[Harp-L] First comercial XB-40 recording? Stevie Wonder's CD "A time 2 love"

[Fernando Bresslau <ferbress@xxxxxxxxx>]

A long, long time ago, Slim commented on Stevie's CD "A time 2 love".

     * From: Slim Heilpern
>     * Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 20:06:36 -0700
>
> To answer Randy's original question from this morning....
>
> Downloaded Stevie's latest ("A Time to Love") from iTunes and it really
> made my day --- great stuff (but then again, I like practically everything
> he's ever recorded). It's over an hour's worth of great tunes, each one a
> masterpiece in its own right. There's also one tune featuring a very cool
> flute solo by Hubert Laws.
>
> As for harmonica content on the album, would have liked to hear a lot more
> (as usual, but I'm happy to take what I can get).
>
> If you just want the tunes with harmonica, these are the ones to get:
> - Sweetest Somebody I Know: chromatic solo
> - From the Bottom of My Heart: chromatic on intro
> - Can't Imagine Love Without You: chromatic solo
> - Tell Your Heart I Love You: harmonica throughout, probably diatonic
>
>
> Thanks for the tip, Randy, didn't realize it was already available!
>
> - Slim.
>

Well, I finally managed to get  a copy myself, and listen to it. I am, as
most are, a fan of his and his CD deserves more playtime in my car CD
player. What stood out for me was that there I found what I believe to be
the first comercial recording of the XB-40 harmonica.

 Take a listen to the 9th song, "Tell Your Heart I Love You". What Slim
thought was a diatonic, is in fact an XB-40 in C, if I'm not mistaken. At
the end, Slim wasn't that wrong after all :-)

I am happy to see that the XB appealed to such a great musician as Stevie,
as also was clear at his appereance at Steve Miller's (?) show some time
back. I believe that the XB has a unique sound which is slowly finding it's
place in several music styles, from Irish, through oldies to pop/soul.

If anybody knows of any comercial recordings featuring the XB-40, I would
like to hear about them.

All the best from Trossingen,
Fernando Bresslau