Re: [Harp-L] Any 1920s 2nd position blues besides Gwen Foster?

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Winslow.  I'm hoping  somebody will prove me wrong.I have been unable to find accompanied second position earlier than Foster. Unaccompanied, there's Whittier about the same time, but the ground zero I'm looking for here isn't the lone guy, but a guy who, when the band is in G, picks up a C harp. Over the last few years, I've been getting the idea that in the 1920s, 2nd position was about where the overblow was in the 1980s or 1990s. Some did it, but most people had never heard of it. 
One case that I'd put out there is Frank Hutchison, an extremely talented bluesman, an extremely talented harp player, yet he never made the connection of harp to blues. His blues has no harp. His folky stuff has great harp, first position. The only 2nd position is a train piece unaccompanied. I'm guessing he didn't know he was playing in second position. I've tried to do some of Frank's stuff, I do not have the lung power AND Frank breathed coal dust at the Ft. Branch Coal mine in Logan, W.Va. all day. Thinking about Frank is what got me thinking about this, Frank had some pretty deep blues roots and it doesn't seem like he had ever heard 2nd position. The Southern West Virginia coal fields had a tremendous amount of blacks by 1910 and there seems to have been a very free exchange of musical ideas between blacks and whites in this area by World War I and the 1920s. 

 
 I'd like to check out William McCoy that you mentioned. 
Dave
__________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com