Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
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Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
John Sebastian interview
John Sebastian joins me on episode 135.
John had considerable chart success in the 1960s as part of the folk rock band, The Lovin' Spoonful, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000. John was also inducted into the songwriters Hall Of Fame. Probably better known as a singer songwriter and guitar player, harmonica was John’s first instrument, inspired by his father, also called John Sebastian, who was a renowned classical harmonica player. And we discuss some of his father’s music and how this inspired his son to take up the harmonica.
John started out playing harmonica in a jug band before his success with The Lovin' Spoonful, before he then enjoyed a solo career and some notable recording sessions, not least as the harmonica player on The Doors song, Roadhouse Blues.
Links:
John's website: https://www.johnbsebastian.com/
John’s children’s book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jbs-Harmonica-John-Sebastian/dp/0152400915
Review of Jug Band DVD by Todd Kwait: Chasin' Gus' Ghost: https://driftwoodmagazine.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/dvd-review-chasin’-gus’-ghost/
Videos:
John Sebastian senior live performance of Villas Lobos Harmonica Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2EO0SUraGQ
Playing ‘Thedy’ on chromatic with the New Rhythm Blues Quartet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f9IGhcGiQQ
Harmonica duet with Annie Raines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmPOnRUDZAE
John’s Homespun Blues Harmonica course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIVWaVSOoLE
John’s appearance at Woodstock in 1969: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBXL7FaPod4
Liam Ward interview with John and a lesson from Liam on how to play Roadhouse Blues: https://www.learntheharmonica.com/post/roadhouse-blues-harmonica-john-sebastian
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
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Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com
John Sebastian joins me on episode 135. John had considerable church success in the 1960s as part of the folk rock band The Loving Springfull, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000. John was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Probably better known as a singer-songwriter and guitar player, harmonica was John's first instrument, inspired by his father, also called John Sebastian. who was a renowned classical harmonica player, and we discussed some of his father's music and how this helped to inspire his son to take up the harmonica. John started out playing harmonica in a jug band before his success with A Loving Spoonful, before he then enjoyed a solo career and some notable recording sessions, not least as a harmonica player on the Doors song, Roadhouse Blues. 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, John Sebastian, and welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_05:Well, thank you, and wonderful to be talking with you about the harmonica.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, John. So it's great to have you on board. So you were a proper bona fide pop star, so it's great to have you on. I don't think we've had too many of those on as harmonica players. So you were in the Loving Spoonful in the 60s, yeah? And you had some notable success, yeah? Some real chart hits, yeah?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, that was really a wonderful surprise to begin with, but then it became a job for three years or so.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so we'll get on to that shortly, but we'll talk a little bit about your background. So you live in Woodstock. You were born there as well, were you, or were you born in New York?
SPEAKER_05:It was New York City that I was born in, Greenwich Village, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so you're a grand old age now. You're still doing well, John. Medium well. Medium well. That's good, that's good. And so, as we mentioned, you were a bona fide pop star, but you're very well known for being a singer, a songwriter, guitar player, and also harmonica is an important part of your instrumentation, yeah?
SPEAKER_05:Well, Auto Harp, don't forget, really was the key to the Love and Spoonful's first couple of successful records. But the harmonica had been my bread and butter for several years because growing up in Greenwich Village and, you know, coming home, I was actually going to prep school right up until I was 18. But there'd be summers, you know, and Washington Square was in front of my door. So that meant that on Sundays I had access to just about every good musical, You know, not just musicians, but people interested in it. I had this wonderful access, and it really was a serious starting point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and a big part of that access was your father. So let's talk about your father. So John Sebastian Sr. did you refer him to? So he was a very successful classical chromatic player, yeah?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely, no, there is no greater harmonicist in the world. Not only in how well he could play, but the fearlessness with which he went place you know the State Department I didn't realize that during my prep school years he did 20 dates in Africa and I mean some of these shows were like on dirt you know padded down by feet I mean miss this was not beautiful little concert halls And to me, that was some of the most interesting. I had to find out later, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02:So let's talk some more about his career then. So when was he active from? You know, what sort of years he was playing?
SPEAKER_05:So, I mean, he was certainly already visible when I was born in 44. He had had this entire career as, let's see, Albert Hoxie is a famous name in Philadelphia for harmonicists. I believe started several different harmonica orchestras. Then he was part of the Great American March guy. So dad was already a soloist in several harmonica orchestras. One run by Albert Hoxie, a very famous guy who was promoting the harmonica and the harmonica band idea. That was very big. Then Dad had a few years where he was in Italy. In fact, that was one of the places that he began a friendship with Garth Williams, illustrator. He was like an uncle to me. So they spent a couple of years in Italy. Dad was going to the Università di Roma. And then I guess on some trip back, I just learned some of these details. On one ocean crossing, Dad met a pair of songwriters who actually helped him to make the decision. He was already accredited by the State Department and was gonna become whatever that led to. And these songwriters suggested to him that if he was truly a musician, that he'd have no other choice, that he'd be unhappy for the rest of his life if he didn't do it. And I think that was convincing to Dad.
SPEAKER_02:Was he just a classical player or did he play other genres?
SPEAKER_05:For several years was, I guess you'd call it, doing club work.
SPEAKER_02:Popular entertainment type music, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:If you're interested, look up Cafe Society, the first New York venue that had multi-culti people on both sides of the spotlights. Dad was playing with Josh White and I was playing with Josh White Jr. in the green room. I guess we were like six or something. So he had, at that point, So I think there were a few things that he said, you know, I just want to get past playing ritual fire dance in Malagaña. And he did. And he began to get people like Villa Lobos to write for the harmonica.
SPEAKER_02:So he went from playing the kind of popular music to playing classical more, did he?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I mean he really managed to skirt being the pop harmonica player I think that part of it was that that was a real curse at that time in America, because we had bands like the Harmonicats and Borominovich and the Harmonica Rascals. And those people were all vaudevillians. So it was performance and being funny. So the harmonica became associated heavily with Johnny Puleo, a wonderful player, but he had to bite ankles on stage
SPEAKER_07:to get
SPEAKER_05:the attention. There's a recording of Autumn Leaves. I don't know how many real pop items Yeah, fantastic. He had a long career, did he? Was he playing right up until, you
SPEAKER_02:know, in his later years,
SPEAKER_05:or...? Well, yes, he played right into his later years. The only real problem in his middle life was he was in a car accident. He was actually sleeping in the backseat, I think, when another guy driving also fell asleep. And he and Dorothy Jarnack, oh my God, I don't know why I was able to think of this name. He was
SPEAKER_02:injured in this car accident, was he?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, it was very unfortunate. The pianist hurt his hands, the dancer hurt her legs, and dad smashed forward and hit his mouth. So in later years, would try to repair it with dentists and so on. There just wasn't, it wasn't a good combination. He also has a kind of natural fear of doctors and dentists from some childhood stuff, which which I don't even know about, and that did slow him down. There was a point when he moved southern France. He moved to the Dordogne. A really great translator lady that he fell in love with in later life began a life in a beautiful little stone French farmhouse. He would write me and say how glad he was that he suddenly had a daughter because apparently this woman's daughter was very angry at her existing father and was really glad to see dad come along because my father was a guy of great character.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the interesting part then about how he influenced you about taking up the harmonica. So I think he exposed you to other musicians because he was around musicians. And he introduced you what to play in the harmonica first, did he?
SPEAKER_05:Well, what was happening was that he would go to Tussingen to get refinements on his harmonicas, and as he left, they would always pile him on with, like, marine bands, like lots of them, and the little small four-hole guys, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the little lady.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's right, the little lady, that's exactly it.
SPEAKER_02:So he didn't play diatonic at all, did he not?
SPEAKER_05:Well, he could kill it. He could absolutely put you away with it. Right. But no, he didn't. It was just a thing he could do, but he just, at a certain point when he had embraced the 64 chromatic, I think that he was no longer... interested and also I think that he was enjoying remember Sonny Terry was a pal of his they did several things together you know where one of those kind of shows where it's well here's the classical guy here's the blues guy and then here's the harmonica rascals or something like that
SPEAKER_02:he introduced you to the music of Sonny Terry didn't he I think he brought you a record of Sonny Terry's and that's when you first heard and fell in love with blues harmonica.
SPEAKER_05:That's right. Yes, that's right. That's exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_02:So you never wanted to play classical harmonica yourself, or you didn't play the chromatic either, did you not?
SPEAKER_05:I was a kid. I was not that interested.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so then you turned to play blues harmonica, thanks to your father's influence. And did you get to meet Sonny Terry yourself?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah, several times. And by the second time, one of the great compliments that I got or just made me feel so good were when the second time that I knew Sonny was playing with Brownie in the Gaslight Cafe. And so I went down there. I waited my turn. go in the back room and say, is Sonny Terry back here? And he goes, is that Johnny Sebastian's little kid? It was the best.
SPEAKER_02:Great stuff, yeah. And also your father, he wrote a song for you called JB's Happy Harmonica. And so it's like a story about how you play, you know, you love the harmonica and, you know, it's like your happy harmonica is like a little character in there, isn't it? So this is a great story, which, you know, your father wrote for you and recorded. He didn't want candy just then.
SPEAKER_00:He saw something bright and twinkling in the store window. What's that shiny thing, Mr. Humperdinkel? Boy, that's a harmonica. On it you could play maybe Turkey in the Straw or Little Brown Joke. Oh, boy, the harmonica was clean and sparkly and... Why, it said hello and smiled at him. Yes, it did. Oh, what a happy harmonica. Listen, J.B. could hear the gay little tune it played for him, a dancing tune that made him happy and made his toes tingle.
SPEAKER_05:My mother wrote it, my dad narrated it. You know, I had begun to play the instruments, the little instruments that, you know, were coming from Hohner and were just lying around anyway. So, and it was to Dad's credit, he never, ever pressured me or said, oh, you should do this for a living. Because he'd seen all of his buddies that were in law school who then were pressuring their children to be lawyers and lawyers. He just wanted everybody to have their own time to fly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but he didn't teach you directly the harmonica, I understand.
SPEAKER_05:Right, but here's the thing. One of the things... that was in our house, among other places, was a John Sebastian harmonica instruction set of 78. You know, they'd get played along with everything else, and I was real interested, as my dad and so on. I heard those instructional records that were very good for me to get a sense of.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's great. So you got instruction from your father through his instructional records. Great. You do play some chromatic harmonica, don't you? I have a recording of you playing the song Lonely, and that is played on chromatic, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Lonely, actually, on the recording with the orchestra is absolutely a marine band toner.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's a diatonic. Oh, is it?
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And it reveals itself in that it has a very flat major third which gets in the way in the melody of Lonely. It's like I regret one note.
SPEAKER_02:So you don't play any chromatic harmonica then, do you not?
SPEAKER_05:Well, you know, like if Terry Adams needs me to do it or something, that's a really great pianist, bandleader for NRBQ, New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. And over the years, I've been able to talk my way into their sessions to play like six string banjo or up my little harmonica and that there is one thing i believe it's called cd that was a tune that i learned on the chromatic because it's just what's needed
SPEAKER_02:I'm just going back briefly to the JB's Happy Harmonica. So I believe some years later, you mentioned Gareth Williams, who was a friend of your father's and is like an uncle to you. You offered a children's book called JB's Harmonica, yeah? So you sort of recreated it later on and then Gareth Williams illustrated it. Is that right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:yes that's right that's right it was an incredible privilege and i was catching him oh so late in his life and he made such an effort to uh to stay on uh target with me uh it was an incredible experience and uh really, really value it.
SPEAKER_02:So was it the same story that your mother wrote and you sort of turned it into a book, or did you do something different with it?
SPEAKER_05:Well, you see, I started as telling the story, but I quickly was reminded that in Garth's later life, still one of the things that he could draw better than anybody was furry bears. So I said, okay, wait. JB is James Bear. Let's go with that. So in the illustrations, that's what Garth did. We have a little more Weasley appearance, but that was like a part of the game. You just had to go with it because you had Garth as your illustrator. When he heard about the project, he said, oh, well, nobody else can do this but me. I was so delighted. Garth has drawn, among other things, engagement and marriage cards for my mother and father and for years was imitating a particular image that I think that he photographed of them. Very interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, great that you were able to bring your parents' story to life with the JB harmonica, so fantastic. So let's go now back to your music career, which, as we touched on, was very successful. So you played in a few bands before you got into the Loving Spoonful. So I think I've got in here that in 1963 you played with an even dozen jug bands. So I think you were playing jug band music initially, were you? Is that what you were first playing? And then you were playing some harmonica with that.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, indeed. there were wonderful instrumentalists in that band i mean david grinsman for god's sake
SPEAKER_02:yeah fantastic mandolin player
SPEAKER_05:yes indeed and of course uh maria moldor who was at that time maria damato would really get her own career and this goes on i mean everybody in that band was a really serious instrumentalist.
SPEAKER_02:Stefan Grossman as well, of course, who's a very famous guitar tuition. He's done lots of that, hasn't he? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:He keeps going with that band. Yeah. Just about everybody. Josh Rivkin, who later becomes the origin of the entertainer. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:lots of famous names, yeah. And so were you playing harmonica in this band? I mean, Were you playing anything else? You were playing some harmonica, but were you playing anything else?
SPEAKER_05:So I really wasn't in that because that band, we would get together, we'd have rehearsals and everything because it was big. So, I mean, it really was 13 people.
SPEAKER_07:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:so you so jug band music was how you first started playing it and later in the 90s you released a well you had a jug band called j-band didn't you which you created you know you made an album with yeah so yeah so you went back to your jug band roots there
SPEAKER_05:Indeed, indeed. And really, you know, all of this was in part just trying to understand some of these great blues men that I was meeting and hearing and seeing. There were guys that were, you know, they were there. Gus Cannon was sweeping the streets of Memphis. Didn't know it back then, but that was what was going on.
SPEAKER_07:I
SPEAKER_02:also should have mentioned in your J-Band album, this Jug Band album from the 90s, you had Annie Rains playing with you, and you've done some playing with Annie Rains, haven't you, including some concerts later on? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. And Paul Rochelle as well, who is a uniquely qualified guy to be playing this style. He's just one of the most amazing instrumentalists. I can't speak highly enough about Annie Raines.
SPEAKER_04:That's your sign,
SPEAKER_05:honey, there's bullfrogs on your mind. because she has that silvery jug band tone of some of the great Noah Lewis and some of the great harmonica players of that era, who were usually blues players. A whole jug band thing happened as a kind of way for who usually just played on street corners to get together and create something that might be of interest, you know, on the kerosene farm or the tobacco farm. And that was where they were finding their audiences, lunch in some of those big factory-like environments.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, so I have had Annie on the podcast before. Yeah, so it was great to speak to her. So yeah, great player, as you say. So then, you know, you know I think you were in another couple of bands or did some other recordings and then you got into the Loving Springfold and as we mentioned this became very successful and in fact the band was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000 and you were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame as well
SPEAKER_08:so
SPEAKER_02:great success there yeah so you play guitar and were the singer and the songwriter for the band and and so you know a lot of their hits were uh thanks to your songwriting skills right so you know a lot of success as we mentioned so
SPEAKER_05:it's an easy mistake to run over the importance of solomon yanovsky just because he didn't write any of the material i would posit that his contribution to that band was immeasurable because he was the stage act, and that's what we were at that time. We weren't a recording act for the first year that we existed, and his playing was a departure from a lot of styles, and he really is almost uncredited. I think I recently did a project with Arlen Roth, and Arlen was one of the first people I met that understood that Zalman had been this odd melding of country guitar styles with bluesy guitar styles.
SPEAKER_02:So as I say, Living Springfall, you know, did very well from the sort of 1965 to 1968, 69. You did play, you know, quite a lot of harmonica with this band, didn't you? You were certainly using it on quite a few of their songs, yeah? So you had a great time with these, and then you left in 1968, the Loving Spoonful Band, and then you started on your solo career, yeah?
SPEAKER_05:That's right. And that became an opportunity to work with Paul Rothschild, who I had done the Even Doesn't Judd Band album with. That's where our friendship began. And so it was a really interesting thing because Eric Jacobson and I really had a great relationship as not quite co-producing, but we were both having an effect on this project. love and spoonful idea.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and so you had your first solo album in 1970, which was John B. Sebastian, your middle name, so this is Benson, and that did well in the Billboard charts as well, didn't it? And you got a song on there called Red Eye Express, which had some harmonica on, so you were still playing that harmonica there on that solo album you did.
UNKNOWN:I'm flying away
SPEAKER_05:Yes, you know, it's funny, but I have not really focused on the instrument nearly as much as I got focused on it in the last 10 years. You know, it's really been the instrument that people... asked me for, and one of the reasons it was so great to make this album with Arlen Roth was that I could play the guitar and just what I do, which is sort of foundational guitar.
SPEAKER_02:So this album you made with Olin Roth that you're mentioning, this was made during the pandemic here. And then so you did some recording with him and then you created an album. And there's some harmonica on there on a song called Loving You. So yeah, this is an album you did recently, you know, just a few years ago now.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, indeed, just a few years now. Yes, and unfortunately, let your audience know, if anybody wants to save that album, it needs to be done because BMG had a sub-label that we were on. and it died two weeks after we finished the project.
SPEAKER_06:Oh dear.
SPEAKER_05:We've been doing all this, you know, trying to talk to guitar magazines and things. So anyway, that album is sort of a floating thing right now. Yeah. I've kind of got overcopied.
SPEAKER_02:But you're proud of it, yeah? So good stuff, yeah?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Hey,
SPEAKER_01:everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour podcast, proudly sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas. This is Jason Ritchie here telling you I love Blue Moon Harmonicas. I love the combs, the covers, the custom harps, the refurbished pre-war marine bands, and nobody's easier to work with than Tom Halcheck. Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.
SPEAKER_02:So another big hit you had in the 70s is, I'm not so sure it's so familiar here in Europe, but in the US, there was a TV sitcom called Welcome Back, and you had a big hit called Welcome Back, Cotter, which became a number one hit song for you.
SPEAKER_05:The other way around. It was a television show called Welcome Back, Cotter, which they changed the name from Cotter to Welcome Back, Cotter. Actually, when they heard my song, They changed the title.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that song had harmonica on too, yeah?
SPEAKER_05:It did, yep. It had a harmonica break.
SPEAKER_02:great stuff so yeah so that gave me a good hit in the 70s so the number one hit so uh so getting on now to you know something which um possibly one of the best known harmonica songs ever recorded it was uh roadhouse blues with the doors which you played the harmonica on so uh fantastic so everybody knows that song and especially us harmonica players so tell us about that song.
SPEAKER_05:Well that was a terrific opportunity to get back with Paul Rothschild who actually at a certain point and said, listen, I really would like you to come in and play with the Doors on this particular song. I said, terrific, I'd be glad to do that. And his theory, and he told me about this, was he said, and this is kind of hard to believe for a lot of younger audiences of the Doors and so on, and there was a point where people Paul was kind of anxious to get Jim Morrison on the straight and narrow to get these recordings done. And he was feeling, I think, like Jim was sort of becoming a baby in the studio with the drink and so on. And he thought that having me around might make him behave. And it did. So I don't have any nasty stories Yeah. Well, it's amazing. I mean, it
SPEAKER_02:is such an iconic song, you know, especially with the harmonica. I mean, you must have a lot of pride when you hear that song. What do you think about, you know, what do you think about when you hear that song?
SPEAKER_05:So one of the things I quickly learned was don't watch Jim Morrison when you're playing with the Doors. You watch Ray Manzarek because he's going to be indicating everything to you. He was sort of the communicator for, I guess, any other musician. I was around frequently when they were recording, and I was around when they were playing with various bass players. That was very interesting. There were times when they didn't use that bass keyboard.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because Mandrake played that, didn't they? You were credited under the name of, what, G. Pugliese, is it? Instead of your own name for Contrast. So your name isn't actually on the credits for the album, yeah?
SPEAKER_05:So, yes, and that happened because Paul Rothschild asked me if I could maybe not use my name on the album because it was a moment when the doors were really beginning to happen and the spoonful was very well known, but Paul just wasn't anxious to associate me or the spoonful with the doors. And I had no problem with that. So what I used was the name that I would have been had my father not gone with the family middle name, Sebastiano, and kept Pugliese, by the way. Yeah, he was, I mean, you know, here he is, he's trying to be a classical harmonica, and the guys in college all call him Puggles.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic, so yeah, but it is you, and, you know, fantastic, so it's a very successful song, I mean, did you just get like a one-off, you know, kind of session fee, or have you been getting royalties ever since you did that recording, John?
SPEAKER_05:No, no, no. You do the session, and that's that.
SPEAKER_02:Just a one-off payment, right? Yeah, but you didn't know it was going to be such a hit. And then you also played more with the Doors. There's a recording of you playing a live concert with the Doors, and you're playing Little Red Rooster, and Morrison introduces you at the top of the song.
SPEAKER_10:At this time, I would like to introduce a friend of ours, a very talented guy named John Sebastian. Come on, man. So you did, you
SPEAKER_02:know, you performed with them beyond that recording and did a little bit of touring with them. Was that a one-off or did you do more?
SPEAKER_05:There were, well, that was a New York show, I believe. And there might have been another, but I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but nice. I mean, fantastic. He has to play over the doors. So, obviously, a very iconic band. Well, like your own as well, of course. So, yeah, great stuff. And you did other session work as well. You played with Gordon Lightfoot, who was a folk singer. And you played some sort of Bob Dylan-style harmonica on this song. That's right!
SPEAKER_05:Yes, that was a session that happened at Jimmy's studio. Is that the session with me and Stephen Stills and him? I'm
SPEAKER_02:not sure about the other names. I just know it's a Timothy Leary album.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I believe that the players on that include Jimi Hendrix and Steven Stills and maybe Harvey Brooks and
SPEAKER_02:me. So, yeah, I mean, you're mixing with all the big names there. So, amazing stuff, yeah. And you also play with Crosby, Stills and Nash, a famous song called Deja Vu, where you play some harmonic on that one.
UNKNOWN:Yeah. Bye.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, indeed. Yep. And at that point, that was a kind of a great moment because when we had begun hanging out, they were still assembling. I mean, they almost, they sort of were still assembling when I talked them into coming up to my then home in Sag Harbor, New York, which is an old fishing, whaling community. to get them away from the Los Angeles blowing smoke. Everybody was telling them how marvelous they were, and it was the moment when I knew they had to be in New York and have guys go, hey, you could have done that better.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, bring them back to Earth. Yeah, great. And also, when you left Living Springfield, you wrote a musical for Broadway, which Dustin Hoffman starred in. It's called Jimmy Shine.
SPEAKER_05:idea of refinement there i would have to say was i was told in no uncertain terms and in these words this is not a musical system this is a play with a few songs i said that k i i'm used to working my whole life has been with a four-piece band and the producer looks at me and says could you do it with three That was the atmosphere. I actually had a couple of nice songs that couldn't really be sung right because they didn't have singers. It wasn't intended to be a musical or people were not looking for singers to fill those roles. a great thing that they had dustin hoffman uh... fresh off of uh... midnight cowboy and so yes so that was uh... the real good thing something about the play uh... didn't really it was weak uh... and uh... but every night guy named eli mintz who played a fishmonger in this play would kill with a song that I wrote called There's a Future in Fish, Mr. Shine. So it was a kind of almost kind of a situation, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, nice. Was there any harmonica in this musical play?
SPEAKER_05:No, there wasn't, because I wasn't in the band, for one thing. I was, you know, now...
SPEAKER_02:You were writing the songs, yeah. Yeah. Oh, nice. So, another interesting thing you did is you created a homespun tuition called John Sebastian Teaches Blues Harmonica.
SPEAKER_04:Starting on your second hole, try inhaling, and first... I'm going to give you a little bit of a demonstration of tonguing now. I
SPEAKER_02:think it's still available now. Tell us about that one.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, well, that is part of an enormous body of instructional videos that Happy and Jane Traum have been doing right up until his quite recent death. They've been soliciting great instrumentalists of all types and asking for instruction. So yes, that was great fun to do. I did a harmonica one, I did an auto harp one, and I did a John Hurt instruction with Happy, who is also a John Hurt enthusiast.
SPEAKER_02:Nice, yeah, so I think that's still available for people to get hold of, because most of the homespun stuff is available, isn't it, online, so people can get hold of that?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, I mean, we mentioned, obviously, you're living in Woodstock. You've been quite famously associated with Woodstock. There's quite a famous... You played guitar and sang some songs, didn't you, at one point, standing in? But you've appeared on various Woodstock albums, and you're sort of quite strongly associated with the Woodstock Festival, yeah?
SPEAKER_05:Certainly with that first one, as it turned out, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Ladies and gentlemen, John Sebastian.
UNKNOWN:John Sebastian.
SPEAKER_05:Well, where the real posters are, though, because my name isn't on
SPEAKER_02:them. Yeah, but yeah, obviously a world-famous festival that you've been associated with, yeah. So a question I ask each time, John, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?
SPEAKER_05:Really, there's two or three steps. One is the breath. And you're trying to breathe from the lowest part. My father famously, when asked whether he breathed from the stomach or the chest, said, I breathe from the feet. And that to me was like, yeah, Dad, I'm listening to that. And that's a key item, breath, and certainly this way of bending notes. pretty much somewhere between your glottis and your roof of your mouth. That's an important fact. But really, playing, if you've got 10 minutes, you know, just let the harmonica breathe. Do some inhaling and exhaling. And there was a comic in the United States Robert Klein, who used to do a funny bit about how hospitals should all issue marine bands to the patients because you could tell when they were living and when they had gone. And, of course, what he would do is inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Excel.
SPEAKER_02:Your good tips
SPEAKER_09:are... We're going to give it to you, my
SPEAKER_02:friend. So we'll get on to the final section now and talk about gear, the gear that you use. So I believe you originally played Hohner marine bands, but then you switched over to playing Seidel harmonicas.
SPEAKER_05:That's right, yes. I've been really enjoying these idols. You know, this was not a... I wasn't intentionally doing anything until there was a moment when Hohner was kind of changing, and I had really sort of lost the access that I had had when my dad and Matt Hohner were designing the 64 chromatic.
SPEAKER_02:So which of the Zydals do you like to play?
SPEAKER_05:So, boy, I haven't looked.
SPEAKER_02:1847?
SPEAKER_05:It is most likely that.
SPEAKER_02:So what about, have you ever played any overblows on the diatonic? Is that something you've ever used?
SPEAKER_05:No, I don't know how to do that. I haven't really too admiring of the tone that I've heard from people playing that style. It's a sacrifice in tone. There may be somebody who's got it figured out, but I just haven't heard that.
SPEAKER_02:And what about your embouchures? Are you puckering, tongue-blocking, anything else?
SPEAKER_05:Luckily, I had, you know, seen my father's ability to play a tremendous amount of things using... I like the tongue-blocking idea. I don't know quite how you'd put it, but...
SPEAKER_02:He did the tongue-switching, did he? Tongue-switching, where he used that both sides of his mouth.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, certainly he would very often be playing out of both sides, but primarily... He's laying his tongue to the left side and blowing out of the right side.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so tongue blocking, yes. So is that what you picked up from him doing that, did you?
SPEAKER_05:I love to do that when I can, but it's not always possible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you were puckering then, mainly, when you play. You were purse lips. Yeah. Yeah, purse lips, yeah. And what about, I mean, when you've recorded, you know, with the Loving Spoonful and the other things that you recorded, have you used amplifiers, you know, any particular amplifiers, or have you mainly just played with a clean sound, or...?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, usually I was playing into a microphone and playing into amplifiers was so much a part of Paul Butterfield's sound that I sort of stayed away from it for that reason.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because he was around at the same time that The Living Spoonful were having the success.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely, and we were also all pals, and don't forget Paul Rothschild again, making that first Butterfield album.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And I was up in everybody's business when that was happening. We were all mostly living at the Albert Hotel. Yeah, it was an amazing time.
SPEAKER_02:So you went for a clean sound, mainly playing through the PA and using the vocal mic, did you, when you were playing and recording?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I wasn't opposed to letting a little bit of distortion get in the picture, which was pretty easy with the mics in those days. You know, they were vocal mics, most of them, so they were very sensitive. So, you know, you really had to be careful about what you were using.
SPEAKER_02:And did you ever use any effects or any effects pedals or...
SPEAKER_05:No, I wasn't in that era. Let's see, there's, I think, one example of running through a JC-120 with the chorus on, and that's kind of on a latter-day album.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, mainly clean and, yeah, no effects, yeah. So, well, just final question then, John, and thanks so much for speaking to me. Just, you know... what you're up to these days obviously you were born in 1944 so I think what you're 80, 81 now so you're doing well are you still playing some harmonica?
SPEAKER_05:So these are some months when I have not been playing harmonica because I had to do some dental work that involved removing my front teeth. So now I have great sympathy for my dad, what he was dealing with when he was like 40. But luckily in modern times, they, you know, they are preparing my next set of front teeth and they'll be coming in this summer. And so I'll be back to playing a little bit more agilely. I can play, but a certain amount of agility is not possible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but great. You're still enjoying playing the harmonica. And as you said there, your father, when he had the car accident and he got the mouth injury, that stopped him playing, so you've... You've gone full circle with that yourself.
SPEAKER_05:Well, yes. I did want to reiterate or make a little more clear that he still did a lot of harmonica concerts. It's just that he did have to cut down on what he had been doing before then.
SPEAKER_07:So
SPEAKER_02:great that you're still playing and want to get back to playing the harmonica once you have your teeth implants done is it so yeah great to hear that John and so thanks so much for speaking with me today John Sebastian it's been a real pleasure and to talk about your long illustrious career
SPEAKER_05:well thank you very much and I gotta say it's great fun to just concentrate on the harmonica for a minute and let that be the subject at hand thank you Neil for concentrating on this
SPEAKER_02:Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks again to John for joining me today. As I said, a bona fide pop star. What a great career he's had. And the harmonica was a big part of that. And what about Roadhouse Blues? Such an iconic song for the harmonica which brought the instrument to a mass audience. It's a song I've loved for years, so to be able to speak to the person who recorded that, what an honour. Also great to be able to discuss John Sebastian Senior and about his career as a classical chromatic player. What a wonderful player he was. As usual, you can find most of the song clips used on the Spotify playlist, the link to which is on the podcast page. So go and check out both Father and Son's great recordings on the harmonica. Another reminder to check out the categories now available on the podcast website, harmonicahappyhour.com, where you can find episodes sorted into different types of harmonica and musical genres. Remember, this is only available via the website. I'll sign off now with John playing an instrumental with the Loving Springful. This is Night Owl Blues from their Do You Believe in Magic album.