Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Phil Wiggins interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41.

Phil  was one half of one of the best known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over thirty years. They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world, and even played at the White House to the Clintons. They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach.

A native of Washington D.C., Phil wrote a book about the blues scene in the city, and went on to use his music to steer some of the troubled youth of the city onto a better path.

Since John Cephas passed in 2009, Phil has continued his musical career by playing with various artists. Always sticking to his philosophy to play music for people to dance to.

Links:
Website: https://www.philwiggins.com/ 

Washington DC blues scene book:
https://sweetbitterblues.com/

Music & conversation with Joe Filisko and Eric Norden:
https://34lounge.com/

Videos:
National Folk Festival 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POEo8vxU2e8

With Ben Hunter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4f-9OMLmOA

Chesapeake Sheiks: Struttin’ With Some Barbeque
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjqIVZoCQ2g


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_02:

Phil Wiggins joins me on episode 41. Phil was one half of one of the best-known blues duos around, Cephas and Wiggins, playing with John Cephas for over 30 years. They progressed from their early recordings in Germany to go on to tour the world and even played at the White House to the Clintons. They played in the Piedmont blues style, Phil being one of its rare masters on harmonica, picked up from the guitar players who developed this approach. A native of Washington DC, Phil wrote a book about the blues scene in the city and went on to use his music to steer some of the troubled youth of the city onto a better path. Since John Cephas passed in 2009, Phil continued his music career by playing with various artists. Above all, he plays music to make people dance. Hello Phil Wiggins and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

Hello, yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02:

So you're a native of Washington, D.C.?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I was born and basically raised in Washington. I wound up in a military family. So we lived overseas. We lived in Germany for four years. And then when we returned to the States, we moved to Northern Virginia. And also, I spent a lot of my summers growing up in Titusville, Alabama, right outside of Birmingham, which is my mother's home place.

SPEAKER_02:

So quite a diverse range of some time in Germany, as you say. So when did you start playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

When I was living in Northern Virginia, I guess I was maybe 16 or 17. probably more like 18 when I started fooling with the harmonica. I was living in Northern Virginia, going to high school in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was during that time that I kind of reacquainted myself with a woman who was a blind street singer in Washington, D.C. named Flora Malton. And I like to mention her because I really feel like that connecting with her was when I really seriously started trying to make music on harmonica.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I've been reading about Flora. So she was preaching on the street and playing music with the guitar. Yeah. Is that right? And then because you were quite influenced by church music initially, weren't you?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Yeah. Well, starting, I mentioned Titusville, Alabama in terms of influences starting back then And when I was a kid spending summers in Titusville, and I was really close with my grandmother. So when I would be in Titusville, I'd spend a lot of time with her. And I used to walk her to the church on Thursday evening for the prayer meeting. And I would hang outside the church until she was done. And the prayer meetings were basically the elderly women of the church that would go and they would do what they call sing prayers and praises, which was a lot of kind of call and response where one of the women would sing out a line and then the rest of of the congregation would answer back. Sitting outside in the dark waiting for my grandmother to come out and hearing that music, I mean, it was just very powerful.

SPEAKER_02:

You've done a song called Prayers and Praises. I mean, you've written on the basis of that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I decided to do that just to help keep that memory sharp for myself, you know. And I like playing that song because even though it doesn't have words, it tells a story.

SPEAKER_02:

So you're quite influenced by hearing this church music. And you saw a lot of blues in this music, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, to me, you know, musically, there was no difference. I mean, of course, the lyric was about, you know, it was sacred. It was about praising God. But the singing, the phrasing to my ear was... This

SPEAKER_02:

is when you were quite

SPEAKER_03:

young. Were you familiar with blues then? Had you grown up listening to blues? performing just like they would be doing on their front porch or in their in their own living room at home they would set them up very informally and so i got to hear all these amazing and really honestly some of the real icons of like mississippi delta blues and and from mississippi alabama louisiana all these places they would bring these amazing people the way they set it up it made it easy for you to approach these musicians and it's always there hanging out with these folks and i had no idea that that they were icons of the Delta Blues. I mean, to me, they were just like great musicians that happened to be in my town and they welcomed me. They were so friendly and so down to earth that I didn't realize, oh, I'm playing with Johnny Shines or I'm playing with Chief Ellis or Sam Chapman from the Mississippi Sheiks. Later on, I realized these are the icons of it.

SPEAKER_02:

So just about how you started playing the harmonica, as you say, you maybe picked it up 17, 18. So did you hear the sort of classic blues players or did you sort of develop your own style and then we're playing with Flora and how did you approach learning the harmonica initially?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, honestly, when I first picked up the harmonica, the only harmonica player that I was really aware of was Sonny Terry. I'd heard some recordings of him and I actually did get to hear Brownie and Sonny live a few times during my high school years. It wasn't until way later on that a friend of mine turned me on to people like Little Walter and Big Walter and Junior Wells and all those Chicago guys. So really, when I was first exploring, I was stealing more from horn players and piano players, even guitar players, than I was from other harmonica players. So in that sense, I was lucky because I did kind of develop my own style. And my style developed because of playing with Flora and then later on with John Cephas. But like playing with Floor, for example, you know, she was mainly a street musician. She was a sanctified minister and a street musician. And she was used to just sitting there with her cup on the end of her guitar, playing whatever she felt like playing and singing. She made songs. She made beautiful songs. And she would just sing. You know, she would stop in the middle of a song to say thank you to someone that had dropped money in her bucket. So her style was really free. And so in order to play with her and in order to stick with her, I had to listen very carefully, which I really appreciate. That's how I kind of got started because it really taught me to be a good listener to whoever I was trying to make music with. And you'd be surprised how many musicians really don't use their ear that much.

SPEAKER_02:

So at this point, were you aware of, you know, different keys? Or were you just picking that up as you were going along and sort of picking whichever harmonica worked? Of

SPEAKER_03:

course, I had to figure out the whole key thing. But with Flora, it was pretty easy because she played in an open-to She called it Vastapool tuning or Spanish, but it was an open tune. She played slide guitar and an open tuning and she really only played in one key.

SPEAKER_02:

I made that simple then. Yeah. You mentioned John Cephas there. So I think you met John when you were playing at a festival with Flora, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's true. I mentioned the Smithsonian Festival, and that's how I met John. It was 1976, and I was there playing with Flora, and I had gotten to be good friends with Johnny Shines and with Sam Chapman and Robert Belfort. John came to the festival. He was playing in a band with a guy named Big Chief Ellis, who was a piano player. I guess you'd call it barrel house style. And Chief was originally from Alabama. So they came there playing together, and I'm And I met them. Really, I think Johnny Shines introduced me to them. And we spent a couple of days at that festival together, going around, talking and listening to other people play and getting to know each other. And one of those days, the festival had shut down and we were walking through the festival on our way back to where people had parked their cars or whatever. And somebody noticed that on one of the stages, the sound crew had left the sound equipment on. They somehow found these live microphones. So they got up on that stage And they had a jam session. And Johnny Shine said, he and I, we had been talking about how, for me, I mean, that I love the gospel. But really what I was really hoping to do someday is to get into just the pure deep blues. And he said, well, you know, you just hang in there. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep your ears open. One day you'll get your chance. And that day was my chance. He said, I'm going to call you on stage. And I'm going to sing phrases into your ear. And then I want you to play them just like I sang them to you. And that's what we did. That was kind of my musical introduction to John and Chief Ellis. They had a trio, Chief Ellis and the Barrelhouse Rockers, which was John and then a bass player named James Bellamy. So we had that jam session and I found out that they were going to be going to the Child Herald that night, which was really at that point was in my neighborhood. I got hip to the fact that the guy that owned the Child Herald in the summertime, he would come and root around the festival and see which blues players that Smithsonian had brought in and he knew the festival was shut down that night. So they were free and he would get them to come to his club and play at night. And that's where Chief and John were going. And so I followed them there and they invited me to join in on the jams there. And then they invited me to join their trio, the Barrelhouse Rockers.

SPEAKER_02:

So this was you, again, the first time you played with John Cifa. So obviously there was three of you then and it was the four of you when you joined.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so it was Chief Ellis playing the piano. He was the band leader James Bellamy on bass, John on guitar, and then me on harmonica. And so we played that way together, did a few festivals and a couple of out of town gigs. And Chief, he lived in D.C. He owned a liquor store. John was a carpenter. He was the foreman at the carpenter shop at the National Guard Armory. James Bellamy was a security guard at the armory. And so they all, you know, were residents of D.C. and they had their day jobs and then they had their music. And I'd We played that way for about two years before Chief decided to move back home to Alabama. Shortly after he moved back to Alabama, he had a heart attack and he passed away. Now, the funny thing about all that, my father passed away when I was seven years old. And so in my lifetime, I never knew very many people that actually knew my father. But it turns out, just coincidentally, that Chief Ellis and my father were classmates in Tittlesville, Alabama when they were kids. when they were in grade school. And I guess through high school, they were classmates.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. Strange, these coincidences, aren't they? Yeah. So you went on, you played with the band, and then that turned into the duo, which you're best known for, Cephas and Wiggins, which you played with John Cephas for well over 30 years, yeah?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

How did that become a duo?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, after Chief passed, people had started to call John to come and play festivals. And there were some coffee houses in that time and those kind of clubs and whatnot. And John, you know, he called me up one day and said, you know, Phil, people keep calling me to come and play. And I don't really enjoy doing it by myself. You know, would you like to come along? And so, you know, so I started going with John to different, you know, like coffee houses. And actually at that point, I had been doing more playing in public than John had, even though he was much older than me. His only playing experience, you know, public playing experience was, you know, his few gigs that he had done with Chief. John, you know, did a lot of, you know, house parties, you know, playing at home and playing at friends' houses and stuff. He had not played in, like, public venues that much. Like, when they came to the Smithsonian, that was the first time John had played for the I had played at the Smithsonian Festival for probably four years already prior to meeting John. You know, I played there with Flora.

SPEAKER_02:

So your duo, I mean, you went on to be, you know, probably one of the great blues duos, yeah? I mean, when you talk about Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, you know, you're probably mentioned in the same sentence as those guys, yeah, as being a well-known blues duo.

SPEAKER_01:

I just remember that the blues would do your heart good

SPEAKER_00:

¶.

SPEAKER_02:

to do great things. You know, you toured the world, you played in all sorts of festivals, you played in some of the great concert arenas around the world, you played in Carnegie Hall, in Royal Albert Hall, Sydney Opera House, yeah? So how was all that?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh man, it was amazing. So we got started, there was a record label in Germany, Lippmann& Rau, a record company that had sent two recording technicians to the east coast of the US to find these quote-unquote Piedmont players. So they were there looking for for Archie Edwards and John Jackson and John Cephas. And they met John and, you know, again, you say they did some recording sessions at John's carpenter shop and they did some recordings at his house. And, you know, again, he called me up and said, these guys from Germany are here recording me. Why don't you come over and join in? And I did that. And then when they took those recordings back to Germany and once the record company owners, they heard those recordings and they had been doing these annual acoustic Lou's tours. And so they invited me and John to one of those tours in 19, it was 1980 or 81. So we did a tour. It was about three weeks long, I would say. And when I came back from that, by that time, been in that much time together with John and learning to play well with him and all, and realizing that he was probably the best musician that I knew up to that point. So all these other things that I was doing, I just kind of cut them back and decided that I was just going to focus on Cephas and we And that's really how we got started. And from there, I mean, for a long time, we were better known in like Europe than we were in the U.S. Our records were done in Europe. And, you know, you mentioned a lot of these great venues that we got a chance to play. And it was great. I mean, for me, I love to travel and it was great to get a chance to go back to Europe. As I said before, I had lived in Germany for four years when I was growing up. I mean, the interesting thing about that, I mean, even though John was older, he really really hadn't traveled that much except, you know, being in the military. He was in Korea. But in terms of, like, traveling throughout Europe, and I had learned to speak some German. And so, really, I sort of took care of him through all those tours because, I mean, I was used to traveling, you know, and I could speak some of the language and so I could help navigate. And John, honestly, John built his house down there in Bowling Green, Virginia between Richmond and Fredericksburg. As he said, you know, he was a country boy at heart. And honestly, his comfort zone was like basically a five-mile radius of where he built his house. So being in foreign countries, he wasn't really that comfortable.

SPEAKER_02:

You looked after him, yes. So, I mean, you also played in the White House as well, yeah, with B.B. King to the Clintons when they were in office there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was a great experience, yeah, playing for Bill and Hillary. Yeah, it was great. It was kind of funny. Well, for one thing, I mean, for me, you know it was great to meet the clintons but the highlight of it for me was being able to spend like two solid days uh in the company of uh bb king who's just an amazing character amazing gentleman That two day experience was kind of hectic because, you know, it was for television and everything. And so I think on the first day we had to run the show like three times, you know, straight through exactly the way it was going to be. So it was kind of hectic. And B.B. King was just a completely relaxed and complete gentleman the whole time. So it was great to be able to spend time with him. And his bandmates were a riot. I remember because we stayed in a hotel a little ways away from the White House. John and I and B.B. King's band were all loaded in the same van driving to the White House. We'd have to go through security. That was during that whole Monica Lewinsky episode. Those guys had all kinds of great jokes about navigating through security and all. They're going, hmm, Monica Lewinsky? got through all this they had a german shepherd you know bomb sniffing dog that would come and inspect the van and the dog was kind of gray around the snout and uh those guys were looking and laughing look at that dog he's about ready to retire and then another guy said yeah he's gonna draw a pension too they were right so that was a great experience and they let me bring my daughters so they got to meet the clintons and they got to meet bb king and they got to meet della reese so that was a great experience for them also

SPEAKER_02:

well it's fantastic where, you know, the harmonica's taking you. Must be so grateful for that. I never thought that it would take you so far when you picked it up, eh?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, no, that's true, man. What is it? Three inches of wood and steel and it's taken me to every continent on this planet except Antarctica.

SPEAKER_02:

So talking more than about, you mentioned the Piedmont style. So you're associated with the Piedmont styles. Let's explain that. You're probably one of the few exponents on harmonica as a Piedmont style, because it's more based on guitar playing, isn't it? The sort of bass notes and sort of melody on the treble strings, isn't it? And is that how you picked it up by playing with John Cephas and the sort of style he was playing and others? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I called it finger style or finger picking. When I hooked up with John, That's when I became familiar with that term Piedmont style. Well, first I should say, as you mentioned, like the Piedmont style is defined by the technique used on the guitar of picking out an alternating bass line and at the same time picking out a melody line on the treble strings. I guess for people that aren't familiar with it, kind of one of the best ways to explain it is to imagine the guitar kind of being used to imitate like a piano where your thumb is like the left hand of the piano. and out of baseline and your fingers are like the right hand playing the melody on the higher treble strings. That's how I would explain it.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, it's a kind of acoustic country style, isn't it? Not so much the city style that we associate with, obviously, Chicago. And, you know, the other sort of alternative would be the sort of delta blues from the south of the U.S., which was acoustic but different, yeah. So it was that country acoustic style very much, you know, was a big part of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Well, so the delta style, you know, what we call the Chicago style or urban blues, really is linked to the Delta style of playing.

SPEAKER_02:

Of course, Muddy Waters went up to Chicago and took that sort of Delta style and developed it into electric, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

True. Both of those styles of music, though, were essentially, you know, dance music. And when you think of the Piedmont style, it's not like really a show-off. I mean, it's challenging. I mean, the technique, the Piedmont style technique, and John used to like to say that, you know, the Piedmont style is much harder than the Delta style to play. He often said that. But I mean, unless you were paying attention, you don't notice, like in the Piedmont style, it's not so much like, you know, showing off guitar solos and things like that. It's like a woven pattern that's for dancing. I mean, to me, that's kind of one of the things that I love most about it. It's just, it's such a great rhythm, such a great kind of loping or bouncing kind of rhythm. John used to call it the Williamsburg lope.

SPEAKER_02:

And that really comes true in your harmonica playing. So it really weaves in and out. There's some intricate rhythms that you play on harmonica as well as you're accompanying the guitar. And, you know, you play some really fast licks in between as well. But, you know, it is quite a busy style harmonica, which fits really nicely around the guitar, doesn't it?

UNKNOWN:

¦

SPEAKER_03:

One of my favorite things to do with the harmonica is to kind of use it as percussion. And like you say, the Piedmont style is pretty busy. There's a lot going on with the guitar. So sometimes my best job is just to lay on the backbeat. So I do that a lot. Also, when there's space, I throw in some licks. I'll steal a lick from the guitar or I'll steal a phrase from the vocal. My main thing is trying to be careful not to overpower the vocal. Because playing with John, I mean, John had that beautiful baritone voice, but he wasn't a shouter. You know, he was a singer and he sang. Honestly, he didn't sing that loud. He sang pretty softly and he worked the microphone well until he got up on the mic when he was singing so you could hear him. But he sang softly and I think that's how he got such a beautiful tone with his voice was by not shouting out. Then I had to be careful not to overpower

SPEAKER_01:

him. and also

SPEAKER_03:

not not to clutter up because john was doing some pretty amazing stuff finger picking a lot of times i would repeat phrases that he would play on the guitar but a lot of times i would just play those rhythms i would i would kind of think of the guitar as maybe like a snare drum or something you know and play those rhythms. And then sometimes I would almost use it as like playing a bass line, you know, just thinking of what the best thing at any point in time would be to support what's going on. I mean, I often say to people, you know, if you got the right key harmonica and you stick it in your mouth and wiggle it around, you're not going to hit a wrong note, but you're not really playing the song. And so really, if you're stealing phrases from the voice or you're stealing licks from the guitar or you're hitting the backbeat to help support the rhythm, then you're really playing music, then you're really playing the song.

SPEAKER_02:

So another thing you've done is you've co-wrote a book called Sweet Bitter Blues, which is about Washington, D.C.''s homemade blues. So this is a very well-received book, yeah, and it focuses quite a lot on this Piedmont style and the whole scene around, the blues scene around Washington, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and that's the thing a lot of people don't realize. There's a pretty amazing and thriving community of blues players in Washington, D.C. Now, a lot of them, the linchpins of that community are gone now or passed on. You know, John Cephas, John Jackson, Archie Edwards, Flora Moulton. D.C. basically is in the Piedmont region. And so you had people that made their homes here that were from Virginia or North Carolina, you know, Piedmont pickers that made their homes in and around Washington, D.C. Yeah, and that's what a lot of what the book focuses on. John Cephas and I, you know, as you know, we traveled around the world. Archie Edwards really didn't travel that much until kind of much later on. But when he came back home, he was from a place called Franklin County, Virginia. But he made his home in Washington, D.C., and he owned a barbershop there. He would cut hair through the week and then on Saturday. But on Saturday, around two o'clock in the afternoon, he would shut the shop. And from two o'clock till like way late in the evening, he and his friends that would come to the shop would sit around and play music together. They were mostly finger style or Piedmont style players. that would come. And a bunch of young people caught wind of that and they would show up there too, mostly to listen. And then when he passed away, by the time he passed away, a lot of these young folks that had caught on to, you know, his jam sessions really felt inspired to carry on his legacy. And they rented out the barbershop. They hosted these jams. And one guy in particular, Michael Batop, he really helped to establish this, what they call the Archie Edwards Foundation. The thing that that the younger generation picked up from those folks who were world-class musicians. They were very down to earth and very generous with their talent. They really appreciated when any younger person showed up that was interested in what they were doing and wanted to learn. And they were very welcoming. And I think that helped set the tone to carry on that spirit of generosity and accepting all comers, regardless of ability or level of plan or You know, everybody was, and still is to this day, welcome to those jam sessions.

SPEAKER_02:

Good breeding ground for people to develop. So did you play in this barbershop yourself? Yeah, I did. Yeah, superb. Well done for getting that book together and getting it out. So I'll move on to talking through your recording career. So you did numerous albums with John Cephas through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So we did two, I believe, over the first 80 and then maybe 83. And they were on the Lippmann and Rau label, which was from West Germany. And they were the ones that had the tour. They did an annual blues tour. Well, the first recordings that we did in the States were on Flying Fish, and then we got on Rounder. I believe it was the Flying Fish... label that actually John and I were playing at the Smithsonian Festival. And by that time, we had befriended a guy named Joe Wilson. At that time, he was the head of an organization called the National Council for Traditional Arts. When he met John, it was like love at first sight. They became fast friends and fast buddies. And Joe Wilson really took it as his job to help John and also myself get more recognition and to advance our careers. And he had invited a guy from Rounder to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. And one day while they were there, he kind of wrangled that guy to watch me and John as we finished a set and went to the products tent, you know, where we're selling our recordings. And that guy saw us selling a cassette recording that we had made. And, you know, the line was around the block by then. And that guy, he said, you know, who... owns that recording and that's how we kind of got hooked up with rounder because that guy saw our cassette selling like hot cakes and he decided yeah i want a piece of that

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so you released a few albums through, and John doing Guitar Man, and then on Flip Flop and Fly in 92, you got some other musicians on there, there's some horns on that album.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_02:

Was that the first album you had, you know, more than just a duo on there?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I believe so. And the horns, maybe they were only on one or two tracks, but it was the United House of Prayer brass band.

SPEAKER_02:

But generally you stuck to doing the duo and not bring too many in. And you mentioned John Good Singing. I mean, you've got some interesting lyrics, you know, you've got that cool down song on the album in 96. You know, it's about people not getting into, you know, getting pick up a gun and getting into violence.

SPEAKER_03:

So there's some

SPEAKER_02:

quite meaningful lyrics coming out. Who wrote most of the songs?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, most of the original songs that we did, I wrote. And actually, you know, I've been writing songs over 30 years that John and I played together. I was writing songs, but very few of my own songs made it onto our set list. But a few of them did. You mentioned Cool Down. Yeah, at that time, that was in the early 80s. And at that time, D.C. was the homicide capital of the country. So one of my day jobs was working with this theater company that had a contract with the district government to work with what they called Youth at Risk. So we would get these kids that had been thrown out of school. The school system couldn't deal with them. Most of them had had kind of run-ins with the penal system. Most of them had been in and out of youth detention centers. So we were working with them. And at that time, I mean, D.C., especially in certain neighborhoods like Anacostia, it was like terrible, dangerous place to live. And, you know, we would we would work with these kids and every Monday they would come back to work talking about this friend was killed this weekend or, you know, I went to this wake or I went to this funeral. And I mean, it was a terrible, dangerous place. And, you know, of course, it was the drug business. which a lot of those kids living in these neighborhoods and living kind of a hard life and not having much, they could make a lot of fast money selling drugs. But then the ones that came to us, they had been in and out of jail, out of school, whatever, and were theoretically ready to try to do something better with their lives. And it was hard. So

SPEAKER_02:

were you using the music as part of this? Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I basically was kind of like the musical director and I turned those kids on to a lot of the old styles of music because at that time, you know, hip hop was just getting started. But the cool thing I was able to, you know, and kind of rap was just getting started. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, all that kind of stuff. But I was able to link that stuff to stuff like Louis Jordan and and even stuff further back, you know, talking blues. And to show those kids the link between the music that they were into and the music that I was into, which went way back. And, you know, I was able to show them the roots of the music that they were into. That was really a rewarding work. And the interesting thing, I mean, showing the longevity, showing that it's not just a flash in the pan. All this stuff that they love, you know, has roots. And anything like really worth having is worth, you know, taking time to build the And that longevity, I mean, you know, instead of like fast cash. I mean, I remember bringing Archie Edwards in and they loved Archie because, I mean, he was like kind of a little guy, but he had a big ego. And those kids, you know, they love that. And I said, you know, here's a man. He has a good life. He has his barbershop where he makes his money and he owns it. Nobody gave it to him and no one can take it from him because he built it himself. They appreciated that. And those kids, I mean, of course, now they're all grown and everything. So the idea with Everyday Theatre was to teach those kids, you know, theatre skills, you know, everything from performing, you know, singing, dancing, acting, to the music part, which I did a lot of, you know, in order for me to be paid for working with them, there wasn't a category in the DC government for a musical director, but there was a category for job developer. So that's the title they gave me. And that's actually, I tried to do that, some of that too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it sounds like you did some great work there. So Yeah. Another song I want to mention of yours, Phil, which is one of my absolute favorite harmonica songs is Burn Your Bridges. Oh, yeah. For me, that song has kind of got everything. I like to think I play along with lots of songs, you know, thousands of songs I've got in my collection. But that one I always go back to. And it's always challenging, even though I've played with it many times, I find it quite a challenging one to play along with. So, yeah, I think that song's got it all about the stuff you saw earlier on. You know, you're playing, you know, rhythm, you're playing sort of bass lines, you're playing really fast licks and everything so yeah what about that song

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it might surprise you to hear, but it was inspired a lot by listening to Lil' Walter. Oh, yeah. And kind of mashing up that with the Piedmont style stuff. A lot of the fast licks that I do are kind of stolen from the right hand of piano. I mean, I've always loved piano. I think probably when I was growing up and collecting records, I had more piano records than just about anything else. For a long time, as I was learning the harmonica, I wasn't listening to other harmonic players. I listening to piano, guitar, clarinet, trumpet, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, all sorts of piano. So a lot of kind of like in that song and Burn Your Bridges, some of the phrases are inspired by hearing Little Walter. I've discovered Little Walter pretty late on in my development, you know, of trying to learn the harmonica. I had done a gig in Alexandria, Virginia. Actually, this was with my high school band. I met this guy who came to the gig and he and I, we went I went up going to his, he lived in the attic of this old couple in Alexandria, and he had an amazing record collection, including a lot of Little Walter. And that's when I first discovered him. I never listened to Little Walter with the harp in my mouth. I always just, you know, had it on the turntable and listened to it because I loved it. But I didn't play along with it or try to learn note for note his stuff. But I sort of internalized a lot of it just from listening to it. Because I mean, he's such a genius. So but just from listening over and over to it, sort of his harmonica lexicon got into my life.

SPEAKER_01:

sadly

SPEAKER_02:

in 2009 John Cephas died that was your long duo you know you've been together for over 30 years yeah then what about the impact on that and what about you know on the impact on your career obviously as well following that sad time

SPEAKER_03:

yeah that was rough of course you know losing my partner of over 30 years was very difficult you know I still miss John in a lot of ways I mean I came to the realization you know after John passed here we had played for over 30 years together and learned to play well together in that amount of time. And that, you know, looking at my life going forward, I remember thinking, well, I probably haven't got enough time left in my life to learn to play with someone else as well as John and I played together. And it was rough. Financially, at first, after John passed, we had just settled a couple of deals on some tours that involved like grant money and this and that. Some of the venues that had signed on to those tours. Some of them decided not to carry on with those contracts, but then some of them decided to carry on. So I enlisted my new friend at the time, Corey Harris, to come. And so we did quite a few of those concerts that had been contracted that involved that grant money and everything. And so I didn't, you know, financially for a while, I was not impacted so much by John having passed on. But after a while, those ran out and then i kind of hit the bottom

SPEAKER_02:

yeah to then start playing with new people and uh yeah so obviously but it gave you the opportunity maybe to expand your musical horizons to some extent obviously playing with the same with john for so long you know you were so tied together but yeah so so you played with an australian i think called dom turner and uh you released a couple of albums with him so

UNKNOWN:

music music

SPEAKER_03:

Dom Turner and I, actually we met years and years ago, I think in West Virginia. But a friend of mine named Joan Fenton had introduced me to Dom and his wife Ida sometime after we met. And this would have been like the early or mid 80s. John and I did a few tours in Australia and Dom Turner had his band, The Backsliders. And on some of these tours that we did, his band would go as what in Australia they call the support band. They would open for us. And at that time, his band was an acoustic trio. And so they would travel with us and they would open for us. And so Dom and I, we got to be great friends. And then by the time John Cephas passed away, it was like kind of over 30 years later. And it turned out Dom was coming to the States and we hooked up. We did a few gigs together. I guess you could call it like a short tour, just like really three or four gigs, like around Northern Virginia, DC area. And then Dom invited me to come to Australia and do some touring with him there. And we did. And then while I was there, we did some recording together. Now, the great thing about Dom, there's so many things I love about him as a musician. So he's got that beautiful voice and he sings like himself. There's so many blues players, especially young blues players, that when they're singing, they're trying to imitate some like 60, 70, 80 year old musician that, you know, singer from the Delta or from Alabama or from somewhere in the deep South that they heard. They're trying to imitate that it's not right you know it doesn't sound right and Dom he sings like himself and he's got a beautiful voice

SPEAKER_02:

so yeah and you played with various people since that time you know you've also played with a band called Soul Roots sort of a bit of soul and Ben Hunter you played with and that's where I saw you playing in the UK playing in that trio with Ben Hunter in 2016 music

UNKNOWN:

Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, you've played with different people since that time, which is great. And I just want to mention as well, on June the 17th, that you're doing an online event with Joe Felisco, a live music event with Joe Felisco. So that'll be available. I'll put the link onto the front page for that. I'm not sure you'll have this out quite in time, but even if not, it'll be available for the week after. So you'll be able to see you playing along with Joe Felisco and Eric Norden. He's a guitar player. And you've been doing lots of online concerts as well, of course, over the last year. So as many of us have now. so you've also won numerous awards through the years obviously some with the Sepperson Wiggins you've won the WC Handy Blues Foundation Awards twice you won an award with those and you've won Best Traditional Album and Entertainers of the Year and you've also done a lot of teaching as well teaching is something that you've been really involved with you've done Euro Blues Week here in the UK and you've done some teaching in the US the Augusta Heritage Centre in West Virginia

SPEAKER_03:

Well, the Euro Blues Week, of course, that's organized by my good friend, Michael Roach, who lives here in England now. But he's originally from Washington, D.C., And of course, we were good friends. I believe I got to know Michael Roach kind of late 80s, early 90s. I got to be good friends with him right about the time that the DC Blues Society was being formed, which really John Cephas was kind of the catalyst of that organization getting started. And Michael and I, we worked together quite a bit getting that organization started. So that's how we got to be good friends. And of course, he and John were mentors. Michael Roach was actually more of a mentor or a mentee, I guess you could say. Is that a word? But anyway, I mean, he was a student of Archie Edwards, too. And also, yeah, and then he married a British girl and they moved to the UK and been living there ever since. So he started that. And then, you know, Augusta Heritage Workshop, that's in West Virginia. I started doing that one. I guess that would have been the early 80s also, you know, the very first blues week that they had there. I taught there and I was recommended to the organizer of that, that would have been Joan Fenton, who's the person that introduced me to Dom Turner. She started the Augusta Blues Week in West Virginia. She had hired John Jackson and John Jackson recommended me.

SPEAKER_02:

So relating to your teaching, a question I ask each time, Phil, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_03:

Depending on the level, but I would say tone, getting good, clear, single notes on the harmonica and getting a nice kind of rich, fat tone and kind of making yourself aware of the range of tones that you can get from the harmonica by both, you know, what you're doing with your mouth and all, you know, maybe more importantly, what you're doing with your hands, like with the cupping techniques on the harmonica. I mean, a lot of people, you know, are fixated on gear like the right microphone and the right amplifier. But the sound that comes out of your harmonica begins with your own body. If that sound is no good, then when you plug it in, it's just going to be that no good sound louder. But the main thing is to realize that it's your own body. It's your own, you know, I mean, the harmonica is your own voice and it starts with what you're doing with your own body. And then, of

SPEAKER_02:

course, it goes really well with the voice. Lots of harmonica players do sing. So you do sing as well. I've got some nice acapella So,

SPEAKER_03:

but usually

SPEAKER_02:

when you play with John Cephas, he did the singing, didn't they? And you did a, you did a bit of backing, did you? And you've sung, but you do sing more nowadays, don't you?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Yeah. So of course, when you have John in the band, you don't really need another singer. So the label Alligator that we recorded with, they basically weren't interested in me as a singer. They, you know, they had John's beautiful voice, you know, but since John passed, you know, as you say, I've been singing a lot more. I've been gaining a lot of confidence in my singing, you know, and these days, you know, I'm feeling good about my singing and, and, and especially because I'm singing actually most of the songs that I sing are my own songs.

SPEAKER_02:

Any tips for how you develop your singing? Because obviously a lot of harmonica players would like to sing but don't feel that confident to do so.

SPEAKER_03:

I guess the main thing, and technically it's the same thing, the same kind of technical considerations that you use when you're playing the harmonica. It's basically the more relaxed you are, you know, relaxed breath is what produces the best tone, both with singing and with harmonica playing. The other thing for me that seemed to really help me quite a bit. This was Paul Rochelle. You're familiar with him. Annie Raines and Paul Rochelle. She's a harmonica player. He's a guitar player. Years ago, I was backstage with him at Augusta. He had come to Augusta to teach. We were talking. I was on the staff. He was on the staff, of course. I was talking about how they teach vocals at Augusta, but most of the people that they had teaching vocals, blues vocals, they were not really singers. And he is a beautiful singer. And I was asking him if he would ever be interested in teaching vocal singing. And he said, you know, I don't really think that you can teach a person how to sing. And he said, you know, for me, I just, I take a song and I just try to tell the story, you know, and I thought about that. And the next time that I sang a song, and it was probably one of my songs, and I just said, okay, I'm just going to tell the story. And I reached this level of relaxation and this tone that I had never heard come I'm out of myself before. And I was like, you know, that works. That's, for me, what helped me to actually sing better, but also to gain more confidence about my singing. Get behind the story and just really try to put the story across. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

and it obviously helps writing your own lyrics to do that as well, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_02:

So we'll finish on the last section now. I know you've got an online gig this evening as well, so let you prepare for that. So as to the harmonica you play, I believe you play the Marine Band exclusively.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02:

Which model of the marine bands do you like?

SPEAKER_03:

Just the old-style wood comb, original marine band.

SPEAKER_02:

You've never been tempted then with the deluxe or the crossovers for the treated combs? You like those older ones?

SPEAKER_03:

The treated combs, to me, they seal the wood and they give it a brighter sound. They are, I would say, kind of more dependable and more responsive, and they're louder, but They're also, because of the way the wood is sealed, they're also kind of brighter sounding. And I feel like the original Marine Band, which kind of with that softer wood finish, it's already bright enough and it has such a beautiful tone to it. So that's what I like. Do you play any chromatic at all? You know, I've fooled with chromatic a little bit. I never got very far on it. I mean, it's sort of one of these things that I've wanted to to learn and bend meaning, to get better at. But I'm pretty much a tin hole player.

SPEAKER_02:

And do you play any different tunings or do you stick to the Richter tuning?

SPEAKER_03:

I do use some different tunings, or one different tuning anyway. There's a tuning that I became aware of from the Leoscar. And it's called a melody maker tuning. I honestly can't explain to you exactly what the difference is, but I know that he's sharpened a couple of the notes. I think like the flat five and the flat seven are sharpened. You know, don't hold me to that, but I think that's what's going on. But I discovered those. They make it easier or more accessible to play some of the swing standards that I like to play with kind of my main band right now is the Chesapeake Sheiks Phil Wiggins and the Chesapeake Sheiks and the Sheiks aside from doing you know some of my original tunes do a lot of kind of these old kind of swing standards and swing songs and string band songs from people like like Louis Armstrong Louis Jordan people like Slim and Slam Cats in the Fiddle the Harlem Ham Fats you know a lot of those and a lot of those melodies you know the Melody Maker Harmonica makes those melodies kind a more accessible site.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so you better play melodies on it. And basically, they've got a major scale on them, so you've got the whole scale. So yeah, so great. Yeah, so you use the Melody Makers. But actually, I

SPEAKER_03:

just want to clarify, I don't use Lee Oscar Melody Makers. What I do is I get Hohner to retune me some Marine Vans in that tuning.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, great, yeah. And do you play any overblows?

SPEAKER_03:

No. I've actually tried really hard, have hit an overblow once or twice, but I have not mastered that technique.

SPEAKER_02:

And embouchure-wise, what are you doing there? Are you pursing, tongue blocking, or anything else?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm doing both. I'm doing both tongue blocking and lip pursing. Okay, so kind of rule of thumb is from the one hole to about the four hole, I'm lip pursing. And, you know, depending on the song, but mainly, yeah, from one hole to the four hole, I'm lip pursing. From the five hole on up, you know, the harmonica is starting to sound shrill to me. So from the five up, I sort of tongue block to kind of fatten up Mm-hmm. I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg. I don't know if I learned to do that because those high notes are the ones that I want to hear tongue blocking on or if that developed because I could only do tongue blocking to the left. But anyway, that's kind of my rule of thumb is that. And I do tongue blocking for octaves or for the single notes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And you mentioned gear early on and people rely too much on it. So what about gear yourself? Obviously, you're playing acoustics. a lot so do you use any particular amps or just using the PA most of the time?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm playing through the PA. I play off the mic. So I work the mic quite a bit for both for dynamics and for tone. And mainly, you know, it's kind of a function of my handcuffing. Like I have a really airtight handcuff technique. But, you know, like when I when my hands are shut, they're shut tight enough that I can actually feel my pinky finger on my left hand getting sucked in towards the harmonica. So and then as I as I open my hands to let more sound out, I kind of back away from the microphone so that it doesn't become too loud, you know, or so, you know, to work the dynamics.

SPEAKER_02:

And do you use any particular microphones?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I do. And I'm trying to remember the name of my microphone.

SPEAKER_02:

I saw on a video that it looked like an Electro-Voice or the 320. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03:

that's exactly what it is. And I use that mic. I had a conversation years ago with a guy that was a sound technician at one of the camps that I play at, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. And this guy was telling me, he was explaining to me about that microphone that, you know, for a lot of microphones that you use as you back away from the microphone, you not only lose volume, but you also lose some of the tone quality. And what mainly you lose is the bass, the bottom end range, the bottom end of it. But with that particular microphone, you don't lose the bottom end. You just lose volume, which is really why I back on and off. And so that's why I wound up using that uh microphone because when i back off i i i lose the volume but i don't lose the bottom and the funny thing is that how how i got that microphone was i had a friend of mine from the eastern shore that was in D.C. visiting. We were at my friend in the cheeks, the piano player. We were at his house late one night, like drunk, really drunk. And we were talking and we're talking about microphones. And I mentioned that microphone to him. And we actually even looked it up on the web and looked at it and everything. And about a year later on my birthday, I received a package in the mail. And it's that microphone that he bought and gifted to me.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a present they're quite expensive those microphones so

SPEAKER_03:

yeah true yeah true i was very very generous yeah and i and i and i use that mic to this day i always play through the pa you know like i mean i've done some playing with some some electric players anson vandenberg bob margolin and i've tried going back to because years ago i had you know like a an old pretty cbs fender basement amplifier and a green bullet and i tried fooling with it and and i was frustrated that it seemed like it could only get like kind of one sound out of it yeah whereas playing off the mic playing through the PA and with my hands there was like kind of infinite

SPEAKER_02:

yeah like you said that hand cupping technique is so critical isn't it to the harmonica sound and obviously you can get electrified sound as well but yeah that's really do you use any effects at all or any reverb even no no nothing at all no

SPEAKER_03:

no reverb no and I mean the shocking thing to me now is that a lot of harmonica players now are using foot pedals like guitar players players use to me it's crazy I mean to each his own you know I'm not going to knock it but yeah but yeah that's kind of to me that's kind of crazy

SPEAKER_02:

cool and so and so final question then Phil thanks so much for your time so so what about your future plans and how things looking for you now things opening up and you started to get out playing

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so you mentioned Ben Turner and Joe Siemens and my bands that I have now, the Chesapeake Sheiks, which I stole the name from the Mississippi Sheiks. Then I have the trio House Party. So what I'm getting at is I have all these amazing kind of young players that have come into my life. They're like, just like, I mean, for one thing, they're young. And so they're like really energetic. I mean, even musically, sometimes I have a hard time keeping up with them. And they're just great. great folks to be around. They are just like wonderful human beings. They're extremely talented musicians. You know, for one thing, I get to play, you know, all my original songs and also like just a real variety of other stuff. Like I mentioned, those swing bands, you know, that we're playing, especially the Chesapeake Sheiks, we're playing that kind of stuff. You know, I came to a realization a while ago that probably every note of music that I've ever played in my life has been dance music. And it's rarely ever been presented that way. Mostly I have played for people sitting on their butts, you know, and clapping their hands or whatever. But, you know, so it's been kind of one of my goals to reconnect the dance with the dance music. And I've been fortunate to connect with two really brilliant dancers with my band House Party, which is just a trio, acoustic kind of Piedmont style guitar, violin, harmonica. And we have a dancer who dances in what, for lack of a better term, We call it buck dancing. That's Junius Lee Brickhouse, who dances with that band. And then with the Chesapeake Sheiks, I have a really brilliant tap dancer instead of a drummer.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's part of the sound, is it, the tap dancing?

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. So rather than having a drummer, you have Bakari Wilder, who's a brilliant, brilliant tap dancer. And so in that band, it's piano, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, harmonica, violin, and tap dancer. So that, to me, is probably the most fun thing and the most important thing that has developed in my playing life since John Pass is to be able to include dancing. And like I say, all those people are such amazing, beautiful human beings. But it seems like there's something wrong because it seems like in every band there's got to be that one person that's the a-hole. And there's just not in that band. And then I remembered a joke a guy said, you know, every family has that one person that's paying in the in the A and if you think your family doesn't have that then it's you

SPEAKER_02:

and

SPEAKER_03:

I thought uh oh

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure that's not true so thanks very much Phil Wiggins for joining me today well my pleasure man thank you that's it for episode 41 thank you again to Mr. Phil Wiggins and it's just over to Phil to tell you that whatever you do do not burn your bridges music

UNKNOWN:

so so