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SRBD on tour
I'll start with a quick save the date: my trio, Sir Rod & The Blues Doctors, will be touring this summer. We're about to lock in the second annual Sterling Magee Memorial Celebration in Gulfport, FL on May 20, and we'll be playing Philly on July 15 and the NYC area on July 16, with additional routing dates TBA. Details forthcoming!
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New video(s)
There's a new one, uploaded today, and an almost-new one uploaded on New Years's Day that seems to have touched a nerve and has already garnered more than 10,000 views.
1) Bringing Out Your Inner Beast
2) New Year, New Harmonica – The Ultimate Blues Harp Beginner Video
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New YouTube channel!
Those of you who have been with me from the beginning of my YouTube adventure, back in February 2007, know that after five badly-lit videos set in my then-den, I retreated to the front seat of my car--thereby becoming an inadvertent pioneer of the front-seat social media video. I was exiled to the car by my wife, who swung into the den as I warmed up, cringing, and said "Honey! Not now! The baby is napping." Baby Shaun was less than a year old at that point.
Last week the baby, now a 230-pound, 15 year-old multi-instrumentalist, started his own YouTube channel. It's called Flow Brass--a play on low brass, which is his current purview--and it consists so far of excerpts from three John Phillip Sousa marches in which he's playing a number of different horn parts. They're catchy! But of course Dad would say that.
Please check 'em out. Subscribe if you're so inclined. He's starting small, but he's got big plans.
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Gold Harp Results
I won't bother you with the mechanics of the selection, except to say that the three winners were selected from a huge alphabetized spreadsheet with the help of a random sequence generator. The pool consisted of 1) people on my MBH mailing list who had clicked on at least one link in the past 18 months; and 2) people who signed up for my mailing list after I uploaded the competition video. A total of 6,400 people met these criteria: 5,700 from the link-click side, almost 700 from the competition-subscriber side.
First place winner was Jason Giroux, a Canadian player (from B.C.) who saw my video on the day I uploaded and signed up. Happy guy when he got the news!
Second place and third place...I've searched my emails and can't find them, so I can't give you their names, but second place was somebody who had been a member of my mailing list for more than twelve years, and third place was somebody who had signed up this past July.
Thanks to all who were a part of this! And huge thanks to Hohner for giving me a chance to stage a giveaway--something I hadn't actually done before. It won't be the last.
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Low Blows for Ida
I recently donated a couple of tracks to a project organized by Tom Walbank to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Ida. The participants are a Who's Who of contemporary players, as you can see from the cover image above. Each of us used a low harp to come up with something distinctive.
I rarely play low harps, but given the high caliber of players involved, I figured I needed to dig a little deeper for an original approach. If you've got great ears, an active imagination, and a sense of what's available out there in the way of hardware, you'll figure out what I did. If not, you'll be mystified. (The recording, fwiw, is in the key of C#.)
I did two slightly different takes; Tom decided to use both.
Please sample the album and think bout "purchasing" it, which is to say, donating what you can. All $$$ will be donated by Tom to hurricane victims.
In my humble opinion, what was intended as a charity project ended up turning into an absolute must-have album, one that captures an unusually wide assortment of the very best blues players in the world. This one will, or should be, remembered for a long, long time.
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Channels, Books, Music, Lessons
YOUTUBE CHANNELS:
BOOKS:
MUSIC:
HARMONICA LESSONS:
Modern Blues Harmonica Advanced Beginner's Special
For beginning players who have completed the first handful of lessons on my website (most of which can be found in the "Beginner's Special" and "Beginner's Deluxe") and are ready to commit to the next step, here is a bargain: six video tutorials with the tab sheets thrown in for free. The lessons in this collection continue your education into the world of blues harmonica by teaching you a range of ways of moving through the 12-bar changes--the "blues progression." These include a boogie-woogie (Bittersweet Boogie), a melody drawn from a vocal line (Same Old Blues), a jazzy melody that deliberately breaks across the bar lines (Whistlin' the Blues), a two-beat stomp that uses double stops and chords (Red Dress), a simplified version of a Chicago blues standard (Mojo 1.0), and a rock classic (Rock Around the Clock). There is a method in Gussow's madness! These songs socialize you into the wide and wonderful world of blues musicianship, even as they develop your lip-strength, coordination, and reflexes.
PLEASE NOTE: All these songs are demonstrated using a key of C harmonica, except for Mojo 1.0, which uses a key of A harmonica.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: You do NOT need to know how to bend notes in order to play these songs. This is why they are appropriate for beginners and advanced beginners.
Chicago Blues Classics
For INTERMEDIATES and ADVANCED INTERMEDIATES who want a selection of the best that the Chicago blues tradition has to offer, I've bundled five video tutorials into an easy-to-download zip file, with the tab sheets thrown in for free. Included in this package are Sonny Boy Williamson/Junior Wells ("Checking Up on my Baby"), Junior Wells ("Messing With the Kid"), Big Walter Horton ("Easy"), Paul Butterfield ("Born in Chicago"), and Little Walter/Kim Wilson ("Got My Mojo Working"), all for only $25, a savings of $10 off the item-by-item price.
"Bending the 3 Draw": NOT just for BEGINNERS and ADVANCED BEGINNERS, but for INTERMEDIATES as well. The 3 draw bend--several different bends, actually--is more challenging than 4 draw and 2 draw. I help you extract the deep bluesy sound that lies buried in the harp; I use a guitar to explain exactly which pitches you're trying for and where they're located.
"Harmony for Improvisation": For blues harmonica students in the BEGINNER and ADVANCED BEGINNER category who seek some basic grounding in harmony that will strengthen their understanding of the instrument and improve their abilities as improvisers. INTERMEDIATE players who have neglected this element of their musical education may also find this lesson useful. This zip file includes one QuickTime video plus one jam track in the key of G. There is NO tab sheet with this lesson.
Harp: C
"Upper Octave Boogie": INTERMEDIATE / ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE, although ADVANCED BEGINNERS will be able to get most of it. An original composition that breaks open the upper octave and make it available for further exploration. Please check out the free preview available on either Tradebit page below!
Harp: C
"Buford Chapel Breakdown": a gospel-flavored original blues, with three complete choruses. For ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE and fearless INTERMEDIAT players. This is an exact transcription of what I play on the recording, which can be purchased on iTunes and it part of my debut solo CD, KICK AND STOMP. (Note: This lesson includes a three-chorus extract from the original recording, so you can hear exactly what I do in the studio.)
harp: Bb
"Help Me": This is arguably Sonny Boy Williamson's best-known song--a harmonica blues staple of blues bands and jam sessions the world over. An amazing amount of harmonica knowledge is packed into this 12-bar solo: warbles, angular triplets, chuck-chuck accents. For INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE players.
"St. Louis Blues": This is the most famous blues song in the world, bar none. W.C. Handy's 1914 hit deserves a serious blues harp arrangement; this is it. An incredible value, this lesson focuses on a four-page tab (the longest currently offered at MBH): three 12-bar verses with that distinctive, Latin-flavored, 16-bar, minor-key bridge thrown in. This is a really cool solo performance piece. (NOTE: The second verse contains several 6 hole overblows. If you're not an overblower, you can simply repeat the first verse.)
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That's all for now. Stay healthy and be cool. I'll meet you on the far side.
--Adam
P.S. As a few of you know, I finally relented almost two years ago, got a Twitter handle (@AdamGussow), and went live in September 2020. Although I occasionally share blues harmonica stuff there, my usual Tweet has more to do with politics and cultural politics. I consider myself a fact-based liberal moderate with a heart that leans progressive who has, over the past little while, been forced as a matter of personal integrity to tack a bit more towards the center. (I'm neither woke nor anti-woke, but yes: John McWhorter does speak for me, now that you ask.) If get what I'm talking about and are a fan of ideological battle, by all means check out my Twitter feed. If you'd prefer to steer clear of that particular sort of drama, along with occasional offbeat bird and animal videos and COVID-19 updates from leading research scientists, please avoid my Twitter feed at all costs and know that you have my blessings for that.
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