[Harp-L] Once upon a time . . .

[Ken H in Ohio]

The first time that I heard John Popper had to be back in the early
1990's... no internet that I remember back then, and Harp-L that I
knew of.

He was on a late night TV show, I believe it was David Letterman,
because I'm pretty sure he was playing with the house band.

I don't remember much about the show itself, but I do remember John Popper.

He played with great tone, and blues licks... don't recall any real
fast playing, and he wasn't showing off.

I was really impressed with what I heard... and made an effort after
that to find out more about him.

Soon found a Blues Traveler CD, bought it, and enjoyed it... not sure
which one it was, but it had to be one of his first ones.

Pretty sure he can play most any blues that many of us like to play
and listen to... and with good, if not great, tone !

Ken H in OH




On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 7:37 AM Trip Henderson <trip.tunes at xxxxx> wrote:
>
> Dan Lynch's Bar, NYC late 80's.  Me, Adam Gussow, Mason Casey, Lester
> Schultz, Bob Bavido, a couple of others, aka the usual freereed bothers are
> waiting our turn to sit in with the amazing Holmes Brothers who hosted the
> regular Saturday afternoon Blues jam.  In walk some army fatigue wearing
> scruffy college punks (with their parents Volvo keys in the cargo pockets
> of their pants), and they announce that no they don't want to jam at the
> jam, they want to play a couple of songs by themselves, ok, fine. Up they
> go and play some non-blues music, we all shrug, then the singer pulls out a
> harp and plays REALLY FAST. Then down they go, out the door, see you later.
> The freereed brothers are speechless, finally someone says, "wow he was
> fast", we all agree, "yep REALLY FAST", then more speechlessness, finally
> someone says, "but no tone" like a pack of dogs we all chime in, "yes, NO
> TONE!!!" having dismissed them with the ultimate harmonica player dis we
> all blissfully settled back into our camaraderie.
>
> A couple of months later I'm mountain biking in the hills of New Jersey and
> I see scrawled on an old abandoned barn the name, Blues Traveler.
>
> Its a good thing I'm not an A&R man.
>
> --
> *Trip Henderson*
> https://soundcloud.com/trip-henderson