[Harp-L] Re: Surprising Hunter YouTube videos

[spschndr@xxxxxxx]

Not Richard Hunter, whose?recently added?track on Broadjam is indeed?worth a listen: the recent dredging up of old Pat Ramsay videos put me in mind of the James Hunter from England who's been breaking out in the U.S. as a singer/writer in the classic soul/blues mode, singing like Sam Cooke and playing guitar like Guitar Slim or something, very impressive stuff.? 

None of the bios of him that I have read have mentioned that years ago?he used to play harp and front a band with a classic name that (until YouTube) I only knew from Steve Baker's Harp Handbook: Howlin' Wilf and the Vee-Jays, as seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1k37F09lVw

I figured he'd paid some dues, but I had no idea . . . probably a smart move on his part to switch to an easier instrument like guitar :-).? Several smart moves, to be serious about it: here is a guy who was clearly talented, twenty years ago, and finally figured out that there?might be?a market niche for his brand of well-sung, well-played, well-arranged/produced retro soul and R&B music, ~if?enough of it was?new songs that were written well enough~.

Which made me ask: Why did?James Hunter have to put down the harmonica to pull that off?? I have my own theories about that, but wonder what others think.??Admittedly, Hunter's success is relatively modest, and I don't know whether it's mainly made up of older listeners (Norah Jones syndrome), but given the recurring threads about lack of recent commercial breakout for harp players apart from John Popper, I think it's interesting that a blues harp player/bandleader got on the radar internationally with both critics and fans in 2006 without the help of American Idol . . . only he wasn't playing blues harp any more.

Stephen Schneider
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