Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Kim Wilson interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Kim Wilson is without doubt one of the great harmonica players around today.
He grew up within the vibrant music scene in California, learning his chops on the bandstand, which he hasn't got off since, touring extensively all his life.
Kim's long term band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, has brought him commercial success, and he has also maintained his own dedicated blues band for many years.
He leads from the front, and absolutely knows what it takes to deliver the blues to an audience.

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

http://fabulousthunderbirds.com/

Some of the YouTube clips mentioned:
Tuff Enough video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcXT1clXc04
Solo piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLgiQNpeblY
Nine Below Zero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85WhJxUpt_g

Chromatic player Mike Turk's website:
http://www.tinsandwichmusic.com/

Dennis Gruenling microphones:
https://badassharmonica.com/

Clinch FX Burnish Boost pedal:
https://www.clinchfx.com/clinchfx-burnish-boost/


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/

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Hi Neil Warren here again and welcome to another episode of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast with more interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the tracks 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. Kim Wilson is without doubt one of the great harmonica players around today. He grew up within the vibrant music scene in California, learning his chops on the bandstand, which he hasn't got off since, touring extensively all his life. Kim's long-term band The Fabulous Thunderbirds has brought him commercial success and he has also maintained his own dedicated blues band for many years. He leads from the front and absolutely knows what it takes to deliver the blues to an audience with his tough harmonica playing style. Hello, Kim Wilson. Thank you very much for joining the podcast. My pleasure. It's a real thrill to have you join me. I'm a big fan of yours and have been for many years, as I'm sure lots of other harmonica players listening are. You moved around quite a bit when you were young, so you were born in Detroit, in Michigan, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I moved to... California, my dad worked for General Motors. He moved us out to the Santa Barbara area, California in 1960. You know, I was in school until about 1974. I had started playing music in 68 when I was still in high school, end of my senior year. It was fantastic. Well, you know, at the beginning for me, because I was able to get up on stage with people, so many different people. I mean, literally, I'd only been playing a year and I was playing with Eddie Taylor and people like that, you know, Luther Tucker, Hightide Harris, Albert Collins, Lowell Fulson, Pee Wee Creighton, George Harmonica Smith, Johnny Shaw. I played with all those guys during my first three or four years of playing. You know, when we were in high school before I started playing, I had a bunch of friends who really loved blues music and they took me to a lot of shows down in L.A., That was a real eye-opener for me. Plus, I saw George Smith back then playing out in a park somewhere. That blew my mind, too. Immediately, I wanted to do it. There was another kid playing harmonica in high school. He was kind of my competition. He wasn't very nice to me at first, so it became my mission to kind of unseat this guy. That's why I got good in a short period of time. I'll tell you one quick story, okay? Yeah, go on. And this is kind of the story of how I've met all these guys. I had a band pretty much the whole time, from the very, very beginning. And I never was without a band. And then I'd have a weekend off. Well, it just so happens that George Harmonica Smith was playing at this club. I was too young to get in, but I had a fake ID, and I got in the place. And my buddy, who got me on a lot of stages... He saw me in the audience and so he comes up to me. He was playing three songs and then he'd get down and George would get up on stage and his band would back him. He comes up to me on the break. He sees me in the audience and said, look, I want you to get up there instead of me on the next set. I said, well, I don't know. You know, I was kind of checking it out. And he said, no, you're doing it. So I got up there. I was pretty nervous. I'd already played with a couple people, but... So I get up there and I play two songs, get into about halfway through the third song, and here comes George just hopping up on the stage with me. He gets up there and I'm doing everything that he's doing. He was kind of a vaudevillian kind of guy. He would lay on his back and do crazy stuff. So I was kind of following all of his moves. He was making me do that. That was the beginning of my friendship with George. When George would take a break, he'd have each band member, I remember he did You Don't Love Me. And he would let each band member down one at a time. So eventually it was just he and I up there. It was a great moment for me, you know. And he was a very, very sweet guy. What did

SPEAKER_00:

he say

SPEAKER_01:

about your first performance

SPEAKER_00:

on stage then when he got you up?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I asked him questions after I knew him for a little while. I came back because what he said was, I want you to finish out the week with me. And the next time he came back, I was playing with him as well. So I guess he liked it. I mean, I was... Asking him questions, I didn't really get any kind of training from him or anything, but he was my hero back then. I knew about George before I knew about Little Walter, and I knew James Cotton also. I didn't meet him back then, but I knew George really before anybody, so it was a big, big thrill for me. I would ask him questions. Am I doing this right? Yeah, you're doing that right. He was more into finding a good nickname for me. And that didn't really work out very well. I'm not going to tell you what he called me. But I said, no, I think I'll stick to what I've got.

SPEAKER_00:

So he was very influential with the West Coast players, wasn't he? I think Rob Piazza also was heavily influenced by him as

SPEAKER_01:

well. Yeah, and Bill Clark. Yeah, he was. You can still hear his influence in my playing. I mean... I don't really play too much like him anymore, but I used to play very much like him. I still like to use octaves

SPEAKER_00:

a lot. I think he's one of those slightly underrated players, isn't he? A lot of guys like yourself are heavily influenced by him, and a lot of people tend to little Walter and Sonny Boy, but George Smith, you know, a great player. You have musical parents, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, my dad was a singer. He sang on the radio. And my mother was a pretty good singer as well. She sang in Baptist Church, you know, she... Both my grandfather and my uncle were deacons in the church. And she had a piano in there that she'd fool around with. They would sing at the house. My dad had talent. He was a good singer. Were they into blues music? They were into old music. You know, like, let's say Bing Crosby or Sinatra. My dad was kind of a crooner like that. He was very influential in music. me involving myself in the fine arts. I was an art major in college. I won a lot of awards at fine arts.

SPEAKER_00:

When you were young as well, you played trombone and guitar initially.

SPEAKER_01:

I did. My folks taught me lessons. I was in the band. We had mandatory music class twice a week in Michigan. And one day the music teacher comes in and he says, brings in a couple of horns. He picks me and this other kid out of the class and he hands me a baritone horn and said, play it. So I played it. And I wasn't really that fond of, I never really liked a lot of rules. I didn't really get into reading music very much. I just fought it. But I had a good sound and I was first chair immediately. And then I played guitar. I didn't really like strumming to whatever the tabs and reading music, doing that either. I remember going up on stage and faking it. My mom was in the audience. She didn't even know I was faking it. But I didn't know what the hell I was doing up there. And I got away with that one. Now, I enjoy fooling around with a guitar a little bit, but I always thought I wasn't always an improvisational guy. I never really liked playing set pieces. It just, for some reason, even back then, it didn't thrill me.

SPEAKER_00:

Were you singing back then?

SPEAKER_01:

I was not singing. I started singing when I first started playing in bands when I was 17, or a little before that, because I could sing before I could play bass. And that's really why I was able to get in bands, even though people say I could play back then. I really couldn't. You can't. No one wants just a harmonica player. So I was a singer. I knew that from I was also a songwriter back then. I wrote songs. You know, the whole thing was the whole experience for me was just absolutely incredible. I got to tell you, I mean, being around these guys, them taking me under their wing. And they didn't have to be harmonica players. I was just thrilled. I mean, Eddie Taylor, that was incredible. And then I would meet all these guys later on when I moved to Minnesota for a year. And then I would, that was like in 1975 when I did that, about a year and a half. And then I moved to Texas. But I met Albert Collins up in Minnesota and I met him down in Austin again, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_01:

all these guys, I would kind of rekindle my friendships with them during these times.

SPEAKER_00:

So you started playing in a blues band at high school, a senior school. You say you're about 17. Do you remember what first got you started playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I just wanted to do it. I can't really tell you what got me going. I mean, I'm listening to people like George Smith and Big Walter back then. That was a pretty big inspiration. People were going to clubs all over the place and seeing unbelievable people playing in that area. I was going out there. I had my fake ID, like I said, and I was watching all these guys play going, I got to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

So you probably saw live harmonica first, did you?

SPEAKER_01:

No. Well, kind of both at the same time, really. You know, I was listening to, I had that World Pacific record by George.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Which

SPEAKER_01:

was a big, big, big influence on me. And then I had that first James Cotton record on

SPEAKER_02:

Verge. Well, one down the road. Stop at Fanny Mae's. Child found out I heard her. Boyfriend said.

SPEAKER_01:

That James Cotton record became the Bible for me because all these different types of material that he was doing, I said, well, hell, if it's good enough for him, it's certainly good enough for me. And it gave me an opportunity to go out. You know, back then, just like now, really, you had to get people dancing before you could throw a low down blues on them, you know. But, you know, that kind of changed when we started playing in Austin and people were dancing to, like, Jimmy Reed and that kind of stuff. I got to tell you also that Taj Mahal was a huge influence on me back then. And that kind of got me into the more contemporary side of things as well. Because Taj, he's, you know, I'm still a big Taj fan.

UNKNOWN:

Oh!

SPEAKER_02:

He's

SPEAKER_01:

an incredible soul, and he's got an incredible soul. All those things mixed together, and then you got people like Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band coming around, and you listen to all these things. I had a 16-year-old guitarist who just passed away a couple years ago who could play exactly like Buddy Guy on It's My Life, the live stuff. The whole experience, about the first three or five years of my life, it was just gangbusters, and I learned really quickly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great time. And it sounds like you're in a really creative environment. So you moved from California to Austin, Texas.

SPEAKER_01:

I actually moved to Minnesota first. I lived in Minneapolis for about a year and a half. And then about 75, I moved on to Texas. I had been down to visit California. Jimmy had been up to visit me in Minneapolis, and we were talking, and I was ready to get out of the cold, you know. Plus, I'd run out of people to play with. So I went down to, I ended up flying down to Austin. That was the start of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

so you

SPEAKER_00:

met Jimmy Vaughn, and that sort of led on to forming the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

then we went through our guys, you know. We had a lot of different people.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you got a regular spot playing at Anton's

SPEAKER_01:

Club.

SPEAKER_00:

We would

SPEAKER_01:

do Monday nights down there. So

SPEAKER_00:

that was the start of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Is that the start really playing harmonica and singing as your career?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, no, no. It was my career from the beginning. I tried to work a day job. I had dropped out of school, and I had these kind of menial jobs. And finally, I tried to do it, and I said, well, I'm either going to be a musician or a wino. That's going to be it. And luckily, I ended up being a musician.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

a wino for a while.

SPEAKER_00:

Muddy Waters was influential on you in the early days. Did he see you playing with the Fabulous Thunderbirds at Anton's club?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What happened was we were opening up for Muddy. We would always open up for Muddy if we were in town. And we were in town at the beginning. We were in town all the time. Everybody kind of walked in like, oh, these guys, you know, like, oh, really? I mean, another bunch of guys like this. So it was kind of shocking for them to hear us on the first note. It kind of blew their minds. I mean, there was a dressing room up above the stage at the old Antones and had a curtain on it. And we went into this first instrumental we would always do and the curtain flew open and there they were all just gawking at us. And, you know, Muddy was a very, very great man to me. He was just a great man, period. He was royalty. You know, he still is royalty. He said some very great

SPEAKER_00:

things about me. Yeah, he said you were the greatest harmonica player to come along since little Walter. That's quite a compliment.

SPEAKER_01:

That's quite a compliment. That's really... And, of course, it wasn't true, but... It made me want it to be true, and I've worked my whole life.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you play with Luddy? Did he get you up to do a guest spot when he was playing in the club?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. You know, we had some incredible times. We had some incredible times, you know, just when I met Jerry, of course, and Jerry was one of my dear friends, and people like Bob Margolin and Willie and Fuzz and Pine Cop and Guitar Junior, you know, they were... I mentioned Bob Margolin and Bob Margolin, but

SPEAKER_02:

it was

SPEAKER_01:

just a big party. I mean, it was incredible, and they came around a lot, and they'd stay for a week every time they'd come. We just had a ball, and I'd sit down with Muddy, just me and him, and we'd talk. He was an incredible man and an incredibly generous and giving

SPEAKER_00:

man. So I'm a massive fan of Muddy Walter, and of course he had all the greatest harmonica players with him. So it's great to hear you say that about him, because I've read a couple of biographies, but yeah, it's great to hear that.

SPEAKER_01:

He was a very, very dear person to me, and he was really like my musical father.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, goody, lay it over me when I feel like it. You got

SPEAKER_00:

to play with his son, Mud Morganfield, on the album Pops a few years ago, which won an award for a blues music award. So that must have been quite a thrill, being so close to Muddy and playing with his son. How was that?

SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful. You know, the band was great. The music was great. I was thrilled. I was thrilled. You know, I think Muddy's got a couple of kids out there that are doing pretty good. And I'm happy to see that. I'm happy to see that, you know, his name is still there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Mud comes over to the UK quite regularly. So I've seen him play quite a few times and it's great that he's, you know, carrying that music on and obviously doing a lot of his father's songs. So it's great to see.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Back

SPEAKER_00:

to the Fabulous Thunderbirds then. So you released your first album with them in 1979, I think. So the title, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, which was a fantastic album. And I've got some great harmonica classic songs on there. You know, Scratch My Back is long-time being one of my favorite harmonica songs. That was a fantastic album. Maybe talk about that album a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, we went in, we went to Summit Burnett Studios in Dallas, and Bob Sullivan was the engineer. The first thing he did was come in and play Write Em On Down by Eddie Taylor. And we went, okay, we're going to like this guy. He started talking about James Burton, and that was the first time he'd ever seen a Fender solid body guitar. It was a long time ago. That's when they first came out. So Bob was a great guy, and everything was done to analog at that time. It was done to multitrack, but everything was cut live. There wasn't much mixing to be done. And we cut everything. We cut 40 songs in two days. We just kept at least 40 tracks anyway. We just kept the good stuff. That was pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00:

It was five years, though, since you formed the band until you released the album.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, we were looking for a deal. There were lots of times, you know, when even after that record and the subsequent Chrysalis, Tacoma records, there were lots of times when I was going, what the hell am I going to do here? I mean, I'm not sure if I can keep doing this, although I wasn't really ever going to quit. The work was sketchy, you know,

SPEAKER_00:

it was sketchy. So were you still mainly around Austin playing music? you know, live gigs at that point? Or were you touring before you released the album?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, after we met Muddy, which was 70, that might have been 75, maybe 76. After we met Muddy, Muddy put the word out. So immediately we were on the road. We were going to Maine, a lot to New England at that time. I remember in 1978, we played the San Francisco Blues Festival and we made a pretty big splash there. We had been working our way up. I think the reason why we had a hit record is because really all these people had been coming out to see us for years. And they finally, we all got on the same page and just bought the record. But we'd been playing and playing. I mean, we were doing 250, 300 days a year on the road. And when we were home, we'd be playing. We'd be playing behind Eddie Taylor over at Antone's or, you know. Wherever. Our Monday night gig changed to the Rome Inn. That was an incredible gig. So

SPEAKER_00:

I think that five years before, that's why that's such a great first album then because you guys must have been so tight and you had some great material after all that touring.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we played everything we knew, basically. That's why it was so difficult to come up with material later on because we'd already done all of it. And so we had to work on... I was writing a lot of blues back then. That was cool. And I got a lot of songs on those records. I'm very proud of those songs.

SPEAKER_00:

You had some commercial success with Tough Enough and Wrap It Up. So you had some sort of top 40 hits with the Fabulous Thunderbirds with those songs.

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, Tough Enough was top 10. I think Wrap It Up was 40 and there were other ones that were in the top 100. Back then, you had AOR Radio here in the States, so we had several top tens in the AOR. In the UK, we had a pretty big kind of thing with You Ain't Nothing But Fine.

SPEAKER_00:

So the Fabulous Thunderbirds style was quite a mixture, wasn't it? It was rock and roll-y, blues, bits of Cajun music. So it was a bit more mainstream than just pure blues, wasn't it? Was that partly to become more commercial and looking for that sort of success, or was that just the way the band was naturally going and what sort of music it

SPEAKER_01:

was playing? Well, you know, that first Cotton record was the Bible to me. I played in every band... using that variation of material. Then we added a little rock and roll later on. I mean, at first, it was pretty much just all shuffles. But it didn't take too long. We started learning Scratch My Back and things like that, and stuff by Rockin' Sidney, stuff by Lonnie Brooks, who was Guitar Junior, on the records we learned from, like The Crawl and those kind of things. That kind of built up. And then we had a couple of British producers come We had Nick Lowe on our last Chrysalis record. And that kind of pushed things, that kind of moved things up a little bit. And then Dave Edmonds called. We went over to the UK, to London to record. That really was something special as far as just watching it. I think the band was maturing at that time. And especially me, I think that maybe my singing was getting a little better. Maybe, you know, What people don't realize is that that record sat from about 1983 to about 1985, and we were looking for someone because the original label that we recorded that for went bankrupt. And so those tapes sat there. So finally, you know, after going around and around, We went back to CBS Records and Tony Martell said, I want to tell you guys, I think I can sell this. So which

SPEAKER_00:

album?

SPEAKER_01:

That's Tough Enough. Yeah, that's Tough Enough. So Dave Edmonds recorded that in England. But it sat there for quite a while. We didn't know if it was ever going to get released even. And finally, you know, The beautiful thing about Tony Martell was he started his own label in the CBS Epic family. So we were able to access all of the people, all of the promotional people, everybody, and get kind of a taste of what the real business was like at that time. And to watch it climb the charts, that was also an incredible experience. We really almost kind of did it. And Nick Lowe and Dave Edmonds had a huge play in this. They had a huge play in our contemporary success. And they were very, very cool because they were real musicians who loved real music, and they attacked both those records with that attitude. And we really didn't have to do anything too much different than our own kind of metamorphosis, our own natural metamorphosis.

SPEAKER_00:

You formed your own band in the 90s for the first time. Was that right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it was 1990. I had a manager at that time who was telling me, you know, harmonica really doesn't sell. I don't think you should be playing as much of it. And I went, okay, well, guess what? I'm going to go over here and do this. I'll keep doing this, but I'm going to go over here with Anton and do that also because I have to satisfy that part of myself.

SPEAKER_00:

So you went across... particularly to go and cut more pure blues records and to make them more heavily harmonica-based. Talking about Tiger Man, I think that was your first solo album. Again, some classic harmonica cuts on there. The song I really love on there is Come Back Baby, but you also do Trust My Baby by Sonny Boy. That's quite a brave song to take on, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Come Back Baby You

SPEAKER_00:

know, what about that song, and taking that one on?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, really the problem with that song for me is the singing. The harmonic is not bad. And you don't really want to go in there trying to sound like Sonny Boy anyway. You know, you want to be sounding like yourself. That's how you do it. We do quite a few covers on that whole record. I will say that there's some pretty good chromatic harmonic on that record, and... When the Lights Go Out, that Jimmy Witherspoon song. That's a really good performance.

SPEAKER_02:

When the lights go out.

SPEAKER_01:

And also the instrumentals are pretty good. You know, I was able, you know, in 1988, I stopped drinking. What's wild is that's when that, that's when we recorded that live Jimmy Rogers and actually the new Della for Antones. I don't know when exactly that came out, but we recorded it. Actually, we had recorded part of that in 87, I think. We didn't have quite enough studio stuff. And I was wondering what we were going to do with that. And then I was driving around California. I remember it was raining. And I was playing all these Antone's Anniversary tapes. And this thing came on. And I went, wow. Well, that's pretty good. And then I said, you know, we can use that. And that will fill it out great. And it worked pretty well. You know, I think that's right when I got sober. 1988. After that, things really progressed in a major way for me. You know, I think... The only reason I was any good at all is because I had the harmonica in my mouth so much up until that time that I didn't lose too many chops. But after that, it became more real music to me, and I could take it more seriously, and I felt better about my own playing, and that gradually went on. I'm not totally convinced about everything on that record, but it's not bad. When I hear stuff like when the lights go out and the instrumentals, I say, okay, that'll work. The whole thing is you've got to realize something. Blues is a vocal music. It's not about the harmonica or the guitar or anything else. You've got to be able to deliver a song. For a white guy, that's not easy to do. So I think that over the years, I've really come a long way to be able to sing this music. That was the beginning of it right there in 1988. I'd already been playing, what, 15 years, 14 years. I still wasn't quite there yet in my mind, but some of that stuff works. And that was a big, big boost of confidence for me.

SPEAKER_00:

So you had your own project, but the Thunderbirds kept going through all this time. You've always kept that going all the time, and it's still going strong now, the Thunderbirds,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Lots of different incarnations, lots of different band members. You mentioned earlier on you've done lots of touring. You've always toured a lot throughout your career. That's been a big part. That's something you've been really passionate to do. You like to get out there on the road and play live. Of course.

SPEAKER_01:

What I'm doing now is I've got a big project for the T-Bridge coming up. I think we're going to have a lot of really high-profile guest artists. That's something I can let out now. What we need to do is get the material together. My bass player, Steve Gomes, this guy's a hell of a songwriter. So we put our heads together on a trip. About three or four days, he came out to the house and we came up with some pretty good stuff. And I've been writing a little bit since then as well. So, I mean, it's really kind of frustrating going through what we're going through right now because I'd be on the road. Luckily, I was able to do that blues band routine at the end of February through mid-March. I was very satisfying, and I'm glad we did that. Then we had the blues cruise before that, then everything shut down. I feel for all these musicians who can't go out. It's really not, you could say it's about making a living, but that's not it. It's about, it tears a hole out of you. Not to be able to perform in front of people or in the studio. You know, you sit at home and play, blah, blah, blah. That's okay, but it's very, very distressing. not to

SPEAKER_00:

be able to go play. Let's hope it doesn't go on for too long and we see you back on the road hopefully later this year.

SPEAKER_01:

I've got gigs booked in August right now, but I don't know if that's going to happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Going back to your playing live, I wanted to ask you about your solo piece. You generally do this solo piece where you start off with a band and then you go to do the chord tapping thing and then you do this solo piece.

SPEAKER_02:

Could

SPEAKER_00:

you talk about that a little while and how you devised this solo piece of yours?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I didn't really devise it. I mean, it just happened. It happened one night and... I didn't really do it for a while after that. And then I decided, you know, that went over pretty well. Most people have grandparents, grandfathers who probably played the harmonica at some point. It's a very portable instrument. You could play it in the trenches. The harmonica was really made for pocus. That's why the Germans developed it. They didn't even realize they had made something as crazy as this blues instrument that gone insane. So many people play it now. That beginning piece of the instrumental is just kind of a polka type thing except to a shuffle. And it's played to an amplifier. You can hear me doing it in other things. I also have this other thing I do by myself on the encore where I'll do a Sonny Boy Williams song with a low F with welded together reed plates. I don't know if you've seen those Feliscos. Felisco does all my harmonicas. He does all of them. He's a genius. So he devised this thing, this low F welded together two reed plates. A

SPEAKER_00:

double reed plate, as they call it. Is it one of those?

SPEAKER_01:

I guess you could call it a double reed plate, but it's not a double reed. It's not like a...

SPEAKER_00:

No, just two reed plates, but with one reed going between them. Exactly. I know about them. I've never actually tried one, but I keep meaning to try one of those. They're very

SPEAKER_01:

loud. They're great for acoustically. You can't bend them too much because they go flat so easily because the reed has much farther to travel through if you do bend it. So you've got to watch that. That song has a lot of chords by me. I play Nine Below Zero. on that. It's on YouTube all over the place. You can hear it. You know, the instrumental, the fast instrumental is a very, very difficult thing to play right. You have to relax. You can't be just flying around. Nothing worse than a hummingbird on methadrine. And that's what a lot of people sound like to me. You've got to relax. You've got to tell a story. You've got to have a sound. First and foremost, you have to have a sound.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that is the thing about that solo piece is that It is that. It is quite relaxed. You know, you don't, like you said, go too crazy on it. It keeps a very strong rhythm and it maintains interest because it's like 10 minutes, isn't it? So I think that's what's so strong about that solo piece that you do. Do you generally play, is it more or less the same every time?

SPEAKER_01:

It's never the same. No, it's never the same. I mean, there are little pieces of it that might work out to be the same. It's all improvised. There's a couple of little melodic things I might do in there. The whole thing about it is... And this is how I learned how to play. Of course, I learned how to play from Will Walter. I learned how to play from George Smith, James Cotton, all the guys. And I would copy the solos. I wouldn't copy the solos and play them on the bandstand ever. But what I would do, because I realized this is going to be a very frustrating life if I don't make it my own. I would add little bits and pieces onto the solos that I copied and little parts in the middle. I would, you know, tweak them a little bit. And then finally, they all just kind of ran together. And of course, here's another thing, too. You really have to have a lot of different influences, not just Walter. Walter, of course, was the greatest of all time and always will be. I

SPEAKER_02:

don't

SPEAKER_01:

see anybody going to beat him. If you're going to know people like James Cotton and George Smith and both the Sonny boys, I'm a big Rice Miller guy. That would really disturb Billy Bernardo because he hated Rice Miller. Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Big Walter, of course. You know, the whole thing is too really, I mean, you can go in and you can knock off licks and that's fine. If you don't have a sound, forget the licks. You better work on a sound before you even try and learn a lick. But what you do is, after a certain point, you surround yourself with the music. That's what I do every day. I listen to it not just for enjoyment, but for it to totally soak in the attack. I got news for you people. Don't listen to one modern thing. I mean, there might be a couple things that I've done and a couple other things that other people have done, but if you want to get deep into this music, you've got to go to the people who invented it. That's why I have a little more of an advantage, along with a few other players, because I've been able to work with those guys in person, and I loved them. So, you know, whether it be jazz, whether it be blues, jazz, Good old rock and roll, you know, Chuck Berry, Little Richard. Surround yourself with it. You don't need to sit there and study it. Usually the studying is done pretty much by the time you get to the point where you just listen to it for enjoyment. Actually, the studying is really never done. But to surround yourself with the music, get the vibe, get how they attack it. So, so, so important to get

SPEAKER_00:

how

SPEAKER_01:

they attack

SPEAKER_00:

it. As you say, you listened to lots of different sorts of music. You mentioned lots of the classic harmonica players there. But do you think you learned on the bandstand as much as anything? It sounds like you were outperforming a lot from quite a young age.

SPEAKER_01:

I learned on the bandstand. It was a funny thing with me. It was like going to the trombone. Literally, I was in a band three months after I started playing because I could sing. So harmonica was kind of on-the-job training. And then... I was on the job for like thousands of shows. Being highly self-medicated back then, I mean, it's a good thing I had that harmonically in my face. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing much right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Back then, when you started out in the 70s playing, it sounds like it was a great scene. Have you any advice for bands now about how to get going and how to make it?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, don't think about making it. Do it for enjoyment. Get out there. I would suggest this. Don't go to the jams unless you've got your own band and you can get up there with your own band and play the jam and play for, you know, three, five songs and get out of there. So unless the guys on the bandstand are high, high, high caliber, otherwise you're not going to get good. But as far as making it, I wouldn't even think about making it. Just think about doing the best that you can do. Just think about really saying something. So many people, you know, for one thing, you've got to realize something. A lot of people don't get it. A lot of people think that this stuff out here that they're hearing is what they're supposed to be listening to. And if you're talking about blues, that ain't it. Compare yourself to the old guys. Don't compare yourself to anyone modern. If you can stack up to that, even remotely, you're doing something. Concentrate on a sound. Always on a sound first.

SPEAKER_00:

You put a lot of store by that, you know, really having an identity, developing yourself, not going to jams. I think a lot of people do go to jams, don't they, thinking they might meet people, get a little bit of exposure. But for you, it's about developing your own sound and your own personality up there.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, you really have to play with people that are on the same page as you. That's pretty difficult to find. But if you find somebody that's on the same page, it might not be that great, but They're still on the same page. They still have the same love for the same type of stuff that you do. You know, you can develop some great camaraderies and really learn a lot between each other, bouncing things back and forth. If you get, you know, one to four to five guys that all see it the same way. It's not easy to do, like I say. And, you know, lots of times these people happen early, early, early on. Don't listen to compliments, right? Ever. Compliments are very nice. I thrive on them. And what Muddy Waters said about me was incredible. If I would have rested my laurels on that, it wouldn't ever happen for me. Play for enjoyment. Play to be a badass. To be the top of the food chain.

SPEAKER_00:

So talking about your actual playing style, you know, it's got a very full sound. You know, play octaves. It's got a big sound. great tone did you develop your style deliberately did it just come through from you know playing from all the guys that you love listening to

SPEAKER_01:

yeah it was trial and error you know listening to all the great people playing along with all the great people listening to the different kinds of sounds they got you know that's very very important also that flat distorted attack that's okay for maybe a song or two on a record maybe a song or two during a night and That's not all of it. There's a richness to the harmonica that if you have too much distortion, you don't hear it. Little Walter is a prime example of that. Little Walter had so many different kinds of sounds. Of course, I know that he played through whatever was in the studio at the time. Whatever it was, he owned it. If he was getting a certain kind of sound that day, he owned it. It's one thing, you know, when someone gives you, let's say you've got a rental gear somewhere and you're playing through an amp that you don't like. Well, you have to figure out a way to richen up that

SPEAKER_00:

sound. I was going to ask you about being the front man in the band, being the front man and being the singer. You know, how important do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01:

It's the most important thing,

SPEAKER_00:

period.

SPEAKER_01:

Being a singer and a band leader is the most important thing. I take a lot of pride in not having a set list. I never use one, ever. And I know those guys know what I'm going to do. Somewhere the song before, I'll be thinking of the next song. And depending on the audience, depending on what I want to play, depending on what I like, you know, and yes, you must learn how to sing. Otherwise, there's no sense in doing it.

SPEAKER_00:

Because

SPEAKER_01:

like

SPEAKER_00:

I told you before, it's a vocal music. So you did spend a lot of time developing your singing. As you said, you felt you got better further into your career. So you deliberately concentrated on your singing.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, a lot of that was on stage as well. When you can finally stand to listen to yourself on a recording, you're making some headway.

SPEAKER_00:

You have played with lots of different people, some big names. You played with Bonnie Raitt a lot. You played with Eric Clapson, played with Buddy Guy. So have you enjoyed playing as a sideman with those guys?

SPEAKER_01:

I've got to give a shout-out to Mark Knopfler. You know, I went over there to record with him, and that was a fantastic experience. Recording with Bonnie, of course. She's just beautiful. She's just an incredibly wonderful human being. They've all been great to me. I have fun every time I go in.

SPEAKER_00:

You play some blues chromatic. You play a lot of blues chromatic. Some great stuff. What's your approach with blues chromatic and how maybe that differs from playing the diatonic?

SPEAKER_01:

My approach is I kind of divide up George Smith and Little Walter. I'll use the button maybe a little more than either one of those guys. Although I used to hear George play Misty. Everybody says George is the king of the chromatic. I beg to differ. Little Walter is a genius on the chromatic. Now, George was great, fantastic. To see George really, I mean, you had to see George live to really get the full gist of George. Back then, he used to play through the PA. He didn't even have an app. He did have an app, but he didn't use it on the gigs. He used it at the studio. His sound was incredible. You can play through the PA. Of course, PAs were cheaper back then. You can get a little distortion out of them. They sounded a lot

SPEAKER_00:

better. A question I'm asking each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice or if you were recommending somebody who only had 10 minutes to practice, what would you do in that 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it depends on what stage you're at already. If I had 10 minutes to practice and I was just a very, very beginner, I would learn how to tongue block pucker, tongue block pucker, tongue block pucker to make it sound exactly the same, depending on whatever hole you want to go in. And then I would work on trying to bend the note. And that would be it, you know. And a Felisco is going to hate me for this, but I do a lot of puckering. I do a lot of tongue blocking as well. I kind of added tongue blocking on the low notes later on in life. And I think that there's certain... I guarantee a little Walter did not tongue block all the time. Did not. I can hear it. And there's certain transitional notes that you can't get otherwise. And there's certain ways the harmonica sounds that you can't get otherwise. You have to be able to get a lot of different sounds... on the instrument.

SPEAKER_00:

I think a lot of people listen to you, you know, you got great tone and a big sound. A lot of people would guess that you were tongue-blocking all the time. So it's interesting to hear that you do switch between them quite often. So yeah, it shows that, like you said, puckering definitely has its place.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll tell you something. I went to Belisco's class up in Chicago. I did that to him in front of the class. Okay, which one's tongue-blocking, which one's a pucker? He couldn't tell the difference. And, you know, so that means you have this whole wide variation of sounds that you can get that you didn't have by just tongue block. There's different ways to tongue block and get different sounds as well. But most people, they don't, you know, they just stop. The variation in sound is huge in the harmonica, as it is in the guitar or any other instrument. To go up there with a Shure Hot CR... And get this kind of whatever it is. I don't even know what you call it. You know, you got a couple pedals up there. Hey, if you absolutely need a pedal, fine. I wouldn't have a pedal rack. Every now and then I use a pedal. I have to because it's the kind of stuff that I rent. I can't fly with my gear. I have to rent things. It's a real struggle sometimes. So that's why I'm so well-versed in this rental gear and getting a sound out of

SPEAKER_00:

it. You're a harmonica of choice. I think you're a Horner and Dorsey. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01:

I am a Horner and Dorsey, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Joe Flisco's custom harmonicas exclusively, do you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. and uh the marine bands i we we've experimented with the type of wood i like the pair of wood for me i like them uh with just intonation because you know i play in a traditional fashion a lot of chords you don't want to have a lot of chord dissonance you want to want to have something rich you know but he still i use the pair of wood like i say he he puts uh He does his thing to them. He seals them. I'll send them back to him when they wear out.

SPEAKER_00:

So you play the older style marine band thing. You don't play the deluxe or the crossovers. It's the old style ones. And Joe customizes those for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he starts out with actually pre-war sometimes, it looks like to me. But for me, which is fantastic. The new harmonicas, I like the action on the crossover. To me, that's the best action out of all the new ones.

SPEAKER_00:

Play the Holness 64 as your chromatic of choice.

SPEAKER_01:

That's mainly. I've been trying to go to the smaller ones. The one I got that I like the action of better than any of them, but I'm not as crazy about the sound, is the CX-12. The problem with that harmonica is you can't tell where the end of the damn harmonica is. But, you know, you've just got to work on it, find it. I'm noticing that the chords on the CX-12 are not as rich as on the metal harmonica, but the octaves are nice. I was just playing one of those, and they sound good.

SPEAKER_00:

But obviously, that's a 12-hole, so a lot of when you're playing the blues chromatic, obviously, you play the 64, the 16-hole. You get those big octaves. Those octaves are the lower octave as well with that richer sound, but you're playing the 12-hole as well now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That's the beautiful thing about those. Luckily, Felisco had made me a couple of old ones. So that's what I use. I don't use the new ones.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you have a favorite key of diatonic harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I like everything from A-flat to C. I like those keys. I use a D harmonica sometimes. I usually use that on, well, on certain things. Then it starts getting good on the acoustic end of it, on D and up, you know. I don't use a high F anymore. I just don't see any. I know Sonny Boy used

SPEAKER_02:

them

SPEAKER_01:

a

SPEAKER_02:

lot.

UNKNOWN:

Help me, please.

SPEAKER_01:

I just don't find the need for it in what I do. When I used to go to the gig with the Thunderbirds, I'd bring one harmonica. And hey, that was it. And I could play an E, A, and B with that. That was fine. But when I go out with the blues, man, and still, I do it today. I use mainly... I use a C every now and then with the Thunderbirds, but most of the time an A, maybe a B-flat. I got them all up there. Maybe I'll go out in the audience with the Sonny Boy high note thing, so I use a G also. It depends on the room.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you play any different tunings, or do you use overblows? No,

SPEAKER_01:

I don't use overblows. I can do it a little bit, but I just don't see any sense in it for me. You know, if you wanted to play every note on a diatonic harmonica, well, then just get a chromatic. I don't play every note on them either. To be honest with you, and Kim Fields, I don't know if you know who that is. He's a great harmonica player, lives up in the Portland area. I don't know. Portland, Oregon. I've known him for many, many years. He turned me on to a guy named Don Les. Don Les is the guy who invented that. He invented the overblow. He could really do it. In my mind, and I might get some letters about this, but I haven't heard a great practitioner of overblow notes. Because what you have to sacrifice to get an overblow is you have to change the harmonica

SPEAKER_02:

and

SPEAKER_01:

seat the reeds deeper into the slot. And you sacrifice sound. I just don't see it, like I say. You know, Mike Turk is an incredible chromatic player. Hey, see if he's got online lessons or find somebody who gives online chromatic lessons. It's a wonderful instrument, you know. But I might do it myself. Yeah, like I say, I haven't heard a great practitioner of overblows, not to mention that most people who overblow, they don't play to a chord. They play to A440. So it takes the chords out of the blues music right there. Chords are everything in that. So I think for me, no.

SPEAKER_00:

So what about your favorite amp? You've taught there that you're touring a lot, so you often just use whatever amp's available to you, a bit like Little Walter. Do you have a favorite amp?

SPEAKER_01:

I've got a lot of really great amps. My favorite amp is my 59 Bassman that I got in 1972. I bought it in a store. I was with Luther Tucker at the time, and they must have had 25 of them just lined up. Four input. There are probably a couple two inputs in there. I don't really like the two input as much. But I've had this amp for many, many, many years. And then I got another one from Big John, so sometimes I'll use two of those. And it's a pretty big sound. But in the studio, I use my old Gibsons, a lot of old small stuff. You can't go in the studio using a super reverb or a twin or something. It just doesn't work out. I also own one. I don't have a letter of authenticity. But I own one of Little Walter's amps. Oh, really? And I own two Dan Electro Commandos. One of them was retreated. It sounds very good. The other one, I don't know how Big John did this. You all probably know who Big John Atkinson is out there. He's an incredible musician and kind of a throwback. That's why we get along so well. But he found this. He went down to Atlanta. I don't know if you ever heard of Grady Fats Jackson, sax player, but he was on the road with Little Walter, right? And he died, and Grady Fats Jackson's basement was a commando with the original cloth cover, with the original tweed, everything. Now, that's not made for a sax player to play through. That's Little Walter's amp.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's Little Walter's amp. Yeah, and it sounds really great, too. I don't get to use it very much, you know, because I have so many studio amps that I use.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So when you play that amp, do you sound, can you get Little Walter's tone, you know, at least closer to Little Walter's tone?

SPEAKER_01:

You can get a little more, yeah. Yeah, you can a little bit. Tone is a variable thing. Tone is a physical thing. You know, it's not really, it doesn't really matter what amp you use. But yeah, you know, I mean, Little Walter, he got a very rich tone. cleaner sound sometimes. And you would think that this Dan Electro would break up like crazy. It doesn't really. It's eight-eighths, and you have to really crank it up. They're pretty loud amplifiers. For the time, I would imagine they were one of the louder ones on the bandstands for back then. Now, I used it on a recording. I've got a new recording coming out that I don't think is going to have any of that amp on it. But in the future, there'll be some coming out with that on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, brilliant, yeah. What about microphones? What's your microphones of choice?

SPEAKER_01:

A T3. I use a lot of different mics, too, but usually a live, I use a T3. I was using a ceramic element in a JT30 recently. That didn't sound too bad. That was fairly clean as well, but I liked it. But I use all the static mics. I don't use any chores. I don't use any of these custom... I like stock. Crystals, then. Yeah, I've gotten used to that. I've got a magical T3 that just sounds beautiful. I'm not even sure if it's the original element in it, but it is a something 11, something 11. That's the name of the crystal. I get a lot of my mics from Dennis Grumling. In fact, over the last few years, I've been getting all my mics from him.

SPEAKER_00:

I bought a crystal from him last year, actually, and it's a great mic. I'm really pleased with it. It's a great one. I don't know where he finds them all, but he does,

SPEAKER_01:

doesn't he? Sometimes the crystals are worn out, and he might put new old stock in there. He's got some old brush elements that he puts in that work well. But I love this T3 that I have. I have several of them. I have a lot of microphones, a lot. Way too many microphones.

SPEAKER_00:

FX pedals, you say you don't really favor them then, do you not? Do you use FX pedals, Saul?

SPEAKER_01:

I use, I've got one from Australia. It's a Clinch FX, what they call a burnish boost. And I like that. And then I also use, every now and then, I'll use a Kinder anti-feedback. I'll tell you something about the Kinder thing. It's just too distorted. Even if you turn the thing all the way down, it's too distorted. I kind of favor

SPEAKER_00:

the Clinch

SPEAKER_01:

FX

SPEAKER_00:

box. Thanks very much. Just to finish off then, as you say, you're hoping to be back out on the road. You've got some gigs booked for August. Hopefully you can get back out doing those. So yeah, hopefully you'll be you'll be able to do those again from then. Have you got anything else particularly lined up?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, I've got pretty much what I want as long as I'm able to do it. You know, I love going out with the blues band as well. So we'll see what happens there. And I'd love to play in the UK sometime relatively soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, any plans to come to Europe? Have you got anything booked for Europe at the moment?

SPEAKER_01:

At this stage, no.

SPEAKER_00:

No. Everything's on hold. Yeah, I've seen you play in London, so yeah, hopefully see you across in London again in the not-too-distant future. So thanks very much, Kim. It's been a real pleasure speaking to you. Thanks for taking the time. My pleasure. 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.