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

["steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <swebb@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sometimes we get lucky. I 'm a barely adequate harp player. I say that in all honesty. I have no illusions about what I play. I have learned to play well enough to sit in with blues bands and I can play some country and bluegrass. Last year I hooked up with a guy who was doing a solo thing, but had previously played in a band that had a harp player. We hit it off personally and musically and he understands (without saying it out loud)  that I am limited, but will work hard to find something in each song that adds to the sound. We play a wide variety of music, as an acoustic trio, and we have our own sound. I am still trying to find the proper volume and how much to play in songs, and sometimes he tells me to be more up front with my harp sounds.
The thing is, we don't really play any blues, but I do know how to make the harp "cry" a little with three draw bends. THere are songs where that works well.
My goal is to find that just right amount of volume and taste. I listen to Jelly Roll Johnson and Mickey Raphael and that's how it should sound, for me. Charlie' McCoy's harp on some country songs is so good it still makes me feel it inside. That is my goal. I can play a little blues, but I just want to play something that makes people feel it. 
Steve Webb in Minnesota

---- diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 
> 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.
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