[Harp-L] re: Top 10 living diatonic players

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bobbie writes:

"Ermm... No Toots Thielemans?  Charlie Musselwhite?  Yasuo Watani?   
Magic Dick?  Franz Chmel?  No Stevie Wonder?!?!"


Well, since the subject line says diatonic players, I'd think that  
pretty much means that Stevie and Toots aren't all that important to  
the discussion (I've not heard Toots play diatonic, and while Stevie  
can play it well, he does so rather rarely).

However, aside from this she makes an excellent point about not only  
the subjectivity of such lists, but the flaw in trying to reduce  
music and art to "top ten" lists--the criteria are too broad.  Is it  
technical proficiency being judged?  Simply recorded output (in which  
case I'd say Dylan would need to be on the list)?  Influence (Dylan  
again should probably be there)?  Too many variables even if you  
think the idea of a top ten list is a good thing to try.

Secondly, the fact that these lists will tend to get some of the same  
people over and over also says something about this list itself, harp- 
l.  I love harp-l, but you can get a very skewed sense of the  
harmonica world through it.  That said, this was a more balanced list  
than many I've seen (Charlie McCoy was actually there, usually he is  
forgotten, despite probably playing on and selling more albums than  
all but one or two of the people listed), though still I can see a  
bit of the list-focus there as well--John Popper was left off, for  
instance, and Jason Ricci was included (no slap at Ricci, just he's  
not a major figure sales-wise yet, compared to say, Lee Oskar, Magic  
Dick, Mickey Rapheal and several others--Ricci is a major figure list- 
wise, which is the point I was making about harp-l giving a distorted  
picture of the harmonica world).

And, as always, if it's influence and recorded output as the main  
criteria, than Bob Dylan should be probably the first on the list.   
Whether one likes or hates his playing, he's probably gotten more  
people to play the harmonica than anyone else there, and he's  
certainly sold at least as many records.

That's the problem with lists.  In the end, they are simply personal  
statements of the individual subjective bias.  And in that regards,  
here's my list of my ten favorite living diatonic players as of this  
morning, with no regards to influence, recorded output or any other  
criteria than I like to listen to them and in absolutely no order:

James Cotton
Sam Hinton
Wade Schuman
Kirk "Jelly Roll" Johnson
Lee Oskar
Phil Wiggins
Peter "Madcat" Ruth
Dennis Gruenling
Annie Raines
Taj Mahal
Richard Hunter


Damn, 11.  I really can't write concisely, can I.




 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()   & Snuffy, too:)
`----'