Season 1

Charlie Musselwhite grew up in Memphis, rubbing shoulders with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Work took him north to Chicago were he discovered the South Side blues scene, where he befriended several legends of the blues harm...

British Chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26. Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musici...

Sugar Blue has certainly pushed the boundaries of the harmonica, with his rapid fire licks, lots of high end runs and gorgeous tone. It was perhaps his early jazz influences that shaped his distinctive sound, although there i...

Grant Dermody first picked up the harp in Alaska, where he emulated the greats before developing his own acoustic sound playing American roots music. He played as a session man on various albums before releasing the first of ...

Chromatic player, Antonio Serrano, is the current SPAH harmonica player of the year. And with good reason. Antonio’s father was a great influence on the fledgling harmonica player. And Antonio met Larry Adler at a young age, ...

Mark Feltham grew up with a love of country music and just knew he had to play harp when he heard Stone Fox Chase on the UK music programme, Old Grey Whistle test. As he entered the London music scene …

Mickey Raphael started out playing on the Dallas folk scene before meeting with Willie Nelson at a jam session. Forty six years later, Mickey has toured the world with Willie. Alongside that, Mickey has enjoyed great recordin...

Jerry Portnoy joins me on episode 20 of the podcast. Jerry grew up with the sounds of Maxwell street in his ears. It took him a few years to pick up the harp, but when he did he enjoyed a …

John is a harmonica repairer and customiser. Following years of experience as a toolmaker John moved into repairing musical instruments, initially for woodwind instruments, before tapping into a rich vein of work repairing ha...

Mick Kinsella started out as a drummer before moving across to the harmonica to pursue his love of traditional music. Skilled in the use of both the diatonic and chromatic, Mick played on numerous sessions before releasing hi...

Gregoire Maret is a chromatic player, originally from Switzerland. After studying jazz at the New School in New York, Gregoire went on to play with some of the biggest names in jazz: from Jimmy Scott to Cassandra Wilson, Pat ...

Rachelle Plas is a French player who learnt her craft at an early age in group lessons provided by Greg Zlap in Paris. She won various competitions at French music festivals which led on to her touring Europe and beyond …

Michael D’Eath is the President of the American harmonica organisation SPAH. He tells us what SPAH is all about and the many benefits it brings to its members. The SPAH convention is one of the biggest events on the harmonica...

Howard Levy is known to be the pioneer of overblows on the diatonic harmonica, but his music shouldn’t be defined merely by the use of this technical tool. Starting out as a piano player, he first started using overblows to …

Lee Oskar left his native Denmark to move to the US at age 18, and was soon enjoying phenomenal success with the rock funk band War, interweaving soulful harmonica lines into the horn section. Lee also has numerous solo album...

A grammy award winner, Peter Madcat Ruth has enjoyed a long career, from playing jazz with the Brubecks, to numerous solo projects and playing in various bands and duos and trios. Madcat has loved Sonny Terry from the start a...

Brendan Power is my guest today. A true visionary of harmonica design, Brendan takes us under the hood of the instrument he has revolutionised with his alternative tunings and new designs, all helping him make some great harm...

Always looking to push himself in new directions, Carlos has released an eclectic mixture of genres across the range of his albums. But each song is underpinned with his great sounding fusion of blues / jazz harmonica, with a...

PT Gazell developed his melodic style of harmonica through playing a range of genres, from Bluegrass, to Pop, Country and Jazz. After his iconic first album, Pace Yourself, he became a session musician and toured with Country...

Charlie McCoy is the leading figure in Country harmonica playing, where he joined the Nashville scene in 1961. With over 13000 sessions to his name, Charlie is probably the most recorded harmonica artist of all time. Although...

Rod Piazza developed his exciting brand of West coast jump harmonica in Southern California, where he formed his own band before joining forces with George Harmonica Smith, to form Bacon Fat. Two harps, what a sound! Rod has ...

Kim Wilson is without doubt one of the great harmonica players around today. He grew up within the vibrant music scene in California, learning his chops on the bandstand, which he hasn't got off since, touring extensively all...

Joe Filisko has made the study of the harmonica his lifelong passion. His detailed knowledge of early recordings has helped him become the pre-eminent pre-war harmonica player of our time. He built his knowledge of the harmon...

Billy Branch is a Chicago blues harp player who grew up learning directly from some of the classic generation of Chicago players, such as Carey Bell, James Cotton and Junior Wells. And he played in Willie Dixons band for 6 …