RE: [Harp-L] Playing Rhythm, Chords, Vamps, Whatever and NOT Solos

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nate (g'day mate, I'm back in the USA now missing the Oz sun!),

There was a great series of articles on this topic by David Barrett or
one of the other great contributors on the harmonicasessions.com site.
Forget which month/issue, but I just remembered now it was like 4 parts
over several months.

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA (Chocolatetown, USA)

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Nate in the Blues Room
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 3:07 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Playing Rhythm, Chords, Vamps, Whatever and NOT Solos

Hi Tim & Harp-L members,
I've been meaning to ask here for the longest time about playing
back-up, rhythm, fillers ... call them what you like, they just aren't
solos.

At a jam night I'd have more opportunity to play rhythm fillers than
solos and have realised that I'm fast running out of ideas by the time
the fourth song comes and I'm playing the same fillers - this could be
like playing the same solo for every other song, it soon sounds all the
same. Any suggestions?

Are there any resources (yes, apart from practicing) that might help
educate, inspire and provide me with how to keep my rhythm/fillers up to
par? Are there any particular songs that can be examples of someone
playing good rhythm/filler harp? Or a particular player?

As a side:
There seems to be different kinds of back-up harp playing. Sonny Terry
would play continuously some times while Brownie played and sung. Walter
Horton would too but with the whole band playing also. Little Walter had
some mean as rhythm/fillers, some of the best IMO, while with Muddy.
I've heard some brilliant playing by Harmonica Hinds with John Stedman
on the song 'Every Night', its more like hes playing the melody.

Some back-up harp can sound too intrusive yet on the other hand some
continuous harp playing, the likes of Walter Horton behind Johnny
Shines, can sound excellent.

Also, as a harp player myself I tend to buy CDs of harp players that are
band leaders, most of them sing and solo alot too - in other words the
CD is about them as harp players. But are there any recommendations of
CDs/bands/harp players that are solely in a rhythm role, that solo now
and again, who are backing up the lead singer / guitarist etc. Jerry
Portnoy comes to mind. He plays perfectly on Eric Clapton's album 'From
the Cradle'

Any thoughts?

Nate