Fwd: [Harp-L] Re: re: pathetic - did The Blues invent the light bulb?

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, I can't agree.

Blues fans have a blues-centric view of the world that often lacks
knowledge in other areas and seem eager to credit the blues with
everything that's ever happened in American music.

Folk music in Quebec has a harmonica tradition completely different
from the blues tradition, has existed for at least as long, and is at
least as highly developed. People outside Quebec tend not to know
about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Blues harp has not been the driving force for harmonica in popular
American music either, for the entire 20th century. Most people's
awareness in the 1920s and '30s (and later) was formed by harmonica
bands like the Harmonica Rascals and Harmonicats and soloists like
Larry Adler. That didn't change until about 1965 when Bob Dylan
brought diatonic folk-based playing back into the popular
consciousness which opened a door for blues artists.

Blues fans also assume that second position playing is something
invented by blues musicians. Yet early recordings show southern rural
players both black and white playing in various styles using both
first and second position.

If you look at the records that sold the most - therefore were most
widely heard and had the greatest influence on most people, you'll
probably come up with hit records featuring the aforementioned Dylan,
along with Stevie Wonder, Toots Thielemans, Jerry Murad, George Fields
(remember Moon River?), Tommy Morgan, and maybe somewhere in there
Chris Smith (McCartney/Jackson's Say, Say, Say), Rob Paparozzi
(Culture Club), Magic Dick (J. Geils), and Lee Oskar (War), along with
Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson), along with maybe Charlie McCoy on some
country hits and Greg "Fingers" Taylor (Jimmy Buffett).

Some of these players were influenced by the blues harmonica to
greater or lesser degrees and other not at all.

Winslow

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Haka Harri" <harri.haka@...>
wrote:

With all due respect to classical, country, soul, funk, folk etc. harp
players the only genre where harp has played a really important role
is the blues. From its earliest beginnings up until today blues harp
has been the driving force for soloists, duos and bands. Both acoustic
and amplified. From that perspective you might justify naming
substantially more blues harp players as being most influential to the
instrument compared with all other genres put together.

Among the all time greats is Sam Myers who I was sorry to hear passed
away.

Harri


From: Jonathan Ross <jross38@...>
Subject: [Harp-L] re: pathetic
To: harp-l@...
Message-ID: <46AE8C2C-3738-4640-A5F0-063BE5367C58@...>
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In deference to fjm, let's leave the specific Wikipedia out of this  
and just think about which players should be in a general-knowledge  
encyclopedia under the harmonica header.

 

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