Here is my list of my top 10 favorite blues harmonica players. In loose order, the people listed below #6 can change depending on my mood, the first five guys are set in stone in my opinion. Feel free to leave me a comment with your top 10 favorites.
01. Sonny Boy Williamson II (Alek Rice Miller)
02. Lil Walter
03. Sonny Terry
04. Junior Wells
05. Sonny Boy Williamson I
06. Jimmy Reed
07. James Cotton
08. Charlie Musselwhite
09. Sugar Blue
10. Big Walter Horton
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8 comments:
That's a good list. Mine wouldn't be all that much different. For sure SBWII would be right on top. When I was 15 or 16, I saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee play at a club in Toronto. We were so underage, and we had this idea that if we wore blue blazers we would look older..... they let us in and even sold us beer, and Sonny Terry was magnificent. I had never heard anything like it. I had the pleasure of being at several Junior Wells shows over the years - twice when he was playing with Buddy Guy (one of those times, he was pretty drunk and Buddy carried the show - but the other time, he was perfect. I also saw one of the last shows he gave, at exhibition park in Toronto. He had cancer and was in rough shape and he could only manage to play two or three songs.
Wow, mister anchovy, I am impressed and a bit envious of you. I did not get to see most of my blues harmonica playing heroes. So far on my list I have only seen Sugar Blue and James Cotton live. But the thought of seeing Sonny Terry is mind blowing, I bet that was a good show. You know your comment has motivated me to make sure I see more of the old time blues players that are left.
I saw Muddy Waters with The James Cotton Band opening at Ontario Place when I was 15. If truth be known, Muddy was a legend, but James Cotton stole the show. At one point, someone in the crowd handed him a pint of whiskey, and he glugged the whole thing back in the middle of a song and went right on playing. In the 80s we had a lot of good blues acts booked up here - Eddy Clearwater came to town a lot, and Sun Seals (at one time he had an awesome band), Mighty Joe Young, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Sunnyland Slim, Willy Dixon, and lots of Zydeco acts too. When I saw Fernest Arsenault and the Thunders at the Horseshoe Tavern, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. They were really nice guys too - we bought them a beer and they talked with us for a while between sets. It was because of that show that I decided I was going to learn to play the button accordion, something I got around to starting 15+ years later. Toronto was also home to a really fine local blues band called Downchild, started by two brothers, The Hock and Donny Walsh. Later, they had different singers, like Tony Flame, and I think Donny still plays from time to time around town. We also had another excellent local group, The Paul James Band, who, in 2001 played our wedding (now that was a rockin time!) I first saw that band in the early 80s, backing Bo Diddley at a big club in the suburbs. At times Toronto has really been a music town...although at other times, it has been dead, dead dead.
cheers.
Nice list! I posted something similar to it a few months back on the FAQ's page at www.modernbluesharmonica.com/ Here's what I said; note how close were are in our Top 10 picks:
FAQ's
I’m just starting out. What harmonica should I buy? And what key? Actually, what make and model of harp do YOU use, Adam?
Short answer: Hohner Marine Band Model 1896, 10-hole diatonic, keys of C and/or D.
Long answer: If I were in your position, I’d do pretty much the same thing I did in 1974 when, at the age of 16, I decided to drive over to the Nanuet Mall (suburban NY) and buy my first harmonica. I’d buy a Hohner Marine Band Model 1896 in the key of C.
The Marine Band—and here I’m talking about the basic 10-hole diatonic harp, not the 14-hole version or the “super” version—has been around for a long time. Many of the foundational blues players, the Little Walters and Big Walters and Sonny Boy Williamsons, played and recorded with the Hohner Marine Band. Why not go with the classic?
The truth is, in the course of my 33-year career, I’ve sampled a number of other Hohner harps, including the Special 20, Golden Melody, Blues Harp, Pro Harp, and Big River Harp. I’ve also tried a few Lee Oskars. There’s nothing wrong with any of them. Many players swear by one or more of them. The only one that I occasionally use is the Big River Harp--a loud brassy D-flat. Recently I've tried Seydel and Bushman harps, and both of them seem like excellent instruments, very much the equal of Hohner's best. Still, when push comes to shove, I always come back to the Marine Band.
Why? It’s not necessarily the easiest harp to play, and although quality control is better now than it was during the mid-1990s, I still occasionally get a dry, tough Marine Band harp that just won’t do anything right. If you play one particular harp for an hour or so, the spit you blow into it may cause the wooden comb to swell up so much that the protruding nibs rub your lips raw. (When this happens, I take a single-edge razor or the small blade on a Swiss Army Knife and carefully pare down each swollen tooth of the comb until it’s even with the cover-plates.)
Still, the Hohner Marine Band remains my harp of choice, thirty-three years after I first picked one up. Here’s why: no other harp has the same rich throaty tone on the low notes, or the same “crunch” feel when you bear down hard on bent low notes. This is particularly true for the lower keys: G, A, B-flat. It has something to do with the pear-wood comb, which grows slightly more brittle and resonant as it ages. Maybe it’s all about the wood. I don’t know.
I just know that I’ve recorded three albums with Mr. Satan and I played a Hohner Marine Band on every single track.
This is a long-winded answer. The truth is, I can’t tell you what harp is right for you. Nor will I tell you that players who prefer other sorts of harps are wrong. I can only give you an honest answer about which harp I prefer, and why.
A final word about keys: although the key of C seems to be the reference standard for beginning blues players, D might be a better choice. Here’s why: beginning harp players often have a very hard time sounding the 2 draw on a C harp. I can’t tell you how many beginning students have sworn to me that the 2 draw on their C harp is broken. It’s not. It’s just a tricky hole for a beginner to sound. But when they pick up a D harp, they have no trouble. [See below for a longer version of this answer.]
So maybe you should buy a Hohner Marine Band harp in the key of D. That’s what I’d do, if I had to do it all over again. A D and/or a C.
I can't get a good sound out of the 2 hole draw on my C harp. I'm sure it's broken. Help!
It's not broken. The problem is your embouchure--the way in which you're holding your lips relative to the harp, and/or the way in which you've shaped the inside of your mouth, and/or the way you've oriented your tongue relative to the harp.
Beginning players have this problem so frequently that it deserves to be called THE big hurdle. When I used to teach courses in Beginning Blues Harmonica at a music school in New York City, I saw dozens of beginners, literally, struggling to make the 2 hole draw sound on their new C harp. On EVERY SINGLE OCCASION when one of them SWORE that the problem was the harp, I took the harp from them--if they were willing--and immediately produced a beautiful sound. The problem was not the harp. The harp was working just fine.
How can you remedy this problem? Two ways. First, you can realize that the problem is NOT the harp, but the shape of your mouth, the location of your tongue, and the connection between your lips and the harp. You can try again, and again, and become conscious of all the variables. You can make your lips thick and bunched, and push the harp harder against them. You can try positioning your tongue in a variety of ways within your mouth. You can keep on trying until you make a good sound.
Or you can purchase a D harp. Beginners find it much easier to sound the 2 hole draw on a D harp.
Which players should I listen to if I want to learn real blues harp?
Here I tend to dovetail with my fellow professionals. Most of us would agree on seven or eight of the names that should go on any top-ten list. Here’s my list, in no particular order:
Little Walter (Jacobs)
Big Walter (Horton)
James Cotton
John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson (aka, Sonny Boy I)
Rice Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Boy II)
Sonny Terry
Junior Wells
Howlin’ Wolf
Carey Bell
Paul Butterfield
If asked to suggest another ten players—each one a classic and an original, if not quite in the Top 10--I’d venture the following
George “Harmonica” Smith
Sugar Blue
Kim Wilson
William Clarke
Magic Dick
Paul Delay
DeFord Bailey
Charlie Musselwhite
Rev. Dan Smith
Billy Branch
And I’d add an eleventh: all of the old-school players who show up on a Yazoo album entitled “Harmonica Players of the 1920s and 1930s,” including Freeman Stowers, Blues Birdhead, and Noah Lewis.
Is that enough harp players for you? Please don’t tell me I’ve left your favorite harp player off the list. Of course I have! I admire the playing of Phil Wiggins, Gary Primich, Jerry Portnoy, Dr. Isaiah Ross, Jason Ricci, Rod Piazza, Little Annie Raines, John Popper, Lee Oskar, Carlos del Junco, Paul Oscher, Rick Estrin, John Mayall, Steve Guyger, Dennis Gruenling, and Matthew Skoller, too
Ouch! Sorry about posting all that stuff above my list; I'm not very skillful at cutting and pasting stuff from the web. Feel free to delete that part of it, if you're able to.
--Adam Gussow
Have any of you heard of a harmonica player called "Lips"
squeezemylemon.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.
Thanks for the names of the these blue artists. Always looking to be exposed to new music.
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