Re: [Harp-L] u-blocker - Leo Diamond

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Leo Diamond was a damn fine customizer as well... before anybody had come up with the word "customizer." I'm sure he was not the first, but he is the earliest I have been able to find thus far. 

I often cite Leo Diamond as an example of how people have been customizing harmonicas as long as there have been harmonicas. I could hear a lot of stuff, especially embossed tone, from the Harmonica Rascals recordings from the 1930s. It was always stuff I could hear, but the recording quality was never good enough to show somebody else and say "there, people customized harmonicas 90 years ago!" But then, I got a Leo Diamond LP a while back where you can easily ear can hear all kinds of customizing stuff he's done to this chromatic.
 
 There's some things that aren't so obvious, but some that are very obvious. You can hear pretty clear here that Leo's got an embossed tone and that he's soldered and thinned the reeds considerably. The harmonica is very, very sharp. Notice that he bends every single note down to pitch.  Wally Peterman said on the ELk River Forum that he thinks it's tuned at A = 460 or higher.
The harmonica he's playing is a G. We think that he made all this magic happen as he tuned down a A 270. 
But do check it out:   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBgSDZLLoZM ;

 
For the record, I u-block on the Concertos when I want to play the top row only. I also U-block quite a bit when I want a certain tone. I might U-block, tongue block and lip purse all the same tune. I lip purse mostly, though.

David Payne
www.elkriverharmonicas.com


Elk River Harmonicas Forum now available via Iphone app, www.elkriverharmonicas.com/forum


________________________________
 From: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] u-blocker - Leo Diamond
 
Another U-blocker, whose name will mean more to older players than younger ones, is Leo Diamond. 

Diamond was an alumnus of the vaudeville harmonica band Borrah Minnevitch's Harmonica Rascals. When he grew out of that, , he developed into a wonderful player, composer, and arranger as a solo artist. 

Diamond as also a pioneer of advanced recording techniques, including overdubbing and using film instead of tape - this is at least ten years before Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

You can find some of Leo Diamond's recordings on YouTube - tone and vibrato to die for on chromatic harmonica (I sometimes wonder whether Stevie Wonder might have been influenced by his sound).
 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
From: Mick Zaklan <mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 4:40 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] u-blocker

   Seems like this thread comes up once every year or two.  Don Les,
arguably one of the best diatonic and bass harmonica players of all time,
was a u-blocker.

Mick Zaklan