Ross Garren interview

01:31 - Ross was a guest on the Paul deLay retrospective on episode 120

01:43 - Ross lives near Los Angeles, which has helped him tap into the movie session work there

02:10 - Originally moved to LA for college, but not to study music, and didn’t know would become a professional musician at that stage

02:51 - Has lots of great recording credits to his name already, at the tender age of 39

03:08 - Plays numerous types of harmonica, but first instrument was piano and composes and produces records

03:24 - Harmonica was also around from a young age, which he first thought of as a toy

03:44 - Took lessons on piano

03:57 - Really connected with harmonica from age 12

04:16 - Played other instruments when young: violin, saxophone and trombone

04:22 - How piano playing informed his harmonica playing

04:41 - Ross is an analytical person and the piano can feed into that

05:28 - Diatonic was first harmonica and enjoyed figuring out how to play it without the masses of material for piano

06:32 - Had classical piano lessons

06:36 - Knew two guys where he grew up, one who guided him on diatonic and another on chromatic, who played with the Sharp Harp group based in San Jose

07:54 - Did Ross learn differently on harmonica coming from classical piano knowledge

08:18 - Early on had heard Adam Gussow, Carlos del Junco and Howard Levy but overblowing was not well known at the time (in the 1990s)

08:45 - Most of players Ross admired early on were the classic blues players and Stevie Wonder and Toots Thielemans

08:58 - On chromatic loved the playing of Stevie Wonder, who plays melodically and not hugely complex

09:25 - Moved away from playing harmonica for a few years when started playing more complex music

10:22 - Started getting interested in jazz and fusion at this time and became frustrated with the difficulties of playing in different keys on a C chromatic

11:28 - Got back into harmonica in early to mid-twenties used the knowledge gained to use the harmonica more effectively

11:54 - Had some lessons with David Barrett on diatonic harmonica

12:58 - David Barrett gave Ross the opportunity to start teaching harmonica at some of his workshops and providing transcriptions for some of his books

13:36 - Went through David Barrett’s accreditation programme

13:59 - Ross has created an overblow series on the BluesHarmonica.com website, for using overblows in traditional blues playing

15:06 - Still uses overblows to enhance his blues playing, but isn’t an expert overblow player, preferring the chromatic at times for this purpose

15:27 - Uses the Gamechanger harmonica, which is a diatonic with a slide, allowing chromaticism

15:41 - Uses Brendan Power’s overblower booster, modified further by Kinya Pollard, allowing use of overblows without setting up diatonics specifically for overblows

17:48 - Andre LaFosse description of Ross’s playing stylesl: "Ross Garren’s sound world is a meeting of vintage Americana, retro-futurism, classic songcraft and whimsical surrealism."

18:11 - Ross got into session work ‘unintentionally’

18:39 - Studied music composition and jazz piano at college, and when left college was teaching piano and doing gigs on piano

19:04 - Was not playing harmonica at this time

20:06 - Got a gig with an old friend, playing some harmonica at the Monterrey Blues festival

20:35 - Used Seydel harmonicas for Monterrey gig

21:02 - Playing harmonica brought some stress relief from music career in LA

22:22 - Took some lessons with Winslow Yerxa and got exposure to bass harmonica and other types of harmonica

22:51 - Video of Ross accompanying Alex Paclin with bass and chord harmonicas

23:21 - When first started playing again it was on diatonic at first, with chromatic coming a few years later

24:04 - Has done lots of great session work, including with Beyonce earlier in 2024

25:41 - In the Beyonce session they wanted a Little Walter vibe. There was no tube amp, but they managed to find a retro speaker

27:30 - Didn’t get to meet Beyonce but thinks she gave her seal of approval to the harmonica parts

28:04 - Often harmonica used in pop tracks in quite minimal, and in some cases you almost wouldn’t recognise it as harmonica

28:45 - What people want from different recording sessions varies between traditional harmonica playing to more of a layered approach

30:11 - Ross was employed as a bass harmonica player as part of a woodwind section on the Bon Iver album

31:45 - Has made some great chromatic recording sessions

32:18 - Played chromatic on song Something That Matters, from an album which won an Emmy for best TV theme on Palm Royale

33:30 - Has played on some big movies, including Logan, Flowers of the Moon, and the new Joker: Folie a Deux movie

34:01 - Ross seems to be the man they call for session work around LA, taking on the mantle left by Tommy Morgan, and did some work with Tommy Morgan

35:02 - Kim Wilson gets some of the more bluesy session work in that area whereas Ross gets more of the Tommy Morgan type sessions

35:56 - Ross plays in an roots meets electronica duo The Sheriffs of Schroedingham

37:06 - Ross has improved his music production skills

37:29 - New release on Bandcamp: On Winds and Reeds and Very Old Trees, mainly produced and mixed by Ross

39:30 - Has eclectic tastes and has enjoyed playing and creating varied types of music

40:28 - Doesn’t play a lot of concerts under own name

41:25 - Ross lists many of the great sessions he’s recorded on his website

41:42 - Wrote a series of articles for the UK National Harmonica League magazine: Reeds for the Record, focused on recording approaches

43:18 - Ten minute question

44:19 - Spent some time with Bill Barrett and his playing of the chromatic contrapuntally (counterpoint)

45:04 - Has ‘informally’ been taking lessons from Joe Filisko, tone production and the harmonica train

45:44 - Diatonic of choice: played Seydel for a long time and recently been using Kinya Pollard custom Hohner harmonicas

46:45 - Chromatics: Suzuki Sirius 64

47:26 - Uses Brendan Power’s Slider Bass Harp on a Suzuki bass harp

47:35 - The Gamechanger harmonica, a diatonic with a slide, which Kinya Pollard is distributing

49:43 - The Gamechanger could be similar to the Morbendz discussed episode 113

49:57 - Embouchre: uses different ones at different times, including U bend occasionally

50:30 - Mainly tongue blocks on 16 hole chromatic and puckers on 12 hole

51:08 - Amps: favourite tone produced on an album was from a small 1940s Gibson amp

51:43 - Not too picky with amps when playing live: playing through the PA or from his collection of small amps

52:18 - Sometimes records cleanly and then adds effects in post-production

52:30 - Played through Dave Barrett’s Masco PA head, which blew him away and bought something similar. This the type reputedly used by Little Walter

52:54 - Likes the traditional Chicago Blues sound

53:11 - Mics: used Ultimate 57 for a while, now uses the Lone Wolf Jason Ricci mic

53:29 - Has a collection of bullet mics, mainly purchased via Simple Mics

53:54 - Likes to take more robust mics on the road, which can be replaced like for like

54:15 - Often uses a SM58 dynamic mic

54:43 - Future plans

55:15 - Recently played a solo harmonica show, which he really enjoyed

55:27 - Been playing with neighbour (Nathan James), the blues guitarist from James Harman band, and has played with Kim Wilson Southern Californian harp players

56:22 - Will be recording harmonica on an upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, emulating Dylan’s style of harmonica