Re: [Harp-L] Rick Epping: the Father of Embossing

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 27, 2012, at 5:29 PM, David Payne wrote:

> Brendan, 
> If I've given the impression that Rick wasn't the guy who started embossing, it was unintentional.
> I too would consider Rick Epping  to be the father of embossing, with actual customization preceding embossing by many years. 
> It's a little like the Internet. We've got a good idea where the Internet came from, UCLA, the U.S. government, etc. Rick is to embossing what those folks were to the Internet. 
> Now if you look back at the Internet, the Internet we know was not necessarily the first attempt at the Internet. Nikola Tesla was working on something we'd recognize as wireless Internet at Wardenclyffe back around 1905 or so - you could listen to stuff on a portable device, send messages back and forth, etc. I've read Tesla's description of what he was working on and he made no allowance for dissemination of pornography, which is probably why his Internet never took off lol - or in the 1930s, Crosley had an unsuccessful attempt with its Reado, it was more limited than Tesla's Internet, you could only download news and weather. The first fax was sent in the 1870s... I should stop now, but what I am trying to express is that I'm looking for the Tesla Internets and the Crosley Reados of harmonica customization. Leo Diamond has an embossed tone. I have heard that tone nowhere else and from nobody else before recent memory.
> Now, people have been customizing harmonicas as long as there have been harmonicas, that's something I do say often. Most of the earlier work was done to the reeds or the combs, or slide assemblies, etc. to solve specific problems. The customizing efforts were concentrated wherever the instruments were weakest - and likewise Rick's embossing solution was a response to a specific problem that had arisen, a solution to turn a glaring weakness into a strength. 


How do we know that embossing wasn't being done on accordions? As you say, solutions sometimes come from a necessity. Tone a little weak on the D draw of the pair of reeds in block #10 on bank #3? The chord doesn't sound 'full' on the lower tremelo?  Let's emboss it. Makes me wonder. Po-see-bee-lay? Hmmm, maybe. 
smokey-joe 

> 
> As a former award-winning investigative journalist, I've been looking into this for years. Over hundreds of conversations probably with many people, all roads lead back to the same place - Rick Epping, I get the impression that the word started getting spread - and was a quite a little buzz that really excited techs - in the Midwest. That was the early 1990s and the WIndy City Harmonica Club was really strong then.
> 
> David
> 
> 
>  
> David Payne
> www.elkriverharmonicas.com
> www.hetrickharmonica.com
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Brendan Power <bren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: 'harp-l' <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
> Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 3:23 PM
> Subject: [Harp-L] Rick Epping: the Father of Embossing
> 
> There was some recent speculation on this list about when the process of
> reed-slot embossing might have begun.
> 
> 
> 
> There is no need for guesswork; in his own words, here is the story of how
> it all began by the originator, Rick Epping:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.brendan-power.com/images/HW%20Dec%20Jan%2013_Rick.pdf
> 
> 
> 
> Brendan Power
> 
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