid....you know 
as much about journalism as about good harp.

I was writing that for the most mainstream of audiences and had only 3 lines 
of space to describe Jason's playing....I would have liked to be more poetic, 
and said more about his style, but I was writing for people who don't know a 
stringed harp from one you blow and suck, so I stuck to the visual...and in a 
way, that's something Jason brings to the table that could help him make the 
big time. 

While harp fanatics don't care what the player looks like, the mainstream? 
well, let's just say Stevie Ray Vaughan's autograph sells for three times what 
Jimi Hendrix's does at collectors shows....and who was the better player who 
broke the ground? 

That aside, jason called and thanked me for the mini review..and mentioned 
that his drummer is a big Rush fan and even missed playing a show to see Rush...

I know the folks here are first to appreciate Jason...do you think he'll one 
day be as big as Stevie Ray or Clapton or Popper? I do, but I've been around 
long enough to know you never know....

One more note, as one of the only, maybe the only mainstream journalist who 
is a harp fanatic...I wrote an advance story about Mark Hummel's Harp Blowout, 
i'd like to share with u guys....Hummel said it was the best thing ever 
written about the shows....(maybe later i'll give u guys a full review of it...my 
head is still spinning from Kim Wilson's 21 minute set...

Blues in harmony

IN HARMONICA BLOWOUT, `MYSTERIOUS' INSTRUMENT UNIFIES RIVAL MUSICIANS
By Brad Kava
Mercury News


Back in June, Eric Clapton drew tens of thousands of people to a Dallas 
football stadium for a celebration of the guitar.

This weekend, the harmonica will get a much smaller, but no less inspired, 
tribute as four of the country's greatest players hit Yoshi's nightclub in 
Oakland for Mark Hummel's 14th Annual Blues Harmonica Blowout.

It's like a torch being passed, as the elder statesmen of Chicago blues -- 
James Cotton, 69, and Charlie Musselwhite, 60 -- team up with their students -- 
Kim Wilson, 53, and Mark Hummel, 49 -- each of whom has recently released an 
excellent album.

In each show, they will play individual sets backed by Hummel's tightly knit 
band, and a group jam that, in this 315-capacity room, should rival anything 
that happened in Dallas last summer.

``The harmonica has not gotten its due compared to the guitar,'' says Hummel, 
who lives in Walnut Creek and tours the world year-round, playing a bouncy, 
swinging style of blues. ``The harmonica used to be the lead instrument in 
blues. But the whole history of rock is so guitar-oriented: Elvis played guitar, 
not harmonica. And it's been that way ever since.''

Why?

``Maybe because you can see what the guitarist is doing,'' Hummel says. ``You 
can see his fingers. The harmonica is more mysterious. It's hidden behind 
cupped hands. There's something about string-bending that gets people off. We 
live in a world where subtlety gets lost. I call it the `American Idol' 
syndrome.''

As a result, players of the harmonica, nicknamed the Mississippi saxophone or 
the blues harp, struggle a lot more to make a living.

``Someone like (guitarists) Buddy Guy or B.B. King makes 10 times the money 
that any harmonica player at the same level of fame makes,'' says Hummel.

Wilson agrees.

``People think it's a toy,'' he says, before a recent Lake Tahoe show by his 
band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds. ``They don't take it seriously. If you are 
into fame, you picked the wrong instrument. You have to be a journeyman and go 
out there for $50 a night for years and years.''

But for him, it is the most emotional instrument in blues or rock.

``It's inside of you while you are playing. It's like a true voice.''

Wilson, who grew up in Detroit and Southern California, began teaching 
himself the harmonica at 16 and began playing in bands a year later. He has played 
with most of the Chicago greats, including Jimmy Rogers and Muddy Waters, who 
praised his skills when he was 24.

``Muddy always used to tell me that I was going to be one of the ones keeping 
the music alive,'' recalls Wilson. ``I always try to keep that in mind when I 
play.''

He prefers the traditional, classic blues of the 1940s and 1950s to anything 
modern.

``Even though it may be an art form that is dying,'' he says. ``It takes a 
big investment. It takes a lifetime to get it right, and we live in a world of 
instant gratification. I've been playing all these years, and I'm only now 
starting to bust through.''

The same could be said of Musselwhite, who, although he has been recording 
since 1966, had one of his biggest hits this year, with ``Sanctuary,'' an album 
of transcendent blues on Peter Gabriel's Real World label. The disc has 
crossed over and been played on adult rock radio stations.

Musselwhite says that his goal, as he has matured, is to play like a Japanese 
brush painter.

``I want to see how few notes I can play. A couple of strokes can evoke a 
tremendous feeling, properly placed.''

Although the players promise to be on their best behavior during this 
``blowout,'' fans can't help but expect a certain gunslinging mentality to creep in, 
when the best play in front of the best.

Fans may also wish to be a fly on the wall backstage, when these greats share 
stories, like those of aspiring players seeking reluctant teachers.

When he was much younger, Memphis blues harmonica player Cotton asked the 
famous Chicago blues harp player Little Walter to show him how he played a 
certain, swinging passage.

``He put the harp in his mouth, turned his back to me and did it,'' Cotton 
says in ``Blues with a Feeling,'' a biography of Little Walter. ``So I never did 
ask him anything else.''

Wilson had a similar letdown trying to get a lesson from one of his idols, 
Musselwhite, when he was 17. He talked to the bluesman, after sneaking into a 
Goleta nightclub.

``Let's go back and we'll play,'' the youngster asked his idol.

``He just looked at me and said, `Hey, man, what are you talking about?' '' 
Wilson recalls. ``I got all mad. I had brass balls when I was a kid. To be 
honest, I wouldn't have done it either if I was him.''

Wilson was determined though.

When he told his tale to another great player, George ``Harmonica'' Smith, 
Smith gave him a special-edition red, white and blue harmonica, advising that if 
he gave that to Musselwhite, the elder harp player would be impressed and 
might teach him some stuff and let him sit in.

``Charlie goes, `Where did you get that?' Then he puts it in his pocket and 
blows me off again.''

Leave it to a young, brash Hummel to tear down the walls. He recalls, as a 
youngster, meeting Cotton in a club and asking which of his own albums he liked 
best.

``I like them all,'' Cotton told him.

``Not me,'' Hummel recalls saying, still regretting putting his foot instead 
of a harmonica in his mouth. ``I liked the first two but not the others.''

14th Annual Blues Harmonica Blowout

Where: Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland

When: 8 and 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $30, Sunday matinee, $5 children, $15 adult with a child, $26 adults 
without a child; (510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Brad Kava at bkava@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or (408) 920-5040. 

 
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