Re: [Harp-L] Dave Therault

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mick Zaklan wrote:
<   Dave is one of those underground guys that other harp players in the
<know have been talking about for decades.  For years he was gigging and
<running a jam in Colorado Springs. 

Dave was an accomplished trombone player when he heard me play harp at the Oar and Anchor in Falmouth, MA with an Eagles/Jackson Browne-ish cover and rock originals band called "Sweatband" in the summer of 1974.  I was using a very simple rig (amp and vocal mic, no reverb or other FX) in those days, and I was thinking of the harp as a horn (as opposed to an organ, or a synth controller), which I'm sure appealed to Dave's own sensibilities. (I was using all standard-tuned marine bands, and I do mean marine bands, too; ah, 1974.)  Dave came right up and told me that he was inspired to take up harmonica, and it turned out that he became an inspiring harmonica player. 

Dave and I didn't live in the same neighborhood, and in 1974 it took considerable resources (including time) to record music and distribute it on even a small scale.  I didn't hear Dave play harp until years later, by which time he was a monster.  So I don't know what stages he went through from inspiration to monsterdom.  I do think the evolution was pretty quick by contemporary standards. (The Youtube-enabled pace of development in young musicians now is astounding, apparently unprecedented.)

Regards, Richard Hunter

  

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