RE: [Harp-L] Dave's Typo -was: Fun with Christelle

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Right you are Michael;
                                    Oh yes, I agree with you on the harp's place in 'the food chain'. Hmm...on second thoughts, maybe I wouldn't put it that way. I'm off to New Caledonia next week for a weeks 'paid holiday' playing for the tourists 90 minutes a night and taking it easy the rest of the time. My chances of getting hired for my harp playing for a gig like this are slim (unless it was my band) and I'm being hired as a steel guitarist, which is something I do far less well than playing harmonica.
                                   But yeah, I think that while harmonica's 'entry level' is a fairly gentle gradient (unlike, say, fiddle) once you get to 'a certain point', it requires just as much skill and dedication as most other instruments.
                                  It's just that it is not required for a basic combo, unless you're putting together some classic lineup like a Muddy Waters-modelled Chicago blues band.
                                  If you want to perform on harp, then you have to make your own opportunities.
                                  No doubt this means we are all a bunch of 'rugged individualists' (hmm....isn't that a US saying? some president or other; and maybe that's connected with the harmonica's amazing development in the US and the degree to which it's identified with that country)
                                 Anyway, enough raving from
Your's truly,
RD

>>> Michael Peloquin <peloquinharp@xxxxxxxxxxx> 22/07/2008 10:50 >>>

> From: rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx> Michael;> I don't think 'Yakety Yak' by the Coasters has anything to do with Yakety Axe'. Thetune and chord progression is different. I always believed that Chet Atkin's adapted Boots Randolph's recording of his tune 'Yakety Sax' - which was a take on King Curtis' playing (and yes, Curtis did play on 'Yakety Yak' and heaps of other Atlantic sessions for the Coasters & other vocal groups etc.) > I hope you'll excuse a mere mouth organ tooter being so bold as to correct a sax player on this subject!
Rick,
I only mentioned Dave's typo because it had an awesome King Curtis Owsley/Boots Randolph connection! Kind of like, 6 degrees of harp & sax separation.
Harmonica is no lower on the food chain than saxophone, it's just what you do with the instruments. People on this list play circles around some of the pro sax players I have known.
I go back and forth with a love hate relationship with both. So do listeners.
oh well -
breathe, play, be happy and thankful. PLAY MORE STACCATO WHEN NECESSARY, not always easy to do on harp.
Hope you're having a great Winter down under.Michael Peloquin http://www.harpsax.comhttp://www.myspace.com/harpsax_______________________________________________ 
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