Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Charlie McCoy interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Charlie McCoy is the leading figure in Country harmonica playing, where he joined the Nashville scene in 1961.
With over 13000 sessions to his name, Charlie is probably the most recorded harmonica artist of all time.
Although best known as a country harmonica player, along with his 40 solo albums, Charlie has played with some of the truly legendary names in popular music, from Roy Orbison, to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Paul Simon.

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https://www.charliemccoy.com/

YouTube:
Hee Haw TV show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtlWa7zsCTU


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

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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
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi, Neil Warren here again and welcome to another episode of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast with more interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the tracks discussed during the interviews can be heard. Charlie McCoy With over 13,000 sessions to his name, Charlie is probably the most recorded harmonica artist of all time. Although best known as a country harmonica player, along with his 40 solo albums, Charlie has played with some of the truly legendary names in popular music, from Roy Orbison to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Paul Simon. So hello, Charlie McCoy, and welcome to the podcast. Neil, thank you very much. I don't think it'd be an exaggeration to say that you're quite possibly the most successful recorded harmonica artist in history with your catalogue and the amount of work that you've done.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Yes, I started doing studio work in 1961.

SPEAKER_00:

You were born in West Virginia, but then moved to Miami when you were a boy. So that's where you got your musical education around Miami, was it?

SPEAKER_01:

I started playing harmonica when I was eight years old. Started playing guitar also that same year. We moved to Miami when I was nine. And then when I was a teenager, I had a electric guitar. I got into rock and roll. But then I heard a Jimmy Reed record. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's a harmonica. I have one. I've got to learn to do that. That rekindled my interest in harmonica. Hey, as a guitar player, I'm average. As all the other instruments I play, I'm average. I wouldn't have gotten a door without the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you remember what that Jimmy Reed record was that inspired you to start playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you got me dizzy.

SPEAKER_02:

Rob

SPEAKER_00:

Piazza, who I talked to last time, he mentioned Jimmy Reed as being one of the first ones he heard as well. Well,

SPEAKER_01:

Jimmy Reed led me to Little Walker, and he's the top of the heap as far as that style. I love to keep listening to him over and over again, and I keep hearing new things.

SPEAKER_00:

It was a little bit later that you moved to Nashville, was it? Which obviously you're quite closely associated with the Nashville music scene.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's an interesting story. I was playing weekends with a At a country music dance, my job was to play guitar and sing 10 minutes each hour, rock and roll. And one night, Nashville songwriter, musician Mel Tillis came in. After I did my music, I met him and he said, boy, if you go to Nashville, I'll get you on record tomorrow. The day after high school was over, I went to Nashville to visit Mel Tillis. Well, he was out of town after I'd driven 800 miles. He had told his manager about me. And just out of the blue, he said to me, do you want some auditions? And I said, yes. He got me auditioned with Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley. Now, I was singing and playing the guitar, Chuck Berry style.

SPEAKER_00:

No harmonica at this point, then.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, they both turned me down. Best thing I ever happened to me. Because Owen Bradley invited me to watch a recording session. And I watched a 13-year-old Brendan Lee record one of her first hit records. And when I watched that recording session and I heard the first playback, I said to myself, I don't want to sing. I want to do this. A year later, I moved to Nashville to stay.

SPEAKER_00:

The first recording that you made, I understand, is a song called Cherry Berry Wine.

SPEAKER_01:

That was my first solo record. And actually, it was a vocal. There's no harmonica on it. And the only reason it happened was that a friend of mine and me wrote it. When we got ready to make a demo of it, he said, hey, why don't you sing this? This isn't my style. So I said, okay. And a record producer in New York heard it and said, I want to record that guy.

SPEAKER_00:

I know you got your big break with the song Candyman with Roy Orbison. Is that something that was recorded in Nashville?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Actually, I was moving with a songwriter named Kent Westbury. And every day people would come over to his house to write with him. One day they were working on a song and he said, hey, why don't you get your harmonica and play along with us? I said, yeah, OK. So I started to play along with him and he said, this sounds great. We're going to get you on the demo of this song. So I played on the demo and a month passed and I got a phone call from the publisher. And he said, I just got a call from Chet Atkins. He's going to record an unknown singer from Sweden named Anne Margaret. And he would like you to play exactly what you played on the demo. That was my first session. And it was so great because I already knew what to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and this was the song I Just Don't Understand with Anne Margaret.

SPEAKER_01:

Don't understand. Don't understand. There were some of those same musicians that have been on the Brenda Lee session. I'm 20 years old, and there's Ann Margaret, who's 20 years old. And I mean, it was an out-of-body experience, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_00:

So you had this recording with Chet Atkins. Did that have some commercial success? And then you got the attention of Roy Orbison to play on Candyman.

SPEAKER_01:

On that very session, the bass player walked over to me at the end of the session, and he said, Are you free Friday? Hey, I was free the rest of my life. And I said, yeah, I'm free. He said, come back here. I'm recording Roy Orbison. Whoa, I was a huge fan of Roy Orbison. And came in and he pulled out the song Candyman. And they started working on the song. Actually, Elvis's guitar player was on this session too. Scotty Moore, you know. Roy kept saying, somebody come up with an introduction. I got an idea immediately, but I'm like, man, I'm the new kid on the block. I don't know if I should even open my mouth. So finally he says, come on, come on, somebody come up with something. So I walked over to Harold Bradley, Hall of Fame musician. Hey, I whispered, I've got an idea. He said, oh, what is it? And I said, what if I took my harmonica and did this?

UNKNOWN:

Come on, baby.

SPEAKER_01:

So he shouts out loud, hey, everybody, Charlie's got the intro. Listen to this. I was so surprised, you know. When that record hit the radio, my phone started to ring. I can tell you how blessed I am. It's still ringing.

SPEAKER_00:

So that song was a huge hit. Yeah, that was a million sellers. So was that the second recording you'd done on Harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. So how long had you been playing Harmonica when you did this recording session?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, from eight years old. Well, when I was 16, I got really back into harmonica when I heard Jimmy Reed. My career is like a fairy tale, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_00:

You are known for playing country-style harmonica. So country-style harmonica playing, it's more melodic, isn't it? So you've talked about your roots being in blues, being Jimmy Reed and Little Walter. So how did you develop your style of country-style harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, to begin with, I was the new flavor in town. Producers started asking me, maybe could you not quite play so funky? Or maybe could you, you know, and one day the great Grady Martin Hall of Fame guitar player said to me, he called me outside and he said, listen, you got a great future here, but I'm telling you right now you're playing too much. And boy, what a wake up call that was. And he said, if you can't hear every word and understand it, you're playing too much. And from that moment on, my watchword became less is more. I'm very conscious of lyrics, and especially with female singers, because the harmonica is right in the register with their voice. You get too crazy like that, you really distract from the... Harold Bradley, he put it to me one day that really made a lot of sense. He said, here's the way we approach this recording. The singer of the song is a picture. We are the frame. Our job is to... frame the picture, not to distract from it. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_00:

So a lot of your early work was more session work where you were a sideman.

SPEAKER_01:

After the Cherry Berry Wine, that first record happened. By the way, that record got into pop charts one week at number 99 and then dropped out. After that, the record company went out of business. And so I said, okay, I've been there, done that. I want to be a session player. I don't worry about being an artist. So I gave it up, the idea. And then one day I'm on a session with Roy Orbison's producer, and he said, come out to my office and let's have lunch one day. And I said, okay. And he came in, he said, I want you to make some records. And I said, and do what? And he said, I don't know. Just go in the studio and be creative. And for eight years, I made records that we couldn't give away. And then 1971 happened. bang, a country instrumental and the rest of its history.

SPEAKER_00:

So your first album was in 1967, The World of Charlie McCoy, your first solo record. So you're 26 at this time. So up until this point, you'd done pretty much all session work where you were doing backing and playing as a sideman for other people.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, see, in the early 60s, we had a rock and roll band here called The Escorts. And we played Motown music. I loved that music. The band was a chance to go play it on the weekends, you know, because we certainly weren't doing anything like that in the studios here. That's where I kept a tie to that music. And that early album, most of the players on it are that band.

SPEAKER_00:

What was the name of that album? I'm looking at your many albums. It was

SPEAKER_01:

called The Real McCoy.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that was The Real McCoy. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And then later, our company, the record company, made a distribution deal with Columbia Records. They went in and looked at the catalog and every record that wasn't selling, they cut it out. So that record was off the market. And then we had this single come out in 1971, the Merle Haggard song, Today I Started Loving You Again. And it became a hit. And they said, oh, we got to have an album right away. So that album, 1968, half of it was country. Half of it was rock and roll. So we just re-recorded the rock and roll side with more country songs. And that album, by the way, it was still called The Real McCoy. And that album won me a Grammy Award.

SPEAKER_00:

So you won a Grammy for that, as you say, in 1972. So you went along to the Grammy ceremony. How was that?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it was great. I actually have seven Grammy nominations.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, wow. So did you go to the Grammy ceremony seven times?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I didn't go all seven times. But at the time, we had it here in Nashville. We had a Nashville Grammy ceremony, you know. So every time it was in Nashville, I went. And I went once in LA, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

So the one you won in 1972, was that the first one you were nominated for?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

You had a great introduction to music, didn't you? First a million-selling single on your second recording, and then you won a Grammy on what is your second album? Yeah. At what point did you move to Nashville?

SPEAKER_01:

Here in 1960, I tried one year of college in Miami. After I'd come to Nashville and auditioned as a singer and was turned down. I went back to Miami, entered the University of Miami Music Education School. I lasted almost a year. The session I'd seen in Nashville, I just kept dreaming about it, dreaming about it. A friend of mine called me with a job offer to go on the road playing guitar behind a country singer. And I finally said, yeah, I got to go back there. Broke my father's heart. because it was his dream for me to go through college. So I moved to Nashville at 19 years old. By the way, my father forgave me when I introduced him to Dolly Parton.

SPEAKER_00:

I bet he did.

SPEAKER_01:

Nashville is a special place, I'm telling you. I had an interesting interview last year with someone from BBC, and I started talking about that original group of musicians. They called them the Nashville A-Team that they started this year. I started telling him about them, and he said, yeah, but in America, you have the Wrecking Crew, the Memphis Boys, you have Muscle Shoals, you have Motown. And I said, let me tell you the difference. They have all written arrangements. Memphis, Motown, and Muscle Shoals, they had no clock. There was no time limit on how long it took to make a record. Here, we are in the Union. In a three-hour session, you were expected to record three or four songs that you'd never heard before, and that was the record because we didn't have the technology to do it any other way, right? What they did was so brilliant. To me, that sets Nashville aside from all the other recording centers. Of course, every country artist in America was recording here. There were two studios, and they were busy all the time. But the big thing that happened in Nashville was in 1965, Bob Dylan came. And after he came, it was like the floodgates opened. The people, the folk rock, we called them, wanted to come because Dylan had his biggest album here, Blonde on Blonde. Everyone wanted to come to Nashville because, you know, Dylan, he put a stamp of approval on our town. And I'm telling you, after that was over, I worked with Peter, Paul, and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, Gino Vanelli, the Manhattan Transfer, Gordon Lightfoot. I mean, more studios were built, a lot more musicians were working.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you mentioned, obviously, Bob Dylan there. So you recorded on, I think, three Bob Dylan albums, didn't you? You recorded on the Blonde on Blonde album, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

I recorded on five of his albums, actually. The first one was on... Highway 61 revisited. I played guitar on a song called Desolation Row. Then in Nashville, we did Blonde of Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait. I played harmonica on one song. It was obviously Five Believers. What was it like working with Bob Dylan? And what's he like? As a friend of mine at a ranger for a TV show said once, he said, Bob Dylan is an amazing musician. You know, what he's done musically is amazing, but he doesn't know the answer to hello. He rarely said a word. But what we did was good, and I'm glad he came because of what it did for our business here in Nashville.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, as you said there, you played with a whole host of people as a sideman, and you played with Elvis Presley as well. I

SPEAKER_01:

played with Elvis in seven movies and five other albums.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. So you got to meet Elvis as well during this time?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Back in that day, we all recorded together because they didn't have the technology to do it any other way. If you're on a session with somebody, they're there and they're singing live. Wow. So I always liked working with Elvis Presley. He was fantastic. What a nice guy. When I got to work with him, it was on a movie soundtrack. We were the second group of musicians because the movie company changed the dates of the recording His regular guys were all tied up doing other sessions. And in Nashville, we have an unwritten law. You don't cancel out on one artist to go work with another. You just don't do that. His regular guys wouldn't cancel. So they hired Scotty Moore, said, look, there's plenty of musicians here. I'll get you a band together. So I was in that band and we were all a little concerned about how this was going to work, you know. He walked in the door. The first thing he did, he walked to every musician, shook their hand and said, thank you for helping me. From that time on, it was all great.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were playing harmonica with him?

SPEAKER_01:

I played harmonica on some records, High Heel Sneakers, Big Boss Man. I washed my hands in Muddy Waters. And I played a lot of things. By then, I was known as a utility man. I played vibraphones, played organ, some acoustic guitar.

SPEAKER_00:

played on the Boxer, didn't you, with Simon Garfunkel? Did you play the bass harmonica on that? Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

bass harmonica on the Boxer. I want to tell you that I think Paul Simon is a genius. When you consider his hit records, they're all different. When they called and asked me if I had a bass harmonica, Paul Simon wants to use it. I said, I'll have one by the session date. I didn't have one yet, but I got one. And went to the studio and... And I thought, what am I going to do on this song? And he said, now here's what you do. And he dictated every note to me. He was great that way. He just knew what his songs needed.

SPEAKER_00:

So you hadn't really played much bass harmonica before then. Did you practice it much before the session?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The big difference is the skips between the notes, you know. Yeah, I do all of them. What is it, a quarter inch to the next hole? This big thing in your hand, it's like, whoa, it weighs a lot. It takes a lot of air. The skips were weird. It took a little work. Fortunately, on what he had me play, there was not a lot of skipping around.

SPEAKER_00:

So, you know, you played with Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Paul Simon, some of the biggest names, as I say, your career, probably the best ever harmonica player from the amount of people you played with and the names you mentioned there. Your harmonica playing is always a very melodic approach to playing, isn't it? That is the way you approach it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a decision I made after a producer started asking me not to play so bluesy and after Mr. Grady Martin told me I played too much. And I decided, you know what? I was fascinated by the country instruments. Fiddle, steel guitar, dobro. And I started trying to copy... what those guys were doing. And the combination of that and cleaning up the sound, it kind of developed into what has become, I guess, my style. It was something that evolved. That's all I can say. It evolved.

SPEAKER_00:

So, yeah, very melodic. And a lot of that may be put down to this country style and the fact that... How would you describe the difference between country style harmonica playing and, say, blues harmonica playing?

SPEAKER_01:

You play a lot less... You know, rather than that, rather than that, you know, it's a straight note. It's just a cleaner approach and a lot more melodic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I've been listening to a lot of your stuff over the last few days before I was talking to you and there's lots of melodic stuff in there. And it's great to hear because I think a lot of people associate the harmonica, the diatonic harmonica with blues, but I think a lot of people want to play melodies. So I think if people who are interested in listening to this want to check out melody playing, you're the best place to start with that.

SPEAKER_01:

One thing I was always told, listen to the lyrics. When I record my own solo records, I pretend that I'm a singer and that I'm singing the lyrics. Because I think when people listen to instrumentals and they hear songs that they know, I think in their subconscious, they're singing along with you. And you know, one other thing, in the late 60s, we had a style of music in America come popular that They called Southern Rock and bands like ZZ Top, Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels Band became very popular. Some of our session guys decided, why don't we go to the studio and see if we can, you know, come up with something. And we went out and we started this studio band and we called it Area Code 615, the Nashville telephone number, you know. We made an album. The album was released. It was a flop, but it became very popular inside the music business. Little time passes and a guy calls me up and he said, guess what? One of those songs off your album is going to be used on BBC. Most people in England know that as the theme from the old Grey Whistle Test.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's right, Sean. I was going to say that. Over here, that song is probably one of the most famous harmonica songs, certainly from that period that people recognize. So that's Storm Fox Chase. Was that song so big in America or was it just in the UK that it was particularly big?

SPEAKER_01:

No, just the UK, really. It's been good to my mailbox, if you know what I mean. On the record with only two people was myself and the drummer, Kenny Buttrey.

SPEAKER_00:

As I say, a very iconic song here in the UK. I mean, every harmonica player, certainly in the UK, knows that song very well. So I've played it myself many times as well. So thanks for that. I've performed that song. It's always a popular song to play. And of course, you changed key of harmonic a couple of times in that, don't you?

SPEAKER_01:

It was a lot of the same, so I decided to modulate some.

SPEAKER_00:

so yeah so going back to the more melodic style of playing or what we might call country style so you play a few different well quite a lot of different tunings don't you so there's an amazing resource on your website which lists all your solo albums and then shows all the different keys you play in and then even the different tunings which is a superb resource so thank you very much I didn't realize that until I actually looked the other day that you had all this amazing information so again if people want to play along with your records that's a brilliant resource to be able to check out a common tuning that you do use is the country tuning which is i think where the we have a major seventh so is that what you would call the the country tuning your favorite tuning

SPEAKER_01:

uh yeah country tuning is it i want to tell you how this came about about 1973 we put out our our second album that sold records and it's a self-titled album and on the recording i do the uh the irish tune danny boy one day This guy came, I was over at the record company's office and the receptionist said, there's some guy wants to talk to you about harmonica. And I said, okay. So he comes back. This guy was a 65-year-old house painter. And he said, I played chromatic all my life. And when I heard your records, I decided to take up the tin hole. And he said, I got your album. And there's one song, I had a hard time figuring out how you did it, was the song Danny Boy. Now, I'm not sure how you did it, but I'm going to tell you how I think you did it. I was really curious, you know, curious about what he was going to say. So he said, you took this harmonica and took the plate off and you filed the fifth draw read. And he picked up a harmonica. He had one with him. And he said, and you played this chorus part on Danny Boy. And what I actually, what I did on the recording, I used two harmonicas. I used a B flat on the verse. And on the chorus, I went to an F in first position. Like that. But he said, no, you tune this. And when you went to the chorus on that same B flat harmonica, you went. And he said, that's the way you did it, isn't it? And I said, no, but that's the way I'm going to do it from now on. I called the

SPEAKER_03:

owner

SPEAKER_01:

and I said, look, I need something because I tried to do this myself. And every time I did, I ruined it. I called the owner and I said, could you get one of your guys to try this for me? And they, they did. And they made it work. And I said, I need a whole set of them. I love this because now I, I can play melodies, you know, that I could not play before. Like, you know, I couldn't have done that on the regular tune. And I play almost exclusively in second position.

SPEAKER_00:

So I was going to ask about that. So as you said, you started playing with a major seven, so that would be a five draw, tuned up a semitone. So you wanted that, so you had the expression of second position, yeah? So you didn't play first position because you wanted the second position expression, I take it.

SPEAKER_01:

I rarely play in first position. It's almost exclusively in second. And then somebody showed me the thing about raising the third blow a whole step, and I called it Patty Richter. So I've done that some too, to play nice soft songs and play that second scale tone without a whole tone bend. It's just a little more gentle that way.

SPEAKER_00:

I use the Paddy Richter one a lot myself to play tunes, old time and Irish music. But melodically, like you said, that major seven, I don't actually have one tuned to a major seven. So I'm going to check it out. And like I say, playing along with some of your records, you do need that major seven. You also play, I'm just looking through the list now of the different harmonicas that you put on there. You're playing different types of harmonicas, aren't you? You've got on here a hone of vest pocket, polyphonic.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was for a special effect. And there used to be, Horner used to make a vest pocket, a high octave G and a high octave

SPEAKER_00:

A. Right, so it's just a high octave, is it, the vest pocket? Yeah, right,

SPEAKER_01:

right. That's all that was. But for the most part, now, all I play is Special 20. Six years ago, Horner moved their United States headquarters to Nashville, California. That is

SPEAKER_00:

nice. Is that so they could get close to you?

SPEAKER_01:

They've got a young technician out there that's brilliant. So my harmonica problems are solved.

SPEAKER_00:

So you're a owner in Dorsey? I have for 40 years, yes. We mentioned you playing blues harmonica there and that your early influences were blues harmonica. So Harp in the Blues is an album you released in 1975, which obviously is a blues album. You do a song called Tribute to Little Walter on that song where you say at the beginning of the song is...

SPEAKER_01:

The best blues harp player I ever heard was Little Walter. He was the king of blues harp. I guess I stole more mix from him than any man alive. Nobody ever really played the blues as good as Walter, but a whole lot of us tried.

SPEAKER_00:

What sort of influence did Little Walter have on you and what was your interest in blues harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

I think he was the best that ever played it, you know, the blues harmonica. And so when I did this blues album, I was trying to do You know, I did some country blues, and I did a Dixieland with Pete Fountain and Al Hurt. And so I could not mention Lil' Walter when you're talking about blues. I actually played through a Green Bullet mic, like Walter used to play through an amplifier. Boy, I'll tell you what, I spent many hours practicing with, you know, like so. You

SPEAKER_03:

know,

SPEAKER_01:

that's Walter.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So you did start playing, you know, as a blues player when you started playing harmonica. That was your main interest, was it, as a harmonica

SPEAKER_01:

player? Yeah, when I was 16, I went crazy for it, you know. Up until then, I'd pick it up from time to time and I'd go two, three, four months without even touching it because I was so into the guitar.

SPEAKER_00:

And do you still play the other instruments you mentioned? Do you still play them all? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I don't, I don't get much call anymore for, I play the main, my main call other than harmonica is vibraphone. And usually I'll do those on the same session, you know, but yeah, I still play on my newest album. I'm playing tuba. You know, I play keyboard, guitar, bass. I played baritone saxophone on, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's a lot of instruments. I play a few instruments myself, and I do find that obviously you're spreading yourself between those different instruments. How do you feel that works, maybe as a harmonica player, to spending the time with your instruments? What does that bring to your harmonica playing, or just as a musician in general?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, at this point in my life, I've been playing this thing 70 years. I don't really practice anymore. except when I'm going to record a new album. I work on the songs, you know, but for my recreation, especially during this time when we're all been, you know, we've been shut in, I play the guitar a lot. And now I'm working

SPEAKER_00:

on the Irish

SPEAKER_01:

whistle.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so as you say, you've done lots of albums. You're still... You released an album just this year, yeah, called Les Bon Temps. Les

SPEAKER_01:

Bon Temps, yeah. I just released it. I picked a terrible time to release it, by the way. Everyone in this country is out of work, and nobody's buying any music.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, not the greatest time. But, yeah, so you just released an album this year, so you're still actively releasing albums, which is great to see. Yeah, that was my

SPEAKER_01:

43rd

SPEAKER_00:

album. 43rd album, wow.

SPEAKER_01:

And my next one, you know, with all this time down, I've been– doing a lot of thought about my next one. And I'm going to do a gospel album of songs that I've written or co-wrote, songs with lyrics. And of course, there'll be harmonica on it, but it won't be an instrumental album like most of my normally kind of are.

SPEAKER_00:

But, you know, as a harmonica fan and a harmonica player, that's an attraction of your albums because they're instrumental. You know, you get lots and lots of harmonica, which, you know, as a harmonica fan is always good. So, yeah, but obviously nice to play with a singer as well.

SPEAKER_01:

And I did... This instruction video, at the time it was a video for the London-based company Music Sales, and we did the recording in Ireland, and it was a funny story. They rented a house up above Dublin, and we went in there, and the day we were recording, it was really stormy, and it was a lot of thunder and lightning, and every time the lightning would kick up, the two guys, the sound man and the cameraman would say, Don't you think we should break and go to the pub and let it go by? They just wanted to be in the pub. They didn't want to be doing what they were doing. Some musicians played on that with me, and three of them were in the original river dance. So that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, your instruction video is still available on your website, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, it's now a DVD. And yeah, it's still available, the same one. It's called Beginning Country Harp.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that available online as well, or is it a physical DVD only?

SPEAKER_01:

Now, I'm in a thing in France called the iMusic School, but the problem is their website is only in French, and if you don't understand French, you can't really negotiate to get to the lessons. Of course, my lessons are all in English. If you don't know French, you can't. You can't hardly figure it out. I've had many people... You know what? That helped me sell a lot of this other one, too, because people would email me frustrated. I want to do these lessons, but I can't. I said, hey, why don't you just get my DVD? It's got the same stuff on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, we'll put a link to, obviously, your website and your DVD will be available from there. So you mentioned France there. I believe you know J.J. Milto well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, he's a good friend of mine. Actually, I know a lot of... harmonica players in Europe, Steve Baker. Yeah. Don Baker from Ireland. Jean-Jacques Milteau is a great friend and a great player.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he's a fantastic player, yeah. I love his playing, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We did a tour together in 1977 with the French superstar Eddie Mitchell. It was just me and an American steel player along with the French band, and part of the French band was Jean-Jacques. So we were two harmonica players on stage with Eddie Mitchell.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course, he does a few tribute songs of yours, doesn't he? One of which, I believe, is Orange Blossom Special. So Orange Blossom Special is another song of yours which is very famous as a harmonica song. Tell us about that song.

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, Orange Blossom Special has always been known as a fiddle tune. It was written by a fiddle player. In 1965, I did my first recording session with Johnny Cash. And he was going to record a vocal version of Orange Blossom Special. And he asked me, he said, hey, can you play a solo on this? And I thought, wow. All I was going to do was, you know, fill between his lyrics. So I figured out this thing with two harmonicas to kind of simulate what a fiddle does on the choruses of this song. And it was so funny. After the session, he walked over to me and he said, can you show me how to do that? So I not only showed him, but I gave him the two harmonicas. To make that happen, he recorded it in C. And when we get to the chorus, you know, it changes keys to F. So I used a B-flat second position and then a F first position and did a... Like that. Like that. And then played the chorus in first position on the F. Like that. And after I went home, I thought, man, I got to learn that song for real. And it has become kind of a signature last song of a show tune, you know. Always play it every show.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great one. And then that chorus bit, though, that fast part which you've just played there is quite a tricky bit, isn't it? Is there any tips about how people can play that song?

SPEAKER_01:

And you know what's so funny? I've learned that when you're on a live show, people listen with their eyes. That first part where I'm doing it... It's kind of flashy, you know? And I'm switching so quick. And that... They're much more impressed with that than they are that difficult melody that happens right after that.

SPEAKER_00:

So you later recorded your own instrumental version of Orange Blossom Special.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've recorded it some several times. It was a single record, actually, in 1973. Got up in the country charts. And, of course, I recorded it first on the Real McCoy album. But then... I kept playing it and I thought I recorded that too slow. So I rerecorded it for the album in 73. The album was called Good Time Charlie. It is my only album that went number one in the country charts here.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great tune for people to check out if they don't know it already. So you're playing in two keys and using an F and a B-flat harmonica. And you also presented a TV show in America for a good number of years called Hee Haw.

SPEAKER_01:

I worked for Hee Haw for 18 years. The show ran for 24. It was a country music variety show. It had a lot of humor, you know, country humor. But it was very, very popular in America, and it did a lot for country music. It exposed country music to the whole country, and it was a great show. I was really happy to be there.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were playing a lot of harmonica on the show, were you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and after a year, they asked me to be music director, and so I was music director for about 17 years. I did some guest spots on the show, too, because... I'd already had these records out. It's funny, after that first record company went out of business and I said, I don't want to be an artist. All I want to do is studio work. And then I became an artist, right? And I've loved making my records. I just love the albums. I work with amazing musicians and it's like a real joy to put them together.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you've had a great career again. And you've written an autobiography as well, 50 Cents and a Box Top, The Creative Life of Nashville Session Musician Charlie McCoy. So that was a book you wrote yourself, was it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I wrote the book and I was doing an interview with a music professor from West Virginia University. He said, you ought to write a book. And I said, I have. And he said, where is it? And I said, it's sitting on my desk. I can't find a publisher. He said, could I read it? I made him a CD of it, sent it to him. He called me back in a week and he said, I got you a publisher. Oh, West Virginia University Press is going to publish this book. He said, now it needs some work. And he said, that's what I do. And I said, I know it needs some work and be my guest. So he's the co-writer on the book. His name is Travis Steinling. He made it all happen to get the publishing rights. We've done well with it. We've sold a lot of them. It's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And he put Travis in the back of it. He put a complete discography of every CD I'd had out up until then. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Including the succession work?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, not the session work. Well, we've touched on some of the big hits. I think it's somewhere over 13,000 sessions. Wow. And I don't remember half of it because, you know, for every big name I've played with, I've played with 10 you never heard of and probably never will.

SPEAKER_00:

All the session work you did, as you say, you were recording, I think, in the period in the 70s, you were recording on 400 sessions per year. So you were incredibly busy. I just wonder if you've got any advice about playing in the studio as opposed to playing live.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's the same old thing. And young harmonica players... I find if they go up to sit in with a band, man, when they start, they don't stop. And that's a no, no, no for studio work. You know what I mean? You've got to respect the song. You've got to respect the singer. I think maybe the greatest piece of session work I ever did was on a record by the country singer George Jones. It's called He Stopped Loving Her Today.

SPEAKER_02:

I played

SPEAKER_01:

four very tiny little fills. It worked, it fit the song, and that's one of my better pieces of work, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

He kept her picture on his wall Went half crazy now and then But he still loved her through it all Hoping she'd come back again

SPEAKER_00:

Were a lot of these pieces just something where you came up with the parts or were you playing from written parts some of the

SPEAKER_02:

time?

SPEAKER_01:

Listen, in Nashville written parts, it's so seldom that anything is written here. You know, okay, if you're going to have strings on the session, yeah, they would write out score for everyone. But for the most part, no. You learn it by ear. They hired musicians that they trusted who could fit in and come up with appropriate things. And if you kept going working studios and you didn't, Well, they quit calling you. It was pretty simple.

SPEAKER_00:

Talking about your interest in blues earlier on, did you have any harmonica influences about playing country style or playing more melodic style harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Not really. There was a couple of guys here, but harmonica wasn't hardly ever used on country music before 1961. There was a guy named Jimmy Riddle who played with Roy Acuff. He played chromatic and he played it kind of upside down. He was more rhythmic stuff. And then there was another guy named Oney Wheeler who was a fairly good second position guy. But there was, you know, he only played with Roy Acuff too. And those were the only records you could hear him on. So it was kind of like a voice that no one ever really paid any attention to. until 61. My timing to come here was perfect.

SPEAKER_00:

So were you really the start then of harmonica becoming popular in country music?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, I was the first one who was doing any studio work with any steady studio work.

SPEAKER_00:

So what about some good country harmonica players now that people listening might not be familiar with? Maybe some names you admire playing country style harmonica now. Obviously, Mickey Raphael plays with Willie Nelson.

SPEAKER_01:

There's some great... players here in town. Mickey Raphael, he's a very good friend of mine. He did a guest spot with me on two albums ago. There's a guy here named Buddy Green, who's a fantastic player. A guy named Jelly Roll Johnson, who played on all the Judds recordings and Randy Travis, he did a guest spot with me on this current album. And I've got a couple more guys out there that I want to get to do a duet with. There's a guy named P.T. Gazelle.

UNKNOWN:

P.T. Gazelle

SPEAKER_01:

There's a guy named Tim Gonzalez. And so, yeah, there's a lot of great young players here. And it's great for me to see that I think the future of their instrument's in good hands.

SPEAKER_00:

You've talked about you being, you know, having a solo career. I think you said you had 40 solo albums, but you've also done lots and lots of work as a sideman, as we've talked about. What do you think the difference is between being a sideman and being the band leader?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, the sideman is... All he worries about is his own part. The band leader's worried about everybody. For me, I'm comfortable either way. I've been a leader so much, you know, that I'm very comfortable doing that. And the musicians here, they're also great. They've bought into what happens here on these recording sessions. And it's so easy. And I'm telling you, when you're on a session with five other guys, probably any one of those is capable of being a leader. I mean, it's... The talent pool is that deep here. It's just incredible.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you have any advice for maybe young bands about how they should approach to make their music as best they can?

SPEAKER_01:

Harmonica players, pick and choose your spots. If you play all the time, the sound man's going to turn you down. And then if you play something special, nobody will hear it. Pick and choose. And when it's your turn, shine. And when

SPEAKER_00:

it's not... Get out of the way. And I know you do play some chromatic harmonica, yeah? How much chromatic do you play?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I own one. Now, I've recorded on that first, I think, on the world of Charlie McCoy, I did Fingertips, Stevie Wonder. And on two of my Christmas albums, I did, you know, the Christmas song, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. But to be honest... I know the chromatic, I know how to play it, but it's not my thing. I don't play it very often.

SPEAKER_00:

What about your embouchure? Which embouchure, you know, puckering, tongue blocking, do you use?

SPEAKER_01:

Intermittent. And, you know, if you ask me, it's so subconscious that I'd have to go back and analyze it to tell you. It's so subconscious, I'd never think about it.

SPEAKER_00:

So you switched between the two then, quite interchangeably.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I did switch between the two. I really got into Celtic music big time, you know. My father's family, McCoy, and my mother's family, Kelly, came from Ireland. And I got into this Celtic music big time. I have two Celtic albums. One is called the Celtic Bridge, and the last one I did is called Celtic Dreams. Celtic Bridge is pretty much all Irish music. Celtic Dreams, I've got a musician from Isle of Man. I've got guests from Scotland, a harmonica player named Donald Black from Scotland. It's very tasty what he does. And he did a guest spot with me on my second Celtic album. I love Celtic music, no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it works great on the harmonica, doesn't it? That's the thing. It's so effective on the harmonica. I do play quite a lot of that stuff myself.

SPEAKER_01:

Especially the slow songs, you know. I love those ballads, the Irish ballads.

SPEAKER_00:

A question I ask each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you work on? And I know you say you're not necessarily practicing as much now, so maybe when you were younger, or if you were just going to pick the harmonica up now, for someone who's in the vice, what to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Probably thinking of songs I've never recorded and trying them. Thinking of songs that I have on my mind to record in the future. and trying them out, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

So playing some melodies then. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

melodies, right. You know, a lot of guys get all hung up on tunings and technique and all that. My whole focus is on songs. What song will sound good on this and what's the best way to record it and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

I've got to say as well, Charlie, if you don't mind me saying it, but I think you say you're 78 now and still playing great. So do you think the harmonicas help keep your lungs nice and healthy? You're still playing at a great lick now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I am. I turned 79 in March. I've been blessed with very good health. I'm a big walker. I walk five kilometers every day. I have for 25 plus years. Harmonica doesn't hurt either. You know, it's good for your lungs. I'm blessed with good health. Listen, I'm still so excited about music. Music is alive and well. I think the business is sick. The internet has absolutely killed the record business. So the internet has absolutely killed the record business. Anymore, it's like making CDs has become an expensive hobby. But it's my hobby. And I love to do it. The only place you can sell them is at concerts or if you have a website, you know, you sell a few on your website. But I'm still excited. I love to make them. And this is my art and I'm going to leave it to the world.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll ask you some questions now about musical gear. That's okay. So we've already said that your harmonica of choice is a Horner Special 20 and you're a Horner in Dorsey. What about a favorite key of harmonica? It's a question I ask each time. I noticed looking through your recordings that you play lots of different keys. You don't seem to stick to just a few keys. Do you have one favorite key of harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I match the key to the song. The F is the highest pitch harmonica, you know. I'm not going to do a soft ballad way up high like that, you know what I mean? To get it more mellow. That's the way I think about that stuff. Now, if I'm doing bluegrass, you know, yeah, let's get on up there, you know what I'm saying? Because it's pretty cool. But for the most part, like... You know, it sounds good up high.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sounds great, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the way I think about that. It's all about the song. Plus, if you've ever been through some of my albums, there's rarely ever two songs back-to-back in the same key.

SPEAKER_00:

I was noticing, looking for the information on your website, where you show all the keys of the songs, it's really noticeable that you do have lots of different keys, and you quite often change the key of harmonica that you're playing in a song as well, so I think it really shows that you don't have a preference for a few keys. You really like to play what fits, don't you, and what the song calls for.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like the harmonica, you know, the good news and the bad news. The good news is you can carry one around in your pocket. The bad news is If you're going to be serious, you need at least 12 of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Talking about amplifiers, obviously you've mainly got a clean sound, so do you have a particular amplifier of choice, or do you stick to playing through the PA? No, I play through the PA. I don't play through the amp. So you don't really play through any tube amps, even when you're playing more bluesy stuff, you would play through the

SPEAKER_01:

PA? Only if I'm doing something like the Little Walter Tribute. playing through a green bullet, but no. Normally, if I'm on stage, no. I play right through the house PA.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about microphones? Do you have any favorite microphones?

SPEAKER_01:

For live, I like a Shure SM58. For recording, I usually use a Telefunken U67 or a Telefunken U87.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. What sort of mics are they?

SPEAKER_01:

They're German mics, and... They have been the class here in the studios. All the studios have Neumann. The company's called Neumann. They call their mic a Telefunken, but Neumann is the company. Every studio in town has Neumann mics because it's kind of like the class of the art here.

SPEAKER_00:

And so when you're playing through the PA, are you using any effects or effects pedals? Would you leave that to the sound man?

SPEAKER_01:

Nope. Whatever the sound guy puts on it, you know. No, for the most part, no.

SPEAKER_00:

Just to finish off now, so thanks very much for your time. And just wondering, obviously now we're in pandemic time. We're all locked down. Have you got any plans later this year or, you know, things you're looking forward to getting out playing? You've already talked about recording a new gospel album.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it's a strange year, as everyone knows. Everything I've had up until end of June has been canceled, but I'm still doing a few things. recording sessions, you know, internet stuff. I have an alleged tour in Sweden in August. We'll see what happens with that. Swedish piano player Robert Wells, who actually I played in London with last year, Pizza Express Jazz Club. And when this weirdness is over with, I'm going to take this new album, Les Bold Tons, and pretend it's brand new out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I'll start promoting it. I made a bad mistake about putting it out when I did.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, unlucky timing. Yeah. I don't think anybody predicted all this, did they? Right.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and I've already done a dozen sessions this year. And, you know, the studios are all shut down here. So there's nothing going on. This is said and done. there's going to be a good bit of studio work around. Plus, of the past three years, I've been playing fairly frequent on the Grand Ole Opry. I'll be doing that as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, superb. Well, it's great to see you're still playing and still active in a new album plan and still, hopefully, when you come over to Europe. Are you only playing in Sweden when you come over to Europe?

SPEAKER_01:

This trip would only be Sweden. I was supposed to do, in April, a studio gig album project with Eddie Mitchell in the south of France and then play on a Mediterranean cruise, Marseille, Italy, Greece, Malta, and Sardinia. Well, that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00:

No, unfortunately. So thanks very much, Charlie, for talking to me. It's been great to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Neil, thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it for today folks. Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose built for the harmonica. Be sure to check out their website.