[Harp-L] Re: Country Western harmonica players

["Rick Epping" <rickepping@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some of the folks at Bluegrassharp are pretty optimistic about a place for
harp in bluegrass.  I played a couple of concerts recently with bluegrass
musicians Jim Rooney and Eric Weissberg (of Deliverance fame), which were
well received and loads of fun.

Here's what I wrote awhile back on a Bluegrassharp thread about Bill
Monroe's attitude toward harmonica:

On 10/22/06, rick epping
<rickepping@...<http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/bluegrassharp/post?postID=bnioKeTdXE3-CS3PXhDuuw6xht4oKagmQFh7egwg33LLNZwt8KqGM_MpQbjOCH0AIfxA-6zmrOfZ5b9omVs>>
wrote:
>
> Back around 1971, Bill Monroe gave a concert at McCabe's Guitar Shop in
> Santa Monica, where I was teaching at the time. Towards the end of the
> show
> he invited anyone in the audience to get up on stage and join in. I'd been
> playing bluegrass harp for some years by this time and, thrilled by the
> opportunity to play along with the man himself, wasted no time (and no
> shame!) in getting up, along with fiddler Richard Greene, who was also in
> the audience. We were stood over at one end, beside Monroe's fiddler,
> Kenny
> Baker. You can be sure it was a treat to play along with two fiddlers the
> likes of them! Well, not long into the tune - Old Joe Clark as I recall,
> Bill Monroe heard my playing and motioned me over to stand beside him and
> use his microphone. After the show he invited me back the next night to
> share his microphone for another song or two, after which he invited me
> down
> to his festival in Beanblossom. I ended up moving to Ireland instead and
> never took him up on the invitation but have never forgotten his kind
> gesture of encouragement.
>
> The harmonica is no less a minority instrument in Irish music than it is
> in
> Bluegrass and eyebrows still occasionally rise when I take out a harp for
> a
> session of jigs and reels. But, at the end of the day, it's only the music
> that really matters, isn't it? Whatever the kind of music, if you love the
> stuff enough you'll play it on whatever you can and, with a bit of good
> taste, get on alright.
>
> Best,
> Rick