[Harp-L] Re: Casual harmonica players

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ben wrote:

With age, I'm starting to realise that more and more I enjoy the  
harmonica
playing of casual players. Sometimes I like it even more than the harp
playing of many "pro" players.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by casual harmonica player. By  
that I
mean musicians whose approach of the harp is as a secondary  
instrument. Pro
musicians who would not describe themselves as harmonica players.

A few examples could maybe help clarify what I mean:

- G. Love of G. Love and Special Sauce is a great example. He plays a  
decent
harp, but you can hear that he rarely if ever practiced. Now he still  
sounds
very good (not too sloppy, I guess), but he sticks to relatively simple
stuff. The thing is it's always effective and very often quite  
inventive as
well.

Steve comments:

Though I take your point, I can't agree with your examples Ben. Every  
time I heard G. love playing harp on one of Jack Johnson's tunes I'm  
afraid I cringed (and wished I'd done it ;-). How about the way Tony  
Joe White uses harp? Simple but beautifully effective, maybe that  
would qualify?

Regarding the supposed discipline of sax players, I just watched  
"Red, White & Blues", Mike Figgis' contribution to Scorsese's blues  
film series. The movie opens with Van Morrison singing, Jeff Beck on  
guitar and a host of other luminaries (no harp). Unfortunately the  
sax player starts honking away in the 2nd chorus and overplays right  
the way through, walking all over Jeff Beck, whose unique fills and  
exemplary good taste land straight under the wheels of this chap's  
widdley diddley shite. Same on every number he played on, even though  
he was a highly respected figure who'd been in the biz for 45 years.  
No-one really seemed to notice and Mr Beck was too much of a  
gentleman to assert himself.

Great movie by the way, the ending features Lulu (yes, that Lulu for  
those of you old enough to remember) singing an absolutely brilliant  
version of "Drown in my own tears" that brought a serious lump to my  
throat,

Steve

www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com