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A Bigger Bang Tour 2007

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Topic: Blues harp blowout Return to archive
4th March 2007 02:10 PM
Ten Thousand Motels Blues harp blowout
Nation's top harmonica players headline Chameleon Bluesfest

By JOHN DUFFY, correspondent
Sunday News

Published: Mar 04, 2007 12:02 AM EST

LANCASTER, Pa. - In 1941, a team of musicologists visited Clarksdale, Miss., to document the rapidly changing folk music traditions that had given birth to the blues.

Among their observations, they found that the harmonica seemed to be the most widely used instrument in blues playing at the time.

"The harmonica is a more intimate and a more convenient companion than any other instrument. It stays tuned, ready for instant performance. There are no strings to break. … The harmonica probably belongs more completely to the instant mood of the lonesome traveler than any other instrument," a portion of the resulting study read.

For bluesman Mark Hummel, those words, written by John W. Work III a half-century ago and only recently published in the book "Lost Blues Found," sum up why the harmonica represents the absolute essence of the blues.

"The harmonica was at one time the premier blues instrument," Hummel said in a telephone interview from his home in Palo Alto, Calif. "Think about it: It's really only one step away from singing."

Indeed, Work's study noted the numerous players who would break out a harmonica and play as naturally as someone humming or whistling a tune.

Born in the 1950s and raised half a nation away from the Mississippi Delta in southern California, Hummel began making music professionally in the 1970s after hitchhiking around the country and working odd jobs, learning the blues along the way.

He's been steadily touring and releasing albums since 1980, including a collaboration with Canadian guitarist Sue Foley ("Up & Jumpin'"), a session of jazz/blues hybrid tunes that was the last recording date for the legendary pianist Charles Brown ("Lowdown to Uptown") and a heavy handful of releases featuring his crack band the Blues Survivors, including "Golden State Blues," "Playing in Your Town" and "Heart of Chicago."

His first live album, "Blowin' My Horn," was appropriately titled, considering Hummel's fat, electrified sound and choice of oversized harps often brings to mind a saxophone.

In 1991, he hosted an all-star jam at a nightclub in Berkley, Calif., that has turned into one of the longest-running blues showcases in memory. The aptly-named Blues Harp Blowout comes to Lancaster's Chameleon Club on Saturday night.

Hummel said it all started out as a jam to benefit a sick friend, but with each passing year, the gig took on new cities up and down the West coast, until a national tour began to make sense.

San Mateo-based Mountain Top Records has put out three collections of live recordings from the Blues Harp Blowout shows.

For this tour, Hummel is bringing along Kim Wilson, the Fabulous Thunderbirds' leader and harp blower; and Charlie Musselwhite, a living legend of blues harp if ever there was one.

Past Blowout editions have included James Cotton, Carey Bell, Snooky Pryor, Magic Dick (J. Geils Band), Billy Boy Arnold (Bo Diddley), Lee Oskar (War), Jerry Portnoy (Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton) and Huey Lewis. Think what you will about his mid-1980s pop hits and even more recent sins, but brother Huey can throw down.

Since that time, it's become more than an annual roll across the country with a hot band and some good friends, it has become something of a crusade.

Since the era of the guitar gods in the late 1960s, blues music has been increasingly focused on the six-string virtuoso, forcing harp blowers, horn players, singers and pianists to sometimes take a back seat.

Guys like Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Page became superstars thanks to the fiery chops of the Chicago bluesmen they emulated: B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Matt Murphy and Albert Collins.

Now the youngest generation has come into its own: Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Luther Dickinson, Robert Randolph, Johnny Lang, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, fine players all.

"But no harp players seem to become as big as the guitar players," Hummel said. "For example, Charlie Musselwhite is perhaps the most well-known blues harp player out there. Among harmonica players and blues fans, he is like Eric Clapton, but he has nowhere near the kind of fame Clapton has."

A few years ago, Hummel recalled, he sat down for a radio interview and was asked by the host right off the bat: "So, the harmonica, pretty unusual instrument in the blues, am I right?"

"Right then, I knew I was [in trouble]," he said. "This was going to be a horrible interview. But it just goes to show how much the harp has suffered in the past 30 years or so."

Consequently, fewer young musicians who discover the blues pick up the harp. The guitar is just flashier, sexier, he said.

As if he needed any more evidence, consider this: At all the Blues Harp Blowout events Hummel has helmed, he's been the youngest player by far, with maybe one or two exceptions. "There simply aren't any known harp players under the age of 30 or so," he said.

Don't go thinking Hummel is anti-guitar. In fact, he even plays a bit himself. But the feel of a harmonica in his hands wrapped around an old ribbon microphone and honking through an overdriven tube amplifier just seems more natural to him.

"It's not like guitar, where you can watch the player's hands," he said. With the harp, it's all in the mouth, lips, tongue and diaphragm. "Guitar has gotten its due many times over. Now it's the harmonica's turn."
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The Chameleon Club's 2007 Bluesfest, featuring Mark Hummel's Blues Harp Blowout, begins at 6 p.m. Saturday. Tickets cost $20 at the door. You must be 21 to enter. For more information, call 393-7133.
4th March 2007 02:41 PM
fireontheplatter my friend plays a mean harp. i should tell him about this.
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