[Harp-L] Re: Blind Owl talks about Volume

[David Fairweather <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

This might be old news to some, but today I discovered www.blindowl.net and
I am blown away by Wilson's interviews there.   Alan Wilson was a musical
visionary and a genius who also had a great gift for verbally articulating
the reasoning behind his harmonica, his guitar playing, his vocals, his
songwriting, the Canned Heat sound and the playing of his contemporaries.
I'm overwhelmed by the depth of his musical awareness!    For instance,
 read what he has to say about Taj Mahal and exactly why Taj's note choices
make Taj sound the way he does on harp.


Regarding volume,  Wilson was not necessarily against high volume playing.
  He recognized that Canned Heat couldn't get the "British" or "Hendrix"
sound  without turning up the guitar amps.   He didn't necessarily want to
go in that direction, but he understood the visceral appeal that high
volume had to audiences.   But he also knew that the benefits of amplified
harmonica reached a point of diminishing returns and then started to
deteriorate well before he could reach sound levels to keep up with Henry
Vestine's legitimate need for more volume.    He started wearing earplugs
on stage to accomodate Henry, but would have been happier returning to
lower volumes.