In the mid-1800s, a German harmonica manufacturer named Hohner started exporting his product to North America. Being relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to play and extremely portable, the ...

Blues harmonica master Carey Bell died on May 6 of heart failure in his hometown of Chicago. He was 70. Bell – the 1998 winner of the Blues Music Award for Traditional Male Artist Of The Year – was a ...

Anyone can play a harmonica. You blow out, you draw in, attempt a chord. It sounds like something, but it’s probably not blues harp. Where guitar slingers dazzle and sting, harp players spend time in ...

Pairing harmonica with guitar can unlock a richer, more soulful blues sound. From classic 12-bar shuffles to expressive bends, the combination offers endless creative possibilities. With the right ...

Among the harmonica’s many wonderful and unique traits, there is this: You have to really suck to be good at it. As one of America’s finest and busiest harmonica players, Denver’s Ronnie Shellist ...

Mark Hummel didn’t set out to be an impresario. He had no burning ambition to corner the market on the world’s greatest blues harmonica players. But after getting a bracing shot of energy from ...

When my music makes someone happy, helps them unwind, relax and have fun, it is a greater achievement and fulfillment than any award I can receive. Born and raised on the prairies in the small farm ...

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, ... Telarc Blues culls their considerable holdings to provide a wholly satisfying collection of contemporary blues harmonica by contemporary and ...

Bill Tarsha and the Rocket 88s led the 18th annual blues harmonica blowout last week at the Rhythm Room. More than 35 blues harmonica players performed. Tarsha and his band opened with a couple tunes.

If you ask James Montgomery if he remembers playing the Shaboo inn in Willimantic back in the day — the legendary local club that closed in 1982 — he’ll hem and haw and scratch his head and say “The ...

Paul Green has that Clark Kent thing going. By day, he is a mild-mannered consultant, at night, a blues harmonica superhero. No need to leap tall buildings when he can channel Paul Butterfield and ...