Richard Sleigh joins me on episode 138. Richard is from Pennsylvania and is a renowned harmonica customiser, player and teacher. He tells how his great uncle Bill inspired him to pick up the harp, before discovering Irish music during his travels in Europe. We hear about his first album Steppin’ Out, his recording with Dennis Gruenling, and his love for the Clifftop Appalachian festival. Richard also shares the story behind his involvement with the MB30 harmonica and his customisation collaborat...
Jul 05, 2025•59 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Fabrizio Poggi joins me on episode 137. Fabrizio plays blues, folk and spiritual music. Hailing from near Milan, he took some time to find his way with the harmonica but since then he has performed at Carnegie Hall and been nominated for a Grammy. His first band was Chicken Mambo who played New Orleans music on their early album releases. Fabrizio traveled around the US where he made lots of friends and great strides with his musical development. This culminated with the making of an album in 20...
Jun 21, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 137
Giles Robson and Jim Basnight join me on episode 136 for a retrospective on Alex ‘Rice’ Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson II). Information on Sonny Boy’s early life is sketchy. Sonny Boy was likely born in 1912 and had a hard upbringing working on a plantation before becoming a travelling musician. Arriving in Helena, Arkansas, he found fame performing on the King Biscuit Time radio show before making his first recordings with Trumpet Records at age 38 in 1951. Sonny Boy made his classic cuts for...
Jun 07, 2025•1 hr 38 min•Season 1Ep. 136
John Sebastian joins me on episode 135. John had considerable chart success in the 1960s as part of the folk rock band, The Lovin' Spoonful, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000. John was also inducted into the songwriters Hall Of Fame. Probably better known as a singer songwriter and guitar player, harmonica was John’s first instrument, inspired by his father, also called John Sebastian, who was a renowned classical harmonica player. And we discuss some of his ...
May 24, 2025•59 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Ronnie Schreiber joins me on episode 134. Ronnie runs The Electric Harmonica Company, producing the Harmonicaster, which is an alternative to the traditional harmonica microphone, using guitar style pick-ups to create “the first practical true electric harmonica”. Ronnie first came up with the concept some thirty years ago and has been developing it in earnest over the last ten years. Ronnie tells us the story of how he developed the idea, from the need to use steel reeds, the custom harps neede...
May 10, 2025•57 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Kim Field joins me on episode 133. Kim’s 1994 book ‘Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument’ was the first book released on the history of the harmonica. And Kim has recently written the book: The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold , telling the story of Billy Boy in his own words. Ever on the lookout to meet and learn from the great players, Kim shares the time he spent with Deford Bailey and also when he played on stage with Walter Horton. Kim has been in sev...
Apr 26, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Tom Ellis joins me on episode 132 for another look into the life and career of the legendary Paul Butterfield. Butter gained access to the Chicago blues scene at a young age when his lawyer father carried out pro bono work for some of the musicians there. The black blues musicians took a paternal interest in Paul’s musical development, none more so than Muddy Waters who knew Butter from around the age of sixteen. Butter later returned the favour after having made his own name. He gave something ...
Mar 22, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 132
Rick Estrin and Nathan James join me on episode 131 for a retrospective on James Harman. James ‘Icepick’ Harman was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1946. After moving between various locations, including Florida, New York, New Orleans and Chicago, he settled down in Southern California in the early 1970s where he established himself in the vibrant blues scene there. Harman was a formidable song writer and had his own unique view on life which he delivered through his powerful singing voice. His har...
Mar 08, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 131
Mikael Backman joins me on episode 130. Mikael is from Sweden where he started playing blues harmonica, recording six albums with the band Ramblin’ Minds. He then joined the band John Henry. Initially a bluegrass band, they went on to play country, honky tonk and western swing. Mikael is truly a doctor of the harmonica, having conducted various academic studies with the harmonica at center stage, as part of his work at the Piteå School of Music. One of these resulted in a music thesis on how pra...
Feb 22, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 130
Corky Siegel joins me on episode 129. Corky played was central in the emergence of the popularity of the blues to a white audience. His Siegel-Schwall band gained a residency at Chicago’s Pepper Lounge, sharing the stage with blues giants such as Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters and Little Walter. The band were also part of San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. Corky has a unique place in harmonica history with his blues / classical co...
Feb 08, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 129
Ross Garren, Rob Paparozzi and Liam Ward join me on episode 128, to discuss the harmonica playing of Bob Dylan. The early part of Dylan’s career is chronicled in the current biopic, A Complete Unknown. Ross and Rob were the ‘harmonica coaches’ for the movie. Ross recorded most of the harmonica used in the movie and the soundtrack, with Rob contributing one song and also providing support on the East Coast. Ross shares the painstaking process of recording for such a major music movie, how he stud...
Jan 25, 2025•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 128
Sigmund Groven joins me on episode 127. Sigmund is a chromatic player who is a household name in his native Norway. He was inspired to take up the harmonica after hearing Tommy Reilly on the radio. After taking some lessons with Tommy they formed a lifelong friendship, with Sigmund even becoming his manager. Sigmund has released over thirty albums in his own name through his illustrious career and has played in venues and orchestras around the world, including Carnegie Hall, throughout Europe an...
Jan 11, 2025•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 127
Winslow Yerxa joins me on episode 126. Winslow is originally from Canada, now living in San Francisco. He started out playing blues harmonica before becoming interested in the traditional music of French Canada and British origins, among others. Winslow plays in harmonica ensembles and produces his own compositions using a wide variety of harmonicas, including the diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, the Pentaharp, XB40 and the recent Gamechanger harmonica. Winslow created the Harmonica Information Pub...
Dec 21, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 126
Paul Lamb, Joe Filisko and Adam Sikora join me on episode 125, for a retrospective on one of the legends of the diatonic harmonica, Sonny Terry, whose real name was Saunders Terrell. Sonny was born in 1911 (or 1912), in Greensboro, Georgia (or it could have been North Carolina). Growing up on a farm in a rural community, Sonny was left blind by two accidents in his youth. Unable to work on the farm he turned to music, with his harmonica playing father giving him his early lessons. Sonny first ro...
Dec 07, 2024•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Shima Kobayashi joins me on episode 124. Shima is a classical chromatic player originally from Japan, who has been living in the UK since 2004. After winning the World Harmonica Championship in 1995 she was awarded a bursary by the Japanese government to study with the great Tommy Reilly over a twelve month period. Shima has two albums to her name. The first has a number of pieces composed for chromatic harmonica. Her second album, Chromatic!, contains some pieces written for Shima by Japanese c...
Nov 23, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 124
Jerry Portnoy, Steve Guyger and Louis Erlanger join me on episode 123, for a retrospective on Paul Oscher. Paul was born in Brooklyn in 1947 and has a place in history as the first white player in a major black blues band, with Muddy Waters. Joining Muddy’s band gave Paul the best grounding in Chicago blues, he lived in Muddy’s house where he also learnt from the great Otis Spann. After leaving Muddy’s band Paul moved to New York and became a pivotal figure in the blues scene there. Paul put out...
Nov 09, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Ross Garren joins me again on episode 122. Ross lives near Los Angeles, where he has established himself as a leading session musician for harmonica recordings on movies, including Marvel’s Logan and the new Joker film, as well on albums with numerous pop artists, including recently on Beyonce’s album, Cowboy Carter. Initially a piano player, Ross came to love the harmonica from the age of twelve and plays a wide range of harmonicas, from diatonic to chromatic, bass, chord and other types. Ross ...
Oct 26, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 122
Jim Zeller joins me on episode 121. Jim is from Montreal, Canada, and first starting playing harmonica at age twelve after stealing one from a school friend. He ran away from home at age fifteen and learnt harmonica as he hitch-hiked around North America. Jim has a very distinctive energetic style of playing on both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. He developed this style by emulating guitar riffs and the percussive elements of Indian music. He has played with and supported some famous blue...
Oct 12, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Grant Dermody, Ross Garren and Pete Dammann join me on episode 120 for a retrospective on Paul DeLay. Paul is a harmonica player who may go under the radar for some but his unique approach to both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica, as well as his powerful vocals and his insightful and humorous songwriting have placed him firmly in the hearts of harmonica and music fans in the know. Paul was from Portland, Oregon in the north west United States where his first outfit was the Brown Sugar Blues ...
Sep 28, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Yeore Kim joins me on episode 119. Yeore is from South Korea, where she first picked up the tremolo harmonica at the age of six. Her mother is a piano teacher, so she also learnt piano and other instruments, including trumpet, before focusing on the chromatic harmonica from age 18. Yeore has released two albums of duets with different pianists. She moved to France in 2018 after meeting her guitarist husband, Antoine Boyer, with whom she has released an album, Tangram. This contains a great mix o...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 119
David Barrett joins me on episode 118. David is based in San Jose, California, where he took lessons from Gary Smith from age 16, in addition to learning from great harmonica recordings. He started teaching harmonica himself from age 18 and has become one of the foremost harmonica educators around, with his BluesHarmonica.com website an invaluable resource. He ran the School of Blues for twenty years and has written over seventy instructional books, DVDs and CDs. David has four albums to his nam...
Aug 24, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 118
Yvonnick Prene joins me on episode 117. Yvonnick was born in France and has been resident in New York for seventeen years after first moving to the city to study at the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music. He started out playing blues and jazz on the diatonic and took lessons with some of the great French players, before focusing his attention playing jazz on the chromatic. Yvonnick is a bandleader and has released seven albums under his own name as well as numerous sessions as a sidema...
Aug 10, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Isabella Krapf joins me on episode 116. Isabella is from Vienna, Austria, where she started teaching and performing concerts in her late teens and has had a career in the harmonica ever since. Isabella is a collector of harmonicas and puts on exhibitions. She played a part in keeping the Seydel factory in business when it was looking for new investors in the early 2000s, by ordering 1000 ‘boomerang’ harmonicas. In 2011 Isabella was asked to visit North Korea to teach groups of music students the...
Jul 27, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 116
Pat Missin joins me on episode 115. Pat’s knowledge about the harmonica is unsurpassed, with his website at patmissin.com , a definitive source of information for over twenty years. He gives us an insight into some of this knowledge, starting with how free reed instruments were the predecessor of the harmonica and the questionable history of who actually invented the harmonica as we know it today. We also discuss various harmonica recording firsts, such as the first blues harmonica song recorded...
Jul 13, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 115
Seth Shumate joins me on episode 114. Seth is an Old Timey and pre-war harmonica player originally from Arkansas, now living in Tennessee. Seth has deeply researched the early history of the harmonica and has written an Old Time Harmonica Handbook which contains lots of great information, as well as techniques on how to play authentic Old Timey harmonica using various tongue blocking techniques to add percussive rhythm and to provide self-accompaniment while also playing the melody of the tune. ...
Jun 29, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Andre Godoy Coelho (and Brendan Power) join me on episode 113. Andre is a Brazilian who relocated to Portugal in 2018, performing and recording two albums with the Rio Grande band in Sao Paulo, before recording a recent album in a duo in Portugal. Andre quickly became interested in harmonica customisation when his first harmonica didn’t quite perform as he wanted. This has turned into a full time business for Andre, who has now teamed up with Brendan Power on his x-reed harmonica range. The part...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 113
Harmonica group Svang join me on episode 112. Svang are a harmonica quartet from Finland, who have been performing and recording for over twenty years now. They first formed in 2003 when Jouko was teaching at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and suggested forming a harmonica group with two of his students. The group doesn’t play the typical harmonicas of a harmonica group, with a harmonetta used instead of a chord, and bluesy diatonics used as part of the sound alongside chromatic. Their reperto...
May 28, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Episode 111 is part 2 of the ten minute question, from the remaining podcast guests up until this point. As per the last episode, I’ll say the name of each guest before they respond to the question: “if you had 10 minutes to practise, what would you spend that ten minutes doing”. 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...
May 18, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 111
Something a little different for episode 110 (and also episode 111 so I can keep the length around the one hour mark). The next two episodes are a compilation of all the ten minute question answers from the series so far, in this, the 110th episode (get it?) Not every episode had a ten minute question, such as the retrospectives, but most did, 96 in fact. So I hope you enjoy listening back to this collection and apply some of the tips and tricks offered by the great players who have been on the ...
May 08, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Clint Hoover joins me on episode 109. Clint is originally from Minneapolis and has spent a life immersed in music and the harmonica. He’s reached great heights on both the chromatic and the diatonic. Early on he also studied guitar and saxophone and attended a jazz course in New York City where he also took chromatic lessons from Robert Bonfiglio. His eclectic mix of interests has led him to recording albums in genres from pre-war blues to modern jazz, to rock, pop and World Music. His first rec...
May 01, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 109
