Likely it was “Home on the Range”, “Oh, Susannah” or something similar.
My maternal grandfather escaped his native Russia during the revolution and made his way to America in the early part of the 20th century. He was from a colony of Mennonites, independent enough in their self-sufficiency that they were targeted in the starving times by the raiding Cossacks that scourged the countryside.
In his colony, each family had segments of specialized responsibilities that were handed down through the generations. Our family were the surveyors, map-makers, and raised the big plow horses. Being from a horse family my grandfather grew up fascinated by the American West.
When he got to the Promised Land, he made his way to the Desert Southwest, where he met my grandmother. When I was a kid there were plenty of memories of campfires with my grandfather playing his catalog of cowboy and Americana tunes. We all invariably got the harmonica in the Christmas stocking, but I was the only one who made any moves on taking the hint. My early works were fumbling along trying to please the old man.
I do remember identifying the theme from Sesame Street as being harp once when I came in the house and my little brothers were watching TV. That one grabbed me and caused me to try to expand my repertoire for quite a while, especially since I had to try to exploit exposure to hearing it that was limited to once a day.
I do recall an epiphany that was like a bolt of lightning when I got a chrom one year on my birthday and realized at first blow that I had found the proper instrument to replicate the Toots Sesame Sound…..
Later on, when I was about 13 one of my neighbors gave me a Sonny and Brownie LP. That was a serious eye opener. I was surfing regularly and had fallen in with a local spearfishing clan of Navy divers. I was learning breath control under the tutelage of these guys. Trying to learn how to replicate Sonny’s ‘whooping’ during a period of learning to extend my breath holding and power-breathe caused me some wild starry blackout episodes.
Even later on it was Butter, J. Geils and all the trad tin-sandwich bluesmen I could get my hands on.
Great thread topic for nostalgia.
---------- ~Buzadero Underwater Janitor, Patriot MBH poseur since 11Nov2008
Like Buzadero, I guess I must credit a Grandparent as well. He was a self taught harmonica player and did an eclectic selection, from English folk to ragtime and big band. I can't pick one song but he was the first person to play music just for me. It was in a very hard time and I was a tot of 4, having just lost Dad in a car wreck. Gramps did some very Sonny Terry-ish stuff too and it lifted my spirits in a dark time.
A bit later, maybe 2 or 3 years so at the time about 1/3 of my life! I found the "Race radio" stations and dhows on Sunday nights on AM radio. That was where I really began hearing a lot of blues harp for all the old heroes.
Along came the British invasion and the Stones brought Wolf up on stage. And the blues folks got to tour Europe and were given renewed interest in the States here. Harp found its way into rock with guys like Daltry, Jagger, and others. Doobie Brothers. J. Geils band. And folk rock as well, Neil Young and Dylan.
I think seeing Magic Dick live in '73- my second ever concert- made me thirst for that kind of tone and brilliance. It's been a long road populated with so many great players, and I do find it hard to narrow it down.
At age 16, my Mom gave me a Marine Band that her father had given my father, the year I was born. That was a moment. I chose a legacy. Again, many years went by as I struggled and slowly made some kind of progress, an inch at a time.
At the very beginning, it was Herbert Kennett, my Mom's Dad.
I was age 9 or 10 and I was so filled with emotions after hearing it played at my grandfather's Navy funeral with the somber gun salute. I remember practicing for hours to get long clear notes.
A neighbor had given me a Hohner harmonica and a small spiral-bound book of folksy songs about a year earlier. I still have that book, and refer to it sometimes.
Room to Move might be a good guess for me personally too.
I led a fairly sheltered life in high school. Upon venturing off to college, I expanded my horizons. The first Rock Concert I ever went to featured John Mayall opening followed by the Edgar Winter Group and finally The Allman Brothers Band. I distinctly remember Mayall playing Room to Move but I can't say for sure that that was what inspired me to start playing. However, shortly thereafter I did start playing. I think someone in the dorm had one laying around and I picked it up and started noodling around on it. At that time, I was playing the clarinet in the Marching and Concert Bands so I am somewhat musical. After that, it is all kind of a blur. ---------- Tom Halchak Blue Moon Harmonicas
Paul Butterfield's "Driftin' Blues" from the Golden Butter album. Probably my favorite blues harp tune, ever. I love the horns, the big band, so very, very hip.
Hard to pin it down to one song but I would say, Jonathan Edwards "Shanty" song, (known as the "420 song" or "Friday song.) It is the "lay around the shanty with a good buzz on" song...
Pretty sure it was Blues Traveler's "But Anyway" and I happened to have an E harmonica which is what was needed to play it. Serendipity was in full effect. ---------- Ridge's YouTube
I don’t think it was a particular song. It was probably something Robert Plant did in LZ which inspired the guitarist who gave me the first harp. It may have been something by Sonny Terry though. Whatever, it wasn’t my idea, but the seed of the idea was sown. That was around 1981. I remember the harp and I remember being unable to play it. I continued not playing but having a latent curiosity about it for around 15 years. I even acquired harps and wondered how to play them, but I could never get the hang of it. That seed of curiosity was certainly a result of being given a harp. But also in early 1980 I read The Grapes of Wrath and I distinctly recall the paragraph about the harmonica, so I think I was receptive to the romanticised idea of playing harp at that time. Also around 1981 and 1982 I saw John Mayall in concert, twice. The second occasion I managed to get up close and personal while he performed with Mick Taylor and John McVie, and it really changed my life. So of course I was getting a lot of ideas about the harmonica at this time, which I carried with me until I finally began actually learning to play in 1996 or 97. I don’t know an actual song but I was impressed with Mayall and he definitely would have played room to move at some time when I saw him. Also in 82 though, I bought Sonny Boy Williamson ‘The Real Folk Blues’ album, mainly because of Mayall’s song ‘Sonny Boy Blow’, and I was a committed Sonny Boy fan from that time. So ‘Sonny Boy Blow’ might be THE song I havevto blame.
I was pretty fussy about my LP records, and there’s no way I would have been wearing out the disc and dropping the needle to play riffs over and over. I was also unlikely to approach anyone cold, and ask them how to play, because of the way I was back then. I actually did ask a guy one time and he told me it’s all about how you blow and draw. That answer puzzled me then, as I tried to figure out the underlying message
Man, I hate to admit this. It was in 8th grade, 1970. I had bought my first harmonica and worked out the few little melodies that were in the accompanying booklet and was trying to figure out what else I could do with my tin sandwich. At my friend's house, I heard the Black Sabbath album with Ozzy playing harp on "The Wizard". I hated the band but that guy was doing something on his #2 draw hole that I couldn't get it to do. That started my search to learn to bend. With no other input, it took me an embarrassingly long time. My older brother's friend heard me struggling one day and rescued me by giving me two Little Walter 45's and John Mayall's "Blues from Laurel Canyon" and that put me on the right path. But yeah, I was initially inspired by one of the lamest harp parts ever recorded.
What song made me start playing the harmonica? None. Reverse the order: What harmonica made me start playing songs?
In grade two, I got a cheap tremolo harmonica for Christmas. This was in the 1950s. I'd never played a harmonica, or any other instrument, in my life. I took it to bed with me.
That night, using only my ears as if I were blind, I learned to play "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Silent Night"-- one tentative note after the other. (Oops, that was the wrong note, let's try this one). I stopped when my father pounded on the bedroom wall from his side in the living room. "Put that harmonica away and go to sleep!" I'd have played all night had I been allowed.
For years, I played nothing but straight harp (melodies), and got pretty good at it.
My blues awakening-- in 1967, on the first album I ever bought, I heard Howlin' Wolf's "Poor Boy"-- "I'm a poor boy, I'm a long ways from home". I was transported to another world. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had to learn this song!
The song is in the key of D minor. Because I still thought melodically instead of bluesically, I learned the MELODY. I discovered my C harmonica had all the notes needed to play the melody. A huge learning moment for me-- harmonicas can be used to play in keys they're not built for. So, by happenstance, I first learned to play blues in third position rather than second.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
p.s. I still have that album, the first I ever bought-- "The Real Folk Blues" by Howlin' Wolf.
Big Leg Mama: Little Walter It was the intro for a blues radio show on CKUA in Edmonton. I used to love hearing the opening segment every time it came on. Then I saw Sonny Terry who inspired me to actually try.
It wasn’t as much a song as sound. I was walking by a fence at the Maine Blues Festival about 5 years ago and heard this captivating amplified harp sound. I went in to the courtyard and at the end of the set I introduced myself and got the players name. It was Lauren Williams. She’s cut a CD or two with her husband under the name of L C Williams and the Driver. I think the both work with Tom Halchek at Blue Moon Harmonicas and gig down in Florida.
I started playing harp around the age of 16 (53 years ago), not on the hook of a song initially but because I heard a kid at school in the next year down from me playing some nice blues bends on a harmonica in the lunch break.
That was me hooked and I went out and bought a Hohner Echo Super Vamper and I was on my journey albeit just noodling around for quite a while.
I was lucky to be able to bend notes quickly and the first harp song that really grabbed me was Charlie McCoys Stone Fox Chase and I just had to learn to play it. Not the whole song mind but just the opening phrases. This was because it was used as the theme tune for an excellent weekly UK TV music show called The Old Grey Whistle Test and hearing it each week was the stimulus to keep trying to play it.
