Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Paul Lamb interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 1

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First up in the podcast I'm delighted to welcome a certain Mr Paul Lamb.
Paul is a living legend of blues harmonica.
He's been performing for over 45 years now, would you believe. He has a multitude of great albums to his name, and is inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
Paul tells us how it all unfolded, meeting greats such as Junior Wells and his harmonica hero Sonny Terry along the way.
With some tips on how aspiring harmonica players can try to emulate his tremendous success.
The secret is all in "playing what you feel, and feeling what you play".

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Check out Paul's website for his tour schedule, to buy some of his great albums, and more:
http://www.paullamb.com/

Link to 'Harmonica Man', the chart hit from the 1990s:
https://bravado1.bandcamp.com/releases


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
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi and welcome to the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast. We've interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the songs discussed during the interviews can be heard. quick word from my sponsor now the lone wolf blues company makers of effects pedals microphones and more designed for harmonica remember when you want control over your tone you want lone wolf First up in the podcast, I'm delighted to welcome a certain Mr. Paul Lamb. Paul is the living legend of blues harmonica. He's been performing for over 45 years now, would you believe? He has a multitude of great albums to his name and is inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame. Paul tells us how it all unfolded, meeting greats such as Junior Wells and his harmonica hero Sonny Terry along the way. With some tips on how aspiring harmonica players can try to emulate his tremendous success, the secret is all in playing what you feel and feeling what you play. Hello, Mr. Paul. Thank you. Welcome to the first in the series. So, yeah, I appreciate you giving me the time to do this. Yeah, it's an honour for me to do it, Neil. Thank you. So yeah, so let's start off just talking through a little bit about yourself. So you come from Bly, as I understand, the northeast near Newcastle? That's right. It's about 12 miles north of Newcastle, yeah. Yeah, a little sleepy town right on the seaside. What got you sort of into blues music, or if blues music was the first thing, playing the harmonica in Blythe? Was there a reasonable scene around Newcastle, and did you feed into that? No, not really. I mean, I was coming from a, well, a mining community. My father, my grandfather, all my uncles, they were miners. And, I mean, there wasn't much in the way of music apart from little four clubs and And my grandfather used to play a bit of harmonica, and the daughters, my aunties, they used to dance and play piano. But basically, that was it, apart from a bit of the radio and stuff. But then, I think I was about 13, 13 years old, I heard a friend of mine had borrowed an LP. It was The World of John Mayall. And he said, have a listen to this. and I was blown away with it. I'm cutting a long story short. I immersed myself in John's music. John Mill looked at his credits and he was playing stuff by Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, all that. I just delved into that. But I didn't, at first it wasn't, the harmonica wasn't the thing that I was after. It was, I was frustrated because I didn't play an instrument. And I was trying, I was looking, when I heard John's stuff, I was trying to think what I could do to express my feelings on something. So I tried a bit of piano, dabbled on the guitar, and then just the harmonica, the harmonica fell into place, you know. So did you have any lessons in piano or guitar before you took up that? Well, I had a few lessons on piano. I went to the piano teacher, a friend of mine, we both went. But we were just, we were wanting to play blues. You know, what she was, the piano teacher was teaching us was Bobby Shafto and all that sort of stuff, you know. And we wanted the short route into the blues, you know. So you bought your first harmonica. Do you remember what type of harmonica that was? Well, I didn't know what harmonica to get to play the blues stuff that John was playing. I hadn't a clue what it was, so I was just picking up anything. I mean, I endorse Horner now, the Horner harmonica, but I wasn't aware of Horner or the type of harmonica they use for blues, so I was just picking up a tremolo harmonica. All right. And, you know, which had double reeds and all that and had a bravo on it. Very different sounds, yeah. You could never, a million years, get a diatonic sound out of it, you know. And so I just fooled around with that. And then about a year later, I read in Sounds magazine, John Mayall uses, well, John Mayall, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan use diatonic. Echo Super Bambas. So I went straight down to the music store that we had then, and I purchased one, and I started fooling around with it. But I'd had no idea of keys or anything. I mean, this was a key of C or something like that. And the thing that got me really into the harmonica, and I just immersed myself into it, and that was it, was Sonny Terry. Yeah, sure, yeah. I heard in a, it was a little junk shop and there was an EP in there that was called Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry Sings. And it's the holy grail for harmonica players. I mean, it's all acoustic, obviously it's Terry Stale. But when I heard that, I thought, wow, what is this? Is that the album which has got Horton's Sorrow on and it's got John Henry? Yeah, John Henry. Yeah, it's got all that. It's on, it's on Folkways. Yeah, me and my friend really listened to that album a lot when I was young as well, so that's actually quite a big influence on me and another friend I played with at the time, getting into all the blues from one of his Was there one particular song on harmonica that really drew you to the harmonica? I'm thinking John Mayle, or was it not until you heard Sonny Terry that you really sort of felt, yeah, the harmonica's the thing for you? No, I think it was with John, because I had never heard Sonny then, you know. I mean, this was me just coming up, and I thought that he was the business. I thought he was the blues, you know, until I backtracked. I mean, it went further back than Sonny went back to the... the pre-war, well, Sonny was a pre-war player as well, but the straight players, you know, Lee Cannon, Cooksey, and Jed Devonport, and, you know, all them guys, you know. But John, I heard, well, I had all his albums right up to the 70s, or mid-70s, and I moved away after that, you know, but there was one called The Blues Alone, and he played a one called Sonny Boy Blow.

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SPEAKER_00:

And it was a dedication, obviously, to Rice Miller. And I suppose that clicked me onto something. And there was one that John played with Paul Butterfield, All My Life, it's called. And Paul Butterfield was on harp. And I just... Paul was a stronger player than John, really. I mean, John, you know, he could play all the instruments, but he never fulfilled... all the instruments to perfect and i have a thought of perfection you know i'm not saying that against john but um you know seeing that wasn't well monica wasn't his main thing was it no no no no no so the one i know is room to move that's the kind of classic one i know of john now i mean i know a few of those but it's not something i've really dug into i believe you you won some competition in germany in 1975 is that right is that kind of your big break Well, I came second in the World Harmonica Championships. It was like, that was 75. It was Sounds Magazine. They said, all budding harmonica players, please send a cassette in to represent Great Britain. It was going to be chosen. And the guy that was on the panel, one of the judges, was a guy called Steve Rye. Well, he used to play with the Groundhogs back in the 60s. And there was a duo called Praga and Rye. And they were playing like, well, duo stuff of Sonny and Brownie, Yank Rachel and Sleepy John Estes and all them sort of guys. Pammy Nixon, that sort of style. And I recorded with a friend of mine up in the north. was for the cassette was Blues for the Lowlands which is a Sonny Terry Brownie McGee song an instrumental and I sent that in and straight away because he was a massive fan of Sonny and he knew them personally he used to stay at his house in the 60s and early 70s And when he heard that, he just said, oh, you're in, you're in. He says, you're coming down to London, which was at that time they were doing the Rocky Horror Show. And they were doing all that down there. And we had the hall there where we did all the competitions in there. And then I got through that, then went across to Germany. And then, I mean, I was just... I was quite a novice then, you know. Do you remember what song that you played in the composition? I think it was a John Lee Williamson. I think it was something like Good Morning Little Schoolgirl or something like that. And I did a Sonny Boy, the first one, Sonny Boy's Jump. That was the one, that was John Lee Williamson. I did two of them. A few years later, you formed the Blues Burglars band. Was that your first main band? Well, it wasn't the Blues Burglars. It was just, it was different names. It was just a bunch of guys who got together. And because when I come up, they heard about what I was doing. And these guys were into that Chicago style, obviously electric blues, you know, Elmore James, Muddy Waters. So my next thing was with that, because I was busy doing my work on Terry, trying to master his style. So I got into Big Walter Horton, Shaky Horton, and that was the style I brought in, which became the Blues Burglars. After all the bands settled down, we decided to call the band the Blues Burglars, which was a perfect name because we stole all the different songs from from all the different blues guys of the 50s and that. Were you based in London at this point? No, no, I was up in the North East and this was my time of the movement, you know. I was starting to get the bug. We were getting loads of, well, we were getting airplay as well and we were getting around a lot of the big places and we got signed up by Red Lightning, which is an old, well, basically a harmonica band uh label he was well into big walter horton and when he heard me playing that stuff he signed me up and i went down to london with the band and we opened up for junior wells and buddy guy And then I got friendly with Junior and Buddy and got a chance to play with them on different shows around, well, around the world, really. You know, because, you know, so me name was starting to get around, kicking around. That was, you know. Yeah. What was Junior Wells like? Yeah, he was great. Great. Oh, just a party man. He was wanting to just party all the time, drinking gin all day and what have you and just having a laugh. Spent some time talking about different things. And I remember one night he... We were playing in Dingwalls in London and we were in the dressing room and he had drank a bottle of gin or something like that and he left his shoes and he came out of the dressing room and walked bare feet. They invited him to the party somewhere around the corner or something. So we went round to this party and he had left his shoes in the dressing room, you know. And I looked at Buddy and Buddy just shook his head, you know, just like, well, that's Junior, you know. So yeah, Junior had quite a kind of sparse, way of playing, didn't he? He would play a kind of, you know, a no, and he kind of let it ring out. He came from the Sonny boys. Most of them, Chicago players, did Little Walter. I'm not sure about Big Walter, but I can tell in the early style that Little Walter, he's playing like, they're all playing like John Lee. And this is my, because we haven't gotten on to Terry yet, but he was the only unique guy Nobody played like him. His style was from the east, well, obviously the pediment area, you know, the tobacco, but which had a bounce in his sound, you know, a rhythmic pattern. And that's why I got off on that, you know. So let's talk about Sonny Terry now. You know, you're well known. I always joke when I talk about you that I think you do a better Sonny Terry than Sonny Terry. You know, obviously you've got the whooping songs really got that style down and it's a big feature of your playing so yeah maybe talk about that for us yeah yeah I mean for me I'm after tone I'm a tone player and that's that's what that's what everybody's after. It's like B.B. King. I mean, he doesn't play too many notes or whatever, but what he plays in their notes are killers, you know? And Terry, Big Walter, and Noah Lewis from Gus Cannon's Jugstompers, to me, they were the three of them big tone players and they had it all sewn up. That was all acoustic, bear that in mind. When they were playing acoustic, that was the sound they had, you know? You know, you can start and get on the amplifiers and microphones and then that's another... That's not a ball game, you know? We'll talk about that gear sort of stuff later, but yeah, exactly, on that question, that difference between playing acoustically and amplified, I mean, because so listening to you, I think you do both those things, you know, excellently. Well, I swap around with it. I mean, some of the, you know, we're playing electric, but I'm playing acoustic, and then I've switched to the amplifier or whatever it is, you know, chromatic on this, on that. My style, which I've adapted over the years is, is to fit the harmonica into the song, not the song fitting into the harmonica. The song is the most important thing, unless obviously if I'm doing an instrumental and it's all based on the harp or whatever. But most of our stuff is, you know, I've wrote quite a few songs over the years. You know, I've got quite a repertoire of songs that I've written and the harmonica fits into the song and that's the way I've always worked it, you know. Yeah, absolutely. So on Sonny Terry's style again, obviously a lot of people are interested in playing that sort of style. Any particular tips about how you get the Sonny Terry style down? Well, just listening. I mean, that's the only way. I mean, when I was a kid coming up, I mean, all I had was, well, I had some 78s by Sonny, which I never really played them. I kept them because I bidded for them at an auction. But I kept them. But I had LPs. And I just had an old Danceth record player. And all you had to do was keep on putting the needle over and over, which ruined the record, really, because you were trying to make it. Because you didn't have DVDs or videos or anything like that. I was sitting in an old colliery house playing this in my mother's bedroom, you know, so upstairs, you know. Yeah, I mean, on that, it's, obviously we're spoiled now with computers, you know, there's programs like Transcribe, where I've actually got my own website where I've done various transcriptions, including a couple of your records, which you'll let me add on to that. But, you know, the ability to be able to loop small sections, really slow it down, you know, to really break it down, you know, we're spoiled for that now, but I don't know, how do you think maybe that compares to the way you used to have to do it with a record? Maybe there was something about that which kind of made you soak it in a little bit more than this kind of ability just to be able to do it on the computer nowadays. Well, I'm not sure. I mean, because I didn't know about this. I didn't know about the technology then, obviously, so this is what I had, and that's the only way I thought it would work. And the way Terry used to do it, he used to go around on the medicine shows, and he would pick up tips of... Jay Bird Coleman, or they were on, you know, the only way to get any music was to go around and see it. Well, he couldn't see, but he would go, he worked on a medicine show, and some, on the travels that he did, because when I spoke to him, he used to say, you know, like I said, Jay Devenport, Dee Ford Bailey, who was a big star then, you know, of the harmonica, he really, you know, put it out there, you know.

UNKNOWN:

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SPEAKER_00:

and he was seeing that and that's the only way he would get his tips from and mine was from a record by Sonny and going back and forth now for me it stuck stuck right in me that and I can relate to it today I think the kids of today because I've talked to them and they say um oh, yeah, you play like Terry Paul. He said, oh, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I've done that. I said, oh, how long did you spend on that? Oh, about a couple of months or something. I said, oh, I did about 12, 40 years. And then I said, well, oh, let me hear you. And then they play it, and I go, oh, God. I said, you've got another 50 years to go on that, mate. I said, that doesn't sound like Terry at all. You know, all them players had little things that they put in that were... You think you had it, and you missed that little thing that was in there that's vital to that sound, you know? Oh, Monika, more than probably any instrument, it's got so many small subtleties to it, and it's just different in the breath, you know, very small bends just coming in and out very quickly. You know, there's tongue warbles, flurries, there's all sorts of little puckering things going on, and, you know, you kind of really, you know, you just, you know, when I'm teaching or stuff, I'm just showing how to, you know, the pursed lip or playing a tongue-blocking style, which that was new for me, calling tongue-blocking. It was always a chord. I mean, I played them in the early days, chords or vamping. My grandfather used to play vamping, was putting the tongue over the one hole and letting the two side fills come in, you know? But he would make like a Constantino sort of sound where his tongue would be fluctuating back and forth And it was like, you know, he'd be playing C shanties and stuff, and they were fantastic. Great, tuneful sounds, you know. Yeah. So are you, well, on that question, so are you mainly tongue-blocking when you play? I'm using both. I mean, I'm tongue-blocking, single notes, puckering. You got to play with Sonny Terry as well, I hear. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I went, well, Steve Rye took me You know, when Sonny was coming across, got into the dressing rooms with Terry and McGee. But at that time, the one getting on, Brownie was pretty cool. Well, they were both cool, but they kept their distance. I mean, I'm sure it would have worked better today for them. They would have kept their distance really far, you know. Is this when they were touring the UK? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And... There was one time I was down in, it was in Soho somewhere, and they played this little coffee bar or something, and I was in there. And Sonny took sick, and Brownie, well, I'd been travelling with him a little bit, and he got to know me. And he just says, jump up. He says, cover him up, you know. I mean, nobody took any, there wasn't any sort of footage of it. But that, I just was like, my legs were like jelly, you know. Oh, that's amazing. How old were you then? Well, I would have been about 20, 21. You're still pretty young then. That's a very daunting experience. Well, I had come back from Germany in 1975. That's when I had done the World Harmonica Championships. And that's how I got to know Steve Rye and stayed down in London with him because he wanted me to teach him to play the Terry Stare because I had him sewn up. well, not really sewn up then, but you can never, you know, when you're doing somebody's style, you kind of say that you've mastered them completely because they are the master themselves, you know. But you had him still down good enough to play with Brown and McGee at that stage. Oh, yeah. I played along with him in the dressing rooms and he knew what I was playing and Terry's eyes were all wobbling all over when I was playing. So, we got on, you know. So, did Terry show you particularly anything or did he give you some pointers? No, nothing. Not a thing. No. He just sat there and just, you know, we just talked about different things about people and, you know, what he did. And one of the great things that I saw one time when they were playing, they were wearing, both of them were wearing these big hats, brownie and sunny, and they had zips on the hat. And I thought, and they were really big hats, full, they looked full. And I thought, oh, I said, what's in there? You know, he says, come in the dressing room, boy. You know, like this. So I went in the dressing room, he unzipped the hat and he brought a bottle of whiskey out. And they're like whiskey and full cream. And on the other one, they had, um, like a like a jar of clotted cream and then they poured the cream out and poured the whiskey into that and they were drinking that so I had a drink with them I'd never heard that before cream and whiskey didn't know that was a drink yeah yeah was that a good drink? that was pretty good well I was in all of them too anyway so it didn't matter you know yeah yeah oh superb so yeah it's a great experience so you you basically got to spend some time with them when they were touring on the UK yeah yeah yeah did more than one tour did they around the UK? Yeah, they did a few. I mean, I didn't get to all of them because I had to get back up the northeast. And I had a, well, I had a, I was decorating, I was a painter and decorator. That was my job, you know. So, you know, I had to get back up there. But the harmonica by then was in full flow for me. And I had done the apprenticeship. So, and I had, I managed to get a little firm together up there doing work and stuff. But That harmonica, well, the blues, that music, the blues was calling me, so I had to make a decision. Yes, you did. So, I mean, congratulations on a very long, illustrious career now. You've been playing harmonica for, what, a good 30, 35 years or so. You've managed to have it as your career. So have you been pretty much a full-time musician during that time? Oh, yeah, yeah, since then, since I was about 30, 31. I became a professional professional musician then I mean I just just come back from Barbados so I was out there for me and my wife when we got married out there this just just gone last last month and and I get I get to play with a lot of people out there and in the church it's a very religious place and in the churches on a Sunday morning I think I'm the only white guy in there and and They play gospel, and they play it real. I mean, they're very religious. And I get up with the choir, play the harmonica and sing, and do a lot of gospel stuff, you know. Yeah, you've done a few gospel songs, haven't you, on some of your albums as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's appropriate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. So, yeah, so, yeah, great. So moving on then to when you formed Paul, I'm the King Snake. So that's been your band since when? 89, I would say. 88, 89. I mean, it was the Paul Lamb Blues Band, and that's when I came down to London, and the Burglars, they didn't want to take... They all had decent jobs up north, so they didn't want to take the risk. I took the risk. And I came down with John Whitehill. Well, he was my sidekick, and we sort of formed... the Paul Lamb Blues band, we've got different people in. There was Jim McCarty in the beginning from the Yardbirds, he was on drums. There was loads of different people coming through it. One thing you've always had, certainly since that time, is your name in the band. It's a Paul Lamb band. But you haven't been usually the main singer, you sing on a few songs. I'm doing more singing now when I do a lot of acoustic folk stuff as well. But then the harmonica, it wasn't, I don't think it was used that much around that period. I mean, the 50s was the big time with Little Walt and all them guys and it slipped the 70s, 80s. I mean, it was all disco stuff. And for me, the harmonica was my whole life then. So I used that as the big feature in the band then. I mean, it was the voice of the band, really. I mean, it was, you know, answering and calling the voice, really. That's what I was doing. And that's one of the reasons I love your music, is, you know, obviously being a harmonica player myself, and a lot of people listen to this, you know, listening to your albums, there's plenty of harmonica, you know, great harmonica to enjoy. And so, you know, that's a real big attraction for me. So that definitely works. And obviously it's worked for you, you know, while you've been successful all these years, too. Yeah. The thing is, Neil, as well, it doesn't get in the way. It's not getting in that. It's the trick. A lot of harmonica players, they're in the way. They're not listening to the spaces, to where it should be put, to where it fits, to leave out, to come back in. They're just... they're being selfish, you know, they're just playing all around everything. They're not listening to a word that singer's doing or what's going on, you know. Yeah, we can ask you about that because, again, a distinctive part of your band's sound is that there's, you know, the harmonica's in there a lot and then you often play quite rhythmically and behind the singer but without getting in the way, as you're saying, you know, not stepping on the singer which a lot of harmonica players, as you say, can do. So, But getting back to the Burglars, well, the Paul Lamb Blues Band and the Kingsnakes, what happened was when the band, I got in John Dickinson, who's sadly passed away, and he was fantastic. I had Dave Stevens on upright bass. I had different drummers in. I had... Johnny Whitey on guitar, me on harp and backing vocals or whatever it was then. But the band, which I can relate to, they didn't want to just be called a blues band. You know, it was a Paul Lamb blues band. I said, well, what do you want to do? And they said, well, we'd like to have a bit of an identity, you know, like a name. I said, well, you call yourselves what you want, you know, whatever you want. As long as I'm, it'll be Paul Lamb and whatever it is, you know. And so they decided on the Kingsnakes. And that's what came in 1989. And we recorded the first Kingsnakes one called Hype and Woman. And that was the first one I recorded with the Kingsnakes. I had recorded with the Burglars before. And that came out in 1990 on Blue Horizon, Mike Vernon's label. And that was the first Kingsnakes one, yeah. So again, so you've always been the band leader, you know, you've been the guy who gets the musicians together, maybe sorts out a lot of the gigs early on before, maybe you have agents and things. So is that a role you played in the band? Yeah, I was band leader, manager, you name it, I was everything, you know. Until later on I got into, well, sort of, there was management came around and record companies, which I had to deal with that myself. getting deals with record people. I had some of the big ones as well. I did a show with Mark Knopfler. I was a guest. Mark invited me. He heard me playing and he invited me to the town and country that was then in 1990, I think it was. He got me to play on a little tour with him with the Notting Hillbillies. And There was a guy, Andrew Lauder, who used to work for Silverton and Point Bank, Virgin. They wanted to sign me up. And I put an album together called Shifting Into Gear, which was a great, great album. I recorded that out in Scandinavia. And they were going to buy that off me and sign me up. And I thought, I've made it. This is great to be signed up by Virgin Records. you know, that's a great, great accolade for me, you know, and what happened was John Wooler, who was the A&R guy then, he was the one that come and saw me, come and saw us at the 100 Club, come and saw me at the Mean Fiddler, all over the place, and he said, we're going to sign you up, Paul, he says, we've got this album, we'll love it, it's fantastic, we're going to put it out, and I rang John on the Monday, that was on the Friday when we spoke, and I rang John on the Monday, and he says, I got the bullets. He got the sack. John, he was moved somewhere else. And so it didn't go through. And I was gutted. So I had to chase around. I had an album on my hands. And CNN Records, they bought it from me. They were based in Belgium. And I was touring Europe a lot then. So it was pretty good. So I was selling a lot, you know. Indigo Records got a hold of me, Dale Taylor and Colin Newman. Yeah. And they signed me up and I recorded about 10 albums for them, which were fantastic. They were behind me. Then it would be when I was touring and when you did a tour, you would tell them you were in Germany or Belgium or Holland and they would stock over to the record stores if I was touring that area, you know. It's not like that now. It doesn't work like that now, but that's when it was, and I was selling a lot of CDs, you know? Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, through streaming now, that kind of revenue's been cut away, hasn't it? Oh, it's gone. It's gone. Yeah, I was going to ask about, you know, if you've got any advice for people who are, you know, maybe starting out with a band or, you know, in the early stages of a band, any advice? I mean, maybe things are so different now that it's hard to give that, but any advice you would give to those people? Well, I mean, you just do it yourself. You know, I think you save enough money off the band. I mean, I've always done it by myself. I've always been a one-man show. You know, I've funded it. If I was doing it for the band, I would pay for their costs. You know, the bands, they would get a session. Well, Indigo and these other bands, labels that I was working for they paid all that and I was getting an advance for that so but what I would say for anybody starting now is just like record if you're happy with it get it mastered get it done and if you're gigging just sell them at the gigs yourself and sell them online and if something comes up that's the beauty now I mean you know it's like what happened with Amy Winehouse she was just You know, doing it on, you know, getting different hits on YouTube and that, you know, and somebody picks it up. It could just become something for you. But other than that, with my music, it's just been, I've loved doing what I've done. And the money was the bonus, you know, because when I first started, I was just doing it for a beer or a couple of beers and a packet of crisps or something like that. Yeah. And it became a business. It became in love with the music. And what came on the side was the bonus, you know, which became a livelihood for me, you know. Yeah, but I think it shows that, you know, like you said yourself, you've had to put a lot of work into that side of things, the business side. So if you want to be successful, you've got to do that side as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've won a Best Harmonica Player in... Well, we had from the 90s when it was in full flow, we had best band, best harmonica player, best album. They were going through right. The awards in the house are just, and then I've got loads of them from Europe as well. I mean, they're great, but I mean, it doesn't make my head go any bigger or anything like that. It's just, it's nice to have. It's nice to raise the profile as well when you get them. You were kind of monopolising the awards in the 90s. I remember your name getting those every year, very consecutive years in the 90s. Well, that's what happened. I was getting that many. I was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the likes of Peter Green and John Mayall. I got a chance to play with Peter as well. I knew Peter quite well. And you mentioned Martin Offler, but some of the other people you play with, so you have The Who and Rod Stewart and Jimmy Nail and some of these names. Any particularly more memorable stories from any of those other guys? Well, like I said, Jimmy Nail, he was a friend of mine. He's from the Northeast, obviously, you know that. Yeah, well, he had Alveda's own pet. And when I came down to London, it was the same time as Jimmy came down for Alveda's own pet. It was the same time. And Jimmy would come to some of my shows and get up, because he played a little bit of harmonica, not very good. But he was there at that show with Junior Wells and Buddy Guy. And he was trying to get up, and Junior said, no, you're not getting up. You know, that was it. But Jimmy got me to do a scene in, I think it was either Spender or Crocodile Shoes. He flew me up to Durham Prison. And he was... doing a film in there of Crocodile Shoes or Spender or something. And he got me to play the harmonica on that. And then he did an album and he got me on the album to play harmonica as well. You know, but I've known Jimmy for years, you know. And you're also a friend with some of the sort of big American names, you know, Kim Wilson, Rob Piazza and the like as well, yeah. So what about those guys? How did you meet them? Great players. A very good friend of mine is Jerry Portnoy who... I mean, when he was doing the Eric Clapton thing in the mid-90s, he would come across here and stay with me and whatever, have a bit of a laugh, go out for meals and stuff. And he flew me out for his 60th birthday. That was in 2003 to Boston. We were all there. All the Hall players, it was Kim, you know, William Clark. We were all friends with Bill. We were all great. Just having a laugh, you know. And the thing is, though, with those American guys like Rod, Kim, fabulous players. They had it on the doorstep, you know? Yeah. They could walk out in the street sometime and they'd see them in the club, you know? When Kim was down in Austin, Texas, or Rod was in, you know, where he was on the West Coast or whatever, he would see all the different players going, George Smith and everybody, you know? Talk through some of your albums. You've got quite a big... list of releases i think 19 albums i've counted from your website so uh one of one of them's a compilation your most recent one is that the live one at royal albert hall yeah i think that's the most that was the last one i did yeah um are you singing an old songs on that one i think i think so yeah yeah i'm doing a one um it's it's a sunny terry brownie mcgee one i think and i just put the band around it you know and Preaching the Blues, I think it is. I think it's up there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like Nine Below Zero, I think. You know, one with Ryan. Ryan's just playing like acoustic guitar with me and stuff like that. There's a free one there, you know. And then Ida, that's the one I'm singing. Yeah. If you lose your money, please don't lose your mind. I've listened to a lot of your albums over the years and, you know, I've listened to a lot of your songs and... an album which provides a good overview for people. It's a Harmonica Man compilation because it kind of follows, it spans some of your career, doesn't it? So you get quite a nice view of your career on that. That's a double album, isn't it? So that's a really good one for people to check out, you know, you over the years. That was good. I got signed up for Universal, which was, that was a big label because Indigo, they closed down and they sold it out. And they only signed two artists from the Indigo. And that's a good, I like that album, but it's all deleted now. I mean, I've still got one copy in the house, but that was a good seller for me. Because it's a good repertoire of the band from the early days to what it was up to then. Yeah, definitely, yeah. It's still on Spotify, that album. All right. Streaming platforms, other stream platforms. So, yeah, and the album After Hours, which I think you did in 2016, you did that near me. I know Paula Riordan. Yeah. I live near Reading, so I know Paula. So you recorded that at her studio near Reading, didn't you, I believe? Yeah, we recorded that hole in the wall. That was the one before it was recorded in Paula's studio. studio we recorded that there and um after after we recorded the whole session we decided to um knock edgewood said oh we'll have a few drinks upstairs and she just put the ambience mic hanging And after hours, we just played what we felt on there, you know, we're just playing. And I really like that album, you know. Yeah, nice, really relaxed live to it. And yeah, like you say, just a kind of jamming kind of feel to it, isn't it? It's just loose, you know, we didn't even say what we're going to do. I just started something out or somebody would sing something, we'd just join in. And that was the way it was, you know, that's the way it came out. Another big one for you, again, I remember when I was at university in the early 90s, Harmonica Man came out, and me as a harmonica player, you know, I was delighted. I was out in the clubs at university listening to a harmonica coming out over the clubs. That was superb. So what happened with that Harmonica Man song? That was Paula again. Oh, was it? Yeah, she did that. She produced it. I was out there with her, and they were looking... Well, originally, what was going around was that Cotton Eye Joe, if you can remember. Yeah, yeah. We had a little spate of that sort of song, wasn't there? Yeah, yeah. Well, they actually stole it from us. And we were a bit late in getting it out on the thing. They had heard Harmonica Man. They got me in. Paula got me in. I had a backing singer called Betty. And then Paula played the keys on it and the backing stuff. And I played that part on the harmonica, obviously. And it was a huge, huge hit. It was massive. We were, I mean, I made a lot of money. I met up with, well, I met Taylor because obviously went down into Waterman's Studios in the West End and just, you know, hung out a bit in there. There was people interviewing me from all around the world saying, what's this new music, Paul? This new music you're playing? I said, this isn't new music. I was probably shooting myself in the foot when I said it. I said, what it is, it's street music. It's all of the hills. but I said, this is as fresh as a daisy to me. And I said, you know, I'm just playing an old style with a backbeat behind it, you know? Yeah, it was kind of new, wasn't it? It was kind of Sonny Terry with that kind of modern, like you say, backbeat, that dancey sort of track behind it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that sort of stuff, you know? Yeah. Talks about a few of the, a few of your instances early on, John Mayall and Sonny Terry, but just, are there any particular... favorite albums that you know beyond those or ones that you mentioned earlier on or any favorite uh so any a couple of favorite albums maybe albums which you think are worth checking out for harmonica players well obviously that one uh that that that's a must for getting that harmonica sound that beautiful marine band sound is uh brownie mcgain sunny terry sings on forkways another one that i i really liked was um a one by big walter horton the soul of blues harmonica And there's another one called Fine Cuts for Big Walter. That's a superb one, isn't it? That's the one with Laku Karachi on, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Well, I do all that sort of numbers. Walter Swing on that album. I really love that song, Walter Swing, on that album.

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And there's another one, An Offer You Can't Infuse. That was on Red Light, the label that I was with. On one side is Big Walter, and on the other side is Paul Butterfield. But the one with Big Walter on is fantastic. It's just two of them playing. I think it's Robert Nighthawk's playing, and it's Big Walter on half. Any particular favourite tracks you want to pull out? You mentioned some of the albums there. there's a one it's called Blues for the Lowlands and I'm not sure it's on different albums and also Blowing the Fuses and my motto as well what Sonny always said to me is to Just play what you feel and feel what you play. And that's what them two did when I spoke to them. They never rehearsed in their life. One would start and the other one would follow. The other one would start and the other one would follow. And that's the way they did it, you know. And there's a bit that should be a bit of that in music today, you know, having a little bit of, I call it tight but loose, you know. And that's the way I play. I mean, all the lads in the bands there, they all say, yeah, Paul, that's Paul's motto, play what you feel and feel what you're playing. I can't say any better than that. You might not be fantastic in what you do, but you just, what you've got, you stick with it and play it the best you can and play what you feel and feel what you play. And that's it. Yeah, absolutely. I can see when you see one of your shows, you know, you really try and make it an event, you know, you can really see that and it comes across really well in that way. So, you know, it's an entertaining event as well, you know, it's just we're going to go and see some music. So some questions now around maybe your playing style and then a bit about, you know, talk a little bit about gear. Any particular way that you approach learning the harmonica? You've talked about it's about listening. That's a lot of the way I learned to play, was playing along with records. Any particular approach to how you learned to play the harmonica? Not really. It's the feeling aspect of it as well. You have to want to feel it, have it, to do it. That's the main thing. If you have that and you're inspired by one of them players, whoever it be, you'll find your route. You'll find it. You will find your way with it, you know, because you'll persevere with everything. Because I used to, I remember I used to throw the harmonica on the floor and virtually stamp on it. Well, that's when I used to pay for them. So, I mean, I didn't stamp on it. But anyway, you got frustrated. And you were trying to get this lick or riff or whatever it was, and you couldn't get it. And then you threw it down, left it for a couple of days and come back. And it started to come in again. You got it. And that's the way I worked it. You know, you would find it. And I think you're absolutely right what you're saying. It's what I always felt, is if you have that real passion for it, you know, and it just kind of burns inside, you know, you just want to do it. That's the way you really get good, I think, isn't it? You know, you really have that drive to do it and you just, you know, you don't want to do anything else. Well, I had to do it. I had to do it. I gave up everything for it, you know. So, I mean, I left a home up north to travel with this, well... I'm an entertainer, I call that as well. There's a thing about Big Bill Brunsey, and he never liked to call himself a blues man. He called himself an entertainer. I mean, I would say I'm a blues man, but with entertainment on the side, you know. And you do play, obviously, some blues chromatic as well, don't you? So any particular thoughts on that and how it differs from the diatonic? Well, I mean, the style I'm playing... In the chromatic, it's probably, well, it's the third position on the diatonic, really, in the chromatic scale. That's the way I'm playing it. It would be in the vein of, well, of George Smith, really. He was the pioneer of that big West Coast chromatic sound. That's what everybody was after. I mean, Little Walter was great, Big Walter, but for me, George was the best of the chromatic players. I mean, that's the way I base mine, but I try and I'll play like any of them. I can play like them all if I want. I can play it note for note if I want to go for Little Walter or Big Walter or any of the guys, really, because once you've mastered one style, it's easy, easier to get to the other style because they're all playing the same notes they're just phrasing it differently to put their own little brand on it and that's what it is and that's what I've done over the years I've mixed up Terry, Big Walter you know all of them, shuffled them all around and here comes Paul Lamb you know so I put my little brand on it and that's what everybody's striving for I see a lot of the bands they're trying to play note for note like Little Walter or any of the half players and basically little Walter he wouldn't even he wouldn't remember what he played the night before let me tell you that neither would Terry no they could not play the same way as what they did the night before yeah I think that's the way with some of those older guys you know we hear the records and you kind of think oh that's what they played like but you know if you actually saw them live it would be very different and a few of the live recordings I've heard of little Walter you can hear that the differences are definitely there aren't they Well, there's about four or five different versions of Duke. And all the Chess Brothers did, they used to play around Chicago, get drunk, bring them in at three in the morning and set the recording going, and they would get the best recordings out of them. That's what they did. And that won the classic of Little Walter Duke, which is the killer. I mean, you've heard different ones to it, and it doesn't even come close to it, you know?

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And that's on the same session. So you can imagine they're just catching them at the right minute, the right time. And that's it. But there's one thing with Terry. I don't know if you've heard the thing of what Terry said. In the 40s, he was picked up to do a Broadway show, Ophinion's Rainbow. It was a big, big hit. It was a Broadway musical. And they got Sonny in to do it. And the big boss came in to see Sonny and said, hey, Sonny, you got the job. He says, thanks, man. He says, but you got to play the same way every night, you know. It's got to be exactly note for note the same way every night. And Sonny said, I can't do it. He says, I can't play like that. He says, I can just play the way I feel on that night. And he says, but you've got to play like that. Sonny walked away and he come in the next morning. I mean, this is one of Sonny's jokes he tells. And he comes back the next day and he sees the boss and he says, excuse me, sir. He says, how much are you paying me for this? And he told him the price. And Sonny said, oh, yes, I can play it the same way every night. The money was talking, you see. But he wouldn't have, the guy would not have known. Sonny would have played clever, you know. He would have had somebody pointing up to say, you're finished now. But he would have... it would have sounded pretty much the same. But he couldn't play it exactly note for note. No, no. So let me finish up this section on the playing. One question I'm going to ask each of the recordings of the podcast is if you had 10 minutes to work on the harmonica, and again, maybe thinking back to when you were starting out, or now, how you play, what would you practice on it? Or what do you recommend people would just play for 10 minutes? You know, just with the view that you pick it up and then that 10 minutes might extend longer. Just one of Sonny's rhythms. Yeah. That's what I would work on because rhythm is the main thing in harmonica. Just that sort of, if you can hear it on... Yeah! You know, just working, and they're a great breathing technique. It helps you with your breathing pattern. I mean, I wouldn't be out of breath. I could play that all day long and I wouldn't be out. Some people would think, well, you're just drawing and drawing and drawing. Your lungs are going to burst. But just that sort of rhythm. I think that illustrates as well, doesn't it, that the big sound you can get out the harmonica, the little humble diatonic harmonica by playing, you know, that kind of chord rhythmical stuff. It really shines, particularly in that big sound you can get out. Yeah, just moving on to Talking Gears. What harmonica do you play now? What's your active choice? Horner Marine Bands, always. Horner Marine Bands, Horner Chromatics, the 12-hole and the 16-hole, you know. You're endorsed by a Horner now, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So any particular of the Marine Bands, you know, deluxe or the crossovers? Well, I used to have the old ones. Just what I do, when they go out a bit, I send them to John Cook. who's the harmonica repair guy, you know. So basically, if I was purchasing now, it would just be the old-style marine band, you know, the original. There was a guy who used to do them for me, Tony Daniger, and he was bringing out, and he was sending me some stuff, and they were fantastic. And the second best of that would be the crossover, you know, that would be the one. that I'd go to next, you know? Yeah. So do you have a favourite key of harmonica? Well, for me, if I'm singing or doing Terry stuff, it would be a B-flat harmonica cross style playing an F, you know? Or sometimes the A-harp playing an E, you know, and then a F, you know, so... That range is nice, isn't it? It gives you that kind of fat sound, you know, the low bassy notes on that, and then there's something about those A's and B flats, isn't there, which are a particular sweet thing. But yeah, it's interesting. Do you play any different tunings, or do you stick to the traditional tuning of the diatonics? Most of them are the traditional. I play them all in three positions, you know, first, cross, and third. There is a couple of harmonic guys, a couple of guys sent me... and it's tuned like to the chromatic scale. There's a few things, you know, but I don't use minor tunings or anything like that. Just the normal harp, you know, in them three positions. Sometimes I might cross over, which I'm not sure that I'm playing in another position, which seems to work because that's what I've tried to do. making the harmonica fit into the song and if some I picked some harmonica up and like somebody sent me the the customised harmonica and I tried it and I wasn't too sure and then I just started phoning around and I started getting a few tunes out of it so there you go you know so but you know most of the time it's just in the straight keys and stuff like that you know and amplifier wise you still play a Fender Basin as your main main gigging amp do you? Well, if I'm traveling, it's either a Fender Bassman or I've got a Fender 410 Concert, which is 1960. That's a nice amp. And, you know, there's different mics there, which, as I would like to say once again, it's not the mic. It's the guy that's behind the mic that gives you the sound. So are your amps modified in any way? No. stock it's just set up for a guitar it comes out you know good tubes in there that's it using a static mic or you know different mics like that you know the only if I'm using I'll not really use any effects If there's any effect I won't use on it, it's probably I've got a delay pedal that I might use on there sometimes. Yeah, it's just the choice, isn't it, the delay pedal, just to fatten up the sound a little bit, isn't it? It seems to be the one default pedal that everyone goes for. But it's the dry sound, mainly that's what I do, just straight in, plug in to the normal channel, and then crank it a bit, and then run away, you know. Do you have a small amp that you might use in, you know, maybe smaller gigs? Um... There's a couple of little amps up at the top of the garden that I have there. There's a little DeVille. There's... I mean, I'm not a one for... You know, a lot of the half-plays are not everything. Oh, you should use this element in here. I'm not one for them, you know. If it sounds good after you hear it, that's pretty good, you know. But you do use a small amp sometimes, do you, when the gig calls for it? Yeah, I would use... Yeah, of course. But most of the time, if I'm playing a small gig, I'll just play acoustic. And me and Chad, my main singer, we go out as a duo. Yeah, absolutely, as a duo. Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, and it's, there's nothing much there. I mean, as you can see, the PA, we sometimes don't even use it at a small club, you know. I just say, right, we don't need it. You know, we never use monitors. We just, because, I mean, why use monitors? We're sitting next to each other. We can hear what each other's playing, you know. People get a bit crazy about it, you know. Yeah, it's good to hear, like you say, a lot of the time the gear gets in the way, doesn't it? And it's a lot of hassle to lug around and set up. If you don't need it, it's better, isn't it? Well, I'm 65 now. I mean, it's all right when I'm, well, I'll not be in Europe for a while, I don't think. But we've got all books for tours and everything. But when I'm out there, it's all stuff hired in anyway, you know, guys looking after you out there. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, those basements are pretty heavy. Those offender basements are pretty heavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you've mentioned at the moment the whole COVID-19 thing that's obviously hit gigs pretty hard but have you got any gigs lined up for later in the year any tours coming up later in the year that hopefully you'll be back in action then that you're looking forward to? There is well all they've done is they're just holding them back all them gigs that I had for the springtime and the summer they've just put them on hold I've got them so you know there's all sorts of different places just check check the website out for when it when it all comes back into the group because I think music is the last thing that everybody's wanting well they want it a little bit for the rise of spirits you know raise the spirits up a bit but I mean people going out is going to be that's going to be still a scary, scary time for when it all blows over this. Yeah, it'll be interesting, won't it? But anyway, let's see what happens. Obviously, I'll add you to the gig list as well. Thanks for sending them through and make sure your gigs get on there as well. So you'll get plenty of gigs onto there. In the meantime, are you doing some teaching? Do you still do teach? Yeah, I do. But it'll have to be on Skype or something like that. I do them all, some in America, some for for Europe, you know, so, and even Hong Kong, you know, I've done a few for that. Well, I'll put the links to your website in the description so people want to get in touch and, yeah, as you say, as you're a bit homebound at the moment, it's a good time. If people want to get a lesson from you, then obviously, yeah, take advantage of that. That'd be, that'd be superb, yeah. I'm still selling produce from, from, from my, from my shop. It's on your website, aren't they? So, yeah, again, links to the, the link will be on. Just, just before, Have you got that one with Playing the Blues, me and John Dickinson? Have you heard that one? I don't think so. Is that the name of the album, Playing the Blues? Playing the Blues. It's me and John Dickinson. It's fantastic. That is a must. That is like, for me, my version of Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry Sings. I mean, it's not in the Brownie McGee style. It's all different styles, but it's pretty cool. Okay, no, that's super. Thanks a lot for taking the time. It's been, we could talk all day quite happily. Oh, easy, easy. I haven't even touched it yet. You know, again, congratulations on a very long and successful career. Lots of great recordings you've done. Thank you. You know, a lot of your songs are really loved. You know, One Evening Stone is a really, a song I really loved at one time, and yours, and Skin Jumps, another one. Yeah, so many of your songs. All the best, Neil. Thanks very much. That's it for today, folks. Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica. Be sure to check out their website.