Jim Hughes interview

British Chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26.

Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show, Last Of The Summer Wine. 

Jim set up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, The World Harmonica Championship in Jersey, 1987, as well as involvement in other festivals. He has several albums to his name and is a harmonica teacher who has helped guide some real star pupils to go on to achieve great things.

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


Links:
Roger Trobridge's Archivist site:
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk

Dror Adler Classical Music project info:
http://harmonica.uk/drorcp.htm

Franz Chmel
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/franz-chmel-1944-to-2016-the-archivist/

Ricky Cool:
https://www.rickycoolandtheincrowd.co.uk

YouTube:

Ronald Chesney Flight Of the Bumble Bee
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORYIpDQpDWk

Jersey World Harmonica Festival 1987
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3SaOL0cuXM

Philip Achille - The Story So Far, including a duet with Jim (4 mins in):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSbHkcipr8g

Jim playing at the NHL event Birmingham 1988:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGkzPBqpdJM

Audio recording Jim playing at a NHL concert in 1983:
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/jim-hughes-1983/

Harmonica Group Jim ran:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy4Fh2niOno

Hotcha Trio:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXuGlYa2wkA

Fata Morgana:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3XMePuGhZ8

My Funny Valentine, at Jim’s 90th birthday party:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_IGmCsFCM

Franz Chmel YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/user/franzchm/videos


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

Chapters

• 1:17 Jim has been playing professionally for 60 years
• 1:59 First started playing in the army
• 2:23 Larry Adler was Jim’s first inspiration
• 2:56 Golden Age of chromatic harmonica
• 3:44 Harmonica News magazine published by Hohner
• 3:57 Entered a harmonica competition from Hohner and placed second
• 4:18 Great Chromatic players of the past
• 5:03 Jim was winning harmonica competitions in the 1950s
• 5:55 Jim formed various harmonica bands
• 6:41 Changed from being an ear player to learning to read music
• 7:20 Took some ‘lessons’ from Tommy Reilly
• 7:55 Started working for the BBC
• 8:33 Jim’s first appearance on TV, playing a duet with Tommy Reilly
• 9:16 Playing with Johnny Patrick and others, made thousands of broadcasts
• 10:04 Started doing session work and become an efficient sight reader
• 10:52 Last Of The Summer Wine
• 10:58 The different harmonica players who recorded on Last of the Summer Wine
• 12:07 The different harmonica players who recorded on Last of the Summer Wine
• 13:16 How Jim developed his sight reading abilities
• 14:42 Chromatic harmonica is Jim’s only instrument
• 15:33 Jim organised the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey in 1987
• 19:14 Jim met Dror Adler in Jersey
• 20:05 Advised on setting-up a festival in Israel and teaching there for four years
• 20:52 Jersey festival led to establishment of the regular Trossingen festival
• 21:52 Jim is part of the museum in Trossingen
• 22:36 Pari Passu album
• 25:19 James Moody album his music for the harmonica
• 28:27 Some of Jim’s star students: Julian Jackson, Adam Glasser and Philip Achille
• 28:57 Jim held harmonica posts at two prestigious music colleges in the UK
• 31:21 Album with Paul Lewis
• 32:42 A Taste of Summer Wine album, containing swing jazz pieces
• 35:43 Christmas recordings with Rob Janssen from Fata Morgana
• 37:20 John Barry concerts
• 37:44 Jim’s 90th birthday party last year
• 39:47 Organised the Harmonica Orchestra of Great Britain
• 41:01 How Jim developed his tone
• 43:50 Franz Chmel
• 44:46 Legato playing and tackling the multiple C notes
• 46:34 10 minute question
• 46:51 Jim has written some Chromatic Harmonica exercise books
• 48:16 What harmonicas does Jim play
• 50:10 Only plays chromatics in key of C
• 51:09 Does Jim play any diatonic?
• 51:37 Has used customisers to keep his harmonicas in shape
• 51:56 Embouchre
• 52:39 Amps and mics
• 54:28 One of Jim’s favourite current chromatic players
• 55:36 How to keep people playing the chromatic harmonica

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

British chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26. Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show Last of the Summer Wine. Jim sets up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey in 1987, as well as involvement in other festivals. He has several albums to his name and is a harmonica teacher who has helped guide some real star pupils to go on to achieve great things. A word to my sponsor again, thanks to 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. Hello, Jim Hughes, and welcome to the podcast. Hi Neil. You're a chromatic player who's been playing for a long time. Playing for about 60 years now as a professional. And you were born in Birmingham? Yes, I was born in Birmingham in December 1929. The harmonica must be good for you, eh? I think so, yeah. Well, the harmonica shaped my life. Everything that I do, everything that I am, and mostly, you know, all my friends, the whole thing can be related back to the harmonica. Because I didn't really become a person until I started playing harmonica. And then the whole world opened up to me and it was amazing. The best thing I ever did. Despite the fact that my father used to say to me, don't waste your time playing a mouthful. How wrong he was, Abe. I'm sure he's very proud now looking down. Looking back then on how you got started playing, so I believe you stepped up in the army. That's correct, yeah. I joined the army as a regular soldier, went into the Royal Engineers. I went to Germany and I was stationed there for almost six years. And it was there that I bought my first harmonica, you know, just played by ear. I really didn't know anything about music. I, in fact, wasted a lot of time. I could have gone with a teacher. So my first inspiration for the instrument came when I was very young, and I used to listen to the radio, and Larry Adler did a lot of broadcasts in those days, and it was just an exciting sound.

UNKNOWN: 2:39

piano plays

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:53

but it never occurred to me to want to play it. I mean, that was the golden age of harmonica. Oh, it certainly was. It certainly was, yeah. The other thing that was great to listen to was harmonica bands like Bonaminovich.

UNKNOWN: 0:00

...

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

Johnny Paleo, eventually the British Bams, and Morton Fraser, Morton Fraser Harmonica Gang. I used to take every opportunity to go and watch them live when I could. When I came out of the Army... In the early 50s, there was a tremendous harmonica movement going on, which I came into as a civvy. I remember passing a music shop and seeing this magazine, Harmonica News, which was published by Hohner. I bought it, full of excitement. I thought, there's something going on here. And I felt part of a family from then on. They were advertising a competition in London for chromatic players. I decided to enter, and to my astonishment, came second place. But I met all these great guys. There was a gang of our major players, all very competitive. But at the same time, you know, we had a great affinity with each other. It's an amazing instrument. So talking about some of the great players back then, obviously you've mentioned Larry Adler and Tommy Riley, of course, is a great player back then, and Willie Berger. And Douglas Tate was another English guy who went to the competitions with you. Yeah, I met at this first competition. And in fact, he was the best man at my wedding. But Another great player was Ronald Chesney. He was terrific.

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

Our version of The Flight of the Bumblebee.

SPEAKER_02: 4:56

These were all inspirational. I sort of made a name as an amateur in those days, in the 50s. I was winning competitions regularly and then I entered a competition in London run by Hohner, not dramatic, just jazz, harmonica jazz. And I entered several sections of this competition and won them all. And Ronald Chesney presented me with cup trophies for each one. And there was a big news item came out in the Birmingham papers. And from then on, everything started. I had music software were ringing me and saying, could you come and teach? I've got so many people who want to learn the harmonica. I said, I'm not a teacher. Anyway, they started me off and I remember the fees that I used to charge. It was seven and sixpence for a half hour lesson. Five shillings went to me and two and sixpence went to the shop. But anyway, it went on from there and I formed Harmonica Band. It was barely between four, five or six players and we had terrific fun and none of us had cars, none of us had telephones, but we arranged meetings. I used to go on the bus to each other's house. Sometimes, if we got together on a bus, we'd play much to the amazement of the passengers. It was great fun. You don't see that these days, the harmonica band playing on the bus thing. No, you wouldn't. So that was the five harmonics, wasn't it? Your first harmonica band you were in. No, the Debonairs. And then you were in another one called the Cardinals. as well. That was the same group, we just changed the name. Going back a little bit to, as you say, when you started developing your playing, so I know you mentioned that you played by ear quite a lot to begin with, but then you turned to starting to learn to read music. Yes, this is a very big thing in my life. I played in the army knowing absolutely nothing about music, but I had an affinity with the harmonica. I found I had time to play away, and I played everything in C or D flat, knowing idea there were different scales things like that and I thought I was good because I could play a few tunes well but when I got back to England and met other players I realised I've got to learn something about music and that's when I started and I've been learning about music ever since totally self-taught although I did go and see Tommy Riley for a few sessions who wasn't so much a teacher as a demonstrator an inspirational demonstrator because he was a fantastic player and I wish I could have had a teacher, you know, many years before. But

SPEAKER_00: 7:42

from

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then, everything developed. And the most significant thing I ever did was I went to the BBC and auditioned both as a serious player. This was their idea, you know, to have two auditions, one for classical music and one for lighter music, as it were. And I passed these auditions and it was as if the floodgates opened. The BBC, as if they were waiting for me. And I had so much work thrust into a situation where I could play everything and anything, you know. It was very demanding. I had to give up my job as a street metal worker in a factory. I lived at the BBC in Birmingham. And I understand, did you open up ITV's channel in Birmingham by playing a song? Yes, in ATV that was. Tommy Riley was on the programme and a beautiful actress called Hazel Court presented the programme and he invited me to come and play with him a duet. It was Blue Moon. So I went along and that was my first appearance on and I remember they paid me the magnificent sum of five guineas, which is five pounds, five shillings. Was that a lot of money back then? It was. I mean, a week's work was about eight or nine pounds in those days, so to earn five guineas for one appearance was great. Yeah, and so, as you say, you were playing with the BBC, and you were playing with Johnny Patrick. Johnny Patrick Quartet, I was part of that. He's a great piano jazz player, and he formed the quartet, presented it to the BBC and they accepted the idea. And from then on, we were on nearly every day on different programmes. And this included the radio as well, didn't it? You were on the radio a lot too. It's no exaggeration to say I did thousands of broadcasts because from that, I did Johnny Patrick almost every day. Then I worked with the Middle and Light Orchestra and then with the Bob Potter Orchestra and then with a pianist called Harold Rich. Lots of different combinations. And then I started getting phone calls from different producers like could you come on my program come on this I wasn't really ready for it then you know I was totally inexperienced I drifted from this into session work. It all developed. People began to hear from me. I became a very efficient sight reader. I was never a sort of solo artist that got up on stage and did concerts and things, but I could read music. I got in with loads and loads of sessions in London, backwards and forwards from Birmingham to London. I did that many sessions. I just didn't know what I was going to do because you never rehearse, you know. They just bring you up and say, come do a session and so-and-so studio. Off I'd go. I didn't know what it was. It could be with a full orchestra. It could be a film score. It could be just me on my own or any combination. You never knew until you got there. And they just gave you the music and you dealt with it straight away. And that's why I kept getting booked because I ended up doing about 200 shows of Last of the Summer Wine, which was a great gig.

UNKNOWN: 10:58

¦

SPEAKER_02: 11:13

still getting royalties for that. Some of the listeners are from other countries, including quite a few from America, so maybe just explain what lasted the summer while and what kind of show that was. It was a sort of light-hearted drama about three old guys wandering around the village and lots of banter, lots of silly situations. There was a sick tune and an exit tune and all bits in between. And we'd record up to 30 minutes for each session, a session being three hours. The great thing about it was that the band, we all had a sort of great feel between us. We never rehearsed. We never looked at the music until the boss came in, Ronnie Hazelhurst, and we had a sound check, and then we opened our music up on SightReddit, and almost every bit we did was first take, and it was a sort of pride thing, you know, with the orchestra. I loved doing that. course there were different harmonica players weren't there they would dictate some and Harry Pitch and even Tommy Riley did some as well Tommy Riley did a couple I'll tell you the story of Summer Wine I was booked to do the first one way way back before it became a series it was just a one-off pilot show and I was booked to do it just a few days before I caught a severe dose of bronchitis and I could hardly breathe and never mind play and that's when Harry Pitch was available and they got in on it. He did a lot of shows, you know, perhaps half the whole series. I think it was about 30 years of it. Then, eventually, Ronnie Hazlehurst, he rang me and said, could I do it? I did, and that was history. As I say, I did about 200 shows. Do you know what years you were playing it? I did all, I did the last years from about somewhere in 1995, maybe earlier, onwards, right up to the end. I've got no record But they're all out there, and these shows are being played everywhere, and on all sorts of TV goals. So this level of being able to sight-read is quite a skill, which obviously got you lots of session work. How did you develop that level of sight-reading, maybe, for people who are interested in getting to that level of sight-reading? I tweaked, as I started working with The Beeb, that I was mixing with high-class musicians all the time. Wonderful musicians. And I thought, this is a level I've got to get to. Never mind harmonica. that it's an unusual instrument it's just another musical instrument you know I felt quite inferior to be honest when I started but I knew that I've got to reach their level of competence which is mind-blowing you know gradually I did it I'd practice and practice I spent a fortune on music and I also in the early days I hired a pianist to practice with so that I was always doing something playing all sorts of music playing to the radio which wasn't sight reading but I knew that I'd I've got to learn arpeggios and scales, and I've got to be familiar with them so that I could play in any key without worrying about it. So I got myself into this state of competence, if you like. It's like any tradesman. I think a carpenter wouldn't go out and make a beautiful, fancy cupboard before he could learn to saw or plank the wood. You've got to really know what you're doing. And with music, the more you understand and the more you get into it, the more you realize you're known Nothing is... an art form on a terrifically high level. Your chromatic harmonic was your only instrument. You didn't learn any other instruments. No, my only instrument. Good to hear that. Lots of people, of course, say it's obviously useful to learn like a chordal instrument like piano or guitar to understand the chords, but you felt you could, you got to a really high standard by just on the chromatic, yeah? That's it, really, yeah. I mean, what about session work? I mean, again, that was the golden era of session work. It was wonderful to get in on that. That's when I really started to learn because the session guys in the music industry are the real cream you know and they use the best players they could get from any source that came from big named orchestras and I was mixing with musical royalty in a way you know and that's when I absorbed and learned so much from these experiences so I learned my trade as it were. Move on from the session work a little bit so we'll talk a little bit about the festivals that you were involved with so in 1987 you organized the World Harmonica Championship in Jersey which which is probably the biggest festival, harmonica festival that's ever been yet. Well, previous to that, Hohner used to sponsor a harmonica championship in most countries and eventually a world championship. And then they stopped. And I represented England on many of these in all different countries all over the world, well, Europe mainly. It was a great experience to do that, to meet all the international amateur players. But then they stopped doing it and a few years went by and I thought, what a shame that we don't have these harmonica championships and I thought well I was involved at that time in variety agency work I'd opened an agency and I was doing some work in Jersey on the island of Jersey I got together with a business associate over there called Delaney put the idea to him why don't we do a harmonica championship a harmonica festival here in Jersey and he agreed it was a good idea and we got together formed a company called Del Hughes that was two years prior to the actual event. And I then set about trying to advertise this forthcoming event. Did a bit of traveling, went to America, did a bit of interest there. Anyway, it's all costing money. At the end of the day, we put the festival on and we had about 33 countries involved. And ITV got interested in it. And we had a few meetings. Cable television had just come out then. And they said, we'd like to record this and put it out as like a fly on the wall documentary and I said great terrific from then on we were working towards this end and we had several meetings and I was looking for a sponsor and I got Listerine got involved said yeah we'll sponsor it the mouthwash company Listerine that's it wow yeah good for the harmonica yeah yeah so anyway it had to come through an agent but the ICV took it to Cannes where they have the film festival and I didn't know that they also they could put all sorts of ideas for would. Nobody was interested in cans. You know, they thought they were going to get, as it was going out on cable, that there'd be some interest, but there wasn't. So IJV dropped their interest. Listerine said, well, if it's not going to go out on television, we're not interested anymore. They dropped out. This was nearly a couple of months before it was actually going to happen. And we ended up with the most wonderful event that ever happened. It lasted a week, and we lost 100 grand. Wow. The company. I was penniless at the end of that. But, you know, your life picks up again. My wife got a good temp job. I intensified my teaching and did everything I could, you know. Gradually built everything back up again. Well, well done. That's quite a financial hit for you. So there's YouTube clips. There's a great YouTube clip of some of the recordings and it's got you playing. It's all... It's got Larry Adler playing. It's got Tom O'Reilly playing. It's got the harmonic arts playing, Peg of My Heart.

UNKNOWN: 18:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:11

got the Adler Trio we had all those on yeah that's when I met the wonderful Drew Adler he heads the Adler Trio but now he's gone on his own but he's a fantastic player and he plays all the harmonicas bass chords a lot and he has produced a recording which took him years and years to make where he plays every instrument and it's all heavy I say heavy it's all difficult classical music it's absolutely fantastic it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard it's mindful line what he does. Terrific guy. See, this is another wonderful thing about music business. You meet some good people, really nice people. Through Know and Draw, you went on to set up a festival in Israel, didn't you, in 1990? Oh, yeah. They invited me to go to Israel to advise them about having a harmonica festival. And I ended up going there four consecutive years and actually teaching at the conservatoire in Beersheba. And that was a nice experience. Mainly Russian immigrants because Israelis is made up of every nationality in the world. And there's a lot of Russian musicians. and they wanted to learn the harmonica. They already played mostly accordion. So I used to give sessions there and demonstrations and things. I had a really nice time in Israel. Music is very important to them. There was a festival there, wasn't there, for one year as well in 1990? We had a festival. As a result of the 1987 Jersey Festival, is it right that that's what started Trottingen running in Germany? Ah, yeah. They were quite pleased that I'd done this and they got me to organise and I was the next one in Trossingen, which was a couple of years later. That was a terrific success, and the sails of our monikers shot through the roof, and the manager there, he was absolutely over the moon, and we had a talk while I was there, and he said, I'd like you to continue with this, and you can run the whole thing, the world festival, forever, you know, and I thought, God, I'm landing myself a nice little job here, and he died. He had a heart attack and died, and that was it. At the end of my connection with Homer. You know, an opportunity gained and then lost in an instant. Wow. But again, you know, I think a lot of people wouldn't appreciate that, you know, what you did in 87 there was a forerunner for Trossingen, which is a very well-known festival. Oh, yes. So, yeah, your legacy is definitely there from that. Yeah, it is. Apparently, they've got quite a little stand featuring me in their museum in Trossingen. And also, I noticed in Jersey in the video, you're presented with a nice large plaque for your efforts for organizing. Have you still got that plaque at home there? Yeah, I think it must be somewhere. But going back to working as a session man, you get lovely opportunities. I had a friend who'll say there's a guy in Berlin who's doing a documentary film and he's using guitar, harmonica, and violin. So I got booked to do that. And he said, but it's not in Berlin. He's got a studio in Mallorca. So I thought, oh, that's a shame. Anyway, flew off to Mallorca. We worked in his studio. And then I met a guy called Richard Wright. And Richard is a wonderful guy. He plays guitar really well. And he's on the top session then. And our association there led to him arranging this music for me. And we did a record. It was all chamber music. Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schubert. And this is a record called Pari Passu. began a nice association for him to take the trouble to arrange all that. So I did a lot of work for this guy. His name is Arpad Bondi. He made documentary films, but he was also a great musician and composer, and he composed all the music for his films. He used to send for me regularly on different projects he was doing, television shows. And I said to him once, he got all these harmonica players in Germany, and he paid for me to come from England. He said, no, you're the one I want. Talking about that album a little bit more, it's a classical album, which is great. There's Schubert, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Gordon Jacob on there. So it's a great, really high quality album as well some fantastic playing by all the musicians not only your own playing it's a great album you see there you go this is the girl on there who played viola she's a top session musician wonderful musician as you can hear on the record her viola playing is something else And, well, a couple of the songs do the cradle song, which is a beautiful one from Jacob. Oh, yeah. That was the one that was sort of out of context with the record. Everything else was done by Richard Wright. He arranged it all. And then we added on this three to five pieces of Gordon Jacob. So yeah, talking through a few of your CDs. I did one earlier where I recorded music by James Moody. So quite a few Irish songs on there as well, aren't there? Well, James Moody was... He came into the harmonica scene as a BBC accompanist to Tommy Riley. When Tommy was working for the BBC, he got together with James, and James was like a resident appearing on all sorts of programmes. And he played a lot of ragtime music. He played everything. I could talk for hours about James Moody, but he got together with Tommy and realised there was no repertoire for the harmonica. So he started writing for it, and he wrote some wonderful stuff, including the amazing Toledo. It's like almost every harmonica player wants to play Toledo. Wonderful piece. When he died, I got to know him quite well. When he died, he left all his unpublished compositions to me to do with what I wanted, you know. So I got them all. They were all written in pencil, you know, and not exactly too clear. But I wrote them all out again by hand, believe it or not. I had been doing a bit of copying for the BBC, which made me a bit adept at copying music. But then I loaded them all out by hand, and then I bought a computer and got this music system called Sibelius, which most people will know about. I did them all again on Sibelius and realized I got some nicely presented music copies, so I started selling them to the harmonica fraternity. Yeah, I've got some of those James Weedy pieces I bought from you, so I've got some of those Irish... You also had John Brassington playing one of your students, wasn't he? He plays a duet with you on that one. Johnny Brassington, yeah, he was a good student. He was with me for years until he finally went to Australia. But he was a wonderful player. He was really, really very good. As you can hear on the record, you know, a very competent player. In fact, you've got me thinking about students. Julian Jackson, he's a player, a very nice jazz player. I've got a lot of time for him. I think he's a great guy. Adam Glasser was with me through time. Philip O'Shield, of course, you know, the phenomenon, Philip. Incredible to get a guy like him to teach. He was with me from the age of 11. He plays anything. Now he's into jazz in a big way. He's got his own band now. Yeah, I saw Philip playing with his band a year or two back, so I went to see him play in London, yeah. You got involved, didn't you, in some of the music colleges here. You held the professorship of harmonica at Guildhall's Guild of Music when you were helping Julian out there, didn't you? Yes. It all came about sort of by default. It wasn't that I approached a college and they employed me. I still work from home. It was the fact that my pupils went on to attend music colleges and they had to find a teacher. And they said, well, there weren't any. So they said, well, you'll have to continue with your former teacher, which was me. And that's how I got involved. I got on our books as a teacher. With Philip, he went to the Royal College of Music in London. They had to do two instruments and he took... saxophone and harmonica saxophone as a principal instrument and as again he wanted to continue with me as his teacher they said okay we'll appoint you as his teacher and you can become in effect a professor of harmonica which I thought was rather nice and I didn't have to do anything except just be told that that was it and then the great thing was that they rang me after he'd been there a few weeks and they said we realise that his principal instrument is not the saxophone to harmonica. So now you are really a professor of harmonica. And welcome to the fraternity. And I put my feet up. Fantastic. But Philip is phenomenal. It's unusual, and you won't mind me saying this, unusual to teach because he never asked a question. Can you imagine that? If you're teaching somebody, they'll ask you about something. Never ask the question in all your that I taught him. It obviously worked for him. It really worked, yeah, because he did what I asked him to do, you know. We got really deep into music. So, yeah, there's more CDs you've got out there. There's one with Paul Lewis. I started working for Paul Lewis on television. He was inspired enough to go away and write a complete album for me, you know, and that's all on that recording, which I'm very proud of. I think there's some nice stuff on there. So that's called serenade and dance. Serenade and dance. Yeah. So again, composed for the harmonica, and you've got nice strings on there, so nice arrangements. Yeah, we've got harp. strings, piano. Yeah, that's it. So there's a duet with a harp, which is really nice. T for three. And then after that, in 2007, you released an album, mainly a sort of jazz swing called The Taste of Summer Wine. Ah, yes. That was with the musicians from the Summer Wine band, led by Pat Hallings, who was the lead violinist, and his son, a singer called Carl Hallings. He and I were talking one day, and I said, I want to make a record called Perhaps you could get involved in a string quartet. And he said, well, I want to do a recording with my son singing. And from that came this record. All we did was standards, old standards, you know, the good old stuff. It's only the thing you've been able to swing. I think the result was quite nice. We got Ronnie Hazlehurst to write something for us, The Yorkshire Tale, which is lovely writing, beautiful writing. It's a medley of sort of English folk tunes, including the theme from Summer White.

UNKNOWN: 34:02

MUSIC Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 34:17

So this album, Taste of Summer Wine, you wanted to play some sort of swing jazz stuff, yeah? That's a genre you've been interested in for a long time. I love playing in that style, yeah, I love that. It's got a bit of a feel, I think, for swing, you know? While I'm not a great improviser, I have a go, you know, but I can play in a swingy way. Yeah, I love that sort of music. So is the playing on this from Rissa Music, or were you improvising on there too? No, it's all arranged. Every note is arranged. So did you sight-read that when you recorded it? Yes. That's all sight-reading. All the jazz phrases, which I learned when I worked with Johnny Patrick. He used to write everything out, and that's when I really learned about reading rhythm and getting the feel right. It was wonderful to have that experience. I wonder, do you have those arrangements still? Yeah, I think Pat Alling would have them. Because he ended up making it his project rather than mine. So I just became not the producer of the record, I became a player on the recording. Yeah, it's a great album. Yeah, some great stuff. I'm good to hear you playing that genre. And then you did another recording of Christmas songs with Rob Jansen. Oh, my goodness, yeah. That's a long time ago. That was done for America. Snowflake Records, I think it was. And all this guy produced was Christmas albums featuring different combinations of instruments. Well, I'd done an earlier one for him with a proper band, and then he got the idea of doing... Well, I offered it to him. I said, why don't you do one with Harmonica Band? Which we did, and I got Ivan Richards, who's another pupil of mine, a former champion, very fine player. Well, I got him, myself, and then we hadn't got a proper, decent sight-reading bass and chord player. So I got in touch with Robbie Anson, and we got him and his bass player to come across from Holland. And that was the result, yeah. That was a nice recording. And they're part of Fata Magana now, is that right? Fata Magana, yeah. Yeah. Who, I should add, is, I think, one of the finest harmonica groups ever. They are terrific.

UNKNOWN: 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:20

another thing I think as a BBC thing you took part in the John Barry concerts that was at the Royal Albert Hall and played all John Barry's compositions film compositions and I actually met him there and I did the Midnight Cowboy That's nice. That's a nice thing to do. Phil did the original on the film. The amazing two. And a recent concert you had last year was your 90th birthday party, Jim. So congratulations on that. And then you got a few guests to come over and come with the people you'd mentioned there, Rob Jansen, Drew Radler, Philip DeShield. Well, the thing was, it was never meant to be a harmonica thing, ever. I mean, I just happened to be talking to Drew Radler on the phone, and it was just mentioned that I was... I was going to be 90 that year. He said, are you having a party or just a family thing? It wasn't meant to be anything to do with harmonica, just friends and family. And before I knew it, he said, I'm coming over. And then he announced, Rob Jansen's coming over as well. And I really couldn't refuse that. So they came, and of course, Philip was there, and they did a little session. And that was good. And I played a couple of tunes, and that was it. So still playing well at the grand old Edge of Ninety? Yeah, and the Over the Rainbow. I made an arrangement of that, featuring three tunes from the film. Quite pleased with that.

UNKNOWN: 38:49

Bye.

SPEAKER_02: 39:47

You played in quite a lot of ensemble groups in the 50s. And you actually ran an ensemble group for several years where you had quite a harmonica orchestra. Yeah. I organized the Harmonica Orchestra of Great Britain. And at one time, we had as many as 20-odd players. Mainly my pupils got them together to keep the interest going, you know.

UNKNOWN: 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:28

The difficulty is getting bass players and chord players. The Hotter Trio were amazing. We're going back to the 50s now, and their bass player was just mind-blowing. We're talking a bit now about your playing style, and obviously we've talked about your sight reading, but one thing you always get, Jim, is fantastic tone. So, let me talk about how you developed your tone. That was something I set out to do quite deliberately, because everybody's got their own sound. Every harmonica player, and all the top pros, you can know immediately, you know, that so-and-so, so-and-so. As I was learning to play, I was doing hours and hours of practice, and I found some notes sounded beautiful. I I usually play it in the bathroom, by the way, for the resonance. And some notes are beautiful and some weren't. So I thought, well, I've got to develop an overall quality of sound. And that's what I worked on. You know, I did it by thinking about the pressure of the wind pressure and the embouchure. And gradually I began to develop this universal sound, if you like, as I played. So it was always the same. And I got rid of hand vibrato totally. And I was in for a while. I played with an intense throat vibrato. which was way back, which was quite a disgusting sound to me. It was just too intense, too over the top, and it flattened the notes as I played. So I had to develop something that was partially that, partially the shape of my mouth. But I found that the softer I played and the more relaxed I was, the better the sound. And I had to sort of forget about volume altogether and just play in a natural way but very easily. I'll tell you what it's akin to, singing. If you sing, you sing in a way that you want to express emotion or whatever. And I applied the same sort of attack on the reed as I would if I was singing. Over years, and literally years, I've developed this sound, which I know is quite distinctive, and I'm quite proud of it. Yeah, you talk about playing soft, but you do get also quite a big loud sound out of it as well, don't you? I suppose I do, yeah. I suppose I'm thinking more of as you practice, you know, not to go over the top, to take it easy. You know, things develop, and it's hard to say exactly how you do it, but it's experimentation and becoming aware to be able to sort of stand outside yourself and listen to yourself. Because as you're playing, the sound that you hear is quite different to the sound you hear if you're listening to yourself from a distance. And so it just developed, and I'm very pleased with it, because there's too much... Han Vibrato and too much folk vibrato still goes on from amateur players. I'll give you an insight. I'm going to talk about somebody that I admired so much, that Frans Knell from Austria. He's dead now. He's a very young guy, and he died. His technique, and I would advise you to look him up on YouTube. You won't believe what you hear. But going back to the sound, he developed a technique as clean and as beautiful as you could imagine until he got on to his long note. And we had to play a long note. He put too much vibrato on it. It didn't work. He did like the Mozart clarinet concerto.¦Technically, it's quite a challenging instrument, isn't it? Well, this legato playing is on that serenade and dance, Paul Lewis's composition. This transition from a blow note to a draw note and making it sound as if it's one breath, did a lot of work on that. And I learned a lot about playing in that play from Tommy Riley, who was a great technician. This is one of the most difficult things to do. Talking about difficulties on the harmonica, The big stumbling block is the position of the note C. I mean, the C in hole 4 and then hole 5 and then hole 8 and 9. And then again, you've got your B sharp on draw 4 and draw 8. I had to get over that. That gave me a hell of a lot of trouble when I was really practicing scales. And each time you came to this bridge passage over the note C, it presented its own little problem. How you approached it, how you left it, I developed a general rule. I had to think about this and work on it a lot. Because players always said to me, which C do I play? Which C do I play? Some place, the high C on the way up, low C on the way down. I didn't know that. It doesn't work. I found that playing in hole five all the time, with a few exceptions, of course, was the best way to go. So that the C, I always... knew that the note in the same hole as C was going to rise like C to D. And the only thing on the harmonica, as you know, where the draw note is lower than the blow note, is in hole 4, 4 and 8, which makes it a strange thing. physical thing, always through me. So I find now that the scene I'll afford is the least played note on my harmonica. You have to know where you are, and especially at that point. A question I ask each time, Jim, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend that 10 minutes doing? Or if you were advising someone else to practice for 10 minutes, what would you spend 10 minutes doing? I'd play scales, I'd play slowly, and I'd play it off as you heard. I've written a couple of good exercise books which demonstrate a lot of things that I do. Yeah, I was going to mention those. So again, I've got those two books and I use them certainly for quite a lot of time and I do return to them periodically. So lots of great exercises around scales and I think a little bit based on Jerry Corker's famous book around patterns for jazz, isn't it? Yeah, this is a general, this is in book two. This is a general sort of standard idea of practice for jazz players, which means that whatever you do, you've got to do it in every key. And if you play an arpeggio, then play it again in another key and then in another key and keep changing key. That's going up one scale, down another scale. It certainly helped me a lot to get away from, you know, just playing in C, which, of course, lots of chromatic players are guilty of doing. And you said when you started out, you know, that's something you did as well. Absolutely. I mean, because I didn't know any difference. See, not knowing about music, not understanding quite what I should have done. I feel that although I played by ear for five years and sort of learned it, a sort of basic technique. I wasted that time when I could have been studying music. So everything's been late for me. Late developer. At least you didn't waste time playing computer games. So if we can just move on to the last section now. This is where I talk a little bit about equipment and things. So first of all, what harmonica... almost exclusively played the Hohner 270, 12-hole. I can't play the 16-hole. It doesn't fit with me. And then I got on to the silver concerto harmonica, which Tommy Riley developed. I think it cost me about£170 to buy at that time. And now there are 1,000. And then I inherited laterally the polystat, developed by George Polystat. Beautiful instrument, grossly overpriced at£5,000 and I never bought one but I did inherit one from Bill Stewart who in turn he'd inherited one from somebody he repaired for. I often wonder about paying that much for chromatics because in a way chromatics aren't really supposed to last forever are they? There's sort of reeds where you can retune them but it might be better that you replace them rather than spending so much so did you find that very expensive harmonica did last and was superior for a long time? Well it did last it was quite good but The best harmonica as regards lasting and creeping in tune is the Seidel with stainless steel reeds. I've got one. It's the latest one I bought about three or four years ago. I've got it on the internet. It's never been tuned. It's absolutely in tune all the time. It's a Seidel, and it cost me 200 quid. It's really amazing. Yeah, I know that stainless steel reeds are interesting, aren't they? They were developed by Doug Tate. He did the Renaissance, and he used stainless steel reeds. Crusadel did make a version of the Renaissance, didn't they? That's it. That's where the stainless steel came from, as far as I know. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I've got. That's not the model Crusadel you're talking about, because they were much more expensive, weren't they? Yeah. The Renaissance, I could never get to grips with. I hated that, to be honest. Oh, really? Okay. I really hated that instrument. But this is good, really good. Do you just play chromatics in key of C? Yes, only C. I can't play a harmonica set in any other key. I know exactly what the sound is going to be by what position I'm in on the harmonica. Even a G harmonica, I can't play it. I just go all over the place. This is why I'm so impressed with people like Brandon Power, who develops instruments to play certain tunes, and the settings, the reads are all in different distances. You know, it'll do a whole tone, or it'll develop something just for one purpose. But now he can remember where to blow a draw. God knows. So clever. Yeah, I've had Brendan on the broadcast and I've talked to him about that. And what he does is he uses, I think, as you say, a particular song. So he knows what to do on that song with that harmonic. That's how he gets his head around it, which is interesting. Yeah, yeah. Developing a technique. He develops a note formation.

UNKNOWN: 51:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:09

And so obviously you're a chromatic player. Do you play any diatonic? Have you ever played any diatonic on one? No, and I must admit, I would love to. And I've actually said that I'm going to play diatonic. I'm going to buy one and have a go. I talked to Ricky, who I've known forever, you know, he's a great guy. And I said, I'm going to play one. He advised me what to buy, but I still haven't got around to it. I'll have to get one from the internet, you know. Love the diatonic. Talk a little bit about customization. So I know that you've used two customizers over the years, Bill Stewart and then Mark Potts. So is that something which, you know, you felt you needed to keep in good shape? Oh, yeah. I've been so lucky to have my own personal tuners, you know, Bill Stewart and then Mark Potts. A wonderful luxury that was. So talk about the embouchure that you use. What do you use? Tongue blocking? I prefer tongue blocking. I play to the right of my tongue and my tongue blocks a couple of holes. It's a very difficult to play a reiterated note using that method. That's the only drawback. I couldn't get a sound any other way. Yeah, so are you exclusively tongue-blocking or do you sometimes switch to puckering? No, very rare puckering. Very rare. Only in extreme circumstances. So it's, I would say, 99% tongue blocking, 99.5%. The only notes I don't use, it is on hole one, of course, which is what I use. My tongue is off the instrument. As to amplification, what amplification do you like to use? I don't use any... Particularly, I've never bought any amplification. I just use a microphone. All my work's done in studios, and I rely a lot on a sound engineer. And I guess this is why, when I'm recording, I play in a relaxed manner. I'm quite at ease in a studio. It's where I belong. I just love it. Are you aware of what microphones were used in the studio when you were recording the chromatic? No, I've never gone into that. I'm not a very technically minded person. Well, I mean, that's the beauty of a studio, isn't it? You've got all the sound guys sorting that out for you, so that's understandable, yeah. But when you're playing live, as you say, you're playing into a stand-up microphone, usually into the PA, so you would stand off the microphone, would you, rather than holding it? I don't like holding the microphone, no. I stand away from it so that both hands are controlling the instrument. Yeah, I mean, so just obviously then you can add more maybe effects and a bit of space between you in the microphone, but someone like Toots Teelmans, of course, he did hold the microphone. Yes, I know. And so was Philippe, you know, Philippe Achille. He holds the microphone. I can't do that. It's like to be more relaxed and free, you know. I think that's a hindrance. Microphone-wise, when you're playing live, is it just an SM58 or anything in particular? You see, I don't know what you're talking about. I really don't. I just hope that I'm going to be given a decent amplification cushion system. Yeah, you just get up and play and what's in front of you, which is great, yeah. So I assume then you haven't used any effects pedals then, again, whatever's there you'll use, like you're not adding reverb or anything like that? No, no, nothing like that. Yeah, brilliant, yeah. A pure sound and a beautiful sound you make with that as well, so. Oh, thank you. And talking about chromatic harmonica now, you know, we talked about obviously in the 50s and before, you know, the golden age of chromatic, also fantastic plays, Lariat, the Tommy Riley, all these great plays which inspired you and you went Well, one of my favourite players, and I don't know what instrument he plays, is Antonio Serrano. There you go, that's it. That's my favourite instrument. And in the old days, they used to make lovely instruments. Beautiful. I cringe when I think of how many I used to throw away because I had nobody to tune them up and I just wore them out. But they were beautiful instruments. And then the long slot came. That was just a longer reed which worked beautifully. But now the 270 with its wooden body, you had to make the sound and you could manipulate the sound and control it. And this is how I developed the tone by using that instrument. Some harmonicas, it's sort of built and you can't do much with it. And as to the future, the playing of chromatic harmonica, obviously the diatonic harmonica is probably much more popular than the chromatic now. Oh, yeah. Why do you think that is? What can you do to make sure the chromatic harmonica still is out there being played? Well, very simply, it's a very difficult instrument, the chromatic harmonica. I mean, really difficult to play properly. And I admire anybody that really gets down to it and masters the instrument. I think it's been developed as much as it can be with the layout and everything. Even though we get our two C's together, there's no avoiding that. I just like the soft, mature sound of the wooden lock on a harmonica, which the 270 has. I think it's made of pear wood, but when you hear people like Serrano that I've just mentioned, you see, he can get this wonderful, sensitive sound, which breaks me up, you know? I've got some of his records, and I just melt when I listen to him. I think he's the man right now for putting sensitivity and everything else. There are excellent players in the far east I know about that and I love their enthusiasm in Japan and China and Taiwan and Malaya the most enthusiastic players and they're achieving terrific stuff you know but they tend to get very technical I find and I like to listen to slow melodic stuff sensitive playing and I think to hear somebody play slowly is more indicative of their musicianship than that somebody rattling off no to the terrific rate, you know, which is just technique. Oh, it's lovely. I mean, looking back now, it's shaped my life totally. As I said at the beginning, it's everything I do I can relate back. So yeah, a great long career, Jim. Congratulations on all you've achieved and the amazing things and the legacy, as I say, of Chossingen still going on. So thanks very much for speaking to me today. That's an absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. That's episode 26. Thanks so much for listening again. If anybody wants to get hold of Jim's music, then email me at happyourharmonicapodcast at gmail.com and I'll be able to put you in touch with the family to sort that out. Got to say a massive thank you to Roger Trowbridge. He's helped me put together so much of the material for this episode, been a massive help. He runs an archivist website all about harmonica through the years, some tremendous stuff over there, especially around the golden age of the harmonica, which we talked about during the interview, so Roger's Archivist website is linked off the front page of the podcast. Also, a big thank you to Ricky Coole who helped me set up the interview, got it all arranged, so thanks guys. Couldn't have done it without you. Reminder again to my sponsor, the Longwall Blues Company, making great effects pedals and amps for harmonica. Check out their website, some great stuff to enhance the sound. Please remember, subscribe again to the podcast. I look forward to seeing you next time. Finally, Jim's going to play us out with Caprice. This is the test piece that we talked about earlier in the interview for the World Harmonica Championship in 1987, so a real challenging piece. So, Jim, over to you.

SPEAKER_00: 58:49

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