RE: [Harp-L] My Encounter with Gus

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

My gus encounter was a little different. It was late 70's or so, I was
at a Neil Young concert with a friend, both "under the influence". So
was everyone else there, it seemed. Hallucinogens were quite popular and
readily available at the time (and area - northeast NJ/NYC). People were
doing a lot of crazy stuff at that particular show, I remember. I was
just in the early stages of trying to emulate Neil, my hero, on
harmonica.

So we come across this guy on the concourse surrounding the lower
seating area (this was an outdoor concert) and he's just wailing away on
the harp, but not Neil's stuff, hard core blues. I stopped and wanted to
listen. My friend got pissed "let's get to our seats, we're missing the
concert". "This guy is way better than Neil" I responded. I wanted to
stay. He yanked me away, but I never forgot the sound of that gus harp,
it changed my direction - I now wanted to play blues. Footnote - later
on the friend picks a fight with a security guy twice his size and we
get kicked out and strained to listen to the rest of the show through
the fence in the parking lot. 

Around that time I got real busy with other things in life and never
followed through. But I always remembered that sound. I got a black
room-mate in the barracks in the service who turned me on to Muddy and
all of his great harp players. Regrettably, I didn't pick it back up
again until many years later (the last few in fact). But the moral of
the story is that at least once, somewhere, a gus was helpful. Now don't
you guses out there think this justifies your behavior, I see you in the
bars all the time and must....repress...fist....of.....death....

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA