Re: [Harp-L] Country tuning


On Feb 8, 2009, at 1:16 PM, Jonathan Ross wrote:

So how does Charley tell it? According to what he told me, he was playing somewhere and a fellow (he didn't remember the name)
approached him and said "I think I know how you did that....you sharped the 5th draw up a semi tone". When in fact, Charlie had used TWO harps (actually 4 because he modulated up). Charley then said (to paraphrase) something like; "No, but I will do it that way from now on".

Yup, that's how I've heard him tell it.

Ok, then if it IS yes, that's how you heard him tell it, then you just showed that I might be right. In other words, I'm not paraphrasing Charlie incorrectly. Or, to put it another way, there IS no descrepancy between what you heard and what I wrote. Or to put it another way, Charlie's story and my story don't conflict.

This relieves me because your first post (and maybe I'm reading it wrong) seemed to infer that I was somehow copping a story.

I suppose I'm an anus orifice for finding it a bit odd that your name never came up in thirty some years

First of all Jon, I don't consider you anything of the sort, and am distressed that you would say that. I hold you in the utmost deepest regard and consider you the 'Sage' of the list, although I do muse over your constant insistence that people prove everything they write. What I did a long time ago, I did when I did it. There was no camera nor recording equipment around. I guess I never thought it mattered that much. Still don't. I have known my wife since age 4. Maybe I should have had her take shorthand..(giggle).

As for the thirty years. It's much longer than that. It's 49 years since I did what I did. I had already been playing a long time before anyone questioned my tuning. And that was in Nashville..where people KNOW what's what. Also, if you would go back 9 years on THIS list, you will find that I never *really* made claim to being first. I had written in here and other publications, that it wouldn't be inconceivable for someone to have come up with this tuning a WAY LONG time ago. Maybe before I was even born.

What I DID write was that until 1975, I had never heard of anyone else using it. Usually, when one played country tunes, the tendency was to either use a second harp for the bridge, fudge the problem notes, or avoid the notes entirely by working around them in a fashion I like to call 'Snowjoberol'. I do literally hundreds of tunes with ONE harp that previously required 2.

Now if I were a Steve Baker or a Brendan Power, maybe my name WOULD have come up. In fact, I have often wondered if Steve Baker was well known before he came up with the Steve Baker spl OR the Steve Baker spl tuning is what MADE him well known. And as for having a recognizable name, until 1993 I had never heard of Robt. Le Bon Vivant, until 1992 I had never heard of Will Galison, Pete Pederson, Peter madcat Ruth. And it wasn't until 1994 that I knew whom Rob Paparrozzi and Richard Hunter were. The only people I HAD heard of were: Diamond, Hayman, Adler, Harmonicats, Rascals, B&L Wally, JW, Rice, WM Thornton, Lazy Lester, S Terry and maybe a half dozen others.

I'm really happy to NOW have heard literally hundreds of players. It only serves to broaden MY harmonica horizons.

, but now here you are for the second time in as many years

It's more than 2 times (thanks for thinking enough of me to pay any attention..it's more than others have done..seriously, I do appreciate it..no snideness intended). Maybe if more people had paid attention to me, I WOULD be someone..a contender..instead of a bum..with a one way ticket..to Palookaville. lolol

making the claim that the tuning was one you invented and introduced and by proxy got to Charlie.

Hey, what can I say? I have no idea of what happened. That's why I will never get the credit. Whatever, flyshit I care? What I can say in all honesty, is that I have played occasionally over the years with no regard to becoming famous, and I'm happy with it. I am at an age where it won't change my life.

This has nothing to do with being famous or the like, after all, the guy who showed this tuning to Charlie wasn't famous either,

That's my point. Good things can come from humble sources. They aren't always the privy of the famous.

but Charlie always properly credited him. Damn shame we don't know his name because then we could find out from him.

Yes, he does. I have heard him do it several times. So, he is crediting a fellow who may have heard it himself from ANOTHER fellow. If you believe in the theory 'only a few steps removed', it isn't inconceivable that the second fellow heard it from a third fellow....maybe even a fourth. Actually, I am very pleased that this wonderful tuning is now universal....well, planetary anyway..wouldn't want to start an interplanetary incident.

Thanks again... sMo-joe... still down in the trenches like a dumb dirty dog... advancing people's perception of the harmonica.


JR Ross 







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