Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Mike Stevens interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 89

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Mike Stevens joins me on episode 89.

Mike is a Canadian who made his name playing Bluegrass harmonica, performing with some of the biggest names in Bluegrass and playing at The Grand Old Opry over 300 times. Mike toured with Bluegrass legends, Jim & Jesse McReynolds, and recently played two songs on harmonica at Jesse’s funeral. Mike won the Canadian Bluegrass artist of the year for five consecutive years, and released a Bluegrass book with Hal Leonard.

But Bluegrass isn’t his only genre, also playing Americana, Blues, solo looping, soundscapes and even ballet and West African music.

Mike also tells us about synesthesia, a condition which means he sees music in colours and shapes, and how this has impacted his music. 

On top of all this, Mike has been a leading figure in bringing music to indigenous communities in Canada, distributing some fifty thousands harmonicas to young people.  


Links:
Mike’s website:
www.mikestevensmusic.com

Artscan Circle:
www.artscancircle.ca  

A Walk In My Dream documentary:
https://mikestevensmusic.com/walk-in-my-dream


Videos:

Playing at the Grand Old Opry with Jim & Jesse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YIpFQccOUo

Playing at Jesse McReynold’s funeral:
https://view.oneroomstreaming.com/index.php?data=MTY4NzgyMTYwMjI1ODU0MyZvbmVyb29tLWFkbWluJmNvcHlfbGluaw==

Playing with Matt Andersen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6iCgQoaViM

TED talk on Artscan Circle: bringing music to indigenous communities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4uQoNq4M4

Blue Sky music festival presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7s-x9tMn6Q


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

or sign-up to a monthly subscription to the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/995536/support

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Mike Stevens joins me on episode 89. Mike is a Canadian who made his name playing bluegrass harmonica, performing with some of the biggest names in bluegrass and playing at the Grand Old Opry over 300 times. Mike toured with bluegrass legends Jim and Jesse McReynolds and recently played two songs on harmonica at Jesse's funeral. Mike won the Canadian Bluegrass Artist of the Year for five consecutive years and released a bluegrass book with Hal Leonard. But bluegrass isn't his only genre, also playing Americana blues, solo looping, soundscapes and even ballet and West African music. Mike also tells us about synesthesia, a condition which means he sees music in colours and shapes, and how this has impacted his music. On top of all this, Mike has been a leading figure in bringing music to indigenous communities in Canada, distributing some 50,000 harmonicas to young people. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas. Hello, Mike Stevens, and welcome to the podcast. Hi, Neil. So you're talking to us from, well, you're from Sarnia, Canada in Ontario. Is that still where you're based?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'm back home now.

SPEAKER_00:

Sarnia is quite close to Detroit. You drew on the music of Detroit when you were young, did you?

SPEAKER_03:

I did. We were really lucky living here. We got Motown and we got early blues just all over the airwaves on AM radio. You could hear it as a kid. It just creeps right into your soul. So yeah, very lucky to live here.

SPEAKER_00:

So Or what got you started playing harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, there was one around the house. My dad, I've never heard my dad play any music. He was in a marching band, apparently, played trumpet, but I've never heard him. But there was a harmonica around the house when I was a kid. And I picked it up, made a sound on it that felt really, really good. It probably sounded terrible, but it didn't matter. It just felt really good. I was really young, probably 11 or 12 years old at that point.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you remember what sort of harmonica that was?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was one that wouldn't even bend, I don't think. I think it was one of those concert double reed harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00:

Like a tremolo?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like a tremolo, yep.

SPEAKER_00:

At what point did you move away from the tremolo and to, I guess, a standard diatonic?

SPEAKER_03:

I think probably five years after, ten years after, I just kind of searched them out or someone gave me one or a friend did or something and that would have been a marine band probably.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So that's interesting. So you played the tremolo quite a lot for five years, did you? Is that really what you based your early playing on?

SPEAKER_03:

I kind of made noise on it. I wouldn't even call it playing. It just was like therapy more than anything and tried to imitate the sounds of everything around

SPEAKER_00:

me. Do you think maybe that influenced you to go down a more melodic style of playing, which we'll get into? Boy,

SPEAKER_03:

that's interesting. I don't know. For me, I didn't realize it at the time, but I have synesthesia, so... You'd almost qualify that as a learning disability in these days. But for me, I never paid attention in school because I was always distracted. Everything was making sounds in my head. And whenever I heard sounds, they were either shapes or they were colors. And I just assumed everybody had that. So even at that early age, I don't think I was thinking melodically. I think I was more trying to just play something that I was feeling at that time.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you think that condition has helped your music? Is it beneficial?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's like a superpower for music. It makes it really easy to be in recording sessions and kind of see what's coming next or chord shapes are all different colors. And, you know, if it's augmented or whatever it is, I see them as circles. So I'll see sort of the main chords. chord as a color and then I'll see variations of that chord as different colors sort of in the center shapes as well. It makes it kind of wide open in my mind to play.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, fascinating. So it's like you visualise the music then. Is that quite a big part of it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's totally visual. Yep, it is. And you see it in your head. You see it in your kind of the top of my forehead is where I tend to see it.

SPEAKER_00:

did you use that in a way that maybe if you learned some say music theory you could apply it like that is that you know do you able to apply it in that sort of way or

SPEAKER_03:

no it kind of it became the opposite to music theory for me it made it makes it really really really hard to learn theory and I know that sounds like a cop-out and I have learned some I've learned enough to get by in sessions and and figure things out but it it's really painful I actually get headaches from it I actually you know I had to do a CBC thing one time and it was a review of Oliver Sacks' book on synesthesia. I was on one side of it and a buddy of mine who's a really famous musician in Canada was on the other side and we were debating this book and he comes from the theory background and I came from the synesthetic background. For him, when Oliver described it as their electrical impulses, this is what's creating this and And it's how it relates to music. And for me, it's just something way more spiritual and bigger and undefinable like the real music is. Those notes and intervals were, in my mind, it's just my opinion and I don't know anything really, just what I do. I think that was just designed to explain to somebody something. How to play something, you know what I mean? Like if you came up with a piece of music and you notated it all out, that's a way of describing what you played. It's not the actual music itself nor the inspiration for it.

SPEAKER_00:

So at what point were you sort of diagnosed with this? How do they diagnose it?

SPEAKER_03:

I was in recording sessions, realized everybody was reading and I... didn't have to read, I could generally follow through it really quickly and figure it out. And I thought everybody could do that. And so I started to talk to people and realized that, no, this is way different. It's a really different way of thinking about music. That probably wasn't until I was 20 years old. I can't define it. And the crazy thing, it's as simple as breathing. It's like I can't control any of it. And it's just there all the time. And it also means that there are constantly melodies going through my head. I'm sitting here looking at my cluttered table right now. I can build a rhythm, a structure based on the height of everything on my table and the depth of it. And then I can build a melody based on the color of it. So it's happening all the time. And I almost have to push it back and not just be in that all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Back to your harmonica then. So, as you say, you moved across to the marine bands when you were around 16 or so, were you, by this stage? Yeah, it probably was around that time. Is this when you started more seriously getting into the harmonica and, you know, you were listening? I believe that D4 Bailey was a big early influence on you. Yeah, I love

SPEAKER_03:

black string band music. And somehow we got that in Detroit. I don't know how. I love the way that it wasn't, the way some people would describe as perfect music. It was just so powerful and so soulful and grooved so hard. I really loved it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And did you learn any other instruments when you were younger?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I think when I was a little kid, I used to put cardboard boxes up and pound on everything. My parents, I drove them crazy because I think I probably wanted to be a drummer and I just would drive everybody nuts, either pounding on tables or using pencils or all that stuff. And they're probably really happy that it was a harmonica instead of drums.

SPEAKER_00:

And so was it the early sort of pre-war harmonica that really initially drew you?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

it

SPEAKER_03:

was. Yeah, it was the fatness, the colors of it, the way it was vocal. It was like that person's voice. It just, yeah, it still gets me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

How you made your name, I think it's correct to say, is in bluegrass music, yeah? So that's correct, is it, in your harmonica world?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think so. Like, the reason probably any harmonica players would know who I was would be for my bluegrass stuff, which really I just kind of fell into.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, obviously you do play different styles, and certainly as your career progressed, we'll get into that. But yeah, so what got you into the bluegrass then? I always loved bluegrass.

SPEAKER_03:

Living in Sarnia here wasn't really the hotbed of bluegrass activity. Harmonica is the redheaded stepchild of the bluegrass world, or it had been forever. And there was an advertisement in the local paper that a bluegrass band was forming. So I decided that I'd answer that call and went for a rehearsal. And thankfully, they didn't get anybody showing up for the rehearsal so they had to take the harmonica player which was me i learned all the tunes they were doing i could actually play them better than they could i knew the melodies and and knew what to do but they were still embarrassed to have a harmonica player so they'd let me play like maybe three songs in a set and then you know i'd go sit in the corner so it was really weird but i persevered through that and eventually you know we played festivals and things i joined another band where they let me kind of write music and lead the the band a bit more and we ended up winning a bunch of awards and playing on major festivals and it just kind of progressed from there.

SPEAKER_00:

So Bluegrass is very strings heavy. In fact, it's all strings, isn't it? There isn't even a drummer, right? So how did you fit into that scene with the harmonica and how were you received in the very strings based music? Well, you

SPEAKER_03:

know,

SPEAKER_00:

it

SPEAKER_03:

changed. Initially, it was shocking to people. I approached it like a bluegrass band is like a giant drum kit. At first, I tried to figure out how can I push and pull in the context of these instruments rhythmically that adds something or that makes you feel differently. And that was the first way that I approached it. I didn't even think melody or notes or anything. So it was from a percussive standpoint. And then I slowly started to build patterns based on banjo and and on mandolin and then maybe incorporate fiddle lines and then distinctly try and do things that were the harmonica's strengths not try and cop melodies that sounded difficult on the harmonica but rather lean on what it can do and some of that is bluesy Other things are just that human vocal sound that a really great fiddle player can get as well.

SPEAKER_00:

As you say, you kind of fell into bluegrass. So before then, you weren't really playing bluegrass songs or you weren't even really playing sort of melody songs. You know, you were still, you know, like we talked about, you started out in the early blues and then you sort of then picked up the bluegrass tunes from when you started playing them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, basically started to learn them as we went. And, you know, I talked about the other band where I could sort of lead the band. We won some awards. We got in a major festival called Carlisle. And that was one where Bill Monroe would play and Ralph Stanley and Jim and Jesse and the Lewis family. It was a huge festival, really wild. So we played that. And I looked pretty wild. I didn't look like a typical bluegrass person at that point. I went backstage after playing in the Lewis family, who are the first family of bluegrass gospel music. They're from Georgia. Little Roy grabbed a banjo, played Train 45, and he said, can you play fast? And I said, yeah, I can play fast. And he said, can you play this fast? And then he just tore off a Train 45 banjo tune, and I could keep up, and I could play it. So he got all excited and he said, okay, well, we're bringing you out on stage. So they brought me out on stage. He played that instrumental and I played it with them and people went crazy and they loved it. And we came back off the stage and little Roy came up to me and he said, look, if you agree to follow the tour bus all over North America, we're not going to pay you. But if you agree to follow the bus, I will plant you in the audience at the show. And then I'll start playing a banjo tune and I'll stop in the middle of it. And I'll say, you know, this tune needs harmonica. He said, that's your cue to jump up in the audience and say, I have a harmonica and then come up on stage. And, uh, we did that all across North America. My wife and I followed that bus for no money. So what ended up happening was, you know, I would do that and get on stage and play. Well, they'd pass the hat and I ended up making more money than the bands on the bill. And I got a booking for the next year. We it's all a leap of faith. We did that for probably well over a year. And that's how I met Jim and Jesse and how eventually I got on the Grand Ole Opry.

SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic introduction in a great way, a great gimmick there to get you in. So Jim and Jesse you mentioned there, so this is Jim and Jesse McReynolds. So these were a very sort of hot bluegrass band at the time, yeah, and so yeah, how did you get playing with them?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I played a festival in Georgia. It was the Lewis Family Festival. My wife and I were camping in a tent and I just got done playing with the Lewis family and went backstage and Jesse McReynolds said, boy, would you come up and play a song with us? And I said, sure. And I was pretty nervous, but got up and played with them and, and I could actually fit in and it sounded good and people liked it. So afterwards he came up to me and he said, you need to be on the grand old Opry. Those words that nobody in a million years would ever think that they would hear. And then just probably, I don't know if it was weeks or a month later, I was at the Opry.

SPEAKER_00:

So it again explain to people who might not know so the Grand Ole Opry is a the home of country music yeah it's a real mecca of country music and bluegrass is played there a lot as well yeah so tell us a bit about the Grand Ole Opry

SPEAKER_03:

yeah I have deep love for the Grand Ole Opry. Oh man, how can I even describe it with the reverence that I want to? It just started out as this radio show that had real players. Like it wasn't slick and it wasn't about record deals. It wasn't any of that. It was a live radio show. And they had string band music and country music and everybody has been through there. Roy Acuff was kind of the king of the Grand Ole Opry. To get to play there is impossible It just is absolutely impossible. And it's the high point probably for any country music or bluegrass musician to get to do it. Bill Monroe is a member, you know, Jim and Jesse were members of it. So when it was my first time to play the Opry, I was so nervous, just could hardly stand it. Got up there, Jim and Jesse actually gave up their spot on the Opry to showcase me. And Roy Acuff was the host and it was on national television. We played and I got to stand And Roy Acuff came and stood probably a foot from me while I was playing. And my mouth just turned to glue. I don't even know how I got through it. It was this surreal experience that I still can't believe. And afterwards, you know, Roy talked to me. And, you know, now I guess I've done over 300 shows there over the years. But Roy became one of my biggest fans. And even when he was blind, you'd have people walk him out the stage to see me play. But I just can't repay Jim and Jesse enough. You know, think this first generation band with these, you know, basically strict rules around bluegrass would sacrifice the primo spot on the Grand Ole Opry time after time after time to showcase a harmonica player from Canada. It's just outstanding. I can never, never repay them.

SPEAKER_00:

And so one of the songs you played there was Orange Blossom Special.

UNKNOWN:

Orange Blossom Special

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's one. When you play the Opry, you have five minutes. to knock the crowd on the head. And every major star comes out there and sings their hit. So there's a bit, you know, you've got some pressure. You better be good. It's not like you can let a show build up and ebb and flow. You have to nail it. And so that's why Orange Blossom had that kind of shock factor.

SPEAKER_00:

And we mentioned Defoe Bailey earlier. And so he played there. Was he the first harmonica player to play Grand Ole Opry?

SPEAKER_03:

I believe he was. I mean, there was Oney Wheeler with Acuff. I'm not sure about him. And I have deep respect for DeFord Bailey. Just unbelievable. We shared a dressing room with Bill Monroe and I'd always get Bill to tell me DeFord stories and Acuff to tell me DeFord stories. And Bill Monroe and I used to play a tune called Evening Prayer Blues that Bill got from

SPEAKER_02:

DeFord. DeFord

SPEAKER_00:

Deeford Bailey was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, I think, a few years ago, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's wonderful. I'm so happy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And you mentioned, obviously, Jesse McReynolds there, and you were very close to him, and you're grateful to both of those guys. So recently, unfortunately, Jesse passed away, and you went to his funeral.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. You know, the first record that I made in Nashville 34 years ago was with Jesse and a bunch of really great pickers and Bill Vorendik in the studio. And we recorded the last song. I did a solo piece and I walked out of the booth to silence and I thought, oh man, I really messed that up. And then after a long pause, Jesse came up to me and said, I have a request for you. I want you to play that song at my funeral. And so I instantly changed the name of the song to Jesse's Request and hoped that I would never, ever, ever have to do that. But yeah, I just came back from there. It was last week that I played it. And Jesse on his deathbed with all these, the biggest stars you could ever imagine, historic people in the room and everybody wanting to play on his deathbed, Jesse said that the only person he wanted to play at his funeral was me. So yeah, it was heavy, heavy. The It still is. I'm still trying to bounce back from it all. I'm reliving every memory from all those years. My wife and I both are.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's quite an honor and quite a lot of pressure on you as well. How was it playing at the funeral?

SPEAKER_03:

I barely remember it. I played one song for Jesse and I played one song for the McReynolds family. And I barely remember it. I know I was shaking real bad. But, you know, there's something to be said for music when words are really hard

SPEAKER_00:

music. So you were kind enough to send me a link to your performance at the funeral, so you played Jesse's

SPEAKER_02:

Request.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was live-streamed, and of course all the, you know, full of big stars and legendary people, the history in that room was... It was mind-blowing. The direct connections to first-generation bluegrass and the grand old Opry and country music were all there. It was heavy.

SPEAKER_00:

Talking a bit more then about, you know, bluegrass and the harmonica. I mean, obviously bluegrass is very, you know, melody driven. It's very fast. You've talked about rhythm being really critical to your playing and that and bringing it out. So, you know, what about some, you know, some tips on playing bluegrass and the harmonica with people? What I would tell

SPEAKER_03:

anybody at first is don't think about the melody at first. Think about the rhythm inside. Listen to a mandolin chop, which a harmonica can do really, really easily and change pitch as well. Think about a banjo. Think about those patterns that a banjo roll does, but think rhythmically. That's the way to think about it. And even if you're not a super proficient bluegrass player, if you go in and know how to chop rhythm and how to add long lines and paint in that context that really fits and makes it feel right you'll do okay and then eventually start to work on your melodies because a lot of people it's just my opinion I think that a lot of people try and play bluegrass on harmonica and what they do is they memorize the melodies and that's wonderful but that is just not Bluegrass. Bluegrass is this incredible combination of different styles of music in this rhythmic pattern that you have to learn. It's almost like if you hear traditional blues done the right way with explosive dynamics and going down quiet and changes in the rhythm and the way it breathes. That's beautiful. And it's like bluegrass in that you can't just learn a melody over that and say that you're playing it. You have to get right in inside the feel of it and the groove of it and how it moves, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So were you one of the first, you know, kind of established bluegrass players on Harmonica and did more follow after you? I don't know. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I don't think there were too many that toured the world with first generation bluegrass people. And I did that for many, many, many years. Who knows what's first? I know I'm a lucky guy to get to do it. I feel lucky. I think there are a bunch of players playing it and probably some incredible players out there now. I don't really keep up with who's doing what. I remember somebody who did bluegrass really well was P.T. Gazelle. I always loved the way he approached it. He's a guy that could play melody, but he also understood the rhythmic aspect of a band like that. And I thought he was really good. But yeah, maybe, you know, I think with a first generation band, I played all the major festivals, played all over the world with these folks and Jim and Jesse and the Lost and Found and the Lewis family. And so, yeah, maybe, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So then getting into your albums and your releases, as you say, you played with various famous bluegrass outfits and then you started releasing your albums. own albums. These are under your own name. Yeah. So your first bluegrass released album was Harmonica released in 1990, which won the bluegrass recording of the year in central Canada. So you got that award. So yeah, tell us about that album.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's crazy. That came to be, just got a bunch of friends to pick on it. And because I've been playing bluegrass so long, my friends were a lot of famous pickers, and we just went in and ripped it off in a day. We used Bill Vorndik, who is just an incredible engineer, just kind of played what we were playing on the live show.

SPEAKER_00:

A couple of years later, 1992, you released Blowing Up a Storm. which was, I think, a really big album for you and a slight change of direction, was it not? Full on Bluegrass.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and it won... top selling record on pine castle records which is a bluegrass record label so a harmonica record was their their top seller

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so on here you've got you know some harmonica sort of classics like whamma jamma and fox chase and summertime you've also got which i picked out which i enjoy which is ghost riders in the storm it's sort of a cowboy song so

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Ghost Riders in the Sky. Yeah, I think Jim and Jesse sing on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you've got the song Blowing Up a Storm. Is that a song that you composed?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's one... Jesse McReynolds... I think like me, he always had music going through his head constantly, constantly, constantly. You could stop him at any point during the day and he was always picking and he'd have some kind of pattern. So he was in the back of the bus, we were heading somewhere and I hear like four notes of this thing, cross-picking thing. And I thought, oh man, is that ever good? And I said, Jesse, I'm going to record that. So I got my recorder and recorded just that little brief chunk of it, just a few notes. And I took it home and built a song around it, gave it to Jesse. So yeah, that's where Blowing Up a Storm comes from.

SPEAKER_00:

Great, so that's based on cross-picking from a mandolin, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Does that give it quite a unique approach then on the harmonica? And then maybe explain the cross-picking technique on the mandolin.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's amazing. Jesse invented this cross-picking thing on the mandolin. I don't know how he does it, but he's the inventor of it. It's just amazing. It sounds almost symphonic. When he cross-picks on a mandolin, there are a lot of notes that ring that aren't deadened. And those notes that ring tend to create... interesting sort of harmony over the pattern he's playing. So when you take a harmonica and you learn those patterns without the ringing strings, they become modal in a really unusual way, just really unusual way. I just love it. I just worked out all that stuff on harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00:

And then jumping forward a few years in 98, you formed the Mike Stevens Project. So this was the start of your own band for the first time or was there other ones?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there were other things that I put together, but that was a bunch of friends. It was a group called Laughing Sam's Breakdown, a wonderful band from the area. They had a bunch of traction. They were going to get signed to Madonna's label and other things. But around that time, George Gruen, the guitar guy, he was involved with the House of Blues in Hollywood. George asked me if I would like to play at the House of Blues opening in Hollywood. And he said that Aerosmith was going to do a surprise performance. And so I wanted to put a band together to be able to play that. So I started rehearsing Laughing Sams and they were wonderful. Well, It turns out that there's a guy, I believe his name was Isaac Tiger was the other owner, and he wanted a bunch of antique and famous instruments from George to put in the House of Blues in Hollywood. I think somehow George didn't want to put some of these super exotic, incredible instruments into the House of Blues in Hollywood. I ended up losing that gig because they didn't get along and I got caught in the crossfire of that one. But that's where that band came together. So then CBC asked me to record it and we went in the studio and recorded it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so this is the album Normally Anomaly.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is quite an experimental album, isn't it? You've got quite a lot of effects on the... So what was your approach in this one?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, I did looping forever. Even before I was playing bluegrass, I was doing soundscape stuff. One of my best friends, Larry Towles, a magnum photographer, I would always score his images. It's really crazy. He, you know, he was not a famous person at that time, nor was I by any stretch, but we always worked together doing these soundscape things around his images. And it turns out, you know, Larry has become this world famous, you know, magnum photographer. And we've even done performances for world press photo in amsterdam and played all over the world with me scoring those images so i was always looping and always using delays i was even using open reel tape machines back in the day and and working with effects so

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and you still do that you do solo performances where you use looping is that something you still do i

SPEAKER_03:

do yeah yeah i love it yeah so

SPEAKER_00:

And then you did, in 2000, The World Is Only Air, which is an album of original and Canadian fiddle tunes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was with a great Canadian record label called Borealis. Yeah, I love that record. That one's a lot of fun.

UNKNOWN:

Borealis

SPEAKER_00:

And then an album you did in 2005 is the album that you did with Raymond McLean, which is the Old Time Mojo album.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Raymond's like my brother. We played together forever. We met on stage at the Grand Ole Opry.

SPEAKER_00:

You do a song which I've always thought would be good to do with harmonica, which is Julian Banjos, where obviously Raymond's playing banjo and you're playing harmonica.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it just seemed to fit. It's always that dual and a real crowd pleaser.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a great effect on another song I love on there, which is In the Pines, where you're playing harmonica in unison with these kind of hollering singing.

UNKNOWN:

In the Pines

SPEAKER_03:

I love to do that. It's like another voice. That's something that feels good to me every time we do it. It never gets old.

SPEAKER_00:

It's kind of like the Sonny Terry thing, isn't it, where he's whooping and hollering, but you're doing it obviously right in unison with him. It's really effective. And then someone else you're recording with is Matt Anderson. This is more blues, is it, at first to say? You're doing a couple of albums with him.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Matt's a great guy, wonderful performer and old friend. And the first record, Piggyback, we just got together and played. Then Matt got a residency at the Banff Center, which is just this amazing creative place in Banff, Alberta. And it turns out there was an award-winning engineer there. And Matt and I went into the studio and just recorded Push Record in a day. live i love the sound of that record there's no external reverbs or anything it's all stereo pairs hung inside the orchestral room and it was recorded without headphones or anything so i i really dig the sound of that right now

SPEAKER_00:

And then another great interesting thing you've done is you played with an African percussionist, singer-instrumentalist. I'll let you pronounce his name.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Okaja Ofrozo from Ghana.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you release an album called Canadafrica.

SPEAKER_01:

Canadafrica

SPEAKER_03:

I love that record. It's really unique and it was an incredible challenge. You know, I had to play with an instrument called a geel, which is a precursor to a xylophone. And it has these gourds that have holes in them and spider webbing, actual spider webbing as resonators on these gourds and these slots of wood that you play. And they're not really in tune for 40 to play with a regular instrument. And the rhythms that you play in this traditional music, the melody that you play, your Western ear hears first is not the actual melody. It's something way deeper inside. So it took me a long time to try and figure out how to do this stuff by playing all bent notes, basically playing microtonally on the harmonicas to do it. It was really great. And I knew I had it when Okai just said, it's perfect, it sounds like a bug.

SPEAKER_00:

Are you using standard diatonics to play that?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

great yeah so um yeah really interesting sound so i mean did you have to do anything particularly to you know prepare yourself recording that that music or

SPEAKER_03:

no just get way inside it and not count it again that's where the synesthesia thing helps i never count and and i'm not thinking chords and structures it's all colors and shapes so it makes it really easy to play polyrhythmic and odd meter things

SPEAKER_00:

definitely you did it you did a gospel album called life's road to heaven I talked about gospel harmonica a few times recently, and it's always worked so well, the gospel music and harmonica,

SPEAKER_03:

doesn't it? Yeah, that was real nice. Got some wonderful players on that. Bobby Hicks playing fiddle on that. Yeah, that was a fun record to make.

SPEAKER_00:

And then your latest album, I believe, is the Breathe In The World, Breathe Out The Music. That was released in 2021, was it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's the newest one. Yeah, I'm happy with that record. I think it's a step forward and sort of combines all of the styles that you were talking about kind of in one thing that grooves pretty hard.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely. Like you say, lots of different styles on there. You kind of got a kind of reggae song, like Little Bird, the one.

SPEAKER_03:

Now, one of the interesting things about Breathe in the World, Breathe Out Music, that record is a tune called Put Your Phone Down. What I did was Art Horatian, the drummer, it's just the drummer and I, and I played Didn't tell him I was going to do this, but it was sort of an improv piece. We set up kind of a New Orleans groove that Art's playing. What I wanted to try and do is I wanted to thread this crooked fiddle tune through that pattern, but then keep moving it off the one. to create tension as it goes on. So every time I thread that fiddle tune through, you probably don't notice it unless you're listening to it, but I keep moving it off the one in really uncomfortable amounts. And I didn't tell Art because I wanted to see what his reaction would be to it. It's just a one take thing. We did it live. And by the last time I play it, it is so far off the one and outside that it's great. And Art just hangs in and keeps playing, even though it's this weird off meter thing until finally he just gives up and locks back in on the beat. That's why I love that tune for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Another really interesting thing you've done is play with the Atlantic Ballet.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was crazy. I did a thing for CBC, a fundraiser at a theater in New Brunswick, Canada. They heard me play. I did a solo thing. And afterwards, they came up to me and they said, boy, would you ever be interested in writing a ballet? I like them. And I said, yeah, I think that'd be really cool. I'd love to do that. So I was really busy that year. I was touring like crazy. And I kept getting these messages from the director of the ballet saying, you know, we're waiting for the music, you know, hope things are going okay. And, you know, I was feeling the pressure from it. And I got another email saying, you know, we really need it. You better do it. And I happened to be home just for like three days. And I thought, I have to do this. I looked at what they'd given me, the dance, and I just improvised this about 20 minute piece that had all different sections and everything. And I'd recorded it and I sent it off. to them and about an hour later I got a message back saying it's perfect we love it so I thought that's great so I continued on my tour it got to be time to play this live in front of an audience so we went in a couple of days early to rehearse it and there I am in front of the whole ballet and they're just these incredible athletes and they said okay well start the music and you know we've been working on it let's see how it goes so I start it you know it goes about eight seconds in and then director goes no no no no no stop stop stop and that's when I realized that they had choreographed every second of my 20 minute improvisation that moved everywhere went all over the place and so I started to have a flop sweat at that point and I laid out all these pieces of paper they played the recording and I watched them dance and I wrote out notes that were like six feet long going person with red hair comes out spins once from the left one leg goes up in the air. This does that at that. And just this big long sheet of paper. We were performing it the next day. So I stayed up all night looking at the performance of it and making my notes. And we were doing it in front of a live audience in a sold out theater and it's just me. So I moved my looping gear out there and my looping rig is just insane. It could blow up at any moment, but it sounds wonderful. So I have that on stage and I have my six feet of cheat sheets, all the curtains down and I'm standing there on stage with the dancers. Just before I went on, I had probably a pretty good shot of scotch for courage and stood there, the curtains open, and we started and it went off perfectly. I still can't believe it. Anyhow, that's my ballet experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, and this piece is called 36 Hours?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's called 36 Hours. I didn't have a name for it. After I'd written it, I continued on to play this festival called the Rockin' Walrus Festival in Aglulik in Nunavut in the Arctic, high in the Arctic. And I was one of the only non-Indigenous people there. It was a huge honor. As I was getting off the plane, I was met by an elder named Abraham, short guy, about 80 years old, and an interpreter. And the interpreter said that Abraham would like you to play a traditional Ayaya song with him. Now, an Ayaya song is something that probably comes from his family and it tells a story. And in this case, it was about catching a giant walrus, tying it to an ice flow and how they brought it in. It's a true story. It goes back generations and a massive honor to play with him. So I sort of worked my way through it and went on stage with Abraham and it seemed to go well. We went back to a little room afterwards with the interpreter. I said to Abraham, you know, Abraham, I have no skills at all. I wouldn't lie. last 30 minutes out here. Something would eat me or I'd fall through the ice. Abraham looked at my feet and then he looked at my head and then he turned to the interpreter and he said something. And the interpreter said, he said you would last a day and a half. So that's why I called the ballet 36 hours.

SPEAKER_00:

You're quite possibly the only person I've heard of having composed a piece for a ballet. I mean, it's great watching people dancing when you're playing, right? But to see ballet dancers dancing while you're playing, that must be incredible.

SPEAKER_03:

It was really incredible. And, you know, it wasn't so strict. There was still some room for improvisation and the way they danced it. Yeah, it was really great.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you mentioned there playing to the indigenous people in the Arctic Circle. So a thing that you've done is you founded Artscan Circle, which is about giving opportunities for indigenous communities in Canada. And you've done a TED Talk on this topic. And there's also a documentary called A Walk in My Dream. So yeah, tell us a little about that.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a long extended story, but basically at the top of my career, I chose to do a gig for a Canadian peacekeepers. We were going to the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, which is near the North Pole. Then we were going to Bosnia just after the ethnic cleansing to play for peacekeepers. And, you know, we were being treated like big shots. We were flying in the belly of a Hercules aircraft and we stopped off for fuel in Goose Bay, Labrador, which if you're going to drive there, you know, it's like a thousand kilometer gravel road at the end of it. It's basically a flying community. And in that area, there's an indigenous community and in community called Cheshishi and there's Northwest River and Goose Bay. They wanted us to do a concert. So we were at a local movie theater and I'd heard a little bit about what was happening in this Innu community. They had, you know, low level flying and they've had high suicide rates and stuff. And When it was time for me to play my portion of the show, I dedicated a song to Sheshishi and talked about that a little bit. Touched a nerve with the audience for sure. Got an interesting response. Went back to the record table and a guy came up to me and said, if you sneak away from the military tour, I'll drive you out to Sheshishi. So I did do that and went out with him. And what I saw changed my view of Canada. I won't go into the whole thing, but it was quite something. And As we were leaving, we rounded a corner and there were eight kids with bags of gasoline to their face by a fire. They were sniffing gas. He stopped the truck and got out and played music for them. And it was a really powerful thing. They didn't tell me to screw off or go away. They actually started to ask me questions about my family and we had real conversations. So some of that got filmed. I promised to send those kids back harmonicas and books to the school and all that stuff. As I continued on the tour, that footage ended up going all around the world. And all of a sudden, I was the person that everyone wanted to talk to about this issue. So I thought, you know what, everyone has this maybe one chance in their life where the world will listen. So I shelved my career at that point and just started trying to figure out ways to connect ordinary people with these kids in this community to start to build partnerships. And what came to me was lending libraries of musical instruments. So I filled a transport truck full of instruments, got them up into that community and then went and did a workshop at the treatment center. And then it's just mushroom from there. And we built an organization that rotates musicians and artists through these communities in Canada and Alaska I think I've given out 50,000 harmonicas at this point and countless instruments and recording studios and we rotate indigenous artists now through all the communities and ongoing and we have many wonderful partnerships so yeah it's been great

SPEAKER_00:

yeah fantastic amazing So there's been a documentary made about you called Harmonica Crossing by a guy called Brian White. Is that around this topic or something else?

SPEAKER_03:

No, that one is about the Opry stuff and it was all shot on film, black and white film. Oh, there's so much footage. We talked to everybody. We got, that was at the height of the Opry stuff for me. So all the doors were open everywhere we went. Brian was a student filmmaker and that film was around somewhere. I haven't seen it in a long time, but it was shot on film.

SPEAKER_00:

And you've also written a book called Bluegrass Harmonica, which is published by Hal Leonard. That book

SPEAKER_03:

was written in the flurry of dates where, you know, we'd play four shows over a weekend and drive all night. We'd get no sleep for years and years and years, my wife and I. I basically wrote that book trading off driving with my wife in the car. So it's a sleep-addled harmonica book.

SPEAKER_00:

a good place to learn bluegrass harmonica you think

SPEAKER_03:

yeah I think so I mean it's just the way I do it I'm certainly I don't think I'm an expert or nothing I'm good at doing what I do being me but certainly you know there's lots of ways to approach it

SPEAKER_00:

and we're just touching on some of the many awards if you want we've mentioned a few but an interesting one is that you won the Canadian entertainer of the year between 1990 1994 and then you had to you had to withdraw from the award to give somebody else

SPEAKER_03:

a chance yeah that's that's crazy yeah yeah that happened

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and then you won various other um metatorious service medal from the government of canada and the uh folk music on to ontario so yeah lots of awards so a question i ask each time because if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_03:

yeah what i would do is um I would try and clear my mind, pick up a harmonica and try and groove, try and connect with, I don't want this to sound new agey because it's not how I think about it, but it's to connect with music, to connect with what's happening and feel and groove. And it wouldn't be about memorizing and playing certain licks or practice things or anything. It's about trying to create a groove, something that moves me in that 10 minutes. That's exactly what I would

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and obviously the harmonica's good at that, yeah? Sure is. So we'll get on to the last section now and talk about gear. I understand you played Richter tuning for a long time and then you discovered Brendan Power's power harps tuning. Yeah, power benders, yeah. So when did you start playing those?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I don't know how many years ago it was. Yeah, it's been a bunch. It's all I play now. I mean, I still play everything. Originally, Joe Felisco built all my Richter tuned harps and Joe is just wonderful. His harps are still just over the top. But when I switched to power benders, Joe didn't want to work on the power benders. So I hunted around for somebody and landed on Joe Spears and he's great. He's building these wonderful power bender harmonicas for me. And what I like about it at first was that it erased all the muscle memory. So, you know, when you play all these bluegrass licks and have done this for a long, long time, you tend to rely on patterns that are really safe and you've done them, they're etched in your brain and you've done them a million times. And I didn't like that. I wanted to break out from it. So that's why originally I picked up powerbender harps is because, you know, they're like going down the stairs in the dark with a step missing. They shake you up a bit and you can come up with new things. Then I realized that if I set them up so that I could overblow every note on the harmonica, even the very top high ones, I could come up with all kinds of great, crazy, weird patterns and odd chords through tongue blocking. And I just started to really love them. So yeah, I've been playing them for quite a while now.

SPEAKER_00:

I've interviewed Brendan and we did talk about the the power bend as you're playing yeah so just remind me and everybody else just says is that where the the top octave is changed so that you can bend the the draw notes as you can on the the lower notes on the top octave

SPEAKER_03:

that's right yeah you can do those same patterns uh play them that way but also when you start to overblow if you set them up correctly where you can overblow you know the 10 hole overblow the nine hole overblow the eight hole like all the way through it you can really really create crazy patterns. A good example of it would be I do this really weird horn line and put your phone down. That's where I'm using the power bender that way.

SPEAKER_00:

So you talk about you still using Richter tune harmonica as well and possibly other ones. So is that right? You're not exclusively playing the power band? I

SPEAKER_03:

like everything. Whatever gets the job done. Same with brand. They're all different. They all have a voice and they all sound quite a bit different. So I'm open to anything that'll move me, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it can be difficult, as you say, you have to spend time on the powerbender. So how do you move between the different tunings and, you know, the different ones that you're playing?

SPEAKER_03:

It just kind of happens. If you do it enough, it just happens. Not as difficult as you'd think. You know, it was at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. And sometimes you may come up with something even better by making a mistake on one or the other, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

So you touched on the brands then. So it sounds like you play the different brands. You haven't particularly got a favorite you're not endorsed by anyone or anything like that

SPEAKER_03:

no i've never did an endorsement thing because i'm always gonna keep searching and changing and trying and i don't want to say that i play one kind when i might play others you know in a session or or or live so Oh, there is one thing, Neil. You know what's really interesting? I do play in the Arctic. I play a lot of times where it's minus 20 and minus 30. There's only one harmonica that will work at that temperature. And I generally use minor tunings, but Lee Oscar minor tunings, I can play those in the Arctic. Like when I'm writing music and inspired by something while I'm out, those harmonicas work at minus 20, minus 30. I know it sounds weird, but the others don't, but the Lee Oscars do.

SPEAKER_00:

That's interesting. I wonder why that is. Because the brass reeds, aren't they, like a lot of the other harmonicas? Yeah,

SPEAKER_03:

I have no idea why, but they absolutely do.

SPEAKER_00:

So you mentioned tunings there as well. So you say you like to play lots of minor tunings. Do you use a lot of different tunings and which ones?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, mainly natural minor because I love the chord stuff. I mean, I can get all that easily in fifth position in a powerbender, but I can't get the chords. And I love the rhythmic chordal stuff and I like low-tuned harps and I love low-tuned minor harps a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you use minor tuned harmonicas on minor songs or can you use them in different Context

SPEAKER_03:

as well. Well, you know, so be it.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you mentioned overblows. So you obviously do play overblows and overdraws. Yep. And what about any chromatic? I don't think I've heard you on any chromatic from the recordings I've listened to.

SPEAKER_03:

No, you know what I'm looking for? I want maybe somebody out there that hears this can help me. I want a chromatic that I can be rough with, that I can use breath blasts and mouth percussion in a low tuning, but something that will take that and not cack the reeds out. I don't know if there is such a thing. If there was a chromatic that would do that, oh man, I would be all over it.

SPEAKER_00:

What about in your singing? Do you do any singing?

SPEAKER_03:

I do, yeah. I sing on the latest record. It's always been kind of uncomfortable for me, but it's just like standing there naked when you're singing. Playing a harmonica is easy, but singing is a different thing for me. But I'm going to start doing more and more of it, I think. Hard as diamonds Shines

SPEAKER_00:

like a piece of gold Buried deep in the ground Like your cold black skin great and what about then your uh your embouchure are you uh tongue blocking puckering anything else

SPEAKER_03:

yeah i'm using both all the time probably primarily pucker but i'm always always using both always you know some tongue blocking and and splits and things like that as well whatever whatever kind of gets me there

SPEAKER_00:

And what about amplification? What do you like to use? A

SPEAKER_03:

bunch of different things. You know, it depends. I've always collected really odd pedals and things. If I wanted an acoustic sound, I really like the Schertler amplifiers. They're really great. I've got a really old pair of those that are like a PA you could mix a record on. They're wonderful for harmonica. I mean, I've got a bunch of vintage amplifiers that I'll use on sessions and stuff. I also have a always working on. Yeah. And I also have preamps and things like I'm not hardcore. I'm always looking for something different. So, you know, an overdriven sound for me might come from overdriving a preamp or going through transformers or something, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm interested in the modeling apps these days. They're getting

SPEAKER_03:

better and better. Have you found one which really works with the harmonica? Head Rush does a really good job on it. Believe it or not, they're very, very clean. Neural DSP, the quad cortex is quite expensive, but it's going to be there. I'm working on that quite a bit. I've had fractals. Yeah, all kinds of stuff. It is there if you put the time in and work on it, but then you need full range amplifiers to play through. But my whole approach with those things isn't to emulate an exact... tube amp. It's to come up with your own sound that's really unique and powerful. What about microphones? Boy, lots of different ones. For years, I used a Beyer M88. That's if I've got it in a stand and back off it because they don't like plosives and I tend to use mouth percussion a lot when I play. If you wanted something that was really clean and no proximity effect and that sounds exactly like your harmonica and doesn't feed back, the Shure KSM-8 is just phenomenal. For my looping rig. I use a little Sennheiser. It's about an inch and a half long. It's a Tom mic that I bought many, many years ago and I just stick a volume control in it. I love that because it's got very unique proximity effect that you can use for, you know, vocalizing and sort of painting with effects. Yeah, so that's the live stuff. In studio, I've got a really great U67, a vintage one. I had a buddy work on it. It's got a really thin micron diaphragm So it's real quick. Got a couple of old Schepps small diameter condensers that are wonderful for capturing percussive room sounding harmonica as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Just to finish off and final question on your future plans, you told me that you're recording a documentary next week. What's that all about?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's some folks making another documentary on me. They've already followed me around through the Northwest Passage in the Arctic, and they're coming to the house to do more work. It'll take about another year, I think, while they put it together. Just a story on my quirky life, I guess.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And what about your upcoming gigs or anything? What else are you up

SPEAKER_03:

to? Yeah, I'm gone. I'm going to be out for a couple of months. I'm actually home more than I ever have been. I've been doing some sessions and still playing. I'm going out the middle of August. I'll be gone two months. I head to New York first and then on to Greenland. I'm part of an expedition team and writing music as we go through the Northwest Passage. Then I'm doing an Alaska tour with a great blues musician named Mark Brown for a few weeks and then come home. Got a concert fundraiser at a theater here in October. And then I'm going to do a full band theater show in early January and play the new record from that. There's always lots of stuff, thankfully, going on. I'm a pretty lucky guy.

SPEAKER_00:

So thanks so much. It's been great and really interesting to speak to you, Mike Stevens.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, thanks for taking the time, Neil. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00:

Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks so much to Mike for joining me today. What an amazing career he's had and continues to have. And thanks to Tom Ellis once again for helping me out. There's now an option to make a monthly voluntary subscription to the podcast, any amount you choose, entirely voluntary. He did help me out with the running costs of the podcast, so I appreciate anybody who wants to do that. You can find the link on the show notes and on the website. It's over to Mike now to play us out with another song from his latest album. This one's called Grumbling Old Man. Grumbling Old Man.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.