RE: [Harp-L] Will Scatlett and Overblows

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Will Scarlett was using overblows consistently and in a controlled way as early as 1968, when he waxed a couple of albums with Hot Tuna using only a G-harp fgor all tunes. When I met him in 1974, he was using the technique, called it "overblowing," and taught me how to do it.

Will is a careful, shadowing-around-the-edges kind of player, who never sought nor received the kind of attention later given to Howard Levy. But he conducted the first investigations into how it works inside the harmonica, and even invented
the responder reed idea on which the XB-40 harmonica is based.

By the Way, Paul Oscher claims to be the first player to use an overblow on a blues record, again in 1968, on a Muddy Waters record. (The same year, Toots Thielemans used a few overblows on an easy listening album.)

Al Wislon - I have no idea. The "special" note he got on "on the Road Again" (a semitone above Draw 6 on a A-harp) has been thoroughly investigated by Pat Missin and others and determined to be a special tuning,  with the Draw 6 reed raised one semitone .

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Thu, 6/4/09, Anthony Smith <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



"Didn't Al Wilson and Will Scarlett to name a few."

Not that I've heard?  Maybe they did but not even close to the extent of
H.L. and you surely can't credit those two for ushering in the Star-Trek
generation of harp players!