"Non-standard" becomes a personal experience. If you've never heard a
particular song played on the harp, you may think it is non-standard. But
to the millions of people who have heard it before, it's quite standard.
Somehow this comment made me think of Pat Ramsey's band covering the
Little Feat song Skin it Back. I heard them play that close to 20 years
ago in Tallahassee Florida. Pat played the Bill Payne keyboard line on
harmonica. I was blown away because until that moment I hadn't
conceptually grasped that this kind of playing was at all doable on
harp. While I certainly don't listen to every single band in America
that employs harmonica I haven't heard anyone else cover this song since
then. I'm thinking the broad differentiation here is many many bands
cover Juke. We're all used to hearing blues on a harmonica. In fact
it's the expectation. If you tell someone you play harmonica what they
expect you play is blues or to a lesser extent something folky. What I
find so fun about this thread is seeing what people do play using
harmonica for lead. It gives me ideas about what might be possible and
directions others have chosen. I guess you could do the same with
arrangements and blues tunes but the difficulty would be in
communication sans sound files. fjm