Hey guys, I realised that it has been a long time since I posted on this forum but that is not because I have stopped playing the harp - on the contrary!
In this thread, I don't want to ask for your awesome advice though, I just want to share the two songs that made me start on the harmonica. Both are from the anime Cowboy Bebop (which has an excellent soundtrack full of jazz, blues, classical music and much more, btw.)
The first is called "Digging my potato" - Wow!
The second one (which seems extremely difficult to play) is called "Spokey Dokey" - reminds me of a melancholic sunday afternoon - how fitting!
I am not sure if you alread know these songs, since they seem to be extremely popular on youtube and Adam has made some videos on both - apparently there is also a thread on the main forum for "Spokey Dokey" which I could not find though.
The harp player is Ryuichiro "Weeping Harp" Senoo, the group is called The Seatbelts. Enjoy
Last Edited by SkullKid on Jan 17, 2018 1:59 AM
For me there's other reasons I picked up the harp, but the song that made me want to play was probably "Step It Up and Go" from Paul and Annie's "I Want You to Know" album
Probably Athens County or Shanty by Jonathan Edwards first made an impression on me. I've seen him in concert since I started playing a few years ago and now that I know what it takes, I'm even more impressed by his playing in a rack. His riffs are fairly complex and fast.
But the player that really made me pick it up is a woman named Lauren Williams. I was at a blues festival in Maine and walked by an outdoor bar that had this incredible harp sound coming out. I walked in to hear Lauren playing a JT30 with this great raspy bluesy sound and I knew that's what I wanted to do. BTW she's also got this great country blues vocals and her husband plays a killer guitar with great vocals himself. If you've never heard her, they have a CD out and on iTunes under the name LC Williams and the Driver, "In Another Bar". She begs the question that you have to have large hands to cup a bullet mic well.
Man I wish I could tell ya what the first song was that got me interested, I was real young, it was the mid 70s and a TV talk show was on, this guy comes out, don't know who, but hes wearing a bandolero full of harps, and I really didn't understand, I thought the mic cable was hooked up to the harps across his chess and they were all being played at once. Hey I was only 3 or 4, I have no way of knowing who he was or the song all I know is that sound grabbed a hold of me and in the 40 plus years since it never let go. Guess it doesn't matter what the song was, so I'll call it the great unknown blues song. I ran across Cowboy BeBop by accident and was very ( nicely) surprised by the music, cool thread.
I really don’t know but I’d say there were probably a couple Beatles songs I heard when I was a little kid that would have normalised that sound in my mind. Probably Love Me Do and I Should’ve Known Better. And then TV shows like The Rockford Files and countless others would have presented quite a different style but obviously harmonica and cool. And funnily enough I expect Robert Plant’s playing on some early LZ is what made it a personal thing I considered I might attempt. Then catching John Mayall in concert a couple of times when I was 17 and 18, got me to Sonny Boy Williamson (2) and someone mentioned Sonny Terry. Probably Maysll’s song ‘Sonny Boy Blow’ turned my mind to find out ‘who is Sonny Boy?’, and Plant’s ‘Bring it on Home’ conflated that interest in Sonny Boy, so that when I heard Sonny Boy do Bring it on Home, and then One Way Out, which Mayall turned into ‘Room To Move’ I was getting hip to Sonny Boy and thus the harp as a cool thing to play. Later I heard some Zlittle Walter and realised Mayall’s Walking on Sunset is very similar harp as Little Wslter’s Intro to You’re So Fine and I bought LW album called Boss Blues Harmonica and that was me done. I’d still say Little Walter ‘Boss Blues Harmonica and Sonny Boy (2) Williamson’s ‘real folk blues’ are the most important records I ever heard from the point of view of my subsequent obsession with blues music and harmonica in particular. But I do think it was those British acts that got me interested.
I remember exactly the songs that got the spark going.
I listened to alot of Howlin Wolf growing up and that laid a bit of the track, but didn't really Make me run out and her a harp.
However in one month I heard the three greatest harp songs I had ever heard for the first time. While watching the movie idiocracy I heard "hoodoo man blues" by Jr Wells. Immediately looked up what the song was. Then a week later I saw Mulholland Drive which has Sonny Boy II version of "Bring it on Home" and I also heard "Help Me" ... all in the same two weeks. They were haunting me. I had to go get a harp. And the Albums.
I originally picked up the harp thinking it would just get good enough to play around the campfire and stuipid stuff like that, but ... who knew, it just started to make sense to me after a year or so of playing. This forum helped ALOT. And Adam's videos.
Thanks for sharing all of the songs and experiences that started your obsession with this instrument, guys - lot's of stuff for me to check out now! :)
@Killa: The SBII-songs are definitely a great place to start - also Junior Wells ... - I recently listened to some of his stuff by accident and damn! I will probably make a thread about that experience soon! I would love to hear your thoughts on the two songs that I posted at the beginning of the thread though!
Last Edited by SkullKid on Jan 16, 2018 2:18 PM
