RE: [Harp-L] Cheesy tricks (was: Valved players unite! - Valves and Flecktones)

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's a picture in the Howlin' Wolf biography of him playing two harps at
once - one with his mouth and one stuck under his nose. Wolf was pretty much
the king of cheesy gimmicks (crawling on the floor, up on the bar, perhaps
the first one to pull the "walk out of the bar and play out on the curb"
trick, but his audiences loved it - and it really pissed off guys like Muddy
who were accustomed to playing sitting down (not to mention spending a lot
of time sitting in the audience with the ladies while their bandmates held
the stage, which Wolf rarely did). I'd say he probably influenced the
follow-on "crazy guys" like Little Richard and James Brown (there is a
section in the book where he admonishes a young James Brown for crawling up
under a woman's skirt when performing, telling him he would get killed that
way).

If it works, and the audience is having fun, go for it. Nothing is cooler
when some orchestra or marching band breaks up a good-sounding but otherwise
mundane performance with something "interesting".

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Joel Fritz
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 12:34 PM
To: harpl
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Valved players unite! - Valves and Flecktones

Chris Michalek wrote:
> According to one of the flecktones that I know, Bela was the weakest 
> musician.
> 
> Victor Wooten will have a substantial run.  That band wouldn't have 
> been as successful without him.
> 
> Bela certainly puts on a good show and they regualrily had extended 
> solos and jams.  Bela is an odd fella, but he understood success was 
> about "the show" more than the music. They used a lot of gimmicks and 
> were very successful.
> 
> I must admit that I have fallen prey to using cheesy gimmicks like 
> playing oh susannah with no hands.  Sells a CD or generates a tip 
> everytime!!
>