Word: harmonica
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...funky blues and jug-band music. Biggest Spoon is John Sebastian, who, with Zal Yanovsky, a grinning zany in a ten-gallon hat, handles the songwriting. Joe Butler works out on drums, Steve Boone on the bass, guitar and piano. "Together," says Sebastian, who is the son of Classical Harmonica Player John Sebastian, "we make up about one fairly efficient human being." There are no protests in their songs, just new and often bizarre wrinkles on lovin' and livin', as in Summer in the City...
...cups his harmonica against the microphone and sends a wild, keening cluster of notes soaring over the surging rhythms like gulls over an angry sea. Crammed around tables in front of the bandstand, the listeners-mostly working-class Negroes, down-and-outers and hustlers-stomp their feet, and shimmy in their seats. "Tell it, boy!" they shout. "That...
Typical of the new bluesmen is Mississippi-born Junior Wells, 31, who was raised in Memphis and moved to Chicago when he was twelve. As he tells it, his musical career was launched when he was arrested for stealing a $2 "harp" (harmonica) that a pawnbroker refused to sell him for $1.50; the judge listened to a sample of his playing, then gave the pawnbroker the other 50? and dismissed the case. Blues, says Junior, "gets in my whole body, my whole soul. It knocks me out. It kills me. If I couldn't do that, I wouldn...
...soul." "Soul is something that you feel within yourself and you gotta give to the people," explains Singer-Guitarist Magic Sam. "It's hardship, what you've been through. I love it even though it makes me sad, because that's what I am." Adds retired Harmonica Player Shaky Jake: "Blues are the true story, the truest music I ever heard in my life...
...minute performances. Mack, 62, is so well known that when he walks down the street, would-be artists often start dancing or singing for him. He keeps his home address in New York's Westchester County a secret for fear that "I'll have every harmonica player within 100 miles sitting on my doorstep to audition." Former contestants often write to him, saying that they have children ready for the next round of auditions...