[Harp-L] Bentonia School

[Robert Rowe <robertrowe2@xxxxxxx>]

There's a little town just off of US Hwy 49 (the other road that makes up The Crossroads in Clarksville, MS) named Bentonia.  It's not really part of the Delta, but a very specific style of blues, often associated with Delta blues, was developed there by Skip James, Duck Holmes, Bud Spires and Jack Owens and a few others.  It's usually referred to as Bentonia School, or Bentonia style blues.  As a slide guitarist I always approached this with an open Dm tuning DADfad, flattening the f# in the normal open D tuning to f.  Lacking anything better to do at 3:45 AM this morning, I'm wondering how you would approach this as a harp player.  Several of the recordings I have include harp, but I'm not nearly educated enough to figure out what they are doing.  What key and position would you choose to begin working with this tuning?

RKR