Season 1

Bertram Becher joins me on episode 58. Bertram is the Product Manager at Seydel harmonicas. He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called The Interactive Blues Harp Work...

Mathias Heise joins me on episode 57. Mathias is a chromatic player from Copenhagen in Denmark. He started out playing diatonic, aged eight, before moving across to the chromatic, with which he was the first player to attend ...

RJ Mischo joins me on episode 56. RJ hails from the twin cities of Minneapolis-St Paul, where he developed his craft with a little help from local player Slim Lynwood. He then teamed up with Mojo Buford to perform around the ...

Jim Conway joins me on episode 55. Jim is an Australian harmonica player who rose to fame at the age of 19 in the jug band: The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, with the first two albums from the band receiving gold record stat...

Tom Ball joins me on episode 54. From Los Angeles, but long time resident of Santa Barbara, he started playing guitar in the popular local folk scene before Sonny Terry turned him on to the sound of acoustic harmonica. He the...

Billy Boy Arnold joins me on episode 53. Today we have a little part of blues harmonica history, as Billy lived through the heyday of the blues in Chicago and was a peer of the many great players at the time, being born just ...

Rick Estrin joins me on episode 52. Rick grew up in San Francisco and starting sitting in with bands in the city. He was friends with Jerry Portnoy, who persuaded him to spend some time in Chicago. Here he met many of the ha...

Richard Gjems joins me on episode 51. Richard hails from Norway, with its many blues clubs demonstrating how popular the music is there. Richard is a real student of the blues, and the place of the harmonica within it, and he...

Magic Dick joins me on episode 50. Magic Dick created one of the all time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whammer Jammer. But his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that. He started playing trumpet ...

Rory Mcleod joins me on episode 49. Rory is a modern day wandering minstrel . A multi-instrumentalist ‘folk singing’ troubadour, Rory has travelled far and wide, his trusty harmonica (plus an assortment of other instruments) ...

Cy Leo joins me on episode 48. Leo is from Hong Kong, where he started learning to play classical chromatic harmonica from age 6, under the direction of his father, who is an accomplished player himself, having won the ensemb...

Jason Rosenblatt joins me on episode 47. A native of Canada but now resident in Israel, Jason is best known for his band Shtreiml, playing a mixture of Klezmer (Jewish) and Eastern European music with great use of the harmoni...

Greg Heumann joins me on episode 46. The focus of this episode is all about gear, as I talk to the founder of BlowsMeAway Productions. Greg has released an album of his own and uses his knowledge of playing harmonica to under...

Tony Eyers joins me on episode 45. Tony is an Australian who first picked up the harmonica while studying at Yale in the US. Returning from America he started a successful blues band in Adelaide. He also plays baroque recorde...

Adam Burney joins me on episode 44. Adam is a south London boy, from Croydon. A stint playing with the punk bands of this area has helped shape his sound with an edge of Blues punk, including in his own band, The Brothers of ...

David Naiditch joins me on episode 43. After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with a touring Sonny Terry, David developed himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing Bluegrass music on the ch...

Hermine Deurloo joins me on episode 42. Hermine is a Dutch female chromatic harmonica player who grew up to the sound of master jazz player Toots Thielemans. After studying saxophone at the Amsterdam Conservatory, she picked ...

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...

Bob Corritore joins me on episode 40. Bob grew up around Chicago and absorbed the best blues scene in the world, attending the blues clubs in his youth, seeing his harmonica heroes in action and befriending many of them. He m...

Mat Walklate joins me on episode 39. Mat is based in Manchester and has worked as a professional musician throughout his life, playing mainly blues and traditional music using a variety of harmonicas. He started out with a lo...

Will Galison joins me on episode 38. Will first picked up the chromatic harmonica when studying guitar at the Berklee College of Music. He quickly realised he had an affinity with the instrument, and after spending a day wit...

Rick Epping joins me on episode 37. Rick worked for Hohner USA for 18 years and played a pivotal role in improving the quality of their harmonicas back to their former glory. While at Hohner, he also developed the XB40, the a...

Mark Hummel joins me on episode 36. Mark is a West Coast blues harp player who has put out some great harmonica songs in his catalogue of over 30 albums. A real connoisseur of the Blues, he has drawn inspiration from a wide r...

Robert Bonfiglio shares with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player. After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player, Cham Ber Huang, and another 12 y...