I've been woodsheding Whammer Jammer on and off for 4yrs. Everytime I go back to it my chops seem a little better every time. I can play it almost all the way through now but it's not refined in parts.
Basically don't feel bad it's gona take ages. Slowly slowly catchy Monkey and all that:o) ----------
Personally I think whammer jammer is something like the graduation for any blues harmonica player. I've been trying to get it for almost 2 years, and I just reached the 60% of the song. It's a funny song, but it's damn hard to play. The difficult is not on the big structure, but on the small details it has, so you have to be very accurate to get all those small parts and make them sound good.
i used to fake it as a teen. i think i used a marine band in C. but i tried to do the tweeky parts, blow bend the 9th hole perfect. (the 9th hole does this weird thing too when i bend it it makes all the reeds sing like sympathetic strings, but only blow bend 9th hole, its cool i can feel the whole harp vibe like its alive.) then i try to do the right thing on the 10th hole and no variance its just a blow bend. ive tried twisting turning nothing. anyway im trying next thing my neighbors are bangin on the wall and callin "whats that godamn rackett!" uhunno maybe gap it? close the gap?
martin- worn out? maybe. but it is one of the few harp instrumentals that has a good chance of being recognized. how many of your non- blues friend has heard of juke?
fred, don't give up. It sounds like your band wants you to do it. So do it. And fake it until you make it. Lets face it: most harmonica audiences don't know crap about the instrument. Hell, most of my friends could hear me and Jason Ricci, and prefer my playing. So do your own version of Whammer Jammer. Have fun with it. And if someone in the audience knows that your differences are based upon ability and not style, then they can probably teach you something. And that's the great thing about harmonica players: only a small percentage of them are dicks.
nah its going on the back burner. this is gonna be my second rehearsal with them and 25 songs to blow through most dont even have harp. 6 guys soon to be 5 and unlike drum machines they have ideas. whammer is the keyboard players bent. the guitarists who played with famous people back in the day want to revive their solo careers. yes i agree play what people know and only selective covers that sound like thay may have been hits. its the drummers garage he just likes hosting an open jam like im 17 its friday night type thing. he wants to do come on in my kitchen. i have to make him happy somehow. but playing blues rock can get you in blues joints and biker joints. my real goal is to play rockabilly and jump blues in retro bars (younger crowd/girls) retro people dont care if they dont know it as long as its rock n roll and they can dance erotically to it. i need to talk to them tonight about stopping going down memory lane and making serious money as a 5 peice and songs that keep people drinking and dancing. they need to do instrumentals where i dont play at all to give my voice a break.
@eharp: Perhaps a way to go is finding, say, a suitable pop song (no, not "Stairway to Hotel California"!) and make something fresh with that? Nothing too "harmonicky" but a nice surprise for an audience, "Ah, he plays that on a harmonica!".
Stating a melody, "the King Curtis way", and making it interesting is quite difficult, but is often rewarded.
I will not however propose a ban on neither "Whammer jammer" nor "Juke", but I still think they could rest for a while.
Whammer Jammer is a compilation of many James Cotton ideas, so is a good one to learn part by part for a broader based understanding of blues licks. ---------- The Iceman
I've often thought that Magic Dick took a bunch of licks he could play and just mashed them together and called it Whammer Jammer. You could do something similar. The upside is that nobody can say you didn't play it correctly.
In over four decades of playing, I have never bothered to hunker down and and master 'Whammer Jammer". As masterful as I think Magic Dick is , I never fell in love with the tune. It is a classic, for sure, but I never had much interest in learning songs note for note and, sorry to say, I thought Dick's style was a shade too minimalist for me. I admire the way the jam is put together and have a great regard for Dick's rhythm and blues inspired harmonica work, but I never had the desire to learn or perform this song , nor create my own version of it. It's over played, cursed by familarity. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheoBurke?feature=mhee
What a joyful tune to play, explore and experience - You can't help to smile after playing it - it is a feel good song, play it and fall in love with the harp all over again :) :)
without doubt magic is a musical prodigy i wish i could play trumpet and sax. (well i can a bit) but yeah theo i took what glover said to heart try to sound like yourself. my last band was all about nervous energy and i played alot of harp on songs that never had harp. the last song we worked on was bobby hebbs sunny. i was listening to it and crying alot and i said i wanted to do it. so we got a gig and we opened with sunny this ancient guy in a 70s leisure suit comes up and hands me 20 bucks it was his wifes favorite song and it was their annaversary. then the dishwasher comes up to me and asks which ramones album is that song on, because he doesnt have it. but when i played it half assed my excuse was i dont have dicks lungs,mouth,etc. i like walter alot but my old band only did my babe country style and out go the lights ala pat travers but i did walters licks. yeah these guys are sound like the record guys i gotta break them. but yeah wahmmer jammer , orange blossom special, wabash cannon ball, train train, people wanna hear this stuff.
Iceman is correct. Whammer Jammer is a collection of classic blues harp phrases. If one aspires to be a blues player it might be a good idea to work on it.
I've been listening intently to WJ since it was first released and I always yearned to play it note for note with all the inflections just right, but I never got there.
But over the last few years I've noticed some of the signature riffs from WJ popping up in my improvised harp solos. Funny, and fun.
Those serious students should note that, along with bundling great blues ideas (mostly from JCotton), the more advanced players will notice that during that opening solo harmonica intro, Magic Dick does a sly turnaround on the upbeat/downbeat rhythm, changing them for a moment before resuming the original placement.
Pretty genius concept.
(Have learned it note for note and played it during my formative rock years in the late 70's - only thing I couldn't nail was the high end exhale 10 hole bend vibrato like Magic's). ---------- The Iceman
Last Edited by The Iceman on May 24, 2013 10:50 AM
An important correction to Iceman's initial assertion: Whammer Jammer is NOT a compilation of James Cotton phrases.
The foundation of the piece is Sonny Boy Williamson's (Rice Miller's) "Bye Bye Bird." To that is added some of Cotton's work on "Rocket 88" and some Little Walter stuff taken from "Back Track." It's roughly one-third each Sonny Boy, Cotton, and Walter. The bent 10 blow comes from Cotton--or from Jimmy Reed, depending on how you hear it. The repeated 9 blow "tweet-dee-tweet" thing is from Benny Goodman, according to MD.
And yes, I know that Cotton was mentored by Sonny Boy, which is why the two players sometimes use the same licks. But Mr. Dick specifically credits Sonny Boy, and I'm willing to take him at his word.
The long descending scream and the invert-the-beat thing noted by Iceman are Magic Dick's thing. And a good thing it is.
Magic Dick was quite open about his borrowings when I interviewed him five years ago about the song. If the song now strikes some forum members as overplayed--well, you're welcome. I'm happy to take both credit and blame for helping re-popularize the thing with the help of six videos (including the interview) that have together garnered more than a quarter-million views. I certainly had no idea that so many players would take up the challenge of mastering the thing.
Here's the interview:
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 24, 2013 8:20 PM
That's a revelation for me that the foundation is Bye Bye Bird.
Now that its pointed out, its obvious.
Incidentally, I've often wondered what that thing is Sonny Boy did with his fingertips on the back of the comb as he played; just for show, or did it have a purpose? ---------- Lucky Lester
