Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Roly Platt interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 108

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Roly Platt joins me on episode 108.

Roly is a Canadian player who has recorded countless sessions over his 45 year career. He started out playing in a country band which set the scene for him playing a diverse range of genres throughout that time. Roly has recorded 1700 individual session cuts, with the numerous bands he has played in, and also various film, tv and commercial jingles.

Roly ecorded his own album in 2017, Inside Out, where he showcased his versatility by including a range of different types of song.

Roly produced and sells the great Harp Wah harmonica mute and later this year he will be releasing a book about his life with the harmonica.

Links:
Roly’s main website:
https://www.harmonicamute.com

Other website:
https://rolyplatt.com/

The Book - pre-order:
https://www.harmonicamute.com/product/i-play-harmonica-book-preorder/

Roly’s harmonica workshops:
https://www.harmonicamute.com/2-hour-harmonica-workshops-prerecorded/

Roly’s gear reviews:
https://www.harmonicamute.com/gear-reviews/

Ross Garden interview with Jimmie Fadden:
http://www.rossgarren.com/jimmie-fadden.html

Videos:
With Matt Minglewood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbXuNtkxTSY

Inside Out album interview:
https://rolyplatt.com/canadian-harmonica-player-roly-platt-talks-debut-cd-inside.html

It Ain’t Right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx0NOq5ma5Q

Toronto Blue Jays theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTGDF0dc5T0

New Orleans Funk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPljRQKt59o

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:

Rolly Platt joins me on episode 108. Rolly is a Canadian player who has recorded countless sessions over his 45 year career. He started out playing in a country band which set the scene for him playing a diverse range of genres throughout that time. Rolly has recorded 1700 individual session cuts with the numerous bands he has played in and also various film, TV and commercial jingles. Rowley has recorded his own album in 2017, Inside Out, where he showcases versatility by including a range of different types of songs. Rowley produced and sells the great Harp War harmonica mutes, and later this year he will be releasing a book about his life with the harmonica. 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 Rolly Platt and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey

SPEAKER_00:

Neil, how are you doing? I'm good, thank you. Thanks so much for joining. So you're talking to us from Canada and I believe you're based in Toronto.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm just north of Toronto, but an hour north of Toronto. I'm basically from Toronto, but a little north now.

SPEAKER_00:

So I've had a few Canadian players on. This seems to be quite a good scene of players in Canada. Mike Stevens comes to mind, a fantastic player I had on. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

Mike. Okay. I love

SPEAKER_00:

Mike. Yeah, he's great. So what's the harmonica scene like in Canada then?

SPEAKER_01:

We've got a big country. It's spread out. I grew up in Toronto, so there was a handful of players. When I grew up, there's several out there now. It's not a a massive collection of players. Steve Mariner is probably my favorite in the Canadian scene. I don't know if you're familiar with him. Great traditional blues player. He plays like four different instruments, sings, writes, produces. He's just a great player and a great musician on harmonica as opposed to just a technical sort of player. piano plays

SPEAKER_00:

I mean I'm in the UK so you know we draw our influences of you know harmonica from different places you know obviously we've got the whole British blues boom thing so what about kind of does that draw on do you think from America and you know not being so far away from Chicago is that quite a strong influence do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

For sure yeah I would say American influence is probably number one although I listened to a lot of John Mayall when I was starting out my older brother would bring home these various albums and say listen to this you know forcing me to accept his taste and stuff but he introduced me to a whole bunch of stuff that I never would have even knew was there

SPEAKER_00:

and John Mayall was one. So Toronto's kind of closer to New York isn't it so is that did you delve into the music scene around there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I mean you'd get bands just coming up I mean there was a point later on you know when I was sort of well into my career that they'd bring bands up from Chicago to play Albert's Hall so you'd see or the Amakamo which was a big club in toronto they that's where you kind of see the the big names come in and then of course everything was done through going to the record store

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah and so uh what got you started on harmonica then i think uh reading that uh your brother's records you were listening to and then that sort of he gave you a harmonica for a present and

SPEAKER_01:

well i actually bought myself one so the it was my older brother first he just introduced me into that kind of eclectic stuff i was listening to rock and you know the beatles that and all the usual things as a teenager. He was bringing home Butterfield. Asleep at the Wheel, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, bluegrass stuff, you know, like a real odd collection of artists, not the mainstream. But he played a little bit of harmonica. I told you, I mentioned that I'm in the process of finishing a book, and there's a story in there about how he would buy me birthday presents, like come home two weeks before my birthday, and he'd say, happy birthday, and it would be an unwrapped album still in the bag from the record store, and it would be in a band I've never heard of, like Butterfield or somebody And he'd say, play it now. So I wound up buying myself a harmonica for my birthday, knowing what my brother would get me, which is nothing. So I bought myself one and started playing on my 17th birthday as a project to see if I could learn how to play. And

SPEAKER_00:

that's how it started. Obviously, Paul Butterfield then was a big influence.

SPEAKER_01:

Butterfield was the first one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Which was the first album you got of his?

SPEAKER_01:

I had the Double Live album. It was an older brother album. kind of thing and I put it on and it was I know now sort of what I was hearing then or not hearing it but it's I didn't get it there was a couple tunes on there that were sort of more jazz influence and the solos were a little outside and I just couldn't get my like geez they're just playing all over the place they're not playing anything proper you know and suddenly after a few weeks of forcing myself to sort of listen to some of the tunes I locked into drifting and drifting and everything's going to be all right

UNKNOWN:

music music

SPEAKER_01:

It moved me is the best way I can, simplest way I could describe it. It's his playing. I didn't know anything about harmonica. I wasn't playing harmonica. It sounded to me, it had the same level of expression that a rock guitar kind of sound had, that emotional, crying, screaming kind of sound. And that grabbed me. And I, once I got it, I got it. And I, you know, I loved it.

SPEAKER_00:

So you mentioned bluegrass as well. So is that something that, you know, you were trying to play harmonica along with bluegrass. I take it there wasn't any harmonica on these bluegrass records.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's the thing. I mean, people say, oh, you play a lot of bluegrass. And I always correct them and say, I play along to bluegrass. I'm not a bluegrass player. To me, somebody that plays true bluegrass harmonica would be somebody playing the intricate melodies with the fiddle and things like that. I mean, I could do some of that, but what I liked about bluegrass was just playing fills and solos within it. But it was definitely a big influence on me. The album my brother brought home was the Will the Circle Be Unbroken? It's like the encyclopedia of traditional bluegrass players all on one three-album collection. I didn't know anything about it. I still don't. I just listen to these things and try to find things that I like to play. Jimmy Fadden was on that from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the drummer who plays harmonica. He's not an advanced player by any means but he had an influence on me of how to approach playing these songs so you know my my approach to playing is you know you don't have to be you know technically advanced and things to to make things work in his simplicity and his technique was there but he had ideas like he had he just knew what to do in the right spots in the songs it's very simple but it's there's things he that I learned from him back then that I still do in songs like that today you know where he simple chording little things that just work, right? It's not complicated. Anybody can play it, but it sounds right.

SPEAKER_00:

So this path, it took you on a path which, you know, has influenced, you know, what you did the rest of your career, right? Because you played a lot of session work and you played lots of different genres of music in that session work, yeah? So I think you moved into playing a kind of country type band. It was your first band, was it?

SPEAKER_01:

That's

SPEAKER_00:

correct, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I was mainly a blues player, but I had this sort of country, bluegrass-y Charlie McCoy was a big influence on me. That was the other sort of... parallel to Butterfield was listening to Charlie McCoy the polar opposite really but the session work I got in those early days in particular was mostly countries that's just what was being recorded there wasn't a ton of blues recordings happening but there was lots of country artists and lots of jingles and commercial work that they wanted that kind of harmonica for so that it wasn't always that like sometimes it was a little more bluesy or blues rock but it was in that vein so it the influence And was this around Toronto, this session work? Yes. Yeah, it was almost all in Toronto. a certain sort of collection of session guys that did 90% of the work. And they did it because of necessity. They did it in those big studios. It changed over the years with technology.

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so a lot of uh recording done at home now right and but yeah the big difference there would be that you know you were in toronto you were one of the guys that got called but now because everything's online you can pretty much go all around the world and that local sort of session scene has gone i guess

SPEAKER_01:

yeah it certainly changed i mean there's still the networking aspect of it that the people that i'll still get calls from people in toronto i'll do it remotely these days for me i i find it quite comfortable doing it that way you know so i'll know people from the scene you know from back then or that i've kept in touch with that i'll still get calls for but i do work from for people all over the world now

SPEAKER_00:

which is cool going back then to this this first band of yours so you started um i've got here that you started playing professionally eight 18 months after you started playing, was that right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, yeah, so it's a few people like that. It seems to be quite a rapid road, you know, to getting out and just being able to play, joining a band and going touring with this kind of country swing band you were in.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I practiced like a madman in the early days, you know, at about a year into playing. I had harps with me everywhere, like I'd just carry them around and play all the time. But I would go out, sneak out from school, from high school at night and go down and see bands play in Toronto. And back then there was quite a good scene for blues and roots music. And there were six nights a week back then, including when I was playing for the first many years. It was all six-nighters, so you You'd go see a band at a blues club. They'd start on Monday night and they'd play until Saturday night. And so there was lots of opportunity on any day of the week to go check out these bands. Yeah, so at about a year playing with these bands, soon after that, I ran into somebody, you know, me sitting in at a place, and it was Cement City Stompers was the name of the band. It was a country swing band. I was talking to him. He played steel guitar. I said, you know, maybe we could start a band. And he goes, well, actually, I was thinking maybe you could join our band. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I remember running home, you know, all excited that, you know, telling my mother that I'm in a band now. And I'm sure she was at least as excited as I was. that's how it started we went into the studio we did a little demo thing and the next week I was playing full time and it's been that way ever since

SPEAKER_00:

and you were touring around with these guys I think your next band was Manglewood you started touring across Canada with them

SPEAKER_01:

yeah there was some other bands in between there was I played with Hawk Walsh Rick Walsh the singer from Downchild Blues Band that was another sort of local influence back then he his own band and we did this I'll call it a nightmare tour because it was it's in the book that was a strict blues band that was after Cement City I also played with a band called Max Mouse and the Gorillas which was a really cool original music band, sort of soul R&B, you know, mixture, original material, and a wacky bunch of guys. And touring was, for any of those bands except for the tour out west, it was local around Ontario, which Ontario is massive in size, so you're traveling, but it's within the same province kind of thing. And then I moved out east in Minglewood came into the picture at that point

SPEAKER_00:

so uh so as you say you're playing country and on different some blues in there but um uh reading into it you had to you know adapt to playing harmonica were there you know there wasn't previous harmonica for those parts, so you're having to find your way into those genres.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And at the time, if you had asked me what would be the perfect band, I would have thought more blues and all the stuff that I'm particularly comfortable with. But because of this eclectic bunch of players and songs and things that we did, we played in the country circuit, which back then was fairly traditional around this area. The bands were fairly, a little more straight-laced kind of traditional country kind of thing, and we were doing some of that, but we were doing more country swing and Louis Prima, Sleep at the Wheel stuff, a little more progressive kind of happening stuff, or at least that's how I saw it. But the education I got because of that was totally shaped my playing going forward, because I had to, like you said, I had to adapt to, what do you play in this song? There's not only no harmonica in the original, but there's nobody that's recorded songs like that to even go by, at least nothing I was aware of. And so you wind up trying to find a layer in that music that makes sense with that style. It was around that time in that band that I stopped listening to other harmonica players, not consciously, but I just moved away from that and just sort of started listening to what other instruments did and how I could fit into the music. You know, if I do have any kind of recognizable style at all, that's how that came about. It was from not trying to copy Little Walter or copy... I mean, I did... spend a long time you know learning Butterfield stuff and I'm sure I sound like I've done that as well but like I said I stopped doing that and just listening to what are the other instruments in this band doing how can I work with them individually.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah so great so you're playing these different bands around kind of touring and you know working professionally so you did lots of recordings with you know with lots of these and that led on to lots of session work so you know how did the session work come about was this mainly with bands recording as a sideband on lots of albums and you also did sort of getting into movie scores and jingles and commercial work that sort of thing

SPEAKER_01:

It sort of happened the other way around. The first session, if I remember correctly, the first session I did was, I might have been 19. So, you know, maybe playing professionally for a year at the most. The session worked back then because of the closed kind of network of people doing that work, because it's a very specific type of playing and a lot of, you have to read music. And I was recommended by somebody who knew, who saw me, you know, knew the guys in the band who was one of the guys in that scene he recommended me and i got a call to do a beer commercial a tv commercial for a popular beer here i first of all i can't read music still to this day and i don't have a clue of what notes i'm playing or or anything else but back then i knew even less like i really didn't know anything i just knew how to play but i got the call this great studio and i don't know anything and they're they everybody that's involved in these things has done this stuff a million times and so they I would have assumed that I knew that as well and just kind of left me to figure it out myself I didn't have a clue but I you know I pulled it off they hit record and you start playing basically they realized that I can't read music after a while and I asked a couple of really really dumb questions you know the 19 year old kid about some of the terminology they were using and they're they're laughing because the producer Sid Kessler was a very well-known guy in that industry, basically comes out and says, man, I love this kid. He says he doesn't know crap about music, but he can play his ass off. And it was that type of experience. I felt like the hillbilly kid that came in and doesn't know anything but could play. But that's how it started. Once I got that job, then once they find somebody that can do the job, you're in. They don't want to be looking for new people and feeling them out like anything else. So that's how it started. And then most of the recording was for maybe a country artist. They want harmonica on a couple of songs on their record. The recording for albums in bands that I played with, like Minglewood, came later.

SPEAKER_00:

When did you start your session? What sort of year is this?

SPEAKER_01:

The first one would have been 78,

SPEAKER_00:

79 maybe. Yeah, so you've been doing this for, what, getting on for 45 years now? Yes. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but just barely. Fantastic, yeah. So I think you've got here that you've done 1,700 session recordings.

SPEAKER_01:

individual cuts not actual I'd be a multi-millionaire if I did 1700 sessions but I'm a thousandaire because some sessions were like six songs you know out of ten songs on the record that you play on other ones would be one song other ones other recordings might be a 30 second jingle so just in total it's at least that much it's probably more by now but some big time stuff some very small time stuff and everything in between you just

SPEAKER_00:

you don't know until you sort of do the job so in the last 45 years and you've had this kind of combination of doing some session work in the studio and then playing with different bands as you've mentioned some of them and i'm playing being a sideman on on various albums yeah is that that's how your your career's mainly gone is it

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I tell people that, you know, really, I don't know too many people that are in the position of being a sideman harmonica player. When I say sideman, it means, to me, it means being hired by an artist or a band to play in their band or being a member of a band. So, you know, some bands are more communal where everybody kind of has a say in things. And so, like, Cement City was like that, a couple other bands I was in. And then other bands... are where you're in a band, but it's somebody in particular's band. Matt Minglewood, it's his band. You're a band member and you're treated properly and everything else, but you're still working for somebody else. So my role in those types of things, I feel like it's still, I get to showcase myself, but my real job fundamentally, if I'm doing it right, is to support him and the performance of the show and the albums and things like that. It's not about me. as opposed to... a lot of harmonica players that have their own band, you know, where they're, you know, they're doing their own thing under their name. They're showcasing their own stuff and they can do whatever they want. They can play as much as they want. They can orchestrate it the way that they want. Most of my, 90% of my playing has not been that. It's been in more of the supportive role.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure, yeah. And you sent me some great clips. So just going through a few. You've done a song with Susie Vinnick so A song with Rick Fine and Dean McTaggart. So most of these are Canadian bands, are they?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Susie and Rick have been playing with both of them for many years. I mean, that's another example. They don't look at it like I'm a sideman, but I'm talking sort of philosophically. That's how I approach playing, is my job isn't to necessarily showcase everything I can do. It's to have some of that, but support them.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

Interesting story, actually. I'm at home doing my thing, and I get a call about two in the afternoon. The person on the other end of the line says, so-and-so, I'm calling from India, and we're looking for you to do a recording for us. He mentioned his name. He says it's for a movie. It's a big movie. And I'm thinking, really? This doesn't sound right or whatever. And I was super busy at the time. I was in the middle of another recording project. And I said, look, I can do it, but it sounds like you need it right away. And he says, yeah, like immediately. The release of the movie is in a couple of days. And I said, I just can't. And he says, well, Google the name. So he tells me the producer's name or the actor's name. and it's one of those things where you hit the first three letters of the guy's name and then there's like a million major hits he's one of the it's like the Brad Pitt of India and Bollywood long story short is I accepted the session and went at it right away like that afternoon it was only for one section in the in the movie that was the climax of the movie this massive slow motion shootout scene I just they just wanted some crazy fast harmonica stuff and you know they gave me direction on specific you know more ear candy for the scene

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

so I did that and they actually if you slow the credits down at the end of the movie they've actually listed the actual musicians including myself in there which is unusual yeah turned out to be a major major motion picture

SPEAKER_00:

great and then you've done various jingles as well you know some big names again you know Ford and Chrysler and McDonald's and Budweiser so yeah you've got some big ticket ones there

SPEAKER_01:

that's right I almost famous

SPEAKER_00:

well great and so you've obviously managed to you know work as a professional musician your whole life yeah you've not had to have a day job have you not during this time

SPEAKER_01:

there was a period maybe 15 years ago where work was slow I kind of made some lifestyle changes and you know wasn't traveling like I was but at the same time as in the 90s early 90s I think the economy here at least tanked and that affected the club scene so there was less work being a harmonica player when things slow down like that you're the first to go like you know you're not a necessity so bands were cutting down from five pieces to three pieces long story short as I went to college for a couple of years for not graphic design specifically but multimedia wound up becoming a graphic designer and some web design and things like that but I was always playing through that but I did that as sort of my main source of income and playing kind of went to not seeking it as much as just you know doing the work as it came up so I was always playing but just not as focused on it and then I fell in love with playing and wanted to do that full time and so I'm actually it's come full circle again now

SPEAKER_00:

and yeah I saw a very nice graphic of your name with sort of harmonica I take that that's your work your graphic design work yeah yeah it's great you can do that I'm sure you got some cool stuff for your website and everything yeah always useful Getting to some more recent work from you, obviously you carried on recording. You did an album with Wayne Buttery.

SPEAKER_02:

You've

SPEAKER_00:

done regular work with Wayne, have you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I knew Wayne was actually from the area where I'm living. We did a show together. I mean, that album came together almost spontaneously. We had done a show together as a duo, and somebody floated the idea that you guys should record a CD, and one thing led to another, and we actually did. And Wayne passed away, unfortunately, three or four years ago, but was a great singer and sweetheart guy that's sort of been around the scene up here for many years. And I used to have done the CD with them

SPEAKER_00:

and then in 2017 I believe you released your own album produced by you called Inside Out I believe it was your son who got you onto getting this one out there

SPEAKER_01:

yeah my very young son at the time or fairly young said something we were driving and we were talking about me my playing and career and he just stops and looks at me and he goes you know dad if you don't do your own CD or start your own band you're going to regret it And I stopped and I went, geez, you know, hate when they're right. Yeah, so I mean, it was something that I wanted to do myself, but it's cost a lot of money. It's a ton of effort to do it, you know, where you're happy with the results of it. So that was certainly the catalyst for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, fantastic. So these, I think you co-wrote four of the songs on here and you've got different styles on here. Well, you've got Somewhere Over the Rainbow, for example.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah. Bye.

SPEAKER_00:

you know, some kind of rocking blues stuff, some funky stuff. So there's quite a mixture. You wanted to cover your different genres on here.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I could have done, you know, pick a lane role, you know, and stuck with more, maybe a more cohesive album. But I really wanted to do the stuff that I could do, you know, like showcase the stuff. And I don't think there's anything that doesn't work on there, but it's, you know, you wouldn't, certainly wouldn't be able to put it into a category of you know this is a it's a harmonica album how about that

SPEAKER_00:

you're pleased you did it then your son was right was he about that

SPEAKER_01:

He was very right. It was a hard process. I don't play a cording instrument. I don't play guitar or piano or anything. So just even figuring out how to physically write a song, like how to get the ideas down. Writing the lyrics was an interesting process that I really enjoyed. Incredibly challenging, but really rewarding if you get it right. But yeah, it was a great experience for sure. My biggest joy, it's great to get compliments from other harmonica players, which is obviously with an album like this, that's a big part of it but what really sunk in to me was when people who didn't know music at all like they couldn't tell you who was a good harmonica player who wasn't and they were coming up to me and saying they liked the album we listened to it when we were driving that to me means a lot because that to me reaches out way beyond the harmonica world and just to me sounds like it might be just on a more musical end they just enjoy it

SPEAKER_00:

So would you do another one? Have you got any plans to do any more? I

SPEAKER_01:

can ask that a lot. The answer is I would love to. But I also realized after doing it, in the process of doing it, which I probably knew this already, is that unless you're independently wealthy and the money doesn't matter and you just want to do it, that would be a great reason just for fun. But I realized that when you do something like this, you really need to have a game plan, if you're going to do a second one especially, of are you touring? Are you starting your own band? How are you using this to promote yourself or to you know for what end are you doing this why are you doing it basically yeah and so you know i wouldn't do another one unless i had a clear image in my mind of what i wanted to do after doing it like i'm 66 years old now you know as much as i would love to on the creative end of things do that i don't know if i would spend the money and the time to do it with the state of the music business that it is right now with streaming services and yeah and all those things you know it's it's changed a bit over the over the years

SPEAKER_00:

well i think as well you know we'll get into this with you shortly as well but you know when you've got some things like youtube which you have and you've got an active channel and you can put yourself out playing on that which doesn't then cost you lots of money right you don't have to go to the studio and then you'll hire loads of musicians and you know you know it's a much easier way isn't it of getting yourself out there and you know

SPEAKER_01:

i was gonna say that exact thing that having that outlet and i mean for a of the YouTube ones where I'm just jamming for four minutes straight. You're not going to get too many opportunities to do that in a studio. You certainly won't get it on somebody else's album. And if you did it on your own, you could, but it might cost you many, many thousands of dollars to do it. Like you said, I can do this in an afternoon and post it on YouTube. It's not the same as doing your own record. It's not the same of all the things that go into writing songs and blah, blah, blah. But it is an outlet for my playing, and that's a big part of the motivation to do an album you know one way or the other unless if you're a songwriter and you're sort of getting pleasure from creating songs or maybe production on the record you know other things but it's strictly as far as harmonica playing you know the other thing is this book that I'm doing I'm actually getting a surprisingly amount of satisfaction in writing this almost like songwriting it's the same sort of feeling where you're maybe even more personal because you're really getting personal in the book so that's That combined with posting the live stuff and the various other things I do, recording and things, it's fairly satisfying as it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so let's go on to the book now. Tell me, what's the book about? It's

SPEAKER_01:

kind of a combination of... insights and detailed sort of discussion on how I approach playing. It's not a how-to book, like a step-by-step how I approach all things harmonic. I'm not even close. It's a conversational sort of look at why I do what I do, where that came from, how I use it in music, improvising, how I approach improvising, my influences, what I've learned as a sideman in particular, like how to work in those environments which to me is quite different than just doing your own thing but surrounding all that and interwoven with it is a ton of stories from the crazy years of traveling on the road and in the studio some of the crazy things that have happened on recording sessions and all that stuff but the big takeaway I guess is it's done in a very humorous entertaining way conversational way

SPEAKER_00:

great stuff so uh how far are you through writing the book now

SPEAKER_01:

i'm near completion i'm very thrilled to say i'm 90 there so i'm looking in the next two and a half months maybe to actually get it in my hands

SPEAKER_00:

fantastic yeah good stuff so um it might be out then what later this year

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i'm hoping mid-july i've got a link on my harmonica mute.com site pre-sales if anyone is interested in that

SPEAKER_00:

fantastic yeah i'll put a link onto that onto the podcast page. So yeah, again, well done for getting that down. How long have you been writing it?

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe eight months.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Well, pretty good then. Pretty good.

SPEAKER_01:

But I've been at it. That's been my entire focus for the past

SPEAKER_00:

few months at least. Great. So for anyone else who might be thinking about writing a book, so what's the most challenging thing about writing a book?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I'm not a writer. So I mean, the first interesting thing that I learned was, because it's quite a challenge to take on I had a lot of the stories with my musician friends. We'll sit around and trade stories of road stories and, you know, oh, you remember this? And so, you know, and I tell my wife, my wife just sort of, you know, nods her head because she's heard the story like seven times. So I had a lot of those stories and the idea was sort of to, you know, put them down on paper. But it was, you know, obviously when you get into my approach to playing and things, I sort of discovered a bit of that through one-on-one lessons when I'm teaching or doing my workshops that what I'm saying here could be put into words as well. That's sort of how I teach as well. It's not what I would call follow the bouncing ball where it's play this hole, then play that hole, draw, blow. It's more explaining in a more conversational way. Closest comparison I could make would be doing a CD or two CDs because you're writing content so there's the songwriting aspect where you've got to find, geez, I just need a way to say this last line in this to make this song work. You know, in the chorus, I need the last, that's just not working. And then weeks go by and then you come up with it and you change it and it's like, yes, that makes the song right there. There's the gem in it. There's a hundred of those things in the book, if not more. And then there's, you know, once you've recorded your CD, now you have to mix it. So now, you know, I'm still in the mixing stage of the book where I'm over and over again you know reading it again and going I think this should be over here I need to change this you know the edit you know a bit of editing so it's very similar creative process I talk about that in the book as well that the way things are the same across different art forms is quite striking to me it was the same way I learned about music through doing graphic design strangely like the concepts of design once I learned that in a more formal way or more practical I started to see music differently because I realised it's exactly the

SPEAKER_00:

same in music. Fantastic. Well, I look forward to reading it again. I always enjoy reading any book around harmonica, so I'll definitely have a read when it's out, really. Thank you. I'll get a kick out of it. You touched on some of your YouTube video recordings. So you do one of my favourite songs, which is Little Walter's A Day At Rye.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_01:

Well, The first challenge was finding a backing track, and there isn't any that I found. So I had to edit a tiny section of Little Walter's version and basically build a backing track from that, just kind of a loop of everything except him playing, right? The band playing. Okay. That's a good idea. Yeah. I'm with you. That's one of my favorite groups. That's one of my little sandbox tunes, I call them, where I just play to loosen up or to stretch my legs kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, just like all the videos I do on YouTube, I'll pick a song that I like, start recording. I might do, you know, the first couple of takes and then I screw something up in the middle. Maybe by the third take, I've got something that works from start to finish. That's the challenge. You get like two and a half, three minutes into the song. So far, you've done well. And it's like, geez, I just got another 40 seconds. I don't want to mess up. You still want to be adventurous in your playing.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you always do them in one take or do you, you know, kind of knit them together different

SPEAKER_01:

it's always one take

SPEAKER_00:

yeah So it's interesting on the backing tracks, because obviously that's a big challenge for doing these sorts of recordings, right, and putting them on usually. So what's really interesting that I've been looking at recently is this ability of AI, which can pull out the separate tracks, you know, the different instruments from a song. Exactly, yeah. So I've tried some of these. They're not quite there yet, because they all sound a little bit muddy, you know, and some songs work better than others. If they don't have so many instruments on, for example, then that kind of works better. So, for example, I love this Skylark, which is winter mouse Silas is a trumpet player and he just plays the piano so it's quite easy on that one to separate the trumpet and piano and then you can just get the piano and it sounds fantastic you've pretty much got just the piano without the trumpet right but other things when there's more instruments it's more complicated but that has got great potential you know in a few years time I think we'll be able to pretty much be able to extract little Walter from a record and then just use his band to play along with

SPEAKER_01:

yeah unfortunately for the artist and that's why I was hesitant saying that because you really shouldn't be doing that

SPEAKER_00:

you

SPEAKER_01:

know it's unfortunate that it's a free for all now or it's getting to be it has been for a few years on that level which is not good I mean I try not to go beyond that but in that case hopefully he'll forgive me

SPEAKER_00:

well there are moral question marks of course but in many ways you know you might be open other people up to go and check out Little Walter and the things, right? So it's got its plus size as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Picking on another recording of yours, I understand you have a gold record from doing the Toronto Blue Jays theme song, OK Blue Jays, is this right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was another interesting call that I got, you know, through the same network of people that needed me for something, but you don't know what it is until you get there. Very rarely do they get into any details. They just say, we've got a session tomorrow morning at eight in the was for the Blue Jays. It's a very hometown-y kind of, you know, sweet feel-good song about baseball. They wanted kind of a light-hearted harmonica. And this is, you know, another thing that I talk about is when you go into session work, I would love to just play whatever I wanted and do a great harp feature or whatever, but that's not what they're hiring you for. They have a vision of what they want. They just want your little bit of harmonica sound in there to give it that vibe. And so that was the case in this. But the funny thing that happened is they had a couple of people from the marketing team, and I played the song, and then there's this line in the song that says, is it a fly ball, is it a seagull? Because the Blue Jays play near Lake Ontario, so you get birds, occasionally the birds will actually fly into the, get hit by a ball, actually. So there's a line in there, is it a seagull? And they said, can you make a sound like a seagull in the harmonica? And I go blank. I've heard the seagulls all my life, as we all have. I could think of how it sounded if you paid me money which they were

SPEAKER_02:

and

SPEAKER_01:

so I'm trying to come up with something and they're all like jumping on me like no no that's not it it's more like this and they're making these seagull sounds and like the director of the marketing team is clucking away like trying to make seagull sounds and I just stopped for a second and looked and went this is nuts these high level musicians and business people all sitting around trying to to argue about what a seagull sounds like. And anyway, I wound up playing something that to me sounds like a little baby chick peeping away. So

SPEAKER_00:

you've won a few awards as well. You've won two double platinum and a Juno award as well, which is a Canadian music award, the Juno, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've won the awards as a participant in the project, not as obviously as the artist.

SPEAKER_00:

And and you mentioned also that you do teaching you teach at camps yeah so you do plenty of that and then you you've also got quite a few pre-recorded videos available on your website of you doing various things improvising playing playing with a great carlos dohunko yeah the top end third position so you've got you've got videos on of you doing teaching material available on your website yeah

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I was, especially during COVID, I guess is when it started, the workshops, doing two-hour video Zoom workshops, and then I offered them for sale after the fact as well, and they're still up there.

SPEAKER_00:

A question I ask each time, really, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Jamming, just jamming. That's what I spend my 10 minutes on every day, and it's more than 10 minutes, but it's this stage for me, that's where I grow the most is when I'll put on that little Walter song or I'll put on a bluegrass tune or I'll put on a shuffle or something and I just play to the track. I turn it up, I put the headphones on or whatever method I've got to have it nice and loud and I play hard and I play as creatively and experimentally as I can possibly come up with. And that's how I find my licks and my ideas. That's the creative sandbox that that I'm playing in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. And I think a lot of harmonica players learn in that way, but I think it sort of simulates a performance quite well, I think, doesn't it, if you're playing along like that, jamming along?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I mean, I believe you're learning, subconsciously learning a whole bunch of things without even trying. I'm not trying to do a performance. It's a little different when I'm doing my videos because I am trying to get one good version down. When I'm practising I'll do a little bit of that but really every other lick is if not every lick is I'm trying to step outside of my box of my comfort zone and experiment I'll go aiming at notes that I don't normally use I'll try a timing thing that I've never tried that you know I'm not thinking about but I'm just experimenting experimenting experimenting with slight variations on what I are what the collection of things that I already do but I'm also learning good time I I'm also learning, you know, fine-tuning my phrasing and my syncopation in the music. That's something that I focus on a lot when I'm playing is phrasing and timing. It's all phrasing and timing as far as I'm concerned. So all those things, you know, and how to interact with other instruments and different things that are happening in the music, those are all things that take place while you're jamming, if you're doing it properly, if you're listening.

SPEAKER_00:

So we'll move on to the last section now and talk about gear. So firstly, for you has to be the harp war so you do a trumpet mute as you also call it so the harmonica war which you made how long ago now 10 years or so that you first yeah probably about 8 years now yeah

SPEAKER_01:

and you actually did a review on it when it first came out

SPEAKER_00:

that's right yeah so I own one of these and indeed wrote a review for the harmonica UK magazine harmonica world so this kind of emulates playing through a cup or a glass right so you're getting that nice war sound yeah

SPEAKER_01:

yeah That's how I envisioned

SPEAKER_02:

it. The

SPEAKER_01:

sound isn't a new idea. The idea of playing into a cup or a can or anything else is not a new idea. I think most her players have experimented with something like that, as I did. What I discovered was there was actually nothing out there that was anything better than a soup can or a cup. And I was doing that. It was actually on that Wayne Buttery album that I went to use an actual cup and was banging in the you know two thousand dollar microphone they had and you know i just found it awkward to aim it into a microphone and and kind of like i thought why am i you know doing this it's got to be a i know there's a an easier way to do it that was a catalyst for the product

SPEAKER_00:

yeah exactly and it's it's built for the purpose right and then the very important thing is the sound comes out the bottom rather than if you're using a cup obviously it comes out the top and you're not able to sort of capture that on the microphone well right so that's a massive advantage straight away

SPEAKER_01:

yeah that's it was the idea for me is that you're It's like an extended version of regular hand cupping. Instead of just cupping your other hand, you're cupping the end of the harpois and using it in the same way that a trumpet player would use a mute. They don't use them all the time. It's a specific sound. It's an effect. And so I remember when I first launched it, people were commenting, or some people would comment that, oh, I use my hands. Well, A, it's a different sound, and B, it's not meant to be used all the time. It's an effect. you know it's like an octave pedal how often do you use an octave pedal hopefully not too often but but it's really good when you do

SPEAKER_00:

no absolutely and again in that in that reviewer i remember summarizing it by saying that it's worth getting to have another tool in your in your arsenal right just to give you that different sound as you say to songs and and it does have a different sound you know and you do get a very strong wall sound of it out of it much stronger than you can get just with your hands and so what about also the material because it's made out of metal so did you really research the the material you used and the sort of sound you were getting from it

SPEAKER_01:

I experimented with different materials including plastic I mean part of it what I learned in that process of designing this and manufacturing it is you've got to work within a budget you've got to work you know you've got to think about how you're going to produce these are they made by hand one at a time no they're they're manufactured and all those things so you know I tried a couple of different materials and I found the aluminum resin is very light which I wanted as well but fairly strong and the thickness of it like if it's too thick it's it's going to be more durable or whatever but it doesn't resonate the same way was actually a challenge to get it that thin and still be able to manufacture it the way I designed it because of that it has a nice resonance everything has sort of a natural frequency so there's certain notes that it likes better than others but you know that was the process

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah that's what I found is it works well in the low notes doesn't it you get a beautiful sound at the lower notes the higher notes it doesn't resonate so well but i mean i guess that's the case with you know using anything or your hands isn't it yeah that's yeah exactly it's it's meant for the low

SPEAKER_01:

end and and it definitely resonates bigger yeah

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and you know visually it's interesting yes and then later on you released a handle

SPEAKER_01:

one of the you know when you launch something for me it was easy to hold or i was used to holding it and and some people had trouble holding holding it without the handle when i

SPEAKER_00:

yeah because it's reasonably large in your hands isn't it it is

SPEAKER_01:

yeah And so I realized that I didn't have a solution for a while. And then the idea of just putting it, you know, I held up a coffee cup and I went, oh, that has a handle. There's a good idea. So I borrowed that idea. Yeah, I shipped it out. And I think it makes a huge difference because now you can you literally that sort of hooks over your fingers. It just hangs there like you don't even have to hold it. It basically stays in place.

SPEAKER_00:

Can you attach the handle to if you don't have one with a handle? Yes, you can. Yeah. okay well so we'll move on then another um another thing you have on your website is you have quite a lot of gear reviews which again is always great to see i think you know we're getting a you know getting a great player like yourself reviewing some gear and you know useful things so harmonica i think it's always really good to see so that i'll put a link onto the podcast page of uh some of the things that you've um you've reviewed on there so that that's a great little section so uh talking about harmonica so you're a you're a zeidel um endorser yeah i think you play in 1947 do you

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i um started playing them before that happened specifically at the time I was looking for a harmonica that might last longer and I kept hearing about the steel reeds and people would say they last I don't know 10 times as long and other people say oh they don't last longer and eventually I just said I need to find out for myself and bought a I think it was a session steel that I started with I bought a D harp because that's the key that I would burn out the fastest and I tend to play very hard when I'm playing live and so that would be the one that I'd go through the quickest and it lasted way longer like I mean I had that thing for a long time before I had to before anything happened to it maybe five times as long the other ones I've had since then maybe not quite that long you know they vary depends on the harp and what you're using it for obviously so it's hard to judge but that was the catalyst for buying them and then a friend of mine who's in the retail harmonica business mentioned to Seidel that I'm playing them now when they approached me about an endorsement.

SPEAKER_00:

Great stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you play any chromatic? I don't. I own them. I've got another one coming, actually. But I don't spend the time on it. I need the motivation to. I won't do anything unless I feel like I can own it. If I can get good enough at something that I can actually do it on stage, where I feel I'm not screwing things up, then I'm happy. But until I get to that stage, it's hard for me to get into it. sure

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and i've got that you do use some different tunings i've got you using uh the top parrot tuning which is the flat seven tuning on new orleans jam and you also use a country tuning on yours somewhere over the rainbow so you like a few different tunings

SPEAKER_01:

yeah both of those came up before I met Todd I was I tuned a harp to that the flat 7 myself just out of necessity whatever song I was trying to work on and I thought yeah this is kind of cool it gives you that flat 3 up in the upper register it just makes sense for blues stuff so I would use that occasionally and then I connected with Todd and we both he was sharing that oh It's a thing. I didn't know. The country tuning happened in a very similar way. I really like that tuning. I like both of those tunings because they're simple. I'm not big on trying to learn something new. Again, I feel like I have to own the whole thing to be able to use it comfortably. But the country tuning came up in a session when I was probably 21, and the steel player on the session says, I just did a recording with McCoy, Charlie McCoy, in Nashville last week, and he goes, do you know he tunes his harmonicas? I'm 21, and I'm like, I said, I was just getting into, I said, I'm just learning how to tune them myself. You know, when they go flat, he goes, no, not to fix them. He says, he tunes it to a different note. And I go, what? And I said, what note? He goes, well, I don't know. So I went home and ruined about eight harmonicas trying tuning up every note possible until i hit my accident or just process of elimination the um five draw raise the semitone and as soon as i play as soon as i picked up the harp to try it i went there it is there it is there's that's what i didn't know what i was looking for but i knew it as soon as i heard it what about your embouchure what embouchure do you

SPEAKER_00:

like to use

SPEAKER_01:

i'm a lip purser but i use tongue blocking for splits and octaves yeah and You'll know when I'm doing it because I play on a slant, so when I'm going straight across, I'm tongue-blocking.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I noticed seeing you play that you really do hold the harmonic on quite an angle. It's almost vertical at times, isn't it? Yeah, I noticed that, yeah. So what about amplifiers? I've had

SPEAKER_01:

many. Currently using a Bassman reissue, an older reissue Bassman. I've got a... Gibson Maestro 56, I think, beautiful old Gibson Maestro amp that I use on smaller gigs like duos and trios, and another little tiny custom Trinity amp, which is a Canadian handmade amp.

SPEAKER_00:

So I noticed seeing you playing the Greg Heumann Ultimate 58 and 57, so are they the mics you typically use with these tube amps?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I kind of change. I get bored with something and I'll try something else I mean to me there's no one piece of gear that's right it's it's they all do something different I have the 57 the ultimate 57 with the little shield on the end the bulletizer yeah which I really like I use that for a long time I have a bullet mic a sure bullet mic like a vintage one that's been customized I think with an early 60s element in it that I really like as well it's heavy as hell but it's sounds great but subtle differences in in them, as far as the mics go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so many amps and many mics, like others, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and each one works, you know, might work better with a different amp and different situations.

SPEAKER_00:

What about effects? I did notice some effects on, say, one of the videos that you did.

SPEAKER_01:

What you're hearing when I'm recording on the videos is I'm going straight into my computer. Everything you're hearing, there's no amplifier involved. It's all software, plug-ins. I like the envelope filter, and I use the one I like now is the Q-Tron Nano. It's great. It's got all the controls that I want on it where I can set up the amount of that quack that you get when you play. I use the Sub-N-Up Mini, I think it's called, the small one, for the octave. Yeah, I mean, all those things. to me are less is more like that's why i like being able to dial them in so that it's sensitive you know like it's not overkill

SPEAKER_00:

so you do use some effects when you're playing live obviously using that sub pedal for example yeah those

SPEAKER_01:

two pedals and i've got a nice reverb the current one i have is a it's called echo plex that's not reverb but a delay i've got a tc electronics hall of fame i guess reverb which i use less you know i kind of tend to go with more the delay simple delay on it not too heavy

SPEAKER_00:

yeah fantastic and so final question then just on your future plans sounds like it's to finish the book off this year is it and

SPEAKER_01:

yeah the book is top of mind for sure it's everything I'm doing right now I don't have any plans it'll it'll depend on what happens you know after releasing the book and you know I'm probably going to continue doing what I'm doing which is session work remotely or in person teaching which I'm doing I have a few one-on-one students I I don't take on too many, but I have a couple. And promoting the product, Harpois, and playing live with my

SPEAKER_00:

friends. So thanks so much for joining me today, Rolly Platt. Thank you. Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Many thanks to Rory for joining me today. He has lots of great stories and knowledge on the harmonica, so I'm sure his upcoming book will be a great read. There's a link on the podcast page if you'd like to pre-order a copy, and I'd heartily recommend The Heart War. The link is also on the podcast page. Let's have Rory play us out now with a song from his Inside Out album, Mad River.

UNKNOWN:

Mad River