Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica as a regular instrument

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, Willie Nelson has had a regular harmonica chair in his band for decades now. Kenny Loggins sort of had one for awhile but only while Howard Levy was in the band.

I saw some late 1960s concert footage of Leonard Cohen on public TV recently (Isle of Wight concerts? Not sure). I was astounded that he had something like 3 harmonica players in the band, mostly tooting along discreetly on the melody and occasionally receiving the sonic spotlight.

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

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

Resident expert at bluesharmonica.com

Harmonica instructor, jazzschool.com

Columnist, harmonicasessions.com

--- On Fri, 5/7/10, martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Harmonica as a regular instrument
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, May 7, 2010, 3:06 PM

Two bands have been mentioned here recently, Charlie Winston, w/ harmonica player Ben Edwards, and Steppin in It /w harmonica player ... -- whose name escapes me now.
  What´s interesting w/ these two, i think is that the harmonica is treated as a "regular" instrument, filling it´s place in the soundscape the band creates, and not just something a singer brings up and shows that s/he can draw, blow and wow, even bend 4D.
  This usage of the harp is not very common (outside of blues) and bands that comes to mind are of course War, J Geils and ... and ... -- it sort of ran out there. But of course there are some more.
  When one listens to, e.g. Charlie Winston, mostly the harmonica is very discreet, not defining the band´s sound but more laying some sort of foundation, or filling out the bottom. On a a live show I have w/ them I think he doesn´t even take a solo for the entire concert. But he´s there.
 
Can anyone fill in more band that use the harp, diatonic/chromatic in this way? Well known, unknown, no matter; just forget blues because there it´s often a given thing. 
  With services like Spotify you can explore music you´d never dream of spending your money on and it´s a very fortunate situation, for as long as it holds.
 
Cheers,
Martin
PS Yeah, I´m well aware of a Swedish band, Wilmer X, that answers to the above criteria. Well known and successful here, but no bigger splash internationally. One reason: they sing in Swedish.