[Harp-L] Blues And C&W

["Haka Harri" <harri.haka@xxxxxxxx>]

Country music contains lots of harmonica but who can name really prominent C&W harp players in the same sense as blues harp players. In other words, who might be the country music equivalents of Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson? Or masters of today like Rod Piazza, Kim Wilson, R.J. Mischo, Rick Estrin, Charlie Musselwhite, Mark Hummel and lots of other blues harp players?

Harri


Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:02:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [Harp-L] Re: re: pathetic - did The Blues invent the
	light buld?
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
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"John Balding" wrote:
<I would be willing to bet that Blues recordings where the harmonica is
<the featured or prominent instrument have outsold ALL other genres where
<the harmonica is the featured or prominently-displayed instrument. 

I agree that in terms of numbers of recordings MADE, blues accounts for a considerable amount of harmonica output, probably the majority.  But that's not the same as the number of recordings SOLD.

As I recall, three of the Beatles' first top ten hits -- "Please Please Me," "Love Me Do," and I forget the third -- featured harmonica playing the hook.  Given the popularity of the Beatles, I suppose it's possible that various releases including these three records alone have sold more than all blues records combined. 

Blues players always seem to forget about country music, too, which is a much more popular genre than blues.  (On eof the three major commercial TV networks is hosting the Country Music Association awards live next week -- I don't think we could say the same for any blues award show.)  As I've said on this list before, country music treats harmonica players very well -- there are a lot of prominent country bands with harmonica, and you hear it frequently on country radio.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are as many country releases featuring harp every year as blues.

Finally, notwithstanding the fact that almost everyone on this list loves the blues and has an extensive blues collection, the fact is that blues as a genre doesn't sell much at all compared to pop music.  One hit by a major pop star can sell over 20 million copies -- that's probably a very high percentage of total sales for blues records in any given year.  In general, 80% of all record sales are accounted for by 5% of recording artists.  I doubt that any of the 5% are blues artists.

Thanks, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com

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