Re: [Harp-L] re: Larry Adler's Centennial

[The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>]

Here's my Larry Adler story...
It was in the mid - 90's when I traveled to Trossingen for the World Harmonica Festival. Larry Adler was there.
At the main hotel in Trossingen, I noticed that whenever Larry came into the restaurant, everyone was afraid to approach him (or was giving him privacy).
After watching him sit alone for a few meals, I decided to join him for lunch (of course, first asking if he would mind if I sat down). He seemed happy to have someone finally talk to him instead of avoid him.
At the time, I was mostly clueless as to how famous he was and told him so. He seemed to enjoy the honesty and got pretty friendly during our lunch. I asked him a bit about his history and he had no problem telling me about leaving the USA during the witch hunts, etc.
It was pretty well known that he had no respect for what he called "The Short Harp", or the diatonic.
Apparently he was in the audience when I played in the diatonic competition (that year I won second place behind Carlos Del Junco at first). After my competition performance, he came up to me to shake my hand and tell me how much he enjoyed my sound on the short harp - much to the amazement of all the other harmonica players, as he never complimented anyone before (to my knowledge) on the diatonic.
So, another fond memory in my data bank of amazing experiences.