Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Paul Harrington interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 87

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Paul Harrington joins me on episode 87.

Paul has a long and illustrious recording career, having had great success on the vibrant session scene in Dallas where he recorded on many commercials. He also played on the hit song Timber by rapper Pit Bull, possibly the most listened to song with harmonica in the last decade, with over one billion streams on Spotify. 

Paul met and performed with many great musicians on the Dallas music scene, becoming the go to harmonica player for famed record producer Phil York, appearing on the NBC Special with comedian Steve Martin, as well as sharing the stage with John Denver and Dolly Parton.

Paul released an album in his own name, the Harmonica Soul Serenade, with the song Mercy Mercy Mercy picked out for special praise on Adam Gussow’s YouTube channel.


Links:
Paul Harrington: Seydel endorser:
https://www.seydel1847.de/paulharrington


Videos:
Timber hit song:
https://youtu.be/hHUbLv4ThOo

Texas Blues Runners, Downtown from Sweet Mama album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8OPJyd_HRU

Adam Gussow reviews Paul’s Mercy Mercy Mercy song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSSG3eyhDc

News story by Paul’s nephew on his involvement with Timber song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_EXYVhNYrY

Norton Buffalo switching between four harmonicas on ‘Runaway’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPzcZNgVfpA



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

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:

Paul Harrington joins me on episode 87, having had great success on the vibrant session scene in Dallas where he recorded on many commercials. He also played on the hit song Timber by rapper Pitbull, possibly the most listened to song with harmonica in the last decade, with over 1 billion streams on Spotify alone. Paul met and performed with many great musicians on the Dallas music scene, becoming the go-to harmonica player for famed record producer Phil York, appearing on the NBC special with comedian Steve Martin, as well as sharing the stage with John Denver and Dolly Parton. Paul released an album in his own name, The Harmonica Soul Serenade, with the song Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, picked out for special appraise on Adam Gussell's YouTube channel. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas. Hello, Paul Harrington, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, Neil. How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm great, thank you. Thanks for joining today. So you're talking to us from Texas now, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, sir. Rockwall, Texas.

SPEAKER_00:

Great, but you didn't grow up around there. You grew up, I think you were born in Chicago originally, were you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I was Southern Illinois I was born, but it's pretty much the same. Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_00:

where I was born and raised in the farmland. And so did you have some music influences when you were young? You know, what got you into music?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I played piano when I was real small and then I got a harmonica for Christmas and that's what got me going.

SPEAKER_00:

How old were you when you got that first harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Nine. And I wouldn't put it down. It eliminated piano as a career. Do you remember what sort

SPEAKER_00:

of harmonica that was? Yeah, it was a marine band. Great. So then when you got this harmonica age nine, like you say, though, you couldn't put it down. You know, what sort of things were you playing on it when you first got it?

SPEAKER_01:

Roll out the barrel. We'll have a barrel of fun was the little pamphlet that came with the harmonica. And it told you it had a tongue block, which I immediately, you know, that was as far as I read. That's something I didn't want to know for a while. Now I like it.

SPEAKER_00:

So were you tongue blocking right from the beginning?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. I looked at those directions and it was too much, too much for me. I just threw them away. I thought, well, I can play this thing without doing that.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. You were only nine. Where did you go from there? Did you just carry on learning yourself by ear? And, you know, how did you carry on learning the harmonica from then?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'd go down to the tracks and play along with the trains as they sped up going out of town. It allowed me to be private, you know, in my rehearsal and stuff. That's really why I was doing it. And there was a lot of Westerns on television then. And so I played along with the television and played along with Westerns. And that was cool. Because, you know, I was probably in first or second position all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you know about imitating trains and harmonicas? Or is that something you just did yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

I did it myself. It's just a natural... When the wheels go over the joint in the rail... that makes a clicking sound, semi-equal intervals, and then you have the squeaking, you know, the boxcar swinging back and forth and all this stuff, you know, it just was a natural for playing along with it. You had your own rhythm section.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's amazing that you would start doing that naturally, isn't it, considering it's such a tradition to play train imitations on the harmonica. It's incredible you kind of did that all by yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

At the time, it seemed to me like it was something I should know. It seemed like everybody should do it, you know. At the time, I did it, because when I discovered that What could check a thing? You know, I really was into it. And then the train whistle happened and I lived not too far from the railroad. And so it was an easy thing to do. I

SPEAKER_00:

mean, when you heard other train imitations, what, you know, recordings of other train imitations, did you then, you know, have you got a favorite one of those?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Was it Freeman's? Freeman Stowers, he was the first black person to play at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. And he had a 200-mile-an-hour train. I mean, that train would go just amazingly fast. Nobody knew his train ever went as fast as his harmonica train. It was like radio, you know? And so he played the part of the baby. He said, are you quitting me? Yes, I'm quitting you. Play me the Red Road Blues before I go. So then he started chucking, chucking, and away he went, 200 knots at least.

SPEAKER_02:

All aboard. Goodbye, baby.

UNKNOWN:

Goodbye.

SPEAKER_00:

So is a train imitation something that you've performed a lot since then? Is that something you like to do?

SPEAKER_01:

If I'm playing for kids, I will definitely do it. It's like a set list for different gigs. People seem really impressed by the check of what kind of thing you can do on a harmonica. It's natural. It's like if you give a kid a harmonica and they don't know anything about it, that's what they'll do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Start huffing and puffing.

SPEAKER_00:

So great. So again, how did you then develop through... You know, your teens playing the harmonica, you know, what were you doing to learn?

SPEAKER_01:

Bob Dylan, the Beatles were a big influence. Any harmonica I hear, I just, you know how it is, you go to it, your ear goes to it right away. And so I'd sit there in front of the TV and play along. I'd have my harmonica spread out in front of me. My parents were funny about that. They didn't mind and they didn't make any big deal out of it. They just left me alone. I always entertained myself, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Did you have several harmonicas to play in different keys or were you managing just with the one?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I did. I got my second harmonica in February because that's my birthday. I played that first harmonica so much in December that they said, man, let's get him another harmonica. Let's get him a good one this time. So they got me one with a button, chromatic 12, model 270. I got that, and boy, that was my friend forever. It was just like, oh, man, I can play any song on this, you know, because it had all those sharps and everything. I'm sorry I lost that harmonica. I don't know where it got off to, but I wish I'd hung on to it.

SPEAKER_00:

You were able to play in different keys, and as you say, and then you could play along with different things then. Yeah. So you actually learned a lot of your stuff on chromatic first then?

SPEAKER_01:

They came along together. They came along at the same time. And I'll tell you something else I used to do. I used to play along with the radio after I got myself about 10 harmonicas. I kept going to the swim practice at Decatur, Illinois, and every time I'd go there, if I had an extra 15 minutes, I'd walk down to the music place and get myself a harmonica. It had chores, and it had a few bucks in my pocket, and I'd get myself a harmonica. When they went to a dollar and a quarter, I thought about quitting. I thought, that's ridiculous. That's too much for a Marine band. But still, I didn't have any flats, so I bought it. I set the harps out in front of me with the television on and had the oldies on the black and white TV, and they'd have Sons of the Pioneers or something. You could always find some kind of hook that you could hook into the chase or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. So you really learned by, like you say, playing along with radio and television and playing by ear.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And WLS in Chicago, it was the world's largest store for Sears Roebuck. And it was a very powerful soul record source. And so I had a good radio station.

SPEAKER_00:

When did you start discovering blues music and blues harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

I discovered it about, oh, I guess I was probably 11. It came on pretty quick because it was happening right then. You know, 63, 64. There was a lot of white and black crossover. Otis Rush and Bo Diddley, I heard him a lot. He was up playing on the white radio station. And he's crossing over, you know. So I heard a lot of that. sam cook i listen to him a lot i listen to uh jimmy reed jimmy reed my goodness i listen to him a lot i played last night and i was doing jimmy reed licks the trumpet player loves jimmy reed and i'm trying to teach him how to play the upper end he's digging it you know he's really cool so

SPEAKER_00:

So was he one of the first blues harmonicas you got into then, Jimmy Reed?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he was. He was very early for me. And it was coming at me fast and quick by then. I actually had a formal day that I quit rock and roll. When I was a sophomore or junior in high school, I was a recognized snob about music. And I told these guys, I said, I'm not listening to rock and roll anymore. And they said, why not? I said, because I'm listening to blues. I'm going to need to spend all my time on the blues. That's what I'm going to spend. And so then they started coming to me with Al Green records, you know, these soul records and said, is this guy good? Yeah, he's good. Yeah. You know, and, but, you know, the Beatles and the Stones and, you know, Stones, I could catch on to it right off, you know. First and second position seemed real natural to me. I could, I could cop Mick Jagger. So that was handy.

SPEAKER_00:

You were still living, what, near Chicago at this time?

SPEAKER_01:

150 miles south of Chicago,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Middle of Illinois.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you manage to catch any of the blue zacks around Chicago at that time, or were you too young?

SPEAKER_01:

I was a swimmer, and I would go on about every weekend, or every other weekend, we would go to Memphis, or some other college, some universities, University of Illinois, we'd go to Illinois State University. We'd go to the student unions. The student union had a place you could get a Coke and you could wander around and nobody knew you. You could get away with anything. So I'd swim my event and then I'd go swim the butterfly and then I'd go looking for trouble. And I got to see Muddy Waters. I got to see him one time three weeks in a row or two weeks on and one week off or something. But I kept seeing this man and finally the guy said, come here, little boy. Who are you? What are you doing here? You know, they were being discovered by the English guys, making them hip to us. I didn't realize that Muddy Waters was a big star. I thought he was just a guy, you know, because he was just a real nice fella. I didn't realize I was getting to watch royalty.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you know which harmonica player he had with him then?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I know James Cotton kind of seemed like who I was watching. Walter Shakey Horton, he was one of the guys that I did see with Muddy. He had a microphone. I said, that microphone, that's a cool microphone. Where'd you get that? He goes, can't get it. Very rare. Very rare. I said, okay. He was a cool guy. He played chromatic and harp at the same time he was building the chord. I have him stuck up there in his hand some way. I've tried to do it. I haven't been able to get that one down.

SPEAKER_00:

And then at some point, I mean, you had a day job. I think you were a court reporter, yeah, but then you decided to become a full-time harmonica player. How did that come about?

SPEAKER_01:

I just, I got through school and I got a job and I decided that I was going to do this. And then I just couldn't keep away from the band. I couldn't stay off the bandstand. I needed to play. So I had to call my parents up and say, you know, you know that money you spent on me to go to school and all? Well, I threw it away. And I'm mowing lawns to make up the difference, you know, the money I need to live on. I had a seven-piece band, do Allman Brothers covers and stuff, which was pretty cool. You think about it, the Allman Brothers, it's a rockin' deal. But they were true to the blues, too. Were you still

SPEAKER_00:

near Chicago then, or had you moved away by this point?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I was in Phoenix at that time. Then I played in a band in clubs. in phoenix and it was pretty tough man this light guy yeah light guy who's our sound man slash whatever you know he just called in the police and said his car got stolen they didn't even break it they didn't so you know so what what do you want me to do about it you know and so he reported a car stolen and then they found it in mexico and they made him take it back it was kind of interesting

SPEAKER_00:

okay so you were you were in phoenix for a while and then i think you then moved to colorado's

SPEAKER_01:

yeah fort collins and then and I was playing in bands. But then I had a handle on what I wanted to do as far as I had a sort of a plan, not a real good plan, but sort of a plan. I started hanging around with musicians strictly. I've always been kind of militant about playing harmonica. I'm not apologetic about it. That period of time really brought that home to me. I caught Mickey Raphael solos off of Willie Nelson records.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hell, I can do that, you know. That ain't no big thing. Now it sounds like a big thing to me, but then at the time I didn't really get it.

SPEAKER_00:

Were you living then as, you know, working as a professional musician at this point?

SPEAKER_01:

It was semi-professional. I mean, I had a day job on and off. You know, I quit my day job and lived on music for a little while, and then I get another one. I've always been over-employed. I think I worried so much about making it. I kept myself. I think I worked myself to death, just about. Yesterday I did... a four-hour shift at the pool store, because this was a big holiday, you know, so we were open. And then at noon, I took off from there, ran home, grabbed a 30-minute nap, got my truck loaded, and got ready to go to set up in Dallas, set up in a four-hour gig again. So this morning, I got home. I left the house at 6.30 in the morning, and I got back home at 1.30 in the morning. It's like, wow. I used to do that

SPEAKER_00:

all the time. So how old are you now, Paul? 71. 71. You're doing great. You're showing us that we can still do it into our 70s. That's great to hear.

SPEAKER_01:

You really can. I'm surprised myself, but yeah, you can. You know, and think about working for other people. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a capitalist all the way, but I think you can just set your goals. You know, when I set my goals when I was a kid, those were the best, most successful decisions I ever made. You know, that I wanted to do something that I wanted to do. And I didn't want to do something, you know, I didn't want to do somebody else tell me what to do. I wanted to do what I felt in my heart.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's great to hear and very inspiring that, you know, like you say, you put the music first. A lot of people, myself included, you know, you worry you have to keep the day job and, you know, that takes a lot of your time. Yeah, but it's great to hear what you've done. I mean, I guess the question is now, could you still... do that today, you know, is the music scene?

SPEAKER_01:

I think in this market, I think you could. Texas, you know, I lived here by design. It's a real live music place. And that's essential to me because I can't deal on the corporate level or I've never been able to. And the thing is, you know, being a father is really, really important to me. It's the most important thing to me. And I raised those two kids with a harmonica. You know, that, probably the best thing I ever did was raise those kids with a harmonica. That was hard. Didn't sleep much, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

So you've had a great career, so we'll go through that. So you mentioned Dallas, so you're now living in Dallas. Yeah. So you moved there specifically for the music scene, did you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I did. It was an advertising thing. I lived in Ashman, and at the time, I met Roland Elbert, who's a great, great piano player. Truly. And he plays in the nicest hotels in Dallas. And he's just a monster. And Roland Elbert came to take a ski vacation in Aspen. And I was there working six sets a day, two in the afternoon and four at night. And my chops were up, too. If you play six hours a day, man, you can play anything. You might not have any soul in you, but you'll play good. Roland Dilbert said to me, he said, I came here for vacation. I said, how do you afford to come? What do you do for a living? He said, I'm a piano player. I said, you're a piano player? Is that what you do? He said, yeah. I said, you must be a good piano player. He said, yeah, I'm pretty good. And then he said, come down and call me when you get to Dallas. Come down and visit. So I went down to visit some other friends that lived here and, man, seeing a Kmart was like, ooh, it was so cool when I lived in Aspen. To tell everybody I was in Dallas and I saw Kmarts and Kresge's and Walmart's and all that stuff, you know, it's like couldn't get it in Aspen. But I came down here and I just knocked on doors and I really sold myself as a harmonica player. And you just have to suck it up and just say it, even though people be obnoxious to you. And like that, when you're a salesperson, you have to just be tough and just take a few times and then you finally you'll get it, you know, a

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, so a lot of your success and the reason you moved to Dallas is to get involved in the recording, the session work. So in the studio work. And so Dallas was the jingle capital of the world at one point, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is correct. When I moved here, it was about, I think 80% of the big jingles that were recorded were recorded in Dallas. And I mean, that includes LA, New York, and Nashville. You know, that's, probably should have thought about going to Nashville earlier Delbert McClinton told me, he said, Paul, you must be present in order to win. He wanted me to move to Nashville.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, you've done great in Dallas. So like you say, you knocked on doors and you kind of, you know, made yourself known to them. When you started getting this session work you were doing, did you, you know, did you have to develop any particular skills to do that? You know, what's on your harmonica, you know, what were you working on so you could play these sessions?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'm still working on stuff. That's one thing. I really have an attitude. I'm going to keep working at this until I expire. That's the way I figure. Because I can still do it. It's some fun thing that an old person can do. So I guess I'll just keep doing it. I think about overblows a lot, and I don't do them. I do them bad, just enough for them to mess up my playing. But I have a way of, I just practice everything that I throw at myself. some of it sticks. If I'm going to play a country gig tonight, I'll probably take my chromatic out for the rehearsal time. I always would practice it. Whatever harmonica I wasn't playing, that's what I'd practice because it just seemed to clear my mind of certain things that you do on a certain kind of harmonica. One of the things I've started doing, I got to where I was carrying so many harmonicas with me to a gig. It was just nonsense. I didn't have a set of CX-12s and a set of these Seidells and a set of low-tuned harps, you know. And then I have all my custom ones that have been built for me. And shoot, man, it's an embarrassment of riches, you know. I got so confused the song would be over before I'd be ready. So I got to cut down my kit again. Cut it down to like 30 harps for last night.

SPEAKER_00:

So it sounds like then you made yourself very versatile. So you're playing different harmonicas and different styles. Is that what was a big reason that you got this amount of session work that you did?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. The thing is, people that hire you to do sessions, they don't know about the harmonica anymore than anybody else. I mean, they might have a music degree, but they've never studied the harmonica. So what you play is what becomes their reality. What does a harmonica sound like? Well, does it sound like Butterfield or does it sound like... Bob Dylan, you know. You just have to just roll with the punches and try and listen to them, try and cop what they want you to do. And that's what I do. I'm just a salesman, you know. I try to do what they think. If they think I'm a funk player, I'm funky. And if they think I'm an acoustic, you know, blues daddy, I'll be an acoustic blues daddy, whatever.

SPEAKER_00:

So talking about then some of the sessions that you did, and you played on lots of commercials over there in the U.S. I've got here for Chevrolet, for Shell, for Exxon, McDonald's, Burger King, Pepsi, Coke. You've done recordings for all these guys, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Pepsi was a good win. I did– there was a brand of beans. They've got a can of beans down here. How long has it been since you had– something beans and says well that's too long and uh i i got and i got into the jingle that particular slot and sometimes you can get to turn out 10 or 12 ads they used to do that and i'd be on every one of them you know and i just think i they just decided i was making the money and people liked what i did and that was that and i have got friends that that have bumped me out of sessions that They convinced them that they were the latest thing, you know, and that's the way it works.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you have any copies of these recordings, these commercials? Do you have them anywhere?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I've got a CD that I called nothing to it. It's in everybody's, every studio's library. And they've got 15 and 30 seconds, you know, And they've got different voicings. Different voicings they put in it. Nothing to it was the name of the CD. Every time I go in a different studio, I check to see if they've got it. Because nowadays, they put the music right with... It's much easier to move the music to the video than it used to be. Because it used to be you did it with video and that was it. And you were stuck with it. But I've listened to myself. I've walked through the room and heard myself playing on a Mercedes car, you know, local car ad. And... same music a year later at a Ford truck place. It's just, you know, they just pick out something, they say, sounds good, and they put a voice over and away they go, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So let's talk about a session that is a really famous one that people might not know you played on. So you played on the hit song Timber with the rapper Pitbull in 2013. So this is a really massively popular song and it's had like over a billion streams on Spotify. So tell me about how that came about.

SPEAKER_01:

I taught a group harmonica lesson at this place called Fun Ed Magazine. It's a magazine that they give away at the grocery store, check out things. And it just had different kinds of adult continuing education. So it was mostly adults. And I'd get into class and, you know, I'd have 25 people in there and I would try to get them to play a song in two sessions, you know. One of the guys took private lessons from me. I met him there and he took privates from me. And then he went to start his own business. He referred me to another producer who said, yeah, this is the guy you need. They're looking for harmonica players. So it was just word of mouth, really. I mean, it really was just word of mouth. I got in there and I didn't know who Pitbull was. And he had a history in Dallas. I know some people that knew him before he was a hip hop guy. You know, he was a Caribbean guy, you know, before that. That's how I got it. Those guys made me blow and he really worked me over. Felt good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the riff itself was kind of based on a Lee Oscar riff.

SPEAKER_01:

The producer said, you know, he played the Lee Oscar thing. It's all legal and everything. He sold it to his label and his label sold it to Sony. And then, you know, away we go.

SPEAKER_00:

I understand that when you did the recording, I think it's like a repeated riff. But you had to play through the whole song. You didn't just record the riff once, did you? You had to play through the whole duration of the song.

SPEAKER_01:

That's correct. He's like a Dallas studio guy and producer. In Dallas, you can cut things up and snip things together and everything, but If you really want to catch a live recording, catch the live recording. Catch everybody playing live. As much as I can get live music recorded, that's what I'm for. And so this guy said, okay, we're going to put you next to this O-scope, and we'll see how close you are. And it took me an hour and 15 minutes to do that, and my clothes were soaking wet. It really did, because I had to get it just right. It's like the advertising guys say. They say it's got to be perfect today. Can't be tomorrow. And you better have soul in it.

SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic to be on such a successful song. And you got a lot of attention. There's actually kind of a news clip, I think, of your nephew.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's a good guy. He was the weatherman in Shreveport, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'll put a clip of that onto the podcast page so people can see that. And then also, I believe that your initial fee, you were able to get some more money after the song was so successful.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I did. I got more money. They paid me on the Digital Performance Act or law or whatever. And it's something that Congress had had in the system. Lawgivers passed it down to us and the union didn't do anything with it. And my friend, the attorney, said, Paul, I think we need to get you some money. And he did. Got

SPEAKER_00:

what you

SPEAKER_01:

deserve there. That's good to hear, Paul.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

you know what? Of course, I like getting a check now. And that's great. But I got to tell you, The fact that the producer turned me up, he put me out front there. The only place they pulled me down in that track, when you listen to that track, is when they're singing, which I should shut up anyway, but he didn't have me shut up. He just had me play to it.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, you must be really proud to have played on such a successful song as Timberland. You must have heard it everywhere when it was out.

SPEAKER_01:

It's the kind of piece that gets played for other things all the time. jukeboxes and workout videos and stuff like that. Sometimes they pay me, sometimes they don't, but pretty much they do.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And did that lead you on to getting other work? Yeah, it has. Great. So as well as all the session work you've done, you've also, you know, you played with a lot of bands around there, certainly where you are now, and played with some pretty famous names. So you played with Chuck Rainey, who is a famous band. bass player he's done lots of famous recordings including one with Paul Butterfield so yeah you played a lot with Chuck Rainey around Dallas

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah yeah he's we were hoping to get him out last night we didn't get him out last night but he comes around once in a while and he's a member of this friend of mine has a music society that he's promoting musicians and booking them and doing everything to help musicians that's nice and his name's Ron Wilson, and he's a pretty cool guy. Chuck is a prize. That's a nice thing. I'm glad you mentioned that, though. I've enjoyed playing with all the great players that I've gotten to play with. Again, the money is great, but really the money is just a place for me to spend my time, allow me to have extra money to spend my time playing music. I just love playing, and I love being a player.

SPEAKER_00:

Great to hear, yeah. Someone else you play with is Phil York, who's a famous producer, and he's a three-times Grammy winner as well. So you've recorded with Phil York on a few

SPEAKER_02:

things.

SPEAKER_00:

So how did you get to record with Phil York as a producer?

SPEAKER_01:

Phil York called me to Jingle Spot. And then I became his guy, and he started using me for everything. And that's why I decided to go with him. I wasn't going to go to make that album without Phil. After I did it, and I learned a lot about producing myself, just treat people decent, and you'll be all right. I did an album for a guy named Jewel Aiken. And he had, let me tell you about the birds and the bees and flowers and the trees. And he was a good soul singer out of Houston. And he became a gospel singer. And I did Amazing Grace. And I did most of his album. And Phil York produced that. And it was a good gospel album. Really good, really heartfelt stuff. And I'm proud of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Someone else you played with is Rusty Weir, who was another big star around Texas. So you toured with him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I toured with Rusty. I was practically his roommate there for a while. He passed a little while ago, but... He's a great guy, great artist. He wrote a song for Bonnie. He didn't write it for Bonnie Raitt, but she ended up making a bunch of money on it called Don't It Make You Want to Dance. And it was just a country rock thing. Texas has good musicians and they all can play country pretty much. Sooner or later, you can scratch them deep enough, you can find a country in there.

SPEAKER_00:

And then something else you did is you played on the NBC special with the comedian Steve Martin.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I did. I did two sessions for him. The big one was I was a turtle boy. And I got to tell my dad, Dad, if you look for me on Saturday night, watch NBC, and if you hear harmonica, it's probably me. And then he was a proud father then. When I left home, I left the career sitting in the toilet, and I started playing harmonica, and my dad, he wasn't happy about it. he forgave me

SPEAKER_00:

yeah great and then you played you know again with other people a guy called keller thomas she played on an album called lay low and then with a player called jesse thomas who's a who's a blues player. He played on an album called Jack of Diamonds.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

that one, I really helped produce that one big time. That one, I lined up the players and we got the rules of engagement set up, you know. This thing I talk about doing things live as much as possible. It really pays off when you do it. It brings all the players to it. You can sit there and live in headphone heaven. You got to really dig in once in a while and just really feel what you're doing. And if everybody's playing first take stuff, if you're playing it like it's going to be one take, you play it like it's going to be one take. Don't slough off. I find it liberating.

SPEAKER_00:

playing in the moment, yeah. A recent band of yours, is it your current band, is it Texas Blues Runners? And you've just released an album quite recently called Sweet Mama

SPEAKER_01:

with them. Yeah, yeah, I did a record with them. I'm going to play with those guys the 7th of September. I got a job with him in Wichita Falls. A really good guitar player and a real good drummer. It's fun. I got to play with Bonnie Wright's guitarist. He's since died. He died here a year ago. I

SPEAKER_00:

believe you've also played concerts with some really famous names such as John Denver and Dolly Parton.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I played concerts with Ricky Nelson. We were set up to play on New Year's Eve with Ricky Nelson. And that was the night that his plane crashed. But I was trying to get into the Ricky Nelson band. I really wanted to be in that band because I played that rockabilly stuff. And I like it. Harmonica sits good with it.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you released in 2003 your own album called Harmonica Soul Serenade, which is a fantastic album of mainly harmonica instrumentals. So, yeah, what about this album? What made you put this together and who did you get on it?

SPEAKER_01:

I got Buddy Whittington, who deserves credit on this album, and he doesn't get it, but he sure did a good job. I had 19 players, I think, 19 different guys. It was just, you know, paybacks. And again, we did the whole album in three days. So I'm pretty pleased with that. It wasn't a lot of overdubbing or anything. It was just pretty much just here it is.

SPEAKER_00:

He got highlighted by Adam Gusso on his YouTube channel where he talks about you playing Mercy, Mercy, Mercy on the album. What did you think about Adam Gussow's review of your song there?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I thought it was nice of him. It's a nice thing for him to do. I really appreciate him and you too. I mean, it's nice that people listen. He's a good player too, man. Yeah. I

SPEAKER_00:

mean, you do quite a lot of varied stuff on there. Obviously, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy is a jazz song and you do Soul Serenade, which I guess is a kind of soul song. Yeah. You do No Sunshine, as in the Ain't No Sunshine. So you have quite a diverse mixture of songs on there.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it was just one of the songs that I felt needed recording by a harmonica. I always felt like, why did people cut these saxophone albums and they could cut a harmonica album just as easy? I've got a list as long as your arm of things I want to record. I don't suppose I will, but if I get the chance, I will. One thing about the singles that's coming back, I guess they're coming back, We did a Christmas single years ago, Homer Henderson and I did. It was like we took a rumba and put it in a minor mode and got a Christmas song out of it. So we had like a Silver Night, which was Silver Bells and Silent Night crossed and put in a minor with a... That kind of stuff. And it was just for grands. And, you know... We've got good reviews on it and stuff. You

SPEAKER_00:

play lots of different genres, as is shown on this album of yours.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I like to play whatever comes across my plate. I want to be able to play it. That's what I try to do. I listen to all the good guys. I listen to John Popper and I listen to Howard Levy. I listen to Kim Wilson. I listen to all the guys.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you approach a song which is more melodic, like, for example, There Ain't No Sunshine.

UNKNOWN:

There Ain't No Sunshine

SPEAKER_00:

Do you just learn that by ear, or how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, I learned it by ear, but I found out after the fact that I'm using a relative minor. I take a C harp and a D harp. So I use a D harp for the second position, and a relative minor is a C harp. And then I also, since you're playing a C harp, you might as well play a C chromatic. So in a song setup where you can just take solo after solo after solo, which means three souls is enough. It's interesting people listen to it because it does catch your ear. That's something I try to do that way. I'm losing some of my facility at burning as hard as I should, but maybe I'll get a dirtier mic. Try that for something. I'm always looking for something.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. So this album you put out in 2003. So is that your only sort of solo album, you know, in your name?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's the only self-produced album. It's the only thing

SPEAKER_00:

I've got. And then singing. I know that I read somewhere that, you know, you didn't start singing until you were 50. And it's wish you'd, you know, you'd wish you'd started that sooner so you could be more of the front man. So what about singing and playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, it's natural. And I was just too bullheaded. I didn't want anything getting in my way of playing the harmonica. And nothing did. I just kept looking at it as an excuse that I don't sing. So I sing now, and I want to sing all the time. I don't want to sing the whole show, but I could. I did it the other day. It surprised me, but I did the whole show at a birthday party. I played for a 90-year-old lady who's a friend of mine. We put together a good band on stage.

SPEAKER_00:

So what have you done to develop your singing? Is that something you've had to really work at, or did you feel you could sing quite well?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm surprised I sang pretty good. My first singing I did was that Why Work song that's on my CD. I got a good friend, he married well, he shook the money tree and It was easy to write, easy to sing and easy to play and pretty much easy.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And then, so as well as playing, you know, you mentioned diatonic and chromatic harmonica, you do also a little bit of bass harmonica. I see you playing some bass harmonica on the, um, on the recording, but you're only playing like one note on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. I played one note. I played an F. I was like, you didn't have an upright bass on that song. We were supposed to start with an upright bass, a simple Ringo drum set and, uh, just real gut bucket stuff. And, uh, I got my bass out. I got my bass ripped off or maybe I lost it. I don't know. It got away from me somehow. And I have to replace it. Every time, there's a tip on sessions. Take big harmonica. This is from the lips of Phil York. He told me, he said, Paul, take harmonicas when you go to work. Make it a big deal when you come in and set your stuff up. Because people think you do a session in the first take. He said, and then, you know, you want your check. And how am I supposed to tell him I gotta give a guy a hundred bucks and he's... he's only here five minutes so on the one hand on the gigs I need to not take as much stuff because it's too much for an old guy to carry but on the studio dates you need to make a couple trips you know keep walking in with more stuff that they don't know what the hell it is you know that's a good one

SPEAKER_00:

that's a good tip yeah thanks Paul and so a question I ask each time Paul is if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_01:

I like Real fundamentals. I mean, you know, I like to play, don't worry me, Fasolatito in three octaves. If you can do that, you're hitting a lot of players, you know. It's not easy all the time, but this disorder I've got is messing with my armature a little bit, but I can beat it. So I like fundamentals because I'm going, I know for myself, I'm going to play the fun stuff anyway. I always play the fun stuff. songs that I love or, you know, songs like we did to this bluesette the other day at this wedding party, not wedding party, birthday party and bluesette and I had an upright bass player and we had just the two of us were doing it and it worked out great and we did it, what do you call that when it's not in time? I can't think of the word for it but anyway, we played the song out of time. I like playing the bass. I wish, I wish I was better at it. Okay, so you practiced quite a lot on scales then. I like scales. And then I'm going to, you know, I'm guilty of this. I tend to think of myself as practicing counts and not practicing doesn't count. No, you're always practicing. Whether you know it or not, you're taking information in and you're spitting it back out. And that's practice. So, you know, I try to play, I try to play fundamentals when I'm just rehearsing just for pure, get my face loose, you know. and the rest of it will take care of itself.

SPEAKER_00:

When you were doing sessions, did you have to read music or were you playing all by ear, including on the chromatic?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm playing by ear, and I've got a set of chromatics too, which is not, I don't see a lot of those guys doing that much, but you know somebody I really like is Paul Gallet. He really works the chromatic good, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So we'll get on to talking about gear now, Paul, and talking about some of the gear that you do use. So I believe nowadays you're a Seidel endorser. Which of the Seidels do you like to play?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, 1847. I love them. They're really good harps. You cannot kill them. I mean, they just stay in tune and I guess it's stainless steel. I didn't think I'd like it, but I like it fine. The only thing I'd do, if I did a custom Seidel, I'd try and get the extra reed plate. Kind of do one of those deals where you've got the deep bend.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but you used to be a Hohner endorser, didn't you, and play the Golden Melody?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I did. I like Golden Melodies.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. But now, do you prefer the stainless steel reeds or the Seidels over the brass reeds?

SPEAKER_01:

I do like the stainless reed. I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you play any different tunings on the diatonics?

SPEAKER_01:

I used to, but I don't now. I used to try the country tuning and I just felt like I was trading something in for something else. If they could tack the holes onto the other end or something, I'd put them somewhere else. I'd probably get one with all the buttons and whistles and everything and then not play it. I used to like minors. There used to be a Hohner minor orchestra one and orchestra two. Orchestra 2 was the best harmonica I ever played. You couldn't find them anywhere. I finally got one from a music dealer in Chicago. Well, those things are, man, they were bulletproof. They had the combs wrapped in metal. It was just easy on your face, which was really a big deal early on. You know what I did with a set of marine bands? I bought myself a whole set of marine bands, and I took them and I dipped them in water. Pretty smart, huh? And I took a razor blade when they swole up and they stuck so the comb would reach the edge of the reeds. They kept sucking down the water and it was swelling out and I kept going with the razor blade and I got to my face and it just looked like two scabs on either side of my face. It was from harmonica, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the combs are much better these days. They don't swell up the same, certainly on the newer ones.

UNKNOWN:

Come on.

SPEAKER_00:

What about playing different positions on the diatonic? Do you play much beyond, you mentioned first and second position, any more than that?

SPEAKER_01:

Not usually, but here's something I think is interesting. I've had this happen to me twice where I picked out, when you're doing one of these Norton Buffalo, my main hero, by the way, Norton Buffalo solos where he makes the harmonica. When you change to the one chord, You know, he changes four keys in the solo. He changes harps every key. And it ends up being an easier way to play the solo. Funny thing about it is I put the harmonicas, set the harmonicas down wrong for this jazz piece that I did for a guy one time. Tony Hakeem was the guy's name. And I picked him up in the wrong order, but I went ahead and played him. You know, the position thing is really good. But when I'm doing something creative, I'll probably try to play weird positions because you can do it. You can get away with murder. You know, it's funny when you don't expect success on it. It'll still work, you know, used most of the time. Or you say, oh, I picked up the wrong harmonica. I saw Charlie McCoy do that one time. It was very inspirational to me. I didn't think Charlie McCoy ever did anything wrong, and he picked up the wrong harmonica on Hee Haw.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so then you have to find the right notes and play in a different position when you do that. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

you just launch into it. Follow the changes, just launch into it. So you mentioned earlier on that you don't really play overblows, do you not? I don't, although I find myself doing it a little more and more. Those extended, bended harps that Horner used to make, the XB40s, well, I like those, and I find myself using them. They naturally fall into overblows. It seems to me it's more natural, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm a nose overblow expert, for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about your embouchure? Do you like to lip purse, tongue blocking, anything else?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, the first, tongue block a lot. What I like about tongue blocking is that you can build different chords, more interesting chords when you're comping in a band situation. I comp a lot when I'm in a band and I just try to work off the guitar player and I don't want to jump out, but I still want my harmonica to add texture to the piece. And that's really what I do when I'm playing rhythm. That's all tongue blocking.

SPEAKER_00:

You know,

SPEAKER_01:

it works pretty well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So you play both, but you know, you like the tongue blocking more, do you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Lip is when I'm, if I'm really going to get after it,

SPEAKER_00:

really going to really tear it up. So what about amplification? What amps do you like to use? I use the Champ. I've got a

SPEAKER_01:

59 Champ that I use all the time in the studio. It's just, I've gone to other things, but I always go back to that Champ and it's just great. Perfect little amp. Got one knob. You can only turn it up. That's all you can do.

SPEAKER_00:

That's an original 59, is it?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Both of these. I don't have any reissue stuff, except my gigging amp is a reissue Vibroverb. And it's been wired point to point. And, you know, the circuit board's taken out of it. And it's a good amp. Very, very non-feedbacky. You know, it doesn't want to squeal. If you're using a

SPEAKER_00:

big amplifier, then, or your gigging amp.

SPEAKER_01:

I had a 59 Bassman. I had it for about 20 years. It was great.

SPEAKER_00:

And you used that to gig, would you?

SPEAKER_01:

If I'm using a big amplifier, I use the Vibroverb nowadays. Vibroverb's for gigs, pretty much. And I bought a Roland amp. It's 210 amp configuration. I can't think what the model number is. But it's pretty good, pretty rough amp. Mixing up tubes in solid state sometimes works.

SPEAKER_02:

It's

SPEAKER_01:

one of those things. I think you can apply it by a band or by the session. I don't like to say, oh, I play this on everything, everything. But I pretty much do stick to my tube amps and my little tube champ amps and stuff. I went through my garage and sold a bunch of stuff, got rid of a bunch of stuff. So what microphones

SPEAKER_00:

do

SPEAKER_01:

you like to use? I use Electric Voices. Tom Ellis gives them for me. They're great. not hip or pretty or anything but they certainly electric voice sounds like i like the sound i've always been felt that way about electric voice mic microphones they hear it the same way i hear it and so i get these pre-war or not pre-war but 360.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And what about using effects? I noticed on your Soul Serenade album, you do some effects, such as on the song Swamp Thingy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Just a couple of stomp boxes. Yeah, I like that. It gives you room for... boosts your power, I think. You know, you've got so much horsepower when you play with those stomp boxes. It's really cool. Now, I don't want to get caught with them. You know, I kind of go, I come and go on effects. I like them. I used to have, the best thing I ever had was a Space Echo. And it was, it's still a tape loop, you know. But it sounded good and it was 300 bucks. You can get them all day long for 300 bucks.

SPEAKER_00:

So what about your future plans then? What have you got coming up now? You got some more gigs, as you mentioned earlier on, coming up and any more recordings or any more session work?

SPEAKER_01:

I've got an album that a guy wants me to work on. Dallas Recording is the studio. And that's the one that Red Headed Stranger was recorded at. That's really the only thing I got on the books for recording. And I'm just going to have to beat the pavement. I've got a few people I can still call.

SPEAKER_00:

You've got some gigs coming up. Can people catch you playing around the Dallas area?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, once a month. First Monday in every month at 8pm we're at Louie Louie's on Elm Street in Deep Ellum. That's year-round. You know,

SPEAKER_00:

you can pretty much count on that one. So thanks so much for talking to me today, Paul Harrington. Thank you much. Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Paul for talking to me today. What a harmonica career he's had. And also thanks to Paul's wife Debbie for the technical assistance, and also to Tom Ellis for helping me out once again with the episode. Be sure to check out the Spotify playlist of the podcast, where you can hear most of the songs referenced in the show, including the hit single Timber, with Paul's catchy riff a central part of the song. It would be great if you could subscribe to the podcast using your favourite podcast player, and leaving a review of the podcast would also be appreciated. I'll leave you with Paul playing us out with a song from his Harmonica Soul Serenade album. This one is called Hard Times. Hard Times