[Harp-L] Harmonica Renaissance

[Mark Earley <harmonika13@xxxxxxxxx>]

After my earlier post complaining about the price of harps I felt a little ashamed and spent a $100 on two Seydels--a LLF and a Soloist Pro.  I have to say that I love them and feel as if my money was well spent!  I am coming to understand that, as someone mentioned here, it is truly a good time to be a harp player.  
My learning process began at 12 years old mimicking the sound I heard on LPs of Howlin' Wolf, Will Shade, Sonny Boy I & II, and Sonny Terry until I was old enough to make my way into local bars and blues jams.  I was lucky to have met Sonny Terry (at Sandy Berman's Jazz Revival when I was 15 years old) and to have enjoyed a close relationship/apprenticeship with the likes of Earring George Mayweather and Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans in my early 20s--both great harp players and performers.  I consider myself lucky, too, to have had the audacity to barge into the backstage dressing room of Junior Wells where I was able to make a personal connection with the man whose playing I had long emulated.  Wells was kind enough to humor me as I played HIS own solo note-for-note to him from "Messin' with the Kid" from his 1960's Vanguard LP "Chicago, The Blues, Today!"  While I never stopped playing harmonica, over the years I departed the local music scene, got
 a couple of degrees, began a teaching career, had a kid, etc.  Needless to say, it's been a while since I felt the way I did when I purchased a C Marine Band and Tony Glover's Blues Harp Songbook some 30+ years ago.  That is, until my son was born in 2007.  I started giving him the harp at 7 months (possibly earlier) and he suprised me by actually playing the damn thing!  Now, at 13 months, he can play his own improvised riffs and mimics my train rhythms with his own.  He experiments regularly--making te-te-te sounds with his breath and tongue--and cries when I try to take the harp away.  He is able to draw bend my Special 20 A harp into a bluesy growl and regularly makes facinating rhythmic flourishes from blow 1 to blow 10 reeds.  He even taps out the spit from his harp on his leg (or usually, daddy's) when he's done.  Of course, he's also just as happy to drop the harp mid-song and do something else but I can honestly say that I'm not
 exaggerating my son's precociousness on the harmonica.  And sorry, no YouTube videos of this kid!  I'm keeping him under wraps except for friends and family until he's older.  The purity in his love of the sound and feel of this instrument is infectious and has been radiating outward toward me.  Harmonicas are finding themselves in every concievable place in my house, old cases full of half-blown harps are being reevaluated, older harps are getting cleaned and polished, new ones are being warmed and played.  Father and son are constantly jamming and learning and loving these wood and metal wonders--a true harmonica renaissance.