Re: [Harp-L] Warren Bee's solo show and a question

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Rubin wrote:
<So, who else has done the solo shows, just harp or harp and vocals?

After I released two CDs of solo harmonica pieces--"The Act of Being Free in One Act" and "The Second Act of Free Being"--I did dozens of shows in support of the CDs.  The biggest of these was a pair of performances at the Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2001.  

At Riverbend, I was concerned about performing solo to a large festival audience, so I hired two different accompanists, one for each performance.  The first accompanist showed up to rehearse and turned out to be unable to play my material, even with rehearsal, and I paid him and fired him, regretfully.  I did the first show solo, and I was certainly sweating it, but it worked.  (It didn't hurt that it was a Southern town and I had a big showpiece version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" early in the set.)  The accompanist for the second show--an electric guitarist--was a lot more professional, and I did the second show with him. 

In general, the hardest part about playing solo harmonica is that it's not an established genre, so the audience really doesn't know what to expect.  This was especially so in my case because only about 1/4 of my repertoire was blues, and the remainder were original pieces that were nothing like blues.  I always started with "Peppermint Life," which is a showpiece with a lot of fast, intricate stuff, and followed it with "Billy The Kid," a piece with a very obvious structure and a lot of power in it.  Over time, I began to use accompanists more and mroe frequently, because it made it easier for the audience to understand what I was doing.

I had originally thought folk music audiences were right for my solo stuff.  Boy, what a mistake.  However independent and free-thinking folkies may think they are, their musical tastes are utterly conservative and resistant to change.  

Finally, I learned NOT to play solo harmonica in places that served alcohol--the audiences in those joints just weren't ready to listen, and the solo harp wasn't loud enough to overpower their chatter.

If anyone wants to hear some of the material I played (and play) solo, check out the Broadjam URL below.

Thanks and regards,
Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com
latest mp3s always at http://broadjam.com/rhunter