Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 16:00:01 -0400 From: "Air Hero's Studio" Subject: An odd post but one that can translate into why we draw and paint
I wrote this for a harmonic group that I belong to.... the group WAS great then and many of the frequent posters have left or are silent. It is now filled with arguments and egos, short tempers and flames. I was hoping to get them back to being a community instead of a Royal Rumble"
Hope ya like it... its true.
The image is as clear now as it was all of those tears ago. For months my buddies and I would go to this one night spot looking for "hotties" which jumping around a dance floor as if we'd been touched with the hot end on a live electric wire. The music throbbed and was mindless, no one knowing when one song ended and the next began. Some kind of techno-industrial-speed-metal-dance trash. We'd stay until we either scored or our hears exploded from the noise. Funny thing though... when ever we came to this club the place next door always made us pause and listen... and smile. Didn't know WHAT kind of music it was but it was might fine... sweet, soulful... skillful.
One Friday night we rolled into the parking lot like always and the sweet, wailing sounds for the next bar floated over.... at the same time the ground shook from "Club Exit" (its real name) We looked at each other and without speaking a word walked away from Club Exit and into the mystery bar. The air came from another planet... thick, blue and harsh. Lighting was low and small groups of people sat smiling in pools of shadow... chatter was soft and reverent. No one was on stage yet.... it was set up for some sort of small band. We found a corner, ordered drinks and hot chicken wings and studied the faces in the room. Young, old, black, white, men, women...all moving to some song sung in their heads... years of hard work lined their faces but the deepest lines were always the laugh lines. These people were proud, worked HARD all day but played hard too and were quick to laugh, dance or sing themselves. The food came and it was GOOD! We dug in and kept a patter of small talk up. We never saw or head the band go up so to us it was a magic trick... suddenly they were there. Five musician in neat, clean suits but they were well worn. The shoes shone like crystal but had walked many, many miles. There was a thin, while man on base, a muscular man with long hair on drums, The lead guitar player was a mahogany color had a shiny sharkskin suit and big gold ring on, an elderly gentleman with a frizzy halo of white hair sat at a battered electric piano covered in silver duct tape. The lead singer was a neat, majestic man of undeterminable age who's eyes had seen" forever" but who still found joy and laughter. He sat on a stool, in front of him was a standard ball mic on a stand and had an battered amp on one side and a small table with an opened wooden boxed, a glass of beer and an odd mic shaped like the nose of a rocket.
The didn't start playing... they were talking quietly among them selves with the odd chuckle leaking out. We went back to eating a talking when suddenly there was this one long, wailing note that cut the air like a whip lash.... the crowd became silent and the note kept on playing... it exuded sorrow, loneliness, betrayal, loss, grief, struggle... that one note spoke " I have seen every disappointment, every hurt, every broken heart and all of your struggle for life... and I will take it in my arms and carry it way" One note.... one, and it carried the weight of our entire species in it. Every face in the room was lost in their own personal memories... hanging them on that note to be taken away. It seemed like the note wailed for hours.... where did it come from? It was the gentleman on the stool. HIs eyes were closed and the had that odd bullet shaped mic to his face... the gleaming ends of something poked out past his bear-like paws. The note faded into a song... filed with vamps and trills, warbles and wails. It was like a voice... but not quite. He drew his hands away from his face and leaned into the mic on the stand, grinned and boomed out in a raspy, wonderful voice. He sang as if it were the last chance he would ever have to do it again. I don't remember the song but it was filled with life and humor and trouble... the band danced around the words like nothing I had ever heard... he pulled his hands to his face again and the wailing began again sending chills down my spine. The guitar barked and him and he barked back, it then ran across a brook at him and he replied with a waterfall... back and for the instruments talked until the piano decided it was HIS turn to say something... and what a speech it was. He had 100 fingers on each hand and hammer our boogie woogie like John Henry laying track... you could ALMOST see the keys start to melt from the speed.... and The song was over. My jaw hung between my feet and my eye bugged out on stalks like a cartoon. I saw what he had hidden in his big paws behind the bullet mic... it was... it COULDN'T BE!?!.... it was... it was... a HARMONICA! I had one of those in my sock drawer at the back in a box of old coins, pen knives and a fountain pen that didn't work. IWAS MAGIC!!! I remember playing "Old Suzanna" on it for a while and got bored and stashed it away. I would have to take a CLOSER look!
For the rest of the evening we laughed, cheered, danced, and sang along... and my eyes never lets the gentleman with the harmonicas (his wooden box was full of them) after the last set I was determined to know... to understand what the magic was. I slowly, sheepishly walked towards him. He looked up with the warmest smile I had ever seen... probably knew every question ever asked by heart. I said, "Excuse me sir, but what WAS that? That music???" He told me "That's the blues, son... that's the music of life, of livin' and of lovin'" Blues! Never heard of it... but I sure as hell will!!! I asked" Is that a harmonica that you play?" "Shure is... got me a set of them... hard to have blues if you don't have a harp" . "Harp?" What we call a harmonica.. a harp, blues harp" "OH... I have one at home I tried but it didn't sound anything like that!" "Keep playin' till you can make it talk, make it cry, make it laugh , make it moan in passion, scream in rage and pray to the fire on the mount... just keep playing and keep listening to other people" "Blues?" "Blues is best... but jazz, classical, dancing music, country... listen and find the heart of the music and play that."
I left with my friends. We came back all the time and saw some of the BEST blues performers in the 70's Week after week. No cover charge... just drinks and wings or the odd pizza... maybe clam chowder. That one band never came back... to this day I don't know who they were but on THAT day... they were magic to me and started me off on a like's journey.
There WAS a time that this list was part of that magic. I met new friends like Chon Bear, Donnie, MyQuill,Tom Ellis, Dave, Larry.. and a host more. Quick to offer advice, information and a good joke ("GOOD" being the active word) It was a group that held respect to other played beyond their skill levels, everyone began at some point even the best. Sure there were discussions, Wood/plastic, Popper's playing style, TOO mush electronics... "le rif".... but we had fun with them.
What happened? Whe did this become "Ego-L" or "Blow-my-own-horn-L" I don't care WHO you are or how good you might be... if you're that good then you don't have to keep telling people over and over and OVER.... someone ELSE will talk about you.
Also... different choices in style and technique do NOT translate into being a better harp player that someone else. A good mechanic has chest after chest of tools.... may of with he owns but may never choose to use because it doesn't fit the task that he's chosen to do. He's STILL a master mechanic... and has the option of using the other tools if some day he wants to. Another mechanic might use these same tools all of the time... but he works on different machines. Both are masters of their craft and both work on specific machines that they want to. Neither is better... IT'S NOT A CONTEST!!!!
I have heard the "Eastern Euopean" sounds on a harp... that sort of Gypsy sound with a lot of minor notes... it doesn't do much for me. I admire the SKILL it takes but wouldn't play it if I had the choice.
I've only been playing for 5 years.... and YES! I can over-blow. Out of the hundreds of songs I can play, vamp to, solo too, accompany to or "call and respond" I use over-blows maybe 2 or 3 times.
I LIKE TO PLAY BLUES ON HARP!!! I like rock, I like country (some) and R&B and Soul.... on harp. The need to over-blow is minimal. That's my choice. I's WHY I took up the harp, why I try to recreate the magic of that night, why I love and admire Carlos' work, Sugar Blue's work, John Popper's work... I would never WANT to try to duplicate it. Its not the sound that reaches into my heart and should and talks to me.
The people on this list play harp... some are seasoned vets and others and just starting out... all deserve respect and advice.... and everyone here makes a little magic every once in a while.
So PLEASE.... stuff the egos back in the drawer and remember WHY you too up harp.. remember the moments when a certain player, living or dead completely overwhelmed you and the look on the faces on the crowd when your music connects with them and you communicate beyond words.
THAT'S why we play harp.. that's why we're here!
So... what moment got YOU hooked?
Steve - -- AIR HERO'S STUDIO: for samples of illustration, cartooning and rendering: http://www.geocities.com/airheros_studio/
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