Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Kim Field interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 133

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Kim Field joins me on episode 133. 

Kim’s 1994 book ‘Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument’ was the first book released on the history of the harmonica. And Kim has recently written the book: The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, telling the story of Billy Boy in his own words.

Ever on the lookout to meet and learn from the great players, Kim shares the time he spent with Deford Bailey and also when he played on stage with Walter Horton.

Kim has been in several blues bands, and a country band, and has just released a new album with his latest band, The Perfect Gentleman, featuring Kim’s harmonica, vocals and songwriting talents.

Links:

Kim’s website: https://www.kimfield.com/

Harmonica Northwest weekend, Oct 23-26, 2025: https://menucha.org/programs/harmonica-northwest

Kim’s life in music: https://www.kimfield.com/my-life-in-music

Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument book: https://www.kimfield.com/harmonicas-harps-and-heavy-breathers

PT Gazell review of Don’t Need But One album: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ModernBluesHarmonica/permalink/10162253953062225/

The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold book: https://www.kimfield.com/the-blues-dream-of-billy-boy-arnold

Videos:

James Cotton playing Blues In My Sleep live in 1967: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgS6FG2rtas

David Waldman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8EArw7peM

The Slamhound Hunters band - Lawnmower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjr6YLKKmqY


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


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SPEAKER_01:

Kim Field joins me on episode 133. Kim's 1994 book, Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breavers, The History of the People's Instrument, was the first book released on the history of the harmonica. And Kim has recently written the book, The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, telling the story of Billy Boy in his own words. Ever on the lookout to meet and learn from the great players, Kim shares the time he spent with Defoe Bailey and also when he played on stage with Walter Horton. ZYDAL HARMONICAS Hello, Kim Field, and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

Neil, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's great to have you back on. So, of course, you were on episode 100, The Little Walter Retrospective. Good to have you back on.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you. I also wanted to say at the outset that I just really appreciate the work you've done on these podcasts. You've amassed an amazing archive of very personal interviews with great players, and it's a huge resource for all of us. So thanks for that.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, many thanks, Kim. And I've been partly inspired by your own good work in this as well, and your writing, which we'll get into later. during the discussion but yes you've written a book called harmonica's harps and heavy breavers which was definitely part of an inspiration for the sort of format for this so yeah thanks for your work as well and and the other great stuff you've written about you then so you're um you've moved around quite a lot so we'll jump through your uh your quite varied um career and you've jumped around the u.s quite a lot so you're originally from seattle

SPEAKER_04:

right i'm uh born and raised there

SPEAKER_01:

And so you're talking about your early influences, your parents were into the music, I think your mother played violin, your father drums, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, my mother played violin through college, and my dad worked his way through college playing drums in swing bands, basically, in those days. Neither one of them played after I was born, but we just grew up with a lot of music in the house, and we went to see a lot of music. And I have two siblings, and all three of us ended up playing instruments all the way through school. I chose the trumpet. That was my instrument through 12th grade, and it actually worked out quite well in terms of a shift to another wind instrument, namely the harmonica. So I had a really excellent trumpet teacher as a kid, And he was very, very focused on tone production and breathing from the diaphragm. And I had a lot of that drilled into me before I ever touched a harmonica. And it really, really helped out. I just have an affinity to wind instruments. I've tried to play guitar for 50 years and I can't get past first base on that thing.

SPEAKER_01:

The trumpet's kind of notoriously difficult to kind of get the embouchure right and get the sound initially, isn't it? So, you know, how do you think that did help your harmonica playing when you picked it up?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, it is really tricky, but it's well, actually, the trumpet made me very excited about the one incredible advantage that the harmonica has over any other wind instrument is that you can breathe while you're playing because trumpet playing is all about storing air in your lungs and taking quick little breaths out of the corners of your mouth when you need to. You have to learn circular breathing and all these crazy techniques, but the harmonica, you can just play and play and play and play, you know, grab an appropriate sort of convenient blow note and catch your breath at the same time. So I think that's, you know, having played another wind instrument, it's still... kind of gasses me that the harmonica can be played while you're breathing. It's really a huge advantage.

SPEAKER_01:

So I believe your inspiration to take up the harmonica was seeing the great James Cotton play in 1968 in a concert in Seattle.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I can pinpoint the night. I had just started going, you know, I got my driver's license. I lived out in the suburbs. So that was your ticket to freedom and drive into the big city and see shows. And those were the late 60s, the days of the, you know, the Fillmore era down in San Francisco, and Seattle was on a circuit of West Coast venues for those shows during the rock era. And that was actually also the blues revival era, where B.B. King and people like that were starting to play at the Fillmore. The second show I ever saw was Albert King, which was an amazing experience and kind of introduced me to the blues. I kind of was making that transition that a lot of guys of my age made, starting with the Rolling Stones and and then the stones leading you to muddy waters. And I did that pretty quickly. My rock and roll phase was pretty limited, actually. And then I was searching for a different instrument than the trumpet. I went to see James Cotton. In 1968, he had that great band that's on a lot of those Verber records from the late 60s with Luther Tucker on guitar. It's just an incredible band. Cotton was probably 35 years old, so he was really young. He was the most vigorous, active performer I had probably ever seen on a stage. He just paced back and forth across the stage constantly. He had that big signature instrumental called The Creep He did that that night, and he did somersaults in the middle of it while he's playing. The moment that did it for me was he did this instrumental that's on one of those Verve records. It's called Blues in My Sleep, and it's in the key of D. And he cycles through all the positions during this instrumental. He plays first, cross, third, and then ends with chromatic. And it's kind of a reverb-laden, late-in-the-evening, slow blues, and it It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I just sat, well stood, everybody stood in the audience at that particular venue, and I was just awestruck. with the sound that he was getting. And I think it was probably the next day I went down and bought a sea marine band. I had no idea what to do, but that was the beginning of the end for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I saw James Cotton when I was probably around 20 years old in the UK. So yeah, he was very energetic then as well, and I loved him then. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

what a player what a player

SPEAKER_01:

so we'll go look through your uh your career now some of the bands you play with so on your website your kimfield.com website there's a section called my life in music where there's a great um biography of your career in in different years so i urge people to go and have a read of that if they want more detail it's um fantastically well written and lots of detail and uh yeah it's great stuff so and and of course a big part of your involvement with the harmonica is in your writing we've already mentioned the book uh that that you wrote. So writing's been an important part of your involvement with the harmonic as well, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I mean, I was an English major in college. I've always been an avid reader, and so I've had some nascent talents sort of in that direction. Basically, I really wanted just to write a book. I wanted to do that as an accomplishment. And so I know myself pretty well. The chances of me of actually completing a project as complicated as a book were pretty pretty slim and I needed to pick a topic that would carry me through. There was no book on the harmonica in terms of its history. I mean, there were instructional books and so forth. And so the thing I'm proudest of about that book is it was pre-internet.

SPEAKER_03:

I

SPEAKER_04:

mean, that book came out the first time in 94, just as the internet was sort of first appearing. That book is all based on a lot of grunt work of going to libraries and looking in books about musical instruments and books about about different players. And it was a lot of research. And I'm proud of the way I kind of stitched that story together. I'm a notoriously bad self-promoter, but I can be pretty persuasive. And somehow I was able to convince Simon& Schuster to publish a book on the history of the harmonica. So I'm not sure how I did that, but that was great to have a major publisher behind it in the initial printing. And again, it was really just a cheap excuse, frankly, to call up a lot of my favorite harmonica players and have a reason for them to speak with me. And I fooled around with that manuscript for about five years. and I was getting calls back from those players players I had interviewed saying, you know, Kim, you talked to me two years ago, where the hell is that book? And so they sort of shamed me into finishing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well done, like you say, having to go and do research pre-internet, because doing my research for the podcast, you know, I've got the luxury of doing it all on the internet pretty much, and it's a massive advantage. I can't imagine being able to put this together by going to libraries and things. So yes, a great, so it was published in 1994. Again, the title is Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breeders, the History of the People's Instruments. So a haven't read it I read this book quite a few years ago now so yeah I've still got the book and yeah it's a great book and a nice easy read because it's sort of broken into different sections you've tried to cover like different periods of the harmonica haven't you so you sort of go through harmonica groups and bands and then the sort of soloist Larry Adler folk music country music you look at the blues rock and roll soul music such as Stevie Wonder jazz toots and William Galison and Hollywood and classical so you've deliberately tried to cover the sort of old the genres. Again, a bit like this podcast where I tried to do a similar thing, but you didn't just want to focus on blues and it kind of goes chronologically through some of those different genres yet.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I went by genre. I decided to use that as the kind of organizing concept. I had to draw the line somewhere. The biggest challenge for me as a blues player was to not have the blues chapter completely run away with the entire book. That was very challenging. And then I also drew a line where I pretty much just focused on American players. I apologize to you and your fellow Europeans. Otherwise, I would have just written a 700-page book and it would never have gotten published.

SPEAKER_01:

But yeah, no, that's fine. That's fine. We forgive you. All right. Thank you. But I mean, you mentioned 700 pages. I was reading that it was 650 pages and you had to cut it down. Is that right?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, yeah. Actually, I learned how not to write a book on that project. The way you should write a book is you should write an outline and maybe one sample chapter and find an agent and then have that agent find you a publisher because no publisher is going to look at an entire manuscript it just doesn't work that way but I had been fiddling with that book on my own for six years and I had a huge manuscript and then I sort of through a happenstance a series of events I found myself an agent she actually sent the manuscript into Simon and she and they got back to me and they said, well, you know, Kim, we'd actually like to publish this book, but based on your manuscript, you've written a 650-page book on the harmonica, and that's not going to happen. We want a 350-page book. So I basically had to cut the book by at least a third, but it was actually a very good thing. It made for a much better book. You know, I had a level of detail that you and me and maybe 10 or 12 other people would have appreciated.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think you're right, because as I said earlier on it's very much a sort of pick up and you know pick out a section because you just read about one player you can read that section then go to another one you don't have to read it in order so it makes it very accessible sort of easy to read book because of that format doesn't it

SPEAKER_04:

yeah I really worked hard to get a companion CD bound into that book with Rhino Records at the time because my whole thing really was like the book should make you want to go listen to these players right and so I hear a lot from people that as they read the book they do that with YouTube and so forth so that's great because it's all about turning people on to the music Peter Goralnik is the sort of to me the ultimate music writer and what I learned from Peter is that he just writes about music that he really loves he's not a critic he's not an analyst he's just a person that tries to get other people excited about the music that he loves and that's just that's the way it should be

SPEAKER_01:

So you cover a lot of the earlier history, and then you do have interviews with live players, such as William Gallinson, for example. So, yeah, it definitely fills a gap in some of that history, especially the early history, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and I learned all that in the course of researching the book. I had no idea that the free read concept went back 3,500 years ago. Asia and how that concept traveled into Europe during the trade routes and so forth. So I do have a couple introductory chapters that kind of trace the history of the free read concept. I remember running across an article or a section in a music instrument book and they talked about the free read was not Totally well received by everyone in the public. Like the concertina and the harmonica and the accordion all showed up about the same time around 1825 in Germany. And there are contemporary accounts of local populations confiscating all the harmonicas, accordions and concertinas in town and burning them in big bonfires in the town square. So that was a quote I remember discovering that it was pretty, pretty interesting. It's not for everyone, Neil.

SPEAKER_01:

So no. So a nice little fact we can pull out of the book is the first instrument in outer space, which was the, you can tell us, Kim?

SPEAKER_04:

It was the harmonica. It was Wally Schirra, who was one of the original first seven Mercury astronauts to go into space. He did his own solo flight as a Mercury astronaut, but then later he was on a Gemini flight where they had three astronauts in the capsule. He was an amateur harmonica player since boyhood. and he smuggled a tiny little lady, you know, the little four-hole harmonic you wear in a chain around your neck. He smuggled one of those in his space suit, which was, you know, a completely, totally verboten by NASA. He was orbiting around Christmastime and he played Jingle Bells, you know, during a call back to Houston. I got a chance to interview him over the phone. He was a great guy. He was very funny. He was very upset. He thought he would get... free harmonicas for life from the Horner Company after doing that stunt, and he said he'd never heard from them, and he was completely stunned

SPEAKER_01:

by that. Well, so great. So I don't think I've had that fact on the podcast before, so that's a fantastic one. The first instrument in space was a harmonica, so yeah, great stuff. Again, great writing, you know, you write really well. So here's a line, a short line extract from the book, which demonstrates that, I think. So, Howard Levy literally bent the instrument to his piano So a beautiful turn of phrase there. So you have written another book later, so we'll come on to that. But yeah, great work. And I definitely encourage people strongly to read the Harmonicus, Horps and Heavy Breavers book. So they're published in 1994. I think you told me before that you did an updated version in 2000.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and just to be honest, I don't have any plans to do a further updating, just sort of keep expanding. Like I said, I think what's grown up thanks to the internet, is a vast archive of harmonica-centric material that you and many other people have contributed to. And so I don't think it's a problem that I'm not continuing to expand that book. And it's mostly sort of about the history of the instrument and how it got established. And so it's all still valid.

SPEAKER_01:

So great. So we'll go back to your life in harmonica. So after growing up in Seattle, as you say, you moved to New York. I think you went to college there, Ian. And you formed your first band, The Stingrays, which you made a splash on the college scene in New York.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we did pretty well. And the guitar player in that band, Lou Erlanger, ended up being the original guitar player for Mink DeVille, which was a pretty well-known band. Did three albums for Capitol. But we played around campus. And in retrospect, there was an amazing harmonica scene. I went to Columbia University once. mark wenner who later formed the nighthawks after he left columbia he was there he was a student at columbia he you know he played harmonica i used to see mark play all the time and uh dave waldman who is one of the greatest blues harp players ever has lived in chicago for many years He was also a student at Columbia, and he had a very big impact on me because I used to see him walk around campus. He was just this guy, every time I saw him, he was walking around playing the harmonica. So I, of course, noticed that. I'd see him two weeks later, and he'd be twice as good as he was two weeks ago. And that just sort of kept going on, and I finally stopped him and introduced myself, and I was like, who are you? And like, how are you making this kind of progress? And he said, well, I've been taking lessons from Paul Osher. Here's his number and you should get in touch with him. Paul, you know, was the first white member of the Muddy Waters band. And so Paul was living in New York too. Sugar Blue was living in New York at the time. There was a guy, Danny Russo, who was a really excellent player, recorder for Spivey Records. So there was this little sort of harmonica community. And I eventually did get a lesson with Paul And it was huge for me. I'd been playing for about three years and just playing puckered, not using my tongue at all. And he stood in front of me with no amplifier in the way or anything and played juke for me. And I heard the tongue-blocked octaves for the first time, and it just completely blew my mind. And he diagrammed out the first verse of juke for me, and it was all up to me after that. But... That was a really fantastic experience.

SPEAKER_01:

You also met Deeford Bailey as well, I think, for part of your research for the Heavy Reelers book.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you know, I'm an introvert. I'm the world's worst self-promoter. But when it comes to things I'm excited about, I found the will to introduce myself to people. And the Deeford Bailey thing, there was a record store in Seattle that sold 78s. I bought an old 78 turntable, and I would buy any record that had Harmonica on the label. And I bought this Nike team 28 rc bluebird d4 bailey harmonica solo so i bought it i took it home and i was just completely mind-boggled by this guy's playing. I'd never heard anything like that. He's still, like, he's completely unique. And so then Nashville, traveling with a girlfriend, and I'm headed to Memphis, and I had read a book by Paul Hemphill on country music, and I had the address of the shoeshine stand that Dee Ford was now running, or had been when the book came out, and I realized, I saw the book in the Country Music Hall of Fame bookstore, and I looked at the chapter because I thought I was heading to Memphis next, and I thought I'd try to look up Dee Ford, and Dee Ford, of course, is a grand old Opry star, so he lives in Nashville, right where I am, and they gave a street corner where his shoeshine stand was that he set up after he retired from the Opry, and I just walked out of the Hall of Fame and hailed a cab and had him take me over the river to the black part of town. And he left me off at that street corner and there was no shoeshine stand. There was an old pharmacy that had been there for obviously forever and an elderly man behind the counter. And I asked him if he knew where D. Ford Bailey lived. And he said, yeah, it turned out they had torn the shoeshine stand down and built a public housing project on the spot. And D. Ford just moved right in and he was living there. And I went into the lobby and these were the days they had everyone's last name all the tenants in the in the apartment they lived in on a little board in the lobby and i see d bailey you know 8b or something and i just get in the elevator and i go up there and i knocked on his door it was just like stepping back into 1925

SPEAKER_01:

did he have many harmonica fans knocking on his door saying hello

SPEAKER_04:

no he did not the book i had read made him sound kind of bitter and reclusive and i had the total opposite experience, thankfully, with him. He opened the door and he was standing. He was probably about 4'10". He's a black man. He's sort of a hunchback. So he compensated by being an incredible clothes horse. He was dressed to the nines in a brocade shirt with a string tie and perfectly pressed black slacks and brilliantly polished you know, patent leather shoes. And I stammered out some kind of introduction, like I'm a harmonic player of Seattle. I've come all the way just to see you. And he welcomed me into his apartment. We chatted for a while and I was like, boy, you know, D4, I sure would like to hear you play that harmonica. He go, well, you know, I do play harmonica. guitar he goes off and he rummages around comes back with a guitar and plays he plays this incredible guitar upside down left-handed uh and sings which i had no idea he did and then we chat for a while longer i go you know i sure would love to hear you play that harmonica d4 i've come a long way and he said well i do play the banjo and i go really and then he goes off and he comes back with a banjo he's playing that upside down and he plays great and then I finally had an inspiration that I pulled out. I had an A harp and I pulled it out and I said, you know, Deford, I tried to learn your ice water blues tune. Let me play a little bit for you and you can give me some tips. And it worked like a charm because he was just squirming through my whole terrible rendition of it. And he just said, well, let me show you how it's done. And he picked up a harp finally and he played for like 45 minutes.

UNKNOWN:

Wow.

SPEAKER_04:

And I knew less about how he did what he did after sitting right next to him than when I did coming in. It was just nothing moved. You couldn't see anything happening. He only held the harp with one hand and there was no movement at all. And all this incredible sound was coming out. It was just... He was really, really something. I'm so lucky to have met

SPEAKER_01:

him. Great. And to sit there here and playing with him. Fantastic. So then you went back to Seattle for a couple of years and then to Austin in the late 70s. And then there you met with Kim Wilson. But then you went back to Seattle between the 1978 to 1990s. And there you played with Walter Horton as well. And I've got a reading here. This is your most memorable musical experience. What happened when you played with Walter Horton?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing that's going to ever top that. I was playing with a guitar player named Brian Butler in Seattle. We both went to see Big Walter play at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle. It was right near my house at the time. I had seen Walter a lot when I lived in New York because he played Boston a lot, and I would hitchhike up to Boston just to see Walter because he never played in New York. So we went to see Walter at the Rainbow in Seattle that night, and he was just on fire. He had a band with Ted Harvey on drums and Left Hand Frank on guitar and Rich Molina on bass, and he just was incredible. Like, when Big Walter was on, I mean, there's nothing like that. The owner of the club jumps up on stage at the end of the night and huddles quickly with Walter and goes, well, ladies and gentlemen, I have great news. Walter had an off night tomorrow night, and we just worked it out, and he's going to play again at the Rainbow tomorrow night. We were like, oh, that's great. That's fantastic. And then Brian's like, well, wait a minute. That's our gig. Like we were booked to play the next evening. So we chatted with, I think, Rich Molina or something, and we just worked out a deal where, I mean, those were the days when you played all night. So we agreed that we would play the opening set, then Walter would play a set with his band, then we would play a third set, a short thing, and then he would finish out the night with a fourth set. So that day, I'm thinking, oh, my God, I'm going to be playing in the same room with Big Walter Horton. And I started to kind of freak out a little bit. And then by the time I got to the gig, I was like, Kim, there is no pressure on you. Nobody is expecting anything of you. They're all coming to hear Big Walter. So I was in a pretty good space and we played a solid first set and then Walter played. And then now I'm totally inspired after hearing Walter for 45 minutes. And so I got up and we did a good second set. And then I went and sat down. I had a friend saving a space for me at the front table with a couple of beers. And now I'm just going to sit at the feet of the master and just soak it all in. And Rich Molina taps me on the shoulder and he goes, Big Walter would like you to play this last set with him. And I'm like, what? I look up and Walter is beckoning at me from across the room. And I sort of floated over to him in complete, like a coma. And he goes, yeah, you get on stage and play through my amp and I'll play through the vocal mic on the floor. He just put a vocal mic down on the floor and stood in front of the band. and sang and i played through his amp with the band i think he gave me maybe at least one maybe two solos i basically just played fills in his vote in and out of his vocals and then he took all the solos but I came home that night to my little apartment and I bounced around the walls for a couple of hours. And then I just went out in the streets and walked around till like dawn, you know, like till the sun came up. I was so completely flipped out that I had done that.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't suppose you've got any recordings of that. No, I have no recordings, no

SPEAKER_04:

photos, but I do have a friend who was there that night and he's validated

SPEAKER_01:

that that all happened. It's like these days, you know, you'd have a hundred phones pointing at you, recording you, but back then this didn't exist, right? So it's a shame for you, you don't have a recording of it, right?

SPEAKER_04:

It's a shame, but boy, the memory is so beautiful that I just, I can totally live with that.

SPEAKER_01:

It's great. Fantastic. So you're in the Slamhound Hunters band at this stage, and is this the band you were playing with there? And you released a couple of albums with them, yeah?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That was a little bit later after I played with Brian. My friend, Lou Erlanger, who I was with in college in that band, The Stingrays, he had gone on to Mink DeVille and they had done really well, but he, for various reasons, he left the band and I convinced him to move out to Seattle and he and I formed the Slam Out Hunters together. We had a good run. We had a really good band and we did a couple of records for a local label. We had kind of a decent FM radio hit one summer and we did a tour of europe at some point we just sort of lost momentum but we did do some nice recordings

SPEAKER_00:

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_01:

And then you moved to Worcester, Massachusetts for a while and completed the book there and met Charles Layton, who you definitely speak highly of as one of the best chromatic players. And he helped you get the book published, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, he did. He actually was, he knew the editor of Town and Country magazine, which is a kind of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous magazine. He was talking to the guy and he said, I had interviewed him for this book. He told the editor of Town& Country Magazine that there was this guy who'd written a book on the harmonica, and he said, oh, that's interesting. I met a book agent at a party last weekend, and she was looking for a book-related, a music-related manuscript. And so that's how I found this agent. It was just kind of amazing. But meeting Charlie Layton was like another, you know, one of the great high points of my musical life, for sure. People should check him out. I've posted a few of things on youtube he was really the first great jazz player on the chromatic as a teenager he kind of came you know played in vaudeville as a teenager as part of you know those harmonica bands that were so big then but he was a featured like jazz soloist then he went out as a solo player after world war ii playing the supper clubs and so forth but television sort of killed the nightclub scene and he became a recording engineer in new york and then he did a whole album of classical material, which a friend convinced him to do, which is also phenomenal. As the guy who wrote the book on the history of harmonica, you really, and personally, I just steer away from, you know, the who's the best ever kind of discussions. It's not correct, but for me, the person with the best tone ever on the chromatic is Charlie Layton. And that speaks to my own biases as kind of like loving traditional sound, kind of beautiful vibrato. really beautiful traditional jazz, but just a phenomenal player. People should really check him out because if you think you're doing something on the chromatic, you should hear Charlie Layden. He also was important for the book because he was my entry into the chromatic genre. So he opened up his Rolodex, and when I left his apartment, I had Jerry Murad's phone number, George Field's phone number, all these great chromatic players. And he put a little cassette in my hand as I left. He says, here's something I recorded. And about a week later, I went through my luggage and I found it and I put it on and I was just completely stunned. He recorded himself in his studio at night playing along with these music minus one records, you know, where you have the whole background and you learn how to play solos by playing along with them. He did a version of In a Sentimental Mood. In a Sentimental Mood

SPEAKER_01:

So then you moved back to Seattle in the mid-90s, and you were in a band called Kimfield and the Titans of Town, where you did quite a few originals that you wrote, and you recorded a few songs with them.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I was actually out of music for about 10 years. Before the Titans of Tone, I have two boys. They were growing up and I was working a really challenging day job. So I really only played sort of casual gigs for about 10 years. And then as the boys got into high school, things like that, I had a little bit more time. I formed a band, a tone band, and I did a recording project with them. It was a little bit rushed, but there's some decent stuff in there. And I did an album of all original material with those guys. It sort of set a pattern for me, like... I had worked in four-piece bands for a long time doing kind of the pseudo T-Birds thing with one guitar, bass, drums, and harp. And when you add that second guitar or that keyboard, there's just a whole other world of music you can tackle. And so the Titans of Tone was built on a twin guitar concept of two guitars playing parts. And you can get a... really big sound i mean one of the issues with the harmonica is it's not a rhythm instrument i mean you can play rhythmically and you can do i'm a big believer in playing backup harmonica and not just soloing all the time but you can't play chords on it in the way you can play chords on a guitar or piano so when the guitar player takes the solo in the four piece, you know, it's a little empty, frankly. So after Seattle, my return to Seattle, I did another weird stint. I got a day job offer that I couldn't really turn down in New York City. I went back to New York for about three years. And then I moved, fallen in love with a woman from Portland, Oregon. So I finally made my way back to the Northwest, this time to Portland. And that's where I've been living for the last 10 years or so.

SPEAKER_01:

But before we get onto that on your later So you're also in a country music band, the Titans of Twang.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I've always been a huge, basically honky tonk country fan. Like we talked earlier about how I quickly moved from the Rolling Stones to Muddy Waters and as a teenager and about a year later, I was still in high school. I saw Graham Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers three or four times one summer at a couple of different rock festivals and I was really intrigued by them. I figured, okay, well, this is just like the Rolling Stones going to Muddy Waters. I need to go to the record store and get a real country western record. This was the summer of 69 and the big song was Oki for Muskogee by Merle Haggard which is a particularly obnoxious song but I like the voice. I said, well, I should buy a really obnoxious country record and see if I can like that. I'll get into country. And I got Merle's Live in Muskogee album, which is a phenomenal album. He cycles through his hits. And I became a lifelong Merle Haggard fanatic. So I've listened to as much country music as I have blues. I hooked up with a fantastic singer, Lisa Teo, who had a concept to do the great country western duets like George Jones and Tammy Wynette and Graham Parsons and Amy Lou Harris and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn and people like that and she needed a guy. So she recruited me for that band and it was a thrill. It was a fantastic band. The players were all like super high level players and I had a ball playing in that and singing in that band.

SPEAKER_03:

You're gonna lose a loving heart that you're breaking I'm

SPEAKER_04:

not totally through with country music yet, I don't think. There's some fantastic country players in Portland, so I'm going to try to take advantage of that.

SPEAKER_01:

So as you say, you're now living in Portland, Oregon. So you are now in the band called The Perfect Gentleman, which is your current band, and you've just released an album, released on April 14th. The Perfect

SPEAKER_03:

Gentleman um

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you just got this out, a great album, you know, listening to it, very sophisticated sound, there's horns in there, complex arrangements, and I think you sing most of that, and you wrote many of the songs, you obviously play harmonica on there too.

SPEAKER_04:

Our mutual friend P.T. Gazelle, a fantastic harmonica player out of Nashville, he posted a little pocket review of the record on Facebook, and it meant a lot to me, not only because he's one of the people whose opinions I most respect in the harmonica world. He thought the record was a primer on how to play harmonica in a band. And I thought that was a really good comment. I mean, in terms of my career and everything and how I approach music and harmonica, it's sort of like there's different ways you can go. I mean, originally, I just wanted to be a musician, even though I had more raw talent, I think, in writing and actually in art as well. When I was a kid, I just drew all the time. But I thought musicians were the coolest guys on the planet, and I just wanted to be one of them, you know, in some small way. And so I kind of crowbarred my way in there. with the harmonica and I've never had an act where the whole thing was built just around a focus on me. I've always felt like if you're the best player in the band, you should get into another band because bands are so educational and you should just keep moving. I'm proud of the fact that I'm 73 years old now and I have the best band I've ever had.

UNKNOWN:

I think.

SPEAKER_04:

And so I take a lot of pride in that. But again, this band was built on that twin guitar concept. And I have two guitar players, Whit Draper and Vias Dodson, who I would put those two guys up against any guitar tandem anywhere. I mean, they're just fantastic players. They're totally unselfish. They love to play parts with each other. They are the perfect gentleman. I like the name of the band sounds a little snarky, which it is, but it's also true. I mean, these guys are incredible professionals. There's 11 tunes on the album and 10 of them are originals. Dias Dodson, I was really happy to showcase him on this record because I think he's one of the real up-and-coming talents in the blues. He used to work with Curtis Salgado and he wrote tunes with Curtis too, but he's a phenomenal singer and player, but a really, really talented songwriter. So he sings a couple on the record. There's a couple of instrumentals that he also wrote. There's four instrumentals on the album. We really like to play instrumentally as a combo. So that's reflected on the album. And then we had worked with a two-piece horn section, tenor, sax, and trumpet, Chris Mercer and Joe McCarthy on various gigs. So we really wanted to bring them in. There's a horn section on like five tunes on the record. And we added a baritone sax, Rob Rayfield on baritone. So it's a really, really beautiful sound. Chris Mercer, the tenor player, is a Brit who has an incredible story. He celebrated his 80th birthday by playing a sax solo on a tune on that record of mine.¦He and Mick Taylor, who later joined the Rolling Stones, joined John Mayall's band on the same day in like 1969 or something. 68, I think. And he's played with Van Morrison and all kinds of folks. So Portland really has a remarkable music community. I think a lot of Californians moved up to Portland. escape California in some level. And so there's an incredible amount of musical talent in Portland. And Chris is just a great example of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely very slick sounding, very professionally produced. It sounds great. Yeah. So where can people get hold of the album or hear it?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, you can purchase it off iTunes and Amazon Music. And of course, that helps us. It's also on the streaming platforms, but it's better for us monetarily if you actually purchase the album digitally. Thanks for the compliment about the overall sound of the album, and that has a lot to do with Dave Darling, who's the producer I worked with on the record. It was the first time I'd worked with a producer, and it was a really great experience, and I learned a lot from Dave. Dave actually was introduced to me by Ross Guerin, the great player from California who you've had on your podcast before. He called me up, he said, I know you're headed to the studio, and I know this producer, Dave Darling, you just... He's been recording down here, producing here in LA for 40 years and he just bought a house in Portland and he's moving up there. So I had coffee with Dave and we sort of clicked and used him on the record and he did all the mixing too. So he's responsible for the overall sound and he did a great job.

SPEAKER_01:

So let's get on to your second main book amongst other writings. So you co-wrote a book called The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold. So you worked with Billy Boy Wright to write this book and you spent time with him. And I've had Billy Boy Arnold on the podcast, so it was great to get him on. But yeah, you've got that. He's full story on there, which is fantastic. So how did that all come about?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, that was thanks to Mark Hummel, really. I mean, all of us Blues Heart players were always running into each other and sharing stories and all of that. And I had heard stories about Billy Boy for years before I ever met him or even saw him play. I mean, I was familiar. I had his records. And the thing everyone said about Billy Boy was, this guy is the smartest guy ever. And he's so well-spoken and he has a memory like a steel trap. He remembers everything. And somebody needs to get his story told. And so that kind of, when I moved to Portland and settled down there and I retired and I was thinking maybe there's a second book in me. But again, you know, like I'm lazy and I needed a strong topic to carry me through. And I thought of that Billy Boy thing, you know, the fact that nobody got in his story. And that appealed to me because I really, as I mentioned in that Harmonica book, Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breathers, I interviewed players as much as I could. So they tell their own story in their own words. And so I thought about this. And I was back up in Seattle to visit, and Mark Hummel brought one of his harmonica blow-offs through Seattle, and it was a tribute to John Lee Williamson, and he had Billy Boy on the show. So I saw Billy Boy for the first time play at this club, Jazz Alley, in Seattle with Mark, and Mark had me up. to join everybody at the end of the finale, I popped into the dressing room to thank Mark for having me up. And the only person in the dressing room was Billy Boy. And he looked up and he said, hey, you played some nice harp. That was nice. And so I immediately slid into a seat next to him. And within a couple of minutes, he was telling me about meeting John Lee Williamson, which is kind of his big story as a 14-year-old. The next year, Mark brought Billy Boy back through Portland. And I talked to Mark before they got to town, and I said, look, I'd really like to do something with Billy Boy. I want to talk to him just very briefly about the idea backstage at the show in Portland, and would you introduce me to him? I met him once, but I don't think he's going to remember me. So Mark put us together in the dressing room. I didn't want to overwhelm Billy Boy with some whole spiel. I just said, look, I'm a writer and a harp player, and you've got an amazing story. I think I can, if you're interested, I think I could help. And can I just come to Chicago and can we just chat about it? So he said, fine. And I flew to Chicago and Dick Sherman, the well-known, really fantastic blues producer, arranged a lunch with me and Billy Boy and him. And it turns out, Dick and Billy Boy are super tight, so I didn't really realize the extent of that. I started into my sales pitch to Billy Boy about doing a book, and I got about 30 seconds into it, and he just goes, well, if Dick says you're cool, you're cool, so let's go. How does this work? Do you have a tape recorder or what? And I didn't. I wasn't prepared at all. I was just there to sell him. Then COVID hit, and we did that whole book over the phone between Seattle and Portland. I did about 65 hours of interviews Thank you. I just, I wrote an introduction. That's the only part I wrote. The rest of the book is Billy Boy in his own words. I took these random interviews and, you know, edited them into a kind of a chronological narrative. And boy, he does have the most amazing story. It's just incredible. So I was so happy to get it out of him.

SPEAKER_01:

And of course, he's the one, he was really around in the sort of heyday, wasn't he? Way back in the sort of creation of the, you know, when the Chicago Blues started. So, you know, like I say, he met the first Sonny Boy, right? So he really, went back to those early days, didn't he?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, he was born in Chicago. His parents did the migration from the South. So he's a city kid. He was born in 1935. All his contemporaries, his fellow teenagers, when he was growing up, none of them listened to the blues. They thought that was old folks music. And they were all listening to Billy Eckstein and doo-wop bands and Sarah Vaughan and people like that. But he fell in love with the blues through his aunts 78 record collection when he was 5 years old by the time he was 10 he was a total blues fanatic and he was and he became completely focused on John Lee Williamson he just idolized his records and And then he found out that John Lee lived in Chicago. He assumed if you made records, you lived in Hollywood or New York City or something. And he was stunned to find out that these guys were in Chicago. And he met a guy who gave him Sonny Boy's address. The first time he went by Sonny Boy's, he was so nervous, he just yelled out Sonny Boy's name and took off running. But he went back there a little while later with some cousins and they knocked on the door and Sonny Boy opened the door. And they said, we're here to meet Sonny Boy Williamson. And he He got a big kick out of it and he invited them upstairs and they hung out with him for an hour or so. And then Billy Boy went back again for a second time, this time with a harmonica and got some tips from John Lee Williamson. And they were really hitting it off. And there was the beginnings of a really cool friendship. And then they went back a third time and Sonny Boy had been murdered. But that didn't stop Billy. Billy Boy, it was great. He just kept going. He met Blind John Davis, this great blues piano player, and Blind John introduced him to Big Bill Brunzi and Memphis Mini. And by the time Muddy Waters and Little Walter were doing their thing in 51, 52, Billy Boy had been on the blues scene for 10 years. Then Billy Boy made his own recordings. He's on the original Bo Diddley sessions with I'm a Man. That's Billy Boy playing harp. And then he had his own hit with I Wish You Would and he's only 19 years old and he's led bands in Chicago ever since and he's the most passionate blues fan I have ever met and I've met a lot of them when he wasn't playing himself he was in the clubs watching other people play and he remembers everything which he does because to him it was really important he felt like he was witnessing history whereas to most people he's just going to some seedy blues bar on the south side and that's why i called it the blues dream of billy borrell i struggled with the title for the book but then i was listening to this one tape of him and he's saying they all told me i was crazy when i was a kid that i i always felt that if the blues could get out if it get on the radio and break out of the black communities that it would it would be a huge thing and It turned out I was exactly right. Billy Boy is a stone-cold harmoniac, too. So there's a lot of great stories and perspectives in there about other harmonica players, especially Little Walter, who, you know, Billy Boy saw hundreds of times.

SPEAKER_01:

You've also written for various other publications as well. You've written for The Village Voice, Blues Review magazine, on Crunchy Music and various things. So, yeah, definitely involved. But we'll just get on to the 10-minute question now. It's a question I ask each time. 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_04:

at this stage i'm trying to get off my ass and learn uh some different positions i've really kind of had not investigated any new position techniques in a really long time like on this new record i just did i i do a harmonic instrumental called dress the monkey so I play in fifth position. which is, you know, a beautiful position for minor keys. But I actually, the song is in a major key, so I'm playing fifth position in a major, which I'm sure people have done it. It was totally new for me. I had to kind of figure it out from scratch. That's the kind of thing I'm focused on right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's move on to the last section now. So, yeah, so first of all, what harmonicas do you like to play?

SPEAKER_04:

I'm a total Marine Band guy. That's the first harp I ever bought. I've had the best harmonica minds in the world tell me that there's really not that much sonic difference between wood combs and plastic combs, but I personally don't believe it.

SPEAKER_01:

What about, do you play any overblows?

SPEAKER_04:

I do not. You know, I've played around with them. I've never incorporated them into my playing. It's probably due to my own laziness. It's also, you know, the overblows are quite... challenging if you approach those for the first time in middle age or something, you know, like the intonation challenge around overblows is pretty substantial and overblows, you know, sort of pull you in the puckered direction. And I've been tongue blocking more and more as I, as I go along. And so it, it felt like it, the, the overblow technique was also pulling me back into a puckered sort of zone that I wasn't that enamored with anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

And do you play any chromatic harmonica at all?

SPEAKER_04:

I do play some. I'm not that great at it, but I need to kind of step up to it. During one of the COVID summers, Magic Dick offered to help me out on the chromatic, and so I wasn't going to turn that down. So I did kind of regular sessions for a summer with Dick on the chromatic. I made some good progress. I play a little bit of barely audible chromatic on Fias Dodson's ballad called I Give In on this new record.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_04:

I'm not much of a chromatic player, but I love doing it. I need to get better at it.

SPEAKER_01:

What about your amp and microphones of choice?

SPEAKER_04:

I think the gear thing is a huge trap for a lot of people, and it was for me for a long time, too. I would go see James Cotton as a 19-year-old in these clubs, and I would go up to the bandstand during the break and check out how he set his dials. files you know and everything and I would write that all down you just have to have a good acoustic core sound and you're gonna sound pretty good on almost anything That said, I have really great gear. I have a couple of vintage bassmen, and I have some beautiful vintage aesthetics that I got from Dennis Grinling, and I have a Bullettini, which I'm enjoying, too. That's a very interesting mic. So I have great gear, but to me, that's not the holy grail.

SPEAKER_01:

And I do notice you use some effects on some of your songs, so you do like to use some effects pedals.

SPEAKER_04:

I do, you know, because... For me, it's sort of like, unless you're at the level of Big or Little Walter, James Cotton, people like that. I mean, I think, like, even on this new record, I don't play harmonica on every song. I mean, one point I wanted to squeeze into this podcast is I really urge harmonica players to learn how to sing. I mean, they may not become a featured vocalist, but it really helps your harmonica playing And it gives you something that you can do and contribute without having to have the harp in your hand. And it gives the audience a break. I don't know about you, but three or four hours of... harmonica, it's rough, frankly. And so it's nice to be able to put that down and sing a

SPEAKER_02:

tune. Effects

SPEAKER_04:

pedals are also another way that you can sort of vary your sound. Like when I'm playing a show, I make sure I play acoustic harmonica on a song or two every set. you know, to just change up the sound. And the acoustic harmonic is also just a great sound. I'm not much of a pedal freak. I didn't have a pedal board until last year. It's pretty simple. I use a little bit of a delay and some reverb. And then on one record, on one of the tunes on the new record, it's an instrumental by V.S. Dodson called Emergency.

UNKNOWN:

Emergency.

SPEAKER_04:

I used the sub and up octave pedal. The organ sound has always intrigued me as a possibility and I had read on, mostly on Facebook, A lot of players talking about the 7up OctaPlayer. It has an organ simulator patch that you can download from the internet onto the pedal. It doesn't come stock with the pedal. That's a nice occasional effect to use in moderation.

SPEAKER_01:

Just final question then, Kim. Any future plans? Obviously, you've just had this album out with The Perfect Gentleman.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, well, it just came out a week ago. I've hired a publicist for the record because I think it's good enough. I didn't want it to just sit in my garage. It's gotten really good. good response so far I'm hopeful that possibly you know do some playing outside of Portland you know because of the record I also wanted to mention that I host an annual harmonica workshop called Harmonica Northwest. And this year we're having the fourth annual version of that. It's going to be held on October 23rd through the 26th. It's basically a long weekend of all things harmonica. And my commitment as a musical director is to hire people who are not only world-class players, but also world-class instructors. And I think you can understand how hard it is to find those kind of people. And I think I've done a good job. This year we had Joe Felisco, Eric Nodin, the Harmonica Voice of Hollywood, Ross Guerin. All three of those gentlemen have been with me all four years. And this year, we're going to have a special guest, Aki Kumar, who's going to be joining us for Harmonica Northwest. I'm really excited about the staff. A special note, too, this Harmonica Northwest is held in a really spectacular setting, the Manuka Retreat and Conference Center. It's a former private estate on a bluff above the spectacular columbia river gorge in oregon so it's you couldn't ask for a more beautiful setting for a great harmonica program and if you're interested you can go to manuka.org and that's spelled m-e-n-u-c-h-a dot o-r-g and you can find harmonica northwest under programs there

SPEAKER_01:

sounds fantastic kim i'll put that link onto the podcast page too so thanks so much for joining me today kim field

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, Neil, it's been a real pleasure. I really appreciate you having me on the show. And thanks again for just the whole body of work that you've done.

SPEAKER_01:

Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Many thanks to Kim for joining me today. I highly recommend his Heavy Breavers and Billy Boy Arnold books and also his new album with The Perfect Gentleman. Thanks for watching. I've also migrated my harp transcripts website onto the HarmonicaHappyHour.com website. This contains some of my free harmonica transcriptions for both diatonic and chromatic, and also my harp keys page, with what I believe is the best source on the internet of what key harmonica is used on that song. Both these are available on the top and bottom navigation bars. I'll sign out now with an instrumental from Kim's new album. This one is called Flower Shop.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.