Re: [Harp-L] Question about harps played by Bobby Darin

[Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx>]

By the way, I thought you might find it interesting to know that Bobby Darin's sister told once that he was very musical from a very early age, and that at two and a half years old he said he was going to sing and play for her, and after singing the whole of 'McNamara's Band' and 'Turkish Delight' (not exactly children's songs), he took his cheap harmonica and started playing Khachaturian's 'Sabre Dance'. Not what I would have chosen for starters!

Eliza Doolittle

El , Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx> escribió:
 
If both of the harps he uses in 'Brige over Troubled Water' are in F then there must be a reason why he didn't like the first one for this song. I've always thought that he picked the wrong one not only because he's not the only one who notices it (he seems to look at the piano player -who has stopped playing and nods back- for confirmation - perhaps this is not so clearly seen on YouTube, but it is on the DVD), but also because he explains what has happened after finishing the song, and he talks about harps in different keys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VuXdnUb5u0

That's why I asumed that he used the same model in all cases (although he may have made the mistake when deciding what key the song was in, which would have explained his picking a completely different harp). If it
 were a matter of a broken reed, or the like, how was the piano player going to notice? And do you think it's likely that he keeps a spare harp for each key all the time, just in case?

Bobby Darin uses a harp in three different songs in this concert:

1) 'Bridge over Troubled Water': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNxhYs3N10 (song in C, harp in F, plus the 'wrong' harp)
2) 'The Midnight Special': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbW55CTqf_U (song in A, harp in D)
3) 'You're My Sunshine' at the beginnig of the last medldy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMqpNdBzsM (song in C, harp, which I suppose means that the harp is in F).

If you try to keep track of the harps you can see:

- He picks the 'wrong' F harp fron the piano for the song in C.
- He leaves the 'wrong' F harp on the piano and picks the 'right' F harp.
- He puts the 'right' F harp in the inside pocket of his jacket on finishing the song.
- He leaves his
 jacket offstage (and doesn't carry the 'right' F harp back).
- He picks the D harp for the song in A.
- He leaves the D harp inside his trousers waistband.
- He goes offstage to put on his jacket. Meanwhile, the piano player takes a harp out of its box and puts it on the piano.
- For the third song, Bobby picks this harp from the piano, and it's in F.

I really cannot tell whether this last F harp is the 'wrong' one, since the piano player is not onscreen all the time, and I don't know whether he has removed it from the top of the piano at some point to avoid further mistakes. What puzzles me is what makes the 'wrong' harp unsuitable for the first song. By the way, I've uploaded several pictures here (each row corresponds to one of the songs mentioned above), in case you can tell whether he's using the same model all the time or not.

http://s14.directupload.net/images/140330/umaopxdz.jpg

When I said the harp did look
 golden I was referring to 'Brige over Troubled Water', but as the still shots show, it is the comb, which has a brownish colour. Is it wood?

Ron, thanks for redirecting this topic towards a discussion about the evolution of the Golden Melody. I'm enjoying it, and learning new things along the way. I've always thought that there is a great variety of harps, but I had no idea it's been something relatively recent (it must be, if 49 years ago there were only a couple of Hohners widely available in the US).

Eliza Doolittle


El Domingo 30 de marzo de 2014 10:52, Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> escribió:
 
Midnight Special is on a D harp, played in second position (key of A).

On Bridge Over Troubled Waters, both harps are F harps (played in second position, key of C). Not sure why he switches; maybe a reed was stuck on the first one. The harp itself is shaped like a Hohner Golden Melody but has a black comb instead of a red one. The Huang Star Performer has a similar body shape and a black comb, but I don't think these were available back then.

Given the year (1973) and location (USA), Hohner harmonicas were the only ones likely to be widely available.
 
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Spring 2014 Harmonica Collective
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 Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: Eliza Doolittle <eliza.doolittle@xxxxxxxx>

To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 9:30 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Question about harps played by Bobby Darin


<snip>.

I'm a great fan of Bobby Darin's. <snip>
For me, one of his most contagious songs with harp is this 'The
 Midnight Special': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbW55CTqf_U

Would you please tell me which harp he's using in this song (jump to 2:57 to hear it)? The song is in A, but I don't know whether the harp is in A, in D, or in some other key.

And, as a very secondary question, can you see/hear what is the brand of his harp? Just out of curiosity (I'm not going to buy a harp only because BD played it, and apart from that, I
 cannot find anything but Hohner in my town anyway). You can have a better view in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNxhYs3N10 (at 3:49). What's the key of this one? He picks the wrong one first, but all I can say is that both of them seem to have a lot of Gs.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Eliza Doolittle