[Harp-L] Never Call Out Stevie Wonder at a Blues Jam

["Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This was the valuable lesson I learned tonight.  I called out "Boogie On, 
Reggae Woman", a funk in Ab with I-IV chords and a II-V turnaround.  I sang 
the bass line for the rhythm section, and the keyboardist knew it 
beforehand.  I knew the lyrics fairly well and had a cheat sheet just in 
case.  I had practiced the harp solo and had it down fairly well -- 4th pos. 
on a G harp because I don't own an Ab harp to play in 1st like Stevie did. 
(My version sounds reasonably close to the original because all those blow 
bends are still there.  You just kind of move the solo down one hole on the 
harp.)

For all that preparation, there were so many things wrong with the song that 
I should have just called it off halfway through.  I forgot to write down 
the chords for the chorus, so the band just played the head over and over. 
That made my harp solo sound off-key, because it's based on the chorus, and 
it probably was slightly off-key anyway because I'm a novice at 4th 
position.  The song has that I-IV progression twice, but I didn't tell the 
band that, so the vocals didn't match up to the music half the time.  The 
drummer didn't know the song, and I didn't describe the percussion well 
enough beforehand, so there was way too much kick.  I put down my bullet mic 
and played the harp solo into the vocal mic, which wasn't set up for that, 
plus I'm not used to that style, so I couldn't really hear myself playing. 
Also, we had no idea how to end the song after everyone begrudgingly took a 
solo.

So there you have it.  Don't try to play Stevie unless you have a band with 
rehearsals.  There are too many things that could go wrong, and in a blues 
jam setting, the non-blues chord progressions don't go over so well.

Jonathan Metts