RE: [Harp-L] Fwd: need 2 names - Peter Madcat Ruth and Duster Bennett

["Rene Carlson" <Rene@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would hardly call Madcat Ruth a novelty player.  He's toured with the
great Dave Brubeck, and now plays with Brubeck's son Chris as part of
the trio, Triple Play.

I saw Madcat with Triple Play, and he switches harps during performance
as needed for the piece.  Because the pieces are jazz-influenced, they
often include scales, chords, and key changes outside the norm for
straight blues/rock/country diatonic playing.  Rather than playing
chromatic or making extensive use of overblows, Ruth adeptly switches
harps between notes to get the next scale, chord or key change as
needed.  If only I could switch harps like that!  The point is, it's not
novelty playing, he's using harps to fit the piece.  When I saw him he
generally switched harps 2 or 3 times within a song, mostly to follow
key changes.

OK, so he did perform one novelty song at the end of the show.

He played a fast, chugging, roots-style melody while a member of the
audience handed him novelty music makers, like a nurse slapping an
instrument into the hand of a surgeon.  He would sick the toy in the
side of his mouth and toot, honk, whistle, etc. without ever breaking
stride in rhythm or melody on the harmonica.  Think Sonny Terry squall.
It ended with Ruth putting two paper blowout whistles at either corner
of his mouth and puffing them in and out, while still playing.

But I still consider him a serious musician...

He has a website, as does Triple Play.

http://www.madcatmusic.net/news.html

http://www.brubeckmusic.com/tripleplay.html

Rene







-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Winslow Yerxa
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 6:11 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Fwd: need 2 names - Peter Madcat Ruth and Duster
Bennett

--- In harptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "ejl49" <ejl49@xxxx> wrote:

I'm sending this post to see if anyone knows the names of a couple of
players. The first one, although he can really play, seems to be largely
known for his novelty stuff, like switching harps 15-20 times per song
and never missing a note. I think his nickname is Mudcat, and I believe
he had a harp mic on the market a few years ago.


====You're talking about Peter Madcat Ruth.

The second guy has an English accent. He's been around; I don't know his
age, but I'd say he's 60-70 by now. He's also a great player, and when I
saw him, he played guitar at the same time as playing his harp. 
He also had a homemade stomp box for foot percussion, so he was actually
doing a one man band thing that was great.

==========You *might be talking about Duster Bennett, a rack player who
could really get around on harp. He played guitar and foot-pedal drums
(maybe just hi-hat, maybe bass drum as well). He made about two albums'
worth of recordings, some of which has been reissued, did a guest spot
on a B.B. King album around 1970, then died in a car crash not long
after.

Winslow




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