re: [Harp-L] I don't want to be a harp player

[diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Ken,
Yep, that's the experience I had in the last 3 bands.  
Some of the other musicians felt the harp was becoming too dominate in the band, other's thought I should
be playing all the time like Cotton in Muddy's band. I tired of that. 

We had 4 soloist in one band.  On some tunes I made a few of them work harder at their solos when they followed mine. Sometimes the  pianist would curse me out because he wasn't ready to solo with that  amount of intensity.  
One of the guitarists stepped up to the challenge and we always played well after following each other.   He was pissed when I got canned.   I don't hold a grudge with any of them.  Life's too short.  All I want is to find a group of musicians that let me play on the same level as them without a preconceived idea of how I should play.

mike



Message: 4
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:38:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mojo Red <harplicks@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] I don't want to be a harp player!
To: diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx, harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <460877.42636.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hi Mike,
 
Great story! 
 
You remind me of an experience I had years ago. I was in a band that wanted the 
harp to stay in its place, and when my solos started pushing the boundries of what they concieved the blues harp should sound like, I got the 
axe. However, while with that band I had been often told (at gigs) that I was 
"the best musician up there", so I didn't really feel bad. 
 
Yeah, I aspire to be a musican... 
 
Harpin' in Colorado,
--Ken M.