Re: [Harp-L] LW's Influence - sharing info w/the list

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<SNIP>
> I would argue that the most important thing Walter learned from horn 
> players was a concept--that you could put a horn (including a harp)
> in front of a band, and produce a performance centered around the
> horn that would satisfy an audience completely.  I don't hear any 
> blues bands before Walter putting out anything like Roller Coaster, 
> or Backtrack, or Boogie--3-to-4 minute instrumentals centered purely
> on a harp soloist.

> My guess is that Walter knew it could be done in a structural sense 
> because the sax players were already doing it.  What Walter needed 
> to make it work with harp at the center was a harp sound as big as a
> tenor sax.  With a microphone in his hands, he had that too.

Both Rhythm Willie (1940s Chicago) and Blues Birdhead (1929) could be
cited as precedents for accompanied instrumentals with horn-influenced
harmonica as soloist. It seems at least possible that Walter was aware
of what Rhythm Willie had been up to in their shared city of residence
in the 7 or 8 years prior to Walter's arrival.

Blues Birdhead, Rhythm Willie, and Little Walter had this in common:
they played purely instrumental pieces accompanied by instruments that
supplied a song structure based on chord changes, with that harmonic
structure providing a basis for improvisation.

Two things that distinguished Walter from Willie and Birdhead are:

== his placement in a context of urbanized country blues both in terms
of John Lee Williamson's influence and in the terms of playing with
other urbanized country transplants like Muddy Waters; 

== his use of amplification to transform both the sound of his
instrument and his approach to playing it, which his guitar-playing
(and urbanized) contemporaries were also doing.

Playing harmonica instrumentals based on harmonic structures contrasts
with the earlier rural fox chase and train imitation pieces that were
usually played unaccompanied and were not structurally dependent either
on recurring harmonic structures  or on improvisation built on those
structures. 

Imitative pieces were something that did not transfer immediately to
the urban context in the repertoires of transplanted country dwellers
like John Lee Williamson. Without them, instrumental pieces likewise
seemed to vanish, with the known exception of Rhythm Willie, whose
playing does not seem to derive from a rural approach to style or
repertoire. (I could easily be wrong about this and would be interested
to know about examples of urban, country-derived harmonicas players
performing instrumental pieces in Chicago or other cities from the
1930s and '40s).

The harmonica instrumentals that did emerge in Chicago from Rhythm
Willie, and from Little Walter and those who came in his wake were
usually based on harmonic changes. However, Roller Coaster has both a
title and a lack of harmonic form that indicate an urban continuation
of the old imitative pieces. (Tune names like "Flying Saucer" provide
the temptation to consider a further survival of the imitative concept
at least in tune titles, even if now based on science fiction as
presented in the movies and television instead of on direct observation
of a rural and largely natural environment.)

Winslow


       
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