Guide to Blues Harmonica Players

You know what bums me out? I'm worried that the blues harp, which I love and play, is becoming a bit of a lost art. The more recent figures, such as Rod Piazza, Kim Wilson, Jerry Portnoy, Mark Hummel, and William Clarke are already venerable vets (or indeed, in Clarke's case, are already dead). So where is the next generation of players? I don't see them anywhere. It seems like they *must* be out there. If so, could someone let me know?

Carey Bell

Strong, distinctive player, particularly in third position. One great introduction to his playing is on "The London Muddy Waters Sessions," where he rolls up and down the harp in third position with apparent carelessness but great, great sound. He recorded a lot with Big Walter, who I gather was something of a mentor, but he's less chunky and maybe more improvisational. Carey's perhaps not quite in the first rank, but if not, he sits atop the second.

Pierre Beauregard
The guru. Back in the day (circa 1974) he was dating my girlfriend's sister and he gave me some lessons. He was playing with the band Powerhouse, with whom he recorded a note-for-note version of Little Walter's Roller Coaster (then he told me he could continue to study the LW version for years and still not be satisfied with his own.) Anyway, I'd come over to his house and he'd be playing note for note, on a diatonic harp, with Charlie Parker soloes. Impossible. Or he'd be shaving tiny bits off reeds, inventing new harps. Now I guess he designs harps for his friend Magic Dick. But where are these harps? Yo! Hohner!

Big Walter (Walter Horton)

After Little Walter, perhaps the best blues harp player ever. His early sides, often as "Shakey" or "Mumbles" Horton, were straightforward quasi-country blues in the manner of Sonny Boy I. Or perhaps it is even true that John Lee played in the style of Shakey, because Big Walter recorded in that style as early as the late twenties with Memphis jug bands. He's one of the few musicians, however, who changed fundamentally as an old man (check "Trouble in Mind"), when he introduced a wide variety of subtle innovations, including Latin and jazz influences achieved through very subtle and precise bends. One has to say that he has the fattest, best tone of any player who ever recorded; his throat vibrato is scary. Also an excellent and innovative third position player. He claimed to have intructed Little Walter, and the claim is not ridiculous, considering how great BW was.

Paul Butterfield

The recordings and the bands are a mixed bag, with some great and innovative moments, and some sloppy or annoying ones. The sixties sides with Better Days give a good sense of kind of hippie blues: a mixed bag, but also some original moments. Butterfield's playing was always supremely articulate. And distinctive, too. Check him to good effect on "The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album."

William Clarke

The late William Clarke was a powerhouse: the best analogy would be James Cotton. Clarke played furiously: one of his albums is aptly named "Blowin' Like Hell." But the raw power pulled along great tone and technique, including innovations on third position. His singing is an excellent complement to his playing: very strong, very bluesy, straight up. He must have been broke, cause that's what he sings about all the time, and I just wish there was more reward out there for for the modern blues master.

James Cotton

The best here are some of the furious harp solos he recorded in the seventies, for example "Creeper" which is an astounding demonstration of breath power and creativity. Cotton always played with focus and great technical proficiency in second position, and is one of the few living early-generation exponents of the electric blues that arose in the fifties, when as a teenager he played with everybody, including Muddy. Not a subtle player, but an amazingly hard and focused one.
The 100% Cotton album is in my opinion one of the alltime great blues/rock lps.

Paul DeLay
In my view, the chromatic harmonica is not really a blues instrument. It does not, obviously, have the history, for reasons of economics (the diatonic harp being a very inexpensive instrument) and reasons of fundamental appropriateness: it is not conducive to bending; it just does not sound like the blues. Trad harp players more often posed with than played large chromatic instruments. DeLay has a big, chunky tone on the diatonic, but primarily plays the chromatic, and has done more than perhaps any other player to explore it in the context of blues. He is a master of the chromatic harp, whereas many other players use the chromatic almost in imitation of the diatonic, which I cannot really see the purpose of. Nevertheless, I'd rather hear someone, including Delay, play the diatonic, and the sophistication achieved on the chromatic is in tension with the basic purposes of the blues.

Dennis Gruenling

Here's a young maestro. It won't shock you to know that the major influence is Little Walter, but he has something that most Walter-derived players do not; he has that layback swing that was really the distinguishing mark of the Master. In fact, he has recorded a number of songs in a swing mode, which is an extremely good and under-explored use for the diatonic harp. Certainly as good a younger generation harp player as I've heard, and competition for Portnoy and Piazza.

Bob Dylan
Okay. He was playing on a rack. And he is actually not really a blues player, ever, because he plays the harp in the key at which it's labeled (i.e. in first position). Frankly he sounds totally incompetent, but it's actually the kind of faux naivete one associates with "folk" music, and which makes the genre so annoying. The harp's function in that context is to symbolize the rural and the unschooled; the early Dylan was a simulation of that.

Jazz Gillum

An early, interesting, and underrated player, Gillum had a lot of country going on, and was certainly influenced by the Grand Ole Opry's pioneer DeFord Bailey. Gillum plays in a fundamentally different mode than contemporaries and colleagues like Sonny Boy I, at once more rural and more sophisticated, less emotional and more technically proficient. Rarely has the upper end of the harp been exploited so effectively. He was born and raised in Mississippi, and recorded in Chicago during the thirties and forties with the Lester Melrose combine.

Mark Hummel
A strong, steady player in the LW mode, with a gift for the juicy but not flashy riff. Also an excellent singer. Belongs to the West Coast style of jump and swing blues: you can hear a bit of George Smith and certainly Rod Piazza. Like the latter, he does some of his best work in third posish.

James Harman
A very strong blues singer and tornadic player who got his start, I believe, in Texas in the early 80s. Blows like hell in a variety of styles, including Sonny Boy and LW. Also records more country and Chicago-flavored stuff along with jump and wing blues. Not to my mind quite the player that Piazza or Portnoy is, but maybe makes more consistently excellent blues records, and is sadly overlooked.

Little Walter (Marion Jacobs)

Imagine that Les Paul and Jimi Hendrix were the same person, and you have the beginning of a good metaphor: someone who was both more or less was the inventor of the instrument and its greatest practitioner. But then you have to also imagine that most players of the electric guitar play in the fashion of Hendrix: that is, that he's by far the most influential practitioner of the instrument as well. Most professional harp players (Kim Wilson, for example, Mark Hummel, even Rod Piazza) are fundamentally derivative, and they derive from Walter, though all can also do Sonny Boy etc as well. Cupping a mic changes the sound of the instrument fundamentally; it's kind of primitive, maybe, but remains the way the instrument is electrified. It limits some possibilities (hand vibrato, for instance), but opens many more. In addition, Walter pioneered third position harp, which yields a haunted, minor-key effect. And still, no one (except perhaps Piazza) has mastered the thing more emphatically or to better effect. The early sides with Muddy Waters are absolutely the fundamental texts of blues harp technique; his solo sides expand the ideas even more. "Roller Coaster" is perhaps the greatest harp solo ever recorded. LW is often portrayed as a kind of idiot savant, and there's no doubt he was a drunken lout. But he was a consummate craftsman: he dissected the blues form and understood it utterly and innovated within it with supreme comprehension. And he understood the instrument perfectly; you hear thousands of hours of extremely systematic practice in his work. He combined that with hyper-intense expressiveness. When you watched Jordan in his prime, say, he was moving faster than anyone on the court, but he also loooked like he was at leisure (with ten seconds left, down by one). LW seems to be playing slowly, hanging back, taking his time, even when what he's actually playing is a furious solo. One of the supreme instrumental geniuses of the twentieth century: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong.

Magic Dick

I personally started playing the harp under the influence of Dick's great sides with the J. Geils band. He was an innovator, maybe the first and only rock harp player. No one has ever played the harp more cleanly, and he invented a vocabulary of riffs. His solos "Whammer Jammer" and "Stoop Down" are incredible, things one might study for years; but just chugging or riffing in the background he rocks perfectly. His experiments with things like phase shifters worked well but were never followed up by anyone, as far as I can tell. His later work strikes me as disappointing, though some his work with Geils in the band "Bluestime" is pretty killer. Here he shows you that he can do Walter or Sonny Boy etc. But he's maybe lost a spark or something. Maybe that's unfair, a relic of the fact that I heard Whammer Jammer as a kid and it blew me away forever.

Taj Mahal
A unique performer: very good, very mellow, very distinctive country blues player and musical world traveler. Quite the excellent harp player too. Can do Sonny Boy, but also can imitate a cajun accordion.

John Mayall

Not a great technician or anything, and a pretty thin tone. But on the other hand very distinctive and listenable: check "Room to Move," e.g., essentially a version of Sonny Boy's "One Way Out." Plays in chords a lot, to good effect. Obviously a central figure of British blues.

Jerry McCain
He doesn't sound like Jimmy Reed, but there is analogy. McCain is important as a songwriter and singer of the blues, and though he relentlessly emphasized his own harp playing he was not a great player, if you ask me. His sense of rhythm on the instrument is eccentric and sometimes just off, and he doesn't sound to me like he's moving around the instrument with confidence or a good idea of where he's headed next. Sometimes the playing seems strong, sometimes it seems downright clumsy: often on the two ends of the same riff. Ah well.

Charlie Musselwhite

A strong player and perhaps the great white veteran: his recording career, I believe, started in the mid-sixties. He too has added some experimental touches, especially latin, as time has gone on. But there are a couple of problems. He's not, in my opinion, a player of the verty first rank, though he's rock solid. There's a duet, for example, with Big Walter, in which Walter's playing is amazing, while Musselwhite's is extremely predicatable underneath. Also, he is not a strong singer, and he should probably cut as a side rather than a frontman.

Rod Piazza

To my mind, the greatest living blues harp player. Much more innovative than most, with more momentum; as comfortable and fresh in third as in cross position. Extremely technically proficient but still tasty. I guess it seems to me like the earlier recordings are stronger, which is rather a disappointment. Much of his best work, too, has been done as a sideman for other artists, particularly, I would say, on the Jimmy Rogers album "Feelin' Good.." Really her can run through al the main historical styles, and has his own as well.

Jerry Portnoy

I first heard Portnoy on one of the last Muddy Waters studio albums, and thought he was the best player in that context since Little Walter, which is saying something since many of the best players had worked with Muddy over the years. His thing on "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" was hard, highly original, and juicy as hell. The solo work is also consistently excellent, and includes lots of great and inimitable blues playing, with more and more experimentation in jazz and other styles, often using chromatic. Portnoy is one of the least derivative contemporary players: he sounds more like himself than he does like Little Walter. And will occasionally pull out something like a beautiful rendition of "Stormy Weather." Certainly one of the great living masters of the harmonica.

Gary Primich

With Piazza and Portnoy, one of the great living masters, and one whose playing is still unfolding. Solid blues tone and technique, but not a hard, straight-ahead player like Clarke or Cotton: capable of great subtlety within traditional forms. One of the few players who I'd really listen to on every album to pick up new riffs and ways into the blues.

Snooky Pryor

Snooky is one of the few remaining links to the great generation of black American blues harp players: still touring, still playing hard, alive blues music, stil blowing with competence and feeling. He was influenced by Sonny Boy 2, but is fundamentally his own stylist.
The first item below is a greta collection of early material, the second is an example of his more recent work.

Jimmy Reed
He played on a rack, and though the music is good and important blues, the harp playing in itself is not all the wonderful.

Jason Ricci
Huh? What? Yow! Ohmygawd! No fucking way. Impossible, or at least extremely unlikely.

George Smith

Even by blues standards, George had a lot of names, including Little Walter Jr, George Harminica Smith, The Harmonica King, Little George Smith, and so on. Kind of a bizarre career, too, which took him from Cairo, Illinois through a country band touring the South, Chicago with Muddy Waters, Kansas City, and eventually to West Coast, where he mentored Rod Piazza and influenced in particular the third position playing of a whole generation of white Californians. His material is wildly inconsistent in style and quality, including even some country blue yodels and stuff. But it's as an incredibly spooky and intense third position player that he made his mark, playing in jump blues combos with T-Bone Walker style guitar players. He had great tone and tongue work. He was also a very strong singer at his best.

Sugar Blue
A literally insane technical proficiency, playing very very fast at the upper end of the harp in a way no one ever has before. But after you get over the speed of the glissandos or whatever, you wonder what the hell it all means: it's not particularly expressive, or even connected to the particular song.

Sonny Terry

Sonny played in a very country blues, acoustic vein. He played very fast, with a lot of chording, and had quite the unique style: certainly completely distinct from the Delta-to-Chicago tradition. He also interspersed harp riffs with whoops, hollers , and slaps, which had a great effect and gave you ther feeling that it was about 1895.

Junior Wells

He had a very long career, but probably his greatest sides as a harp player are recorded very early: the "Hoodoo Man Blues" or "Blues Hit Big Town" material. Not quite the mastery of his older contemporary Little Walter, but big fat tone and excellent chops. He never strives after effect or technical pyrotechnics: just places the perfect riff at the perfect spot. Later in his career he emphasized more his singing than his harp playing, which is understandable: maybe the greatest vocalist Chicago blues ever produced, though I'd have to think about Magic Sam, Otis Rush, and others.

Br>Mark Wenner

He was the reigning king of DC when I was growing up, playing with Jimmy Thackeray &co in the Nighthawks. He was the first professional harp player I actually got to watch on stage, like every weekend. He had great tattoos. He played very hard and fast, with blue juice too. Cotton and Clarke might be reference points. Where are you now, Mark?

Sonny Boy Williamson (I: John Lee Williamson)

Really it comes down to almost a single riff and variations. But then so does Elmore James, for instance. He sure played that riff well and made it work in a variety of contexts with fat tone, and is a pivotal figure in making the harp a fundamental blues instrument on a par with guitar.

Sonny Boy Williamson (II: Rice Miller)

First of all, he was a great, great songwriter and bandleader: consider "One Way Out" or "Help Me," both fundamental and innovative. And he was also a great harp player: very expressive and fundamentally "acoustic," (that is, he played in front of a mic rather than cupping). Really he sounds like he eating the harp, and once he has it's a voice. He has a great range of effects and riffs. With Little Walter, he represents one of the fundamental options.

Kim Wilson

I never loved the T-Birds as much as I expected to. Although obviously I dig the roots/blues rock approach, I thought there was something a little stilted or forced. Wilson was from the start a solid harp player, though, and his solo albums have been great harp showcases. I saw him one time in Nashville, and it was one of the great instrumental performances I've ever seen: two hours of hard blowing and not a single misplaced note. He plays with great feel. But you have to say (and I'd doubt he'd disagree) that he is a fundamentally derivative player; most often he sounds like Little Walter.
"That's Life" is one of the best blues albums of the nineties. All his other solo stuff is excellent.