Re: [Harp-L] Re: Harp-L Digest, Vol 41, Issue 54

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I can't think of another instance of retuning in the blues harmonica
community before Al Wilson. 

However, it has long been practiced among vaudeville all-harmonica
bands (Borrah Minevitch, Harmonicats, etc.). Old-timers used to refer
to special tunings as "stunt" tunings - usually because the returning
was intended to acomplish a specific stunt like imitating another
instrument, accomplishing a specific onstage gag, or playing something
considered to be impossible by other players. (I'm trying to remember
who told me this - could have been Fuzzy Feldman or Ray Tankersley, or
Al Smith.)

Larry Adler once related that his chromatic harmonica got a stuck reed
while he was onstage performing with a symphony orchestra, and he
didn't dare switch harmonicas because he believed that the orchestra
members would think he was pulling some kind of trick - like using a
"stunt" harp (though he did not use that term). Apparently he felt his
playing would not appear legitimate if he couldn't do everything on one
harp.

As far as I know, retuning among blues-oriented diatonic players caught
on after Lee Oskar started using, promoting, and marketing altered
tunings.

Anyone have information that might fill in or alter this picture?

Winslow



--- Rebecca Davis Winters <wordworkshop@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >
> > Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:40:42 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Any fans of Canned Heat's "Blind Owl" Wilson?
> >
> > There has been considerable discussion onlist in the past on the
> > retuning used for On the Road Again, with the consensus that 6 draw
> was
> > raised a semitone.
> >
> > Have there been other instances of retuning on recordings by Al
> Wilson?
> 
> 
> My conclusion is the same regarding the #6 draw reed used for "On the
> Road
> Again".
> 
> Yes, there are a handful of other recordings with similarly retuned
> harmonicas utilized by Wilson. I will endeavor to compile a list of
> the
> items I'm aware of. If recollection serves me, "An Owl Song" might
> also
> involve a retuned harmonica, and I'm pretty sure there is also one
> somewhere
> on the "Hooker & Heat" album.
> 
> Did any of Wilson's contemporaries, or predecessors, retune their
> harmonicas? I'm not saying that he was the first to do it by any
> means, but
> I think at that time, it was quite uncommon. To my understanding,
> harmonica
> reed filing and retuning has been a fairly recent (last couple of
> decades)
> phenomenon, and that Wilson was quite unusual with his retuned
> instruments.
> However, I have not made in-depth studies of other players and
> therefore am
> not entirely certain of this.
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