Mikael Backman interview

Mikael Backman joins me on episode 130.

Mikael is from Sweden where he started playing blues harmonica, recording six albums with the band Ramblin’ Minds. He then joined the band John Henry. Initially a bluegrass band, they went on to play country, honky tonk and western swing. 

Mikael is truly a doctor of the harmonica, having conducted various academic studies with the harmonica at center stage, as part of his work at the Piteå School of Music. One of these resulted in a music thesis on how practicing the chromatic and diatonic harmonicas can improve the playing of both. Mikael has also recently completed a PhD where he wrote a doctoral thesis on country harmonica, which included an article and recording session with the legendary Charlie McCoy.

Links:

Website: https://harpatwork.com/

John Henry band: www.johnhenry.nu

Mike Caldwell playing Roly Poly: https://soundcloud.com/mike-caldwell-2/roly-poly

Mikael’s recordings on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07qOtgwTkCHlzYgx6P8Goh?si=d7e648990fd9420b

One Lick - Two Harps: chromatic / diatonic: https://tinyurl.com/yfnh9fcv

PhD thesis My Bag of Licks: https://tinyurl.com/mybagoflicks

Article on Charlie McCoy: https://www.internationalcountrymusic.org/_files/ugd/83ada7_e189b0dca9ad431dbc743cea3ffd5a88.pdf

Charlie McCoy Transcriptions link: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=1510243

Neil’s harmonica transcriptions: https://www.harptranscripts.co.uk/

Videos:

Same lick on chromatic and diatonic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIcnyGTtv6A

Mikael talks through what he plays on Oklahoma song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJeskt_Vo1U

Amazing Grace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h04Q9k6eEok

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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Chapters

• 1:23 Mikael is from Pitea, in northern Sweden
• 1:42 Mainly a Blues and country diatonic harmonica player, although plays some chromatic too
• 2:02 Charlie McCoy is one of Mikael’s big inspirations
• 2:30 Mikael started playing harmonica in the late 1980s after hearing Sonny Terry playing on the Crossroads movie
• 3:29 Plays some bass, but harmonica is main instrument
• 3:55 Plays a little bass harmonica
• 4:09 Teaches music at the university in Pitea, and has taught since 2001
• 4:37 First band was Ramblin’ Minds, formed in 1995, releasing six albums and still going strong
• 5:21 Plenty of live music in Pitea, although not specifically a blues scene
• 6:09 Ramblin’ Minds has some blues with Swedish lyrics by Ronny Eriksson
• 7:15 Formed the band John Henry in 2008, inspired to play Bluegrass by the movie: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
• 7:44 Went to SPAH for first time around 2008 and heard Buddy Greene playing country harmonica
• 8:14 John Henry band won the Swedish Bluegrass championships in 2009 and 2012, and also played Old Timey
• 8:37 Bluegrass style on harmonica including contributing to the rhythmic drive and melodic style of playing
• 9:19 For bluegrasses mixes the country style of Charlie McCoy with playing chordal approaches
• 9:57 John Henry band started playing country music later after addition of electric guitar and pedal steel guitar
• 10:42 Added Western Swing to the genres of the John Henry band
• 11:07 Western Swing is a form of Jazz played with typical country music style instruments
• 12:17 Western Swing harmonica has lots of improvisation and also arranged parts played with other instruments
• 13:08 Draws inspiration from other instruments to play Western Swing, as well as the playing of Charlie McCoy
• 13:56 Plays chromatic, although uses more diatonic in the John Henry band
• 14:27 Done a lot of work as a sideman
• 14:45 When playing with female vocalists often in the same range, so have to pick what you play carefully
• 15:02 Link to full playlist of Mikael’s recording output available on podcast page
• 15:17 Much of session work has been recorded with previous music students he has taught at the university
• 15:52 Two former students are Mike Fall and Joel Andersson and Joel has done some harmonica customisation work for Mikael
• 16:08 Performed an online concert with Mike Fall at SPAH 2020 and at SPAH 2022 in Tulsa
• 16:47 Mikael has conducted various academic studies of the harmonica as part of his work at the Piteå School of Music
• 17:01 Completed a Masters in Music Education at the Piteå School of Music and started teaching there as part of that
• 17:18 Was able to have harmonica as main instrument on the course as the university wanted to diversify the type of instruments taught from the most common ones
• 18:12 Had to work at music theory for the teaching position
• 18:19 Mikael was able to travel to the US for harmonica tuition as part of the university course, learning with Howard Levy and Robert Bonfiglio and going to some SPAH conventions
• 18:56 First studied with Howard Levy, spending three days with him
• 19:26 Learnt chromatic with Robert Bonfiglio, including tongue switching
• 19:42 Learning music theory has been very beneficial to his harmonica playing, with playing by ear having some limitations
• 20:31 Completed a Masters Degree in Musical Performance in 2017, including a thesis on ‘One Lick - Two Harps: How can practicing the chromatic harmonica make me a better diatonic player and vice versa?’
• 22:04 The thesis is available online including music clips of the same lick on diatonic and chromatic
• 23:04 Used a C diatonic and a C chromatic and played licks only in the key of G
• 23:53 Also did some recordings with the John Henry band as part of the Masters Degree in Musical Performance
• 24:50 Before completing this thesis had mainly played third position blues style chromatic
• 25:18 Went on to complete a PhD on understanding of how performers can develop and/or transform their artistic voice through the process of transcribing and imitating an iconic musician (Charlie McCoy)
• 26:40 Completed the PhD in 2024
• 26:58 A large part of the PhD was to study the licks of Charlie McCoy and has written a paper on Charlie McCoy, published in the International country Music Journal 2022
• 27:33 As part of the PhD transcribed the first thirteen of Charlie McCoy’s albums and learned to play the transcriptions
• 28:23 Transcriptions were mostly hand written, but has put some of them into musical notation and the transcriptions are available online
• 29:15 Neil has done transcriptions, which are available at the Harp Transcripts website
• 29:42 Real value of doing transcriptions is putting the work into transcribing the songs yourself
• 30:11 As part of the PhD Mikael interviewed Charlie McCoy, Buddy Greene and Mike Caldwell and discovered they all move their jaw when playing an adjacent hole, which brings speed
• 31:31 Charlie McCoy recorded with Mikael on the John Henry album Lucky Luck
• 32:01 The idea for the Lucky Luck album grew out of the PhD project and it was recorded in the same studio Charlie McCoy recorded many of his albums (Cinderella Sound Studios)
• 33:00 Charlie McCoy played mainly bass, but also harmonica on two tracks some vibes on one song
• 34:28 Charlie McCoy has been interviewed on the podcast and is a lovely guy and a great pro
• 34:47 Charlie McCoy invented the Nashville numbering system and Mikael shared notations of the Lucky Luck album songs with Charlie ahead of the recordings
• 35:14 The Nashville numbering system writes numbers for chords
• 36:27 Jazz chord numbering uses roman numerals, which is a different system
• 36:48 Nashville Yodelling Blues song from Lucky Luck album, which imitates Charlie McCoy ‘yodelling’ on the harmonica
• 38:02 Charlie McCoy uses a jaw flick to play yodels on harmonica, so Mikael does the same
• 38:51 Another song from Lucky Luck album is Oklahoma, which is about Mikael’s visit to Tulsa, and what it used to be
• 39:41 Two guest musicians who perform on the song are from the band Time Jumpers
• 39:59 Has created some YouTube videos talking through some of the harmonica parts on songs from the Lucky Luck album
• 40:23 Uses country tuning (originally invented by Charlie McCoy) on some songs
• 40:45 Mikael has come up with the Western Swing harmonica tuning
• 41:11 Advantage of country tuning is the major 7th and being able to bend it down to the flat 7th
• 41:50 One advantage of Western Swing tuning
• 42:49 Western Swing tuning has 5 draw raised a semitone (as per country tuning) and also the 7 blow raised a semitone, which is a blow bend as per 8-10 blow holes
• 44:01 Not aware of anyone else using this tuning yet
• 44:47 Ten minute question
• 45:34 Uses overblows sparingly
• 46:14 Played on the ‘MS-Blows’ album, along with some US players, to raise money for Jimmy Gordon, who developed Multiple Sclerosis
• 47:32 Did a presentation in 2022 in Brussels on the diatonic playing style of Toots Thielemans
• 47:57 Toots played diatonic over a ten year period, from 1967-1977
• 48:18 Toots was a pioneer of overblows, discovering them himself during this time
• 48:49 Rob Paparazzi verified that Toots did play some overblows when Mikael talked with Rob
• 49:30 Toots may well have been the first person to ever record a 4 hole overblow on Midnight Blues, with the Bert Paige orchestra
• 49:41 Toots discovered overblows at the same time Howard Levy and Will Scarlett started playing them, and they didn’t know the others were playing them
• 50:21 Toots probably stopped playing diatonic as he was recording less sessions, where he may have used diatonic at the request of the studio
• 50:59 Interview in a documentary where Toots references overblows without calling them that
• 51:23 There is a book coming out in a year or so about Toot’s harmonica life, where Mikael has written a chapter on Toots playing overblows
• 51:39 Plays Hohner Marine Band and Crossover diatonics, Hohner Ace 48, Meisterklasse and Super 64X for chromatics
• 52:16 Has a chromatic made by Joel Andersson
• 52:24 Uses fifth position when playing minor country songs
• 53:00 Uses some third position on the Western Swing tuning, which provides a major scale
• 53:30 Embouchre: mainly tongue blocks, which is unusual for country style as that is typically pucker, but Mikael uses a lot of corner switching, which suits tongue blocking
• 54:00 Mics: uses Audio Fireball for clean playing
• 54:20 Sonny Junior amp when playing blues, the first model with four eight inch speakers
• 54:32 Has some vintage mics but has been using the Hohner Harp Blaster HB52 dynamic mic recently, liking the small size for cupping
• 55:42 Effects: sometimes a little reverb either via a pedal or added by the sound technician
• 56:08 For country and western swing goes for a clean sound through the PA, and likes to record using a ribbon mic
• 56:43 Future plans include more studies of the harmonica and the Toots book which is to be released
• 57:11 Also contributed to a book about the song Amazing Grace, which has reached it’s 250th anniversary, about why it is so popular with harmonica players
• 57:21 Mikael performed Amazing Grace at a conference in the place where the song was composed and first played in Olney, England
• 58:22 Mikael is truly a doctor of the harmonica

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Michael Backman joins me on episode 130. Michael is from Sweden where he started playing blues harmonica, recording six albums with the band Rambling Minds. He then joined the band John Henry, initially a bluegrass band, they went on to play country, honky tonk and western swing. Michael is truly a doctor of the harmonica, having conducted various academic studies with the harmonica at Centre Stage. as part of his work at the PTO School of Music. One of these resulted in a music thesis on how practising the chromatic and diatonic harmonicas can improve the playing of both. Michael has also recently completed a PhD where he wrote a doctoral thesis on country harmonica, which included an article and recording session with the legendary Charlie McCoy. 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, Michael Backman, and welcome to the podcast. Hi, Neil. Thanks for having me. No pleasure, Michael. So you're speaking to us from PTO in Sweden. That's right. So whereabouts in Sweden is PTO? It's

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

pretty far up north. It's about a two-hour drive south of the Arctic

SPEAKER_02: 1:36

Circle. Right. So you get to see the Northern Lights all the time, do you, up there? Yeah. You're a player who does, well, I think mainly sort of blues and country, and I think you'd consider yourself to be a sort of mainly a country sort of diatonic harmonica specialist now. Is that Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52

Yeah, definitely. Blues and country is where I feel most comfortable, and I do play chromatic as well, but diatonic is my main axe.

SPEAKER_02: 2:02

So blues and country, very much like one of your main inspirations, who I understand would be Charlie McCoy, yeah? Right, definitely. Yeah, so we'll get on to Charlie later, and you've done a lot of work on Charlie, let's say, so yeah, you're probably a foremost expert on Charlie's playing, so that's great to hear. Yeah. So you started playing in the sort of late 1980s. So tell me about how you got started playing harmonica.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

Yeah, we were... three friends who started listening to blues just before we were starting high school and they both got a guitar the thought was that we would start a band so they wanted me to pick up drums or bass but that wasn't really in my budget and around the same time we saw that Walter Hill movie Crossroads with the magnificent soundtrack where there's a lot of Sonny Terry on and just the sound of Sonny Terry just mesmerized me and I really wall. That's where I want to go. I want to play the harmonica.

SPEAKER_02: 3:12

So it was a country blues as well, that first influence. So you had kind of that country blues influence.

SPEAKER_01: 3:18

Yeah, really. That just acoustic sound that just really, like I said, really mesmerized me. And then, of course, I got into all the other blues greats and the amplified stuff. And

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

did you try any other instruments around this stage, or do you play anything else now? I

SPEAKER_01: 3:34

play a little bit of other instruments. As I teach music, I have like a working knowledge of the major instruments and I play quite a lot of bass at home when we rehearse but I wouldn't consider myself a bass player. Pretty much harmonica is what I would consider myself to know how to play.

SPEAKER_02: 3:55

Any bass harmonica?

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

A little bit. I own one, play it on a couple of tunes but I'm not really there. Yeah, same

SPEAKER_02: 4:04

here. I own one too but yeah. So as you say there, so you You've done lots in education, which we'll get into, and so has that been your career then? You've been working professionally as a sort of music teacher and a musician, have you, since the start?

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Yeah, I would definitely say that, first and foremost, I would consider myself a musician, but if you ask my accountant, she would say, no, you're a teacher, first and foremost. So

SPEAKER_02: 4:32

you were playing with your friends then, and then how did you start playing then? I think your first proper band was Rambling Minds, yeah? I think you got your first album in 1995.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

Right, I was really fortunate because I grew up here in Pito and it's a small town, so there wasn't anyone to ask how to play harmonica. I had to figure it out by myself. But there was a number of musicians that were roughly 10 years older than me who were really good and had been playing for quite a long time, but nobody was playing harmonica. So I sort of fit the bill to play with them, even though they were much, much better than me.

SPEAKER_02: 5:20

The only sort of blues scene in the far

SPEAKER_01: 5:23

north of Sweden? I wouldn't say specifically a blues scene, but it was a really good live music scene back then. So there were plenty of places to play for any band who played anything like rock or blues or similar styles of music.

SPEAKER_02: 5:38

Great. And so you've been with them quite a long time. You sort of had six albums. We're still going strong. Yeah, a song I picked out as a good one is Diatonic Madness.

UNKNOWN: 5:51

Diatonic Madness

SPEAKER_01: 6:02

because that one you composed. Yeah, I co-composed it with one of the guitar players in the band.

SPEAKER_02: 6:08

Yeah. And also, great, you've got some blues with Swedish lyrics. I always love that when you hear the sort of songs in the native tongue always sound great, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've done a lot of work with Ronny Eriksson. He's a singer and a comedian. So we've done a lot of touring with him.

SPEAKER_02: 6:28

And so, I probably pronounced this wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. So Minthruhar, that's the My Babe riff. Is that The lyrics to My Baby Singing or something else? The lyrics are

SPEAKER_01: 6:38

about his singing, that his wife has no cellulite, but she has these little dimples in her thighs. So it's kind of a nice euphorism for that.

SPEAKER_02: 6:50

Right. A bit of comedy in there. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_04: 6:57

Music Min fru har inga celluliter, min fru

SPEAKER_02: 7:09

You started out playing blues, and you were into blues for quite a while with this band, yeah?

SPEAKER_03: 7:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 7:15

That's where you're grounding. And then you got into playing country harmonica, formed your band John Henry in 2008.

SPEAKER_01: 7:22

Right. Once again, it was a movie that sort of led me into it. My wife was the lead vocalist of John Henry, Ika. We saw the Coen brothers, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Oh, great movie, great movie. Yeah, yeah. And great soundtrack, T-ball. Burnett put it together so we saw that and really fell in love with the music and at around the same time I went to a spa in Dallas, Texas and heard Buddy Green playing country harmonic. and he did this workshop as well and a concert with great musicians from Nashville, and I was like, wow, that is really cool. I want

SPEAKER_02: 8:13

to play that. Well, you won the Swedish Bluegrass Championships in 2009-2012, so it was Bluegrass initially the band, was it?

SPEAKER_01: 8:21

Yeah, Bluegrass and old-time, so strictly acoustic, just acoustic guitar and stand-up bass, Spanio, mandolin, and harmonica.

UNKNOWN: 8:34

¶¶

SPEAKER_02: 8:37

How did you then approach transitioning from blues harmonica to country and bluegrass?

SPEAKER_01: 8:43

It took a while, because first of all, playing bluegrass and old-timey, you really have to play more or less all the time to sort of contribute to the rhythm of the music. It's almost like you want to hear that snare drum going... but it's not there, so it's the responsibility of all the musicians to sort of play to evoke that rhythmic drive. So that was kind of different from playing blues, definitely, and also getting into this transitioning into a more melodic style of playing. That was, I thought, a very interesting journey to make. I guess what I play when I do that is a sort of a mix between the country style of Charlie McCoy and really just playing it with more chords and more rhythmic drive to it and I guess it blends into old time as well so we sort of did a mix of all that I would say.

SPEAKER_02: 9:57

And so the country harmonica then, so was that, did the John Henry band move to that later, or were you playing country from the beginning? No, we

SPEAKER_01: 10:05

moved into that later. The guy who played banjo with us quit, and we replaced him with a guy that played a little bit of banjo, but he wasn't that good, but he was a really good electric guitar player. So we were like, well, maybe you should play that instead. And since we got that sound in, it was more like, we kind of need to get some other style of music. So we started getting in more and to honky tonk and around the same time we added a pedal steel player as well sort of grew from there after a while we were like well maybe we should have a drummer to keep that beat steady and and then we totally steered away from the bluegrass and the acoustic style

SPEAKER_02: 10:42

yeah and you're playing western swing as well is that that's come later

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

yeah it kind of grew from that when we started listening a lot to honky tonk and and some of that really has a lot in common with the western swing because you started hearing honky Tonk bands play Bob Wills songs and then check out, oh, who's Bob Wills? And then, wow, this is great. There's a lot of good stuff here and it just grew from there. So maybe explain to people what Western Swing is. Western Swing is a style of music that originated in southern United States in the 30s. where people were playing what they would consider to be jazz, but they were playing it with more typical country instruments. So instead of a horn section, you would have a fiddle section. Instead of a saxophone soloing, it would be a steel guitar and an electric guitar. And they were also the first to add drums to any style of country music. Well, actually, the first recording of electric guitar is also Western swing bands.

SPEAKER_02: 11:47

So it's kind of like jazz country with an improvisation like jazz.

SPEAKER_01: 11:52

Yeah, very based in the swing music of that era, but also in the New Orleans style, since they often play this two-beat feel, not the four-four walking of swing music. So it's a really interesting blend of different stuff, also influences from Mexican mariachi music and all kinds of things that was going on there in Texas and Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_02: 12:17

So, okay, so Western Swing Harmonica then. So this is improvised based, is it? Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 12:24

it's lots of improvisation. but also a lot of arranged parts playing hits together with the pedal steel and with the electric guitar. That's something I really enjoy a lot, to have this little section going on, and I really love the blend of the pedal steel and the harmonica. That's a great sound.

SPEAKER_02: 13:08

So for your country, your honky tonk, your western swing, what sort of other players, will you listen to other harmonica players or other instruments to draw inspiration?

SPEAKER_01: 13:18

Mostly other instruments I would say, but of course Charlie McCoy is a big hero of mine and he's done quite a bit of western swing recordings and just his general style of playing country is really easily adaptable to the western swing style. And also Mike Caldwell It's a big influence on me and he's done quite a lot of western swing.

SPEAKER_02: 13:56

You mentioned at the top that you do play some chromatic, so do you put that into the John Henry band much? Not

SPEAKER_01: 14:04

as much as the diatonic, but I do chromatic on a couple of songs.

SPEAKER_02: 14:09

So that's your two main bands, and we'll get into more into John Henry shortly and what you've done with that, some great work with that. But then you've also worked as a sort of sideman, you've done various recordings with other players, some sort of Swedish female vocalists, for example, with Karen Storch.

SPEAKER_01: 14:43

yeah again

SPEAKER_02: 14:46

always nice that combination with the harmonica and the female vocalist goes well together doesn't it

SPEAKER_01: 14:52

Yeah, and it's always a challenge because you're usually right in the same range, so you really have to think about staying out of the way and complementing the vocals.

SPEAKER_02: 15:02

You've got a great playlist with all your, well, at least most of your recorded tracks on Spotify, which you showed me. I'll put that on the podcast page so people can find your full playlist and, again, the two main bands, Rambling Minds and John Henry, and these other session tracks you've done. The session work you've got over there, how's that come your way? A lot

SPEAKER_01: 15:22

of It comes from people I'm either working with or former students. I teach at the School of Music in Piteå, the university. So there's loads of talented students that have passed by over the years. And they, of course, know me as the only teacher they've had that played the harmonica. So if they do anything, any recording, and they think, well, maybe we should have a harmonica here, they usually contact me. So you're

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

playing with lots of your former students?

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

And I think I'm right in saying two of your former students are Joel Anderson and Mike Fall.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:00

Are you playing Joel's harmonicas? That's the question. I think he has tinkered on most of my harmonicas, yeah. And Mike Fall, who's another of your students, you performed with him at SPA, didn't you, on the online session, I think it was in 2020. Due to COVID, it was online, yeah? You did a sort of concert online at SPA, yeah?

SPEAKER_01: 16:21

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 16:21

We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01: 16:31

We got to do it on site as well in Tulsa. I think it was two years ago. So that was great to be able to play with a former student who has done so well. And he did all the arrangements for the songs. He's really

SPEAKER_02: 16:46

good at that. So let's get into your studies then. It's obviously been a major part. And as you say, you're obviously teaching a lot as well. So you are teaching now, as you say, at PTO University, is it? Yeah. So when did you

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

start there? I did my Masters of Music Education there starting in 2001 and I think in my second year I started teaching as well as studying. First just some harmonica classes and then I took over the music history class as well before I graduated.

SPEAKER_02: 17:18

Well, a question always about people who study music at universities. Were you able to have harmonica as your main instrument or did you have to have it as a secondary instrument?

SPEAKER_01: 17:27

I had it as a main instrument actually. I was really fortunate because The very reason I decided to apply was that they had done this analysis of music teachers in Sweden and sort of realized that, okay, everyone is pretty much the same background. They play a set variety of instruments, but there's really no teachers that are really good at playing other instruments than, you know, guitar, piano, the common instruments. So they opened up this thing where you could apply even if your background was a little different. And at that time, I'd been playing harmonica for quite some time, and I didn't have that much theoretical background, but I figured, well, I'll apply and we'll see what happens. They liked my playing, so they said, well, you can start. You're going to have to work hard at the theory part, but you'll figure it out. And they really asked me, we're not sure how to do about your main instrument. Who's going to be your teacher? I was kind of cocky and said, well, you're going to have to send me to the States, because that's where the best teachers are. And to my big surprise, they said, okay, then we'll do that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:37

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01: 18:37

So I was able to go over there and study with Robert Bonfiglio and Howard Levy. And also I got to go to a number of spa conventions as part of my education. So I was really fortunate.

SPEAKER_02: 18:51

Yeah, amazing. Yeah. So how long did you spend with sort of Robert Bonfiglio and

SPEAKER_01: 18:55

Howard and others? That was really like intense studying. Howard Levy was actually the first guy I took a harmonica lesson from. So that was quite overwhelming. But I was with him for three days and hanging around his house and just soaking it in.

SPEAKER_02: 19:11

That must have been intense with Howard. How was that?

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

It was absolutely mind-blowing. I had just started getting into overblows and, you know, like I said, I was really self-taught and he really straightened me out on a lot of things. So that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 19:27

And then Robert, of course, were you learning chromatic with Robert Bonfilio?

SPEAKER_01: 19:31

Yeah. He's the guy who showed me corner switching, which I wasn't even aware you could do that. And that has been quite useful later on in my country

SPEAKER_02: 19:40

playing. And so you mentioned there about theory, because I think that would always be maybe something that harmonica players are lacking, the sort of theory basis. Not always, but in many cases, they don't learn in the traditional way. So that is something that's lacking. So how did you apply that to the harmonica? Any particular approaches? Well,

SPEAKER_01: 20:00

it's been really useful just to understand, you know, chords and scales and the relationship between them to really think like beyond just positions and keys, but to really see how these things work. connect to each other, especially when learning chromatic, of course. You can play by ear, but you have to have really good ears when the harmony gets complex. So knowing theory is really helpful, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 20:28

So you've gone on to do some other amazing things in your studies. First of all, a master's degree in music performance 2017. Was this in the same music school?

SPEAKER_01: 20:38

Yes, I was working there at the time and I had a master's in music education already, but the research subject of the university by then was not education it was music performance and I wanted to get deeper into the theories around that so I did my masters first to be able to pursue a PhD later on.

SPEAKER_02: 21:01

So in your musical performance masters that was again based on the harmonica was it?

SPEAKER_01: 21:06

Yeah that was I was examining ways to sort of be my own teacher it was really centered around western swing and just John Henry so I took like typical western swing licks typically played on guitar or fiddle and then I would transcribe them and first play them on a diatonic and then see okay if I play this on a chromatic in the same key what works and what would I have to adjust to make it sound good on the chromatic. And as I made a change on the chromatic, I then took that back to the diatonic and tried to play the exact same thing and see, well, that worked, but maybe I have to tweak it this way. So starting with one lick and just moving back and forth between the diatonic and the chromatic really ended up being quite a useful method to come up with original ideas and just to see how the instruments, what they have in common how they can sort of inspire each other.

SPEAKER_02: 22:04

Sure, yeah, so you sent me the link. So your thesis is available online, and on there there's lots of audio clips where you're playing various licks, as you say, on the diatonic and then on the chromatic, so you can hear the difference.

SPEAKER_03: 22:18

So

SPEAKER_02: 22:26

obviously you're trying to play the same... notes you can hear obviously the bends in the diatonic that aren't in the chromatic it's a little bit cleaner but as you say a great way to learn both instruments I mean because I also play chromatic and diatonic and I really I often sort of use the the kind of more music theory based approach of the chromatic to understand what I'm doing on the diatonic and you can do things to know like exactly what bend you're playing and that sort of thing so yeah it's really useful but you know we had this discussion here quite a lot about how the two instruments complement each other. So given you've done this thesis, what was your conclusion about that?

SPEAKER_01: 23:04

Well, I did it in a very specific way. I used C harmonica and played in second position, so I'm playing in G, and then I played a C chromatic in G. They have quite a lot in common as far as how the note layout is, given that holes 1 through 4 on a chromatic is the same as 4 through 7 on a diatonic. I would say it's a very good way, if you're a diatonic player and want to learn how to play chromatic, that's a good approach. And vice versa, if you already know the chromatic and you want to get into the diatonic, play something in G and then repeat it on your C harmonica.

SPEAKER_02: 23:40

So as you say, the note layout is very similar in that key. So you didn't do any other keys?

SPEAKER_01: 23:47

No, not at that specific thesis. I really focus it on just the key of G. Yeah, and then I did some recordings as the artistic output where We recorded three songs with John Henry, and I played two of them first on diatonic, and then I transcribed the improvised solos, learned to play them on the chromatic, and did some adjustments. And one song I did the other way around, improvised solo on the chromatic, and then transcribing that for the diatonic.

UNKNOWN: 0:00

.

SPEAKER_02: 24:50

At this stage, had you played a lot of chromatic or was it still quite new to you? Was it something you really used to help push you on in chromatic or were you already quite accomplished on chromatic?

SPEAKER_01: 25:00

Prior to that, I had mostly played like the George Smith style in D on a C chromatic playing blues.

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

Yeah, third position blues stuff,

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

yeah. Right. Opened up my eyes and ears to the chromatic and working on more keys and getting that into my playing as well.

SPEAKER_02: 25:18

Great stuff. And then you went on to do a PhD in music performance

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

yeah I was I got really interested well first and foremost in how do you really when you develop your own style of playing or your own voice as a musician that in combination with really just working with a lot of licks which I really always liked having a vocabulary of licks and and realizing how important that has been to many players both in blues and country and I just wanted to delve deeper into those two things. How could I do a project where I would really deliberately transform my own voice? So that was kind of the goal with the PhD.

SPEAKER_02: 26:03

So reading your abstract, which again is available online, I'll put the link onto the podcast space. So understanding how performers can develop and or transform their artistic voice through the process of transcribing and imitating an iconic musician. So I think this iconic musician was Charlie McCoy. Yes. So it's interesting. interesting as we talked about you know music theory and harmonica and how you know playing a harmonica at the university as you mean because a lot of harmonica players will do exactly that right we'll try and copy and imitate licks we'll often write them down transcribe them and so you've taken that to the to the nth degree here by by doing a whole phd on it yeah so um have you completed the phd now

SPEAKER_01: 26:42

yes i i defended it

SPEAKER_02: 26:44

in october just last year yeah so so yeah great honor i mean i'm sure lots of us are um very envious that you've done a PhD in harmonica that must be quite a feather in your cap as we'd say yeah so a lot of what you did as we mentioned there is you studied licks of Charlie McCoy right so and as part of this you've written a paper on Charlie McCoy which appears in the International Country Music Journal in 2022 which again I'll put a link on I've read through that article which is great really you know you provide a good summary of Charlie's career the fact that he plays different genres and the way that he started out playing blues as we touched on with you and then he went over to country cleaned up his playing so he was more country style and you know he's quite melodic and tell us about your studies about Charlie McCoy and what you've learned from him yeah

SPEAKER_01: 27:34

I decided that I wanted to do this study that I would first transcribe I chose Charlie's the first part of his career I guess you could say from from when he he came to Nashville in 61 and records his first album 67 so So I transcribed his first 13 albums from 67 all the way up to 76, I believe it is.

SPEAKER_02: 27:59

So that was every bit of harmonica you played on these first 13 albums, was it?

SPEAKER_01: 28:03

Yeah, with the exception of when he plays harmony with himself. I left that alone. But other than that, I transcribed everything, wrote it down. And as a part of my artistic method, I also learned how to play it along with the recordings. So I spent a lot of time with... all the McCoy's recordings

SPEAKER_02: 28:21

you certainly did so how did you transcribe did you write it onto paper or did you use computer program or

SPEAKER_01: 28:27

mostly handwritten there's a page in or a website in research catalog which accompanies the thesis and I've uploaded all the transcriptions there the handmade ones my handwriting isn't the greatest in the world so it might be tricky sometimes to see what it is but I've also written it out in in traditional music notation for at least some of them when I really want to share my transcriptions with others. But when I transcribe myself, I always do it by hand.

SPEAKER_02: 29:02

So all the transcriptions you do at Charlie McCoy are available? Yes. Oh, that's great. So if people want to learn a particular Charlie McCoy song, then they'll be able to go and find that. Yeah, yeah. So I've done many transcriptions. I've used the software Transcribe, which I'm sure you've heard of so i actually have a website called harp transcripts where i've shared my transcriptions i've done quite a lot but the ones i've done in trying in in this for this website i've put on there there isn't thousands there isn't as many as obviously you've done but there's a reasonable amount up there so i had this idea of like the whole harmonica community sharing the transcriptions and there's a whole body of transcription work that people could turn to but um i guess you know the value in it is actually doing the transcriptions yourself because actually going and looking at someone else's transcriptions you still got a lot of work to do right to get to get that I think actually the process of transcribing yourself is half that battle, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 29:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you learn so much just trying to figure this stuff out.

SPEAKER_02: 30:00

And I think, you know, going along and looking at your transcriptions of Charlie McCoy, thinking that's it, right, you'd still have to do a lot of practice to get those songs down right from your transcriptions, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:11

Yeah, actually, during the course of the PhD, I interviewed first Charlie himself and also Buddy Green and Mike Caldwell discussing Charlie's playing style. And there were a number of passes which I had really trouble playing and but after doing the interviews I realized that all three of those move their jaw when they move to an adjacent hole so I was like maybe I should learn that and when I did then I was able to get the fast stuff down. Is

SPEAKER_02: 30:42

that an essential skill for country harmonica than that jaw flick? Almost

SPEAKER_01: 30:46

seems like it most people do it who play that and also I mean a lot of the Irish harmonica players use that so it's a very economic way of playing. Your jaw's still okay is it? You haven't got any injuries? No, it's been doing okay so far.

SPEAKER_00: 31:12

Hey, everybody. You're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas out of Clearwater, Florida, the best in custom harmonicas, custom harmonica parts, and more. Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

SPEAKER_02: 31:31

So you wrote, obviously, this article on Charlie as well. We've talked through you, interviewed him. And I think as part of this PhD, Charlie recorded with you, didn't he, on the... on your latest album with John Henry, which is called Lucky Luck. So there's a video with you with Charlie playing. The band went over to Nashville and you recorded in a Nashville studio this album. What year did you do that one?

SPEAKER_01: 31:56

June 23, so we released it last year in March 24. It was really an idea that grew out of this PhD project because I knew I was going to do an artistic output, record an album. At first, we thought we would do it here. We have a great studio at the school. But then the idea grew to, well, maybe, I mean, Charlie is still around playing better than ever, so why not invite him to join us? And that was, wow, yeah, that would be cool. But then maybe we should go to Nashville to record. Why not? Yeah, so I got the finances to go through with that. I came up with the idea that we should do it in the same studio where he recorded most of his stuff, which is Cinderella Sound Studios. I think at least 60% of the stuff that I have transcribed is recorded at Cinderella. So it was just a really great way to pay tribute to those recordings, to be able to go there and record. And Charlie joined us playing bass for the most part. He plays bass on five tracks, harmonica on two tracks, and the day before the recording I talked him on the phone and and he was like well this one song it might work to play some some vibes on that and i was like yeah sure why not so he's playing

SPEAKER_02: 33:22

that as well he's this oh amazing yeah which songs does he play harmonica on

SPEAKER_01: 33:27

he plays harmonica on uh flip that rock and the walk

SPEAKER_02: 33:32

right and you're both playing harmonica on that are you

SPEAKER_01: 33:34

yeah yeah we take a solo each I mean, it was an incredible experience. As I was playing harmonica, Charlie was sitting just six feet ahead of me on the couch playing bass. That was intense.

SPEAKER_02: 34:15

What a dream fulfilled that is, Michael. First of all, you recorded in the very same studio where Charlie had done all those takes that you'd spent hours and days and weeks and months transcribing, and then to be able to play and record with him, that's a fantastic honor. I interviewed him on the podcast quite early on in the podcast series. Right, yeah. He was such a lovely guy. to speak to him. So nice and kind and giving. I'm sure he was a joy to work with.

SPEAKER_01: 34:40

Oh, yeah. And just such an incredible pro to just come in. And it was also exciting because he is actually the guy who more or less invented the Nashville numbers system, the shorthand notation that has spread over the world now. And I got to do Nashville numbers notations of our songs So what is that Nashville number system then? It's something they developed in the 60s because Charlie had a year in music college before he came to Nashville. the choir the Jordan ears who recorded a lot with Elvis instead of writing actual notes that they were singing they wrote numbers so if they played like they wouldn't write G A B they would write 1 2 3 which represents the place in the scale and when Charlie saw that he realized that we can do that with chords so instead of writing writing G, C, G, we'll just write one, four, one. And they have a lot of neat symbols and smart solutions to really just quickly write down the chords of a song. And if you think in numbers, it's easier when you transcribe if you want to change key. And for a harmonica player, it's just perfect because if the key changes, we'll just change the diatonic harmonica. And you can still think, okay, I'm on the one chord now, I'm on the five chord.

SPEAKER_02: 36:27

That's used very commonly in music. For example, in jazz, you've got two, five, ones, for example. Is that where that came from? You know, the jazz chords in that way?

SPEAKER_01: 36:35

I think that type of analysis developed around the same time. But in jazz, they used... Roman numerals.

SPEAKER_02: 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

Whereas in national numbers, it's our regular Arabic numbers.

SPEAKER_02: 36:48

So, I mean, talking through this Lucky Look album then, this is your most recent album, yeah? So you did it as part of your PhD thesis, yeah? You sort of use it as a kind of analysis and you talk about some of the songs, for example, the Nashville Yodeling Blues.

UNKNOWN: 0:00

...

SPEAKER_03: 37:16

It's

SPEAKER_02: 37:31

an instrumental, yeah, where the harmonica, that's the main part, but the other instruments solo on it as well, yeah, so tell us about that song.

SPEAKER_01: 37:37

During this PhD project I really enjoyed playing, there's a number of songs where Charlie is playing sort of a yodel on the harmonica. He's done some Jimmy Rogers tunes and also Hank Williams where he goes... And as I was interviewing him, we were talking about those and I asked him how he played it. And he actually moves the harmonica and his jaw at the same time to cover the distance of those rather large intervals. And I realized then that, okay, that's how he does it. And since I learned corner switching from Robert von Figlio, I've always done those yodels switching the sides of corners of my mouth. And I realized that that's an even more efficient way of doing it, so maybe I should work on those yodels and see if I can push it a little further. And the Nashville yodeling blues is sort of a result of that. I was transcribing vocal yodels just to see what works on the harmonica. It

SPEAKER_02: 38:44

really does sound like yodeling as well, doesn't it? It's quite uncanny. Yeah, it is. Yeah, so that's a really great catchy one. And so another song you did is Oklahoma.

UNKNOWN: 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:11

Tell us about that one.

SPEAKER_01: 39:12

That song was written after we were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when I performed with Mike Fall at Spa. So my wife and my family was there. Everything didn't turn out quite the way we hoped while we were there. And this song is a little bit about that. And also it's a little nostalgic when you realize that it would have been cool to be in Tulsa in the 40s when Bob Wills was there performing. It's a different city now. We had two other guests on the album, and one was on that song, and that's Joe Spivey playing the fiddle, and we also had Jeff Taylor playing accordion. They're both from the band Time Jumpers, which is my favorite band. So it was really cool to have those guys with us as

SPEAKER_02: 39:58

well. And also from this album, you've got some YouTube videos where you explain what harmonicas you use, how you approach some of the songs, such as, I think you do one for Oklahoma, you also do one for Dig That Grey.

SPEAKER_01: 40:11

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:12

So people can go along and you really explain what's going on with the harmonica. So that's great. People can go and check that out and it's really nice to have that analysis of the songs and how you approach to it. So you're playing country-tuned harmonicas on some of these songs. I think Oklahoma you played country-tuned on, don't you?

SPEAKER_01: 40:30

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:31

So an invention of Charlie McCrory, right? I've talked about it with Charlie, but it's got a raised seventh, so you've got the major seventh. So that's something which is used in country music quite a lot, so you get that major seventh, which you can then bend down to get the flat seventh. Right, right. But you've also come up with another tuning, an offshoot of the country tuning for the western swing tuning. Tell us about the western swing tuning.

SPEAKER_01: 40:54

I was really inspired by how much the country tuning has affected Charlie's style or his voice. When I think of Charlie McCoy, I think of a country tuned harmonica and he plays it most of the time. And really what What I think that the greatest contribution of the country tuning is, like you said, that you don't only have that major seventh, but you can bend it down. So when you're on the one chord, you've got this very country-ish or country typical lick. But when you go to the five chord, you can do the same thing. thanks to that major seventh tuning. Because that's the major third of the five chord. So you can use that very expressive way of playing. And I've always felt, when I'm playing Western Swing, a song that's in G will quite often have an A chord, where you go... Leading back to... D, and then... to G. And when you hit that A chord when you're playing in second position on a C harmonica, it sort of narrows down the options. Certainly you can use overblows and you have the major third of that chord on four-hole draw, half-step bend, so you can play the note is there but I can't bend from below I can only come from above so I usually played something like those type of stuff and I wasn't really happy with it I wanted that That type of stuff. So what I did was I tuned the seven blow on a, in this case, a C harmonica. So I raised that a half step. So I got a C sharp instead of a C. And C sharp is the major third of the A chord. So when the A chord comes, I can play... And then the D chord... the G chord. So I have that type of expressiveness on all those chords. And that two major chord, the A in the key of G, is so typical in Western Swing.

SPEAKER_02: 43:29

So that seven blow, is that then a blow bend that you're getting the C, that you're lowering the pitch down? Right. Yeah, so it's the same as the eight and the nine and the ten blow. It's like a blow bend, is it, that you're getting that?

SPEAKER_01: 43:41

Exactly. And I realized that I wasn't playing the C in that octave hardly ever. So I don't really think I'm... missing anything. I just gained that note and the expressiveness that that gives you.

SPEAKER_02: 43:55

So you've raised the five-draw semitone and the seven-blow semitone is the western swing tuning. Right. Fantastic. Are you aware of anyone else picking this tuning up? No, not

SPEAKER_01: 44:05

that

SPEAKER_02: 44:05

I know. We'll see what happens. Hopefully the podcast will get a few people putting that tuning in. I'll give it a go myself. Like you say, for the major there, it's very useful to get that note. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:17

You can hear it on the on the album, on Flip That Rock and on The Walk. I'm using a western swing tuning.

SPEAKER_02: 44:39

So, Greg, so obviously we've talked about you doing lots of education. You've been working in the university for, what, since 2001, did you say? So a question I ask each time, Michael, is if you had 10 minutes of practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing? I think I would...

SPEAKER_01: 44:54

divide it and first play five minutes of practicing intonation on bent notes. I have this little exercise that I do pretty much every day which takes about five minutes where I get to play all the bent notes and work on my pitch there and doing so in all the keys from a low D up to a high A just to really be able to do it in all keys. The other five minutes, I think I would spend with the metronome, just working on my time, because that's something that you can never... really become too good at. So

SPEAKER_02: 45:34

when you talk about practicing your intonation, I know you do play overblows. Do you play overblows during that intonation practice?

SPEAKER_01: 45:42

No, I don't actually. The overblows have been a part of my sort of toolbox since the early 2000s, but I don't use them much. I don't think I ever use them when I improvise. I'll use them if there's a melody or something which requires it or just to play some chromatic passage, but I'm more intrigued with the bends than with the overblows.

SPEAKER_02: 46:08

You wouldn't consider yourself to be a full-on overblow player then?

SPEAKER_01: 46:11

No, no, not really.

SPEAKER_02: 46:13

So another interesting thing you've done is you played in something called the MS Blows, which is a sort of charity concert where you play with various big-name players, Charlie McCoy being one of them, Mickey Raphael, Joe Felisco is joining on those, isn't he, where you're playing benefit concerts for multiple sclerosis,

SPEAKER_01: 46:33

yeah. Yeah, it was an album actually, and the origin of it was that Jimmy Gordon, harmonica player and customizer, which has worked a lot with Joe Felisco, Richard Slade, Jimmy Gordon and Joe Felisco had this cooperation early on in the customizing business. And I was fortunate enough to meet Jimmy at the spas I went to. He's a wonderful player, wonderful harmonica technician and a great guy and he a couple of years after I met him there he got MS so this was sort of the proceeds of the album went to cover his health bills and also to research on MS so it was a good cause and a great way to help a good friend and there's a lot of fantastic harmonica players on that album

SPEAKER_02: 47:27

and do you know if that's available?

SPEAKER_01: 47:28

I don't think it's available anymore unfortunately Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 47:32

So another really interesting thing you did. So in May 2022, you did a presentation on the diatonic playing style of Toots Thielmans in Brussels. Is this part of his sort of 100th birthday celebrations that they did there?

SPEAKER_01: 47:45

Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 47:45

right. There was a conference there to celebrate. So probably not a lot of people know that Toots did play some diatonic. Obviously, he's very well known as being, you know, the fantastic chromatic jazz player that he was. So, you know, how much diatonic did he play?

SPEAKER_01: 47:58

Well, it's a really fascinating story. because I tried to find as many recordings as I possibly could with Tuts, just to really hunt down the diatonic. And to the best of my knowledge, he recorded on diatonic roughly a 10-year period, like 67 through 77. And it was interesting to find that, speaking of overblows again, that he was really a pioneer of overblowing. Oh, wow, yeah. Which is quite little known. I mean, the first overblow is this recording with blues bird head from I think 1929 where he does a whole six overblow

SPEAKER_03: 48:35

and

SPEAKER_01: 48:36

no one records anything that I have found at least until 1967 and then it's Toots on Mama Kaleba's blues where he also records a whole six overblow I interviewed Rob Paparazzi about this because he was a friend of Toots and he studied with him and he had talked to him about overblows and Toots he didn't know of anyone else doing it He had just sort of stumbled upon them. He did, I think it was 70... Yeah, 1970, he records a song called Midnight Blues with the Burt Page Orchestra, and he once again plays a whole six overblow.¦but he also plays a hole 4 overblow and I think that's the first hole 4 overblow ever recorded So he was really early doing this. And it's also interesting because right about the same time is when Howard Levy is discovering overblows. And Howard, I interviewed him on this as well. He was unaware that Toots had done it at the same time. And you also have Will Scarlett playing overblows at the same time. And I don't think he was aware of either of these other guys finding it out. So it was just the stars were really aligned for overblows in the late 60s, early 70s.

SPEAKER_02: 50:11

well that's incredible of all the interviews and discussions I've had including Tootsalot I don't think anyone's mentioned that before so that's definitely a first so well done do we know why he stopped playing diatonic

SPEAKER_01: 50:24

well he was doing less sessions towards the end of the 70s he wanted to focus more on his touring band and really make a name for himself as a jazz performer so he did less sessions in New York and it was usually on the sessions that he played he has a few recordings on his own albums, but mostly on the sessions where a producer would say, well, can't you play the blues harp on this one? And then he would do that, but he would quite often sneak in an overblow then or two. He always was quite sophisticated in his playing. There's an interview in a documentary about Toots and Sven Asmussen, the fiddle player, where they talk about this, where Sven asks him, you play some notes that the other players don't, right? And Tooth says, yeah, I play this. I try to play these notes that aren't there. So he's sort of, he's talking about overblows, but he doesn't have that, the name for it yet. There will actually be a book out, I think in a year or so, where I contribute a chapter on this. So there's a book about Toots and his harmonica life.

SPEAKER_02: 51:35

Yeah, so we'll get into the last section now and talk through the gear that you use. So you play honer harmonicas. We've already mentioned that you get Joel Anderson does some customization of them. So it's honers you're playing. You're diatonics and chromatics, yeah?

SPEAKER_01: 51:50

Yeah, I'm a big marine band fan and I really like the crossover. That's my favorite of them all. Usually I'll play the Ace 48 as a 12 hole chromatic and I have a Meisterklasse as well and a Super 64X and a Super 64 when you want that extra octave. So those are favorite harps and I also have a chromatic made by Joel. He makes his own from scratch now which is just amazing. instruments.

SPEAKER_02: 52:24

We've talked about obviously you're using the western swing tuning and the country tuning. What about positions? I think country music players often use fifth position. Is that something that you use a lot in your country playing?

SPEAKER_01: 52:35

Yeah, whenever it's a minor tune in the country style I'll use fifth position. You can do all your those licks but you just

UNKNOWN: 0:00

...

SPEAKER_02: 52:52

Yeah, nice, yeah. Yeah, so that's one of my, any other positions used by you in Western Swing or, you know, the country or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01: 53:00

Yeah, I've done a little playing with, like playing in third position, but with the Western Swing tuning, because then you have, starting from four-hole draw, you have a major scale there. That's quite useful, and then when it's, if that's your root chord... then when you go to the four chord You're like in second position.

SPEAKER_02: 53:30

What about your embouchure? Are you tongue blocking or puckering?

SPEAKER_01: 53:33

Tongue blocking, 99 point something percent of the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 53:38

And is that common in the country style? You know, it's more puckering typically, is it?

SPEAKER_01: 53:44

Yeah, I think it's more puckering. Like Mike Caldwell, Buddy Green, they're pucker players. Charlie does both quite intermittently. He just switches back and forth. But I do a lot of corner switching, so tongue Tongue blocking, natural for me.

SPEAKER_02: 53:59

And what about amplification? What microphones and amps do you like to use? I usually have

SPEAKER_01: 54:07

an Audix Fireball when I play the country style to get the acoustic sound. I'll either have it on a stand or cup it in my hands. I think it's quite a versatile microphone. And when I play blues with Ramblin' Minds, I have a Sonny Junior for 8-inch speakers, the first model he did. Oh,

SPEAKER_02: 54:28

18 spinkers, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 54:30

Yeah, it's quite nice. I have a bunch of old vintage bullet microphones, but I've been tending to use the Harp Blaster, the Hohner's own mic, a lot lately. It's just, I like the size of it. It's a really small mic, so I can easily cup it and get a really good sound. Some of the bullet mics tend to be too big for my hands.

SPEAKER_02: 54:54

Is it the HB-52, the model number of that one?

SPEAKER_01: 54:57

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02: 54:58

Yeah, so what is that element then in there? Because it's a newly manufactured element, isn't it, rather than a vintage one?

SPEAKER_01: 55:06

Yeah, it's a dynamic microphone.

SPEAKER_02: 55:09

Dynamic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:10

When they came out with it, they said, you can hammer nails with this and it won't break. And I guess I wouldn't hammer nails with it, but it's kind of nice to feel that, you know, you're on these small stages, crowded, and if you drop your mic or if it's knocked off your amp, it'll be fine. If you do that with your vintage stuff, it's more like, ooh, everyone all right here? Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 55:34

a friend of mine plays that, actually, and he really likes it as well. Yeah, so obviously lots of us go towards those expensive vintage mics, but yeah, that's a good alternative obviously you like it yeah good stuff what about any effects you add to your recordings or playing live

SPEAKER_01: 55:48

I usually leave that up to the sound man to just add a little reverb and sometimes I'll borrow my wife's reverb pedal if I feel I need it but I usually just plug it in the amp and let them sort it out at the mixer board

SPEAKER_02: 56:08

and obviously we talked about playing blues and country and going for a cleaner sound on the country, that's what you're going for. You're playing through an acoustic sound, through a PA, when you're playing that style of music on the Western Swing.

SPEAKER_01: 56:22

Yeah, and if I record, I love to use a ribbon mic of any kind, actually. And that's what I like about the Fireball Audix mic. It kind of sounds like a ribbon mic. It has this rolled off... The high frequencies are sort of rolled off there, so it doesn't get too shrieky.

SPEAKER_02: 56:43

Okay, then, so just final question about your future plans. What are you up to now? Any more studies lined up? Or, you know, you've got your PhD... done last year anything else in mind? Yeah

SPEAKER_01: 56:56

I've got a couple of ideas for studies that are waiting to materialize which I will try to always keep it focused around the harmonica since not many academics have been delving into that and there's the Toots book coming out and also pretty soon there's a book coming out about Amazing Grace which is turned 250 a couple of years ago and I was at a conference in Olney where the hymn was originally performed where it was written as well I got to play it in the church there that was really cool so I've written a chapter in that in the coming book on that just focusing on trying to find out why so many harmonica players are attracted to this simple hymn which is basically just a pentatonic melody but it's so great for the harmonica because you can you can play it really simply or you can play it well like Howard Levy tends to do with these really elaborate arrangements

SPEAKER_02: 57:57

yeah and there's a video of you playing in that conference oh yeah right yeah I'll put the link onto that and funnily enough this is completely coincidental I played I sat in yesterday with a band and they played Amazing Grace so I actually played I actually played Amazing Grace yesterday in a gig so yeah but like it's almost an anthem of the harmonica isn't it yeah so it suits it so well yeah so oh yeah fantastic so amazingly yes a great stuff so you're truly a doctor of the harmonica then and great keep up all these great studies and definitely urge people to go and check out the you know some of the work you've done again the links on the podcast page so they can go and check out your PhD and the theses you've done and yeah so fantastic you're doing this sort of work so yeah well done Michael and keep up those studies and keep them coming so yeah so thanks so much for joining me today Michael Backman thanks for having me Thanks again to Michael for joining me. Truly a doctor of the harmonica with his PhD. There are links to Michael's academic work on the harmonica on the podcast page. I'll sign off now with Michael playing the unofficial anthem of the harmonica from the conference he attended at Olney, England. None other than Michael. an

SPEAKER_03: 59:19

amazing grace.