[Harp-L] How we learned diatonic harmonica in the "olden days"

[Aeskow@xxxxxxx]

It's like a wonderful little form of folk literature has emerged in this  
thread from which the Iceman cometh...fascinating to map the divergent paths  & 
overlaps in these harmonica journeys...My own entry came by way of a  different 
access road.  Started at 13 singing lead in surf-music bands in a  very 
surf-free area of upstate New York, mainly because I had the balls to do it  and no 
skills at all on guitar, bass or drums.  Was overheard singing Otis'  version 
of "That's How Strong My Love In" in the high-school hallway a year  later 
and, to my amazement, found myself fronting an (otherwise) all-black soul  band. 
 Gigged some frat parties and roadhouse gigs along Route 17 through  high 
school, still a stone soul kid, a Roy Head/Mitch Ryder wannabe/devotee  until a 
classical violinist girl-friend turned me on to that Rosetta Stone that  haunts 
so many of these narratives, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band LP ("This  
record should be played LOUD!")  Was immediately and permanently turned  out.  
During two years at Stony Brook college I hooked up with a Long  Island guitarist 
with impeccable chops and God's own collection of blues  albums.  IIt was cool 
singing lead in the blues band that evolved but once  again troubled by my 
own lack of an instrument other than throat.  Then  providence came in the shape 
of Junior Wells.  (And who better?)  It  was that fantastic early album with 
Buddy Guy--the one with "Snatch It Back and  Hold It"--that somehow convinced 
me I could play harp.  As so many  brothers of my generation have attested 
there was basically no way IN to playing  harp back then--it was basically you 
and this puzzling inanimate object that  held astonishing power if only you 
could unlock it.  My guitarist told me  about cross-harp and bought me a Marine 
Band in D and suddenly we were snatchin'  it back and holdin' it, too, after our 
fashion.  All my harp playing  basically evolved from my singing.  I caught 
Wolf and Muddy at Stony Brook,  the Butterfield Band live at the Cafe Au Go Go 
(with a 22-year-old Linda  Ronstadt, already a star with "Different Drum," 
sitting at the next  table in the shortest denim skirt it is possible to 
conceive)--those gigs in  particular were transcendent...Walking down West 4th Street 
on a Saturday  morning trying to shake off an insanely creepy 
methedrine-and-phenobarbitol high  I was greeted by the sight of James Cotton strolling 
merrily along the sunlit  pavement and hitting those high blow-bends as he walked, 
alone in his own  world.  I thought I must be hallucinating.  By some kind of 
grace, I  wasn't.  Things like that can keep you deeply, deeply hooked on harp. 
  And I get the feeling they've happened to many of us...Anyhow I wanted to 
play  blues and other music too, and instinct told me that since I'd never be a 
 virtuoso I'd better learn to put my heart in anything I blow.  My bandmates  
sometimes called me a "rock harp" player because our original stuff was not  
strictly blues-based and I experimented with other kinds of 
tonalities--failing  and succeeding, but fortunately the ratio began to improve...Time spent 
playing  in horn bands taught me volumes--as much about restraint as about 
release--but  it was all intuited, there was No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, to 
quote an old  Van Morrison album-title.  In recent years as various kinds of 
instruction  began to fall from the skies I've been grateful for every piece of 
technique  they've provided.  But, like some others who've born witness, I'm 
grateful  that I had some time to figure out a little bit of what I wanted to say 
before I  took the elocution lessons.  (Though now I have come to love the 
elocution  lessons, the Zen of scales, the mindfulness, too.)  
 
To me, the striking thing about this thread is that, in some way, the  
stories all seem to have happy endings...
 
Peace and Respect
Johnny T