Mikael Backman interview

01:23 - Mikael is from Pitea, in northern Sweden

01:42 - Mainly a Blues and country diatonic harmonica player, although plays some chromatic too

02:02 - Charlie McCoy is one of Mikael’s big inspirations

02:30 - Mikael started playing harmonica in the late 1980s after hearing Sonny Terry playing on the Crossroads movie

03:29 - Plays some bass, but harmonica is main instrument

03:55 - Plays a little bass harmonica

04:09 - Teaches music at the university in Pitea, and has taught since 2001

04:37 - First band was Ramblin’ Minds, formed in 1995, releasing six albums and still going strong

05:21 - Plenty of live music in Pitea, although not specifically a blues scene

06:09 - Ramblin’ Minds has some blues with Swedish lyrics by Ronny Eriksson

07:15 - Formed the band John Henry in 2008, inspired to play Bluegrass by the movie: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

07:44 - Went to SPAH for first time around 2008 and heard Buddy Greene playing country harmonica

08:14 - John Henry band won the Swedish Bluegrass championships in 2009 and 2012, and also played Old Timey

08:37 - Bluegrass style on harmonica including contributing to the rhythmic drive and melodic style of playing

09:19 - For bluegrasses mixes the country style of Charlie McCoy with playing chordal approaches

09:57 - John Henry band started playing country music later after addition of electric guitar and pedal steel guitar

10:42 - Added Western Swing to the genres of the John Henry band

11:07 - Western Swing is a form of Jazz played with typical country music style instruments

12:17 - Western Swing harmonica has lots of improvisation and also arranged parts played with other instruments

13:08 - Draws inspiration from other instruments to play Western Swing, as well as the playing of Charlie McCoy

13:56 - Plays chromatic, although uses more diatonic in the John Henry band

14:27 - Done a lot of work as a sideman

14:45 - When playing with female vocalists often in the same range, so have to pick what you play carefully

15:02 - Link to full playlist of Mikael’s recording output available on podcast page

15:17 - Much of session work has been recorded with previous music students he has taught at the university

15:52 - Two former students are Mike Fall and Joel Andersson and Joel has done some harmonica customisation work for Mikael

16:08 - Performed an online concert with Mike Fall at SPAH 2020 and at SPAH 2022 in Tulsa

16:47 - Mikael has conducted various academic studies of the harmonica as part of his work at the Piteå School of Music

17:01 - Completed a Masters in Music Education at the Piteå School of Music and started teaching there as part of that

17:18 - Was able to have harmonica as main instrument on the course as the university wanted to diversify the type of instruments taught from the most common ones

18:12 - Had to work at music theory for the teaching position

18:19 - Mikael was able to travel to the US for harmonica tuition as part of the university course, learning with Howard Levy and Robert Bonfiglio and going to some SPAH conventions

18:56 - First studied with Howard Levy, spending three days with him

19:26 - Learnt chromatic with Robert Bonfiglio, including tongue switching

19:42 - Learning music theory has been very beneficial to his harmonica playing, with playing by ear having some limitations

20:31 - Completed a Masters Degree in Musical Performance in 2017, including a thesis on ‘One Lick - Two Harps: How can practicing the chromatic harmonica make me a better diatonic player and vice versa?’

22:04 - The thesis is available online including music clips of the same lick on diatonic and chromatic

23:04 - Used a C diatonic and a C chromatic and played licks only in the key of G

23:53 - Also did some recordings with the John Henry band as part of the Masters Degree in Musical Performance

24:50 - Before completing this thesis had mainly played third position blues style chromatic

25:18 - Went on to complete a PhD on understanding of how performers can develop and/or transform their artistic voice through the process of transcribing and imitating an iconic musician (Charlie McCoy)

26:40 - Completed the PhD in 2024

26:58 - A large part of the PhD was to study the licks of Charlie McCoy and has written a paper on Charlie McCoy, published in the International country Music Journal 2022

27:33 - As part of the PhD transcribed the first thirteen of Charlie McCoy’s albums and learned to play the transcriptions

28:23 - Transcriptions were mostly hand written, but has put some of them into musical notation and the transcriptions are available online

29:15 - Neil has done transcriptions, which are available at the Harp Transcripts website

29:42 - Real value of doing transcriptions is putting the work into transcribing the songs yourself

30:11 - As part of the PhD Mikael interviewed Charlie McCoy, Buddy Greene and Mike Caldwell and discovered they all move their jaw when playing an adjacent hole, which brings speed

31:31 - Charlie McCoy recorded with Mikael on the John Henry album Lucky Luck

32:01 - The idea for the Lucky Luck album grew out of the PhD project and it was recorded in the same studio Charlie McCoy recorded many of his albums (Cinderella Sound Studios)

33:00 - Charlie McCoy played mainly bass, but also harmonica on two tracks some vibes on one song

34:28 - Charlie McCoy has been interviewed on the podcast and is a lovely guy and a great pro

34:47 - Charlie McCoy invented the Nashville numbering system and Mikael shared notations of the Lucky Luck album songs with Charlie ahead of the recordings

35:14 - The Nashville numbering system writes numbers for chords

36:27 - Jazz chord numbering uses roman numerals, which is a different system

36:48 - Nashville Yodelling Blues song from Lucky Luck album, which imitates Charlie McCoy ‘yodelling’ on the harmonica

38:02 - Charlie McCoy uses a jaw flick to play yodels on harmonica, so Mikael does the same

38:51 - Another song from Lucky Luck album is Oklahoma, which is about Mikael’s visit to Tulsa, and what it used to be

39:41 - Two guest musicians who perform on the song are from the band Time Jumpers

39:59 - Has created some YouTube videos talking through some of the harmonica parts on songs from the Lucky Luck album

40:23 - Uses country tuning (originally invented by Charlie McCoy) on some songs

40:45 - Mikael has come up with the Western Swing harmonica tuning

41:11 - Advantage of country tuning is the major 7th and being able to bend it down to the flat 7th

41:50 - One advantage of Western Swing tuning

42:49 - Western Swing tuning has 5 draw raised a semitone (as per country tuning) and also the 7 blow raised a semitone, which is a blow bend as per 8-10 blow holes

44:01 - Not aware of anyone else using this tuning yet

44:47 - Ten minute question

45:34 - Uses overblows sparingly

46:14 - Played on the ‘MS-Blows’ album, along with some US players, to raise money for Jimmy Gordon, who developed Multiple Sclerosis

47:32 - Did a presentation in 2022 in Brussels on the diatonic playing style of Toots Thielemans

47:57 - Toots played diatonic over a ten year period, from 1967-1977

48:18 - Toots was a pioneer of overblows, discovering them himself during this time

48:49 - Rob Paparazzi verified that Toots did play some overblows when Mikael talked with Rob

49:30 - Toots may well have been the first person to ever record a 4 hole overblow on Midnight Blues, with the Bert Paige orchestra

49:41 - Toots discovered overblows at the same time Howard Levy and Will Scarlett started playing them, and they didn’t know the others were playing them

50:21 - Toots probably stopped playing diatonic as he was recording less sessions, where he may have used diatonic at the request of the studio

50:59 - Interview in a documentary where Toots references overblows without calling them that

51:23 - There is a book coming out in a year or so about Toot’s harmonica life, where Mikael has written a chapter on Toots playing overblows

51:39 - Plays Hohner Marine Band and Crossover diatonics, Hohner Ace 48, Meisterklasse and Super 64X for chromatics

52:16 - Has a chromatic made by Joel Andersson

52:24 - Uses fifth position when playing minor country songs

53:00 - Uses some third position on the Western Swing tuning, which provides a major scale

53:30 - Embouchre: mainly tongue blocks, which is unusual for country style as that is typically pucker, but Mikael uses a lot of corner switching, which suits tongue blocking

54:00 - Mics: uses Audio Fireball for clean playing

54:20 - Sonny Junior amp when playing blues, the first model with four eight inch speakers

54:32 - Has some vintage mics but has been using the Hohner Harp Blaster HB52 dynamic mic recently, liking the small size for cupping

55:42 - Effects: sometimes a little reverb either via a pedal or added by the sound technician

56:08 - For country and western swing goes for a clean sound through the PA, and likes to record using a ribbon mic

56:43 - Future plans include more studies of the harmonica and the Toots book which is to be released

57:11 - Also contributed to a book about the song Amazing Grace, which has reached it’s 250th anniversary, about why it is so popular with harmonica players

57:21 - Mikael performed Amazing Grace at a conference in the place where the song was composed and first played in Olney, England

58:22 - Mikael is truly a doctor of the harmonica