Yeah, so it's just a 4 inch bit of wood and tin, metal reed plates and a bunch of tacks that hold the 20 reeds in place. Because those reeds were made of a particularly resilient metal alloy, the Hohner Marine Band became the instrument of choice for players from De Ford Bailey to Howling Wolf. These guys, they played hard, and that alloy could take it. You can hear all that air moving across the reeds in their recordings that have come down to us today. There is a rich fat tone that conveys something from another time.
In 1971 Chess started putting out their "AKA" album series, and that's when my brother and I stumbled into Mckinley Morganfield AKA guess who. With 4 sides of vinyl there's a lot in there. On the earliest recordings from this LP there is a braid of three: Little Walter's harmonica, Muddy's slide guitar and his voice. The hypnotic weave of Louisiana Blues was like a light switch, a blueprint even, after all our time listening to the Stones, Led Zeppelin and all that. Tom grabbed a bottleneck slide, and I picked the Hohner up. I was just looking to find the right notes and trying to hang on as we started recreating, building up our little ghosts of those tunes.
It's the bending of those little reeds that makes them sound like a voice. You have to torture and tease them to get all those notes that are in there. Did you know that you can get 4 notes out of the 3 hole draw? Just sayin...
But yeah I have to talk about Little Walter Jacobs, because. When you listen to that Chess LP in its entirety, there is a sort of map of the journey they made. It starts with the acoustic Long Distance Call and becomes the electrified sound of I'm Ready or Trouble No More. Got a turntable handy? My internet is a little spotty. Anyway, we were spinning a whole lot of Chess vinyl, and when we started learning to play those songs it was as if we were headed up Highway 61 to Chicago.
Phil Chess, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley
Tom found me my first Astatic JT-30 at a flea market in Richmond Ca. Thanks Bro! The JT-30 was Walter's mike: "I snuggle up to that mike see,'cause I can keep a whole lot of wind in that harp. I don't do nothin' but navigate with it then." I spent the last 500 years trying to catch up with that quote. Oh. Man.
The first amp that almost had the sound was a Fender Deluxe 'black face' that got stolen out of our Econoline van And for it I grieved, because the sound of the right mike through the right tube amp can be very elusive. There's the papery thin, but full sound of a high draw chord coming through a pair of those blue Jensen speakers, or that icy crunch like 3 day old snow in the woods. And you can bet, I spent a good deal of time chasing that sound.
Not so long ago, when we were playing gigs regularly, you might hear it one night, but not every night. With luck there on a beautiful old wooden stage in a grand old high ceilinged second floor music hall in downtown Prague the tone might start cutting just right. Of course that's the moment when someone in the band turns and says can you turn down? Or it might be in a gone to seed "rock" club in Manchester NH with a railing right across the front. You never know. What are you gonna do? It's an unforgettable and elusive dance. Lord have mercy!
“Making Hay” Film by Jason Goodman
Addendum
An inevitable question that I've always dreaded is about Bob Dylan. Because I love Dylan but I'm not so hot on his harmonica playing. Of course just this last week I watched the Rolling Thunder Review film by Scorsese and he's playing these great licks like he's Doc Watson or something . But most of the time Dylan is playing harmonica on a rack in this very aggressive style he's developed. Once we opened for him at the Beacon Theater in New York, and his playing that night was particularly egregious. On this one song he played this 3 note phrase on the harmonica over and over and over and over. I was like what the hell? And as I reflect on it, I realize maybe he uses it like a spice, it's a break, a contrast, like a dash of musical horseradish. Of course not everybody likes horseradish.