Winslow Yerxa interview

01:38 - Winslow is from Canada, where his family has been since 1784, with the Yerxa name descending from the Netherlands

02:35 - Now lives in San Francisco

02:55 - First heard the harmonica from the blues rock bands of the 1960s

03:48 - Went to music school and moved to San Francisco, joining first band which used African and Caribbean rhythms

04:03 - Heard Scottish and French Canadian music and joined the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers club, playing harmonica with them

05:29 - This club helped developed Winslow’s playing of traditional music, how to read from notation and which harmonicas to use

06:01 - Recorded the album Harmonica: Northern Traditions Reimagined album in 2006, of traditional tunes

07:26 - Studied voice at music college (wasn’t allowed to study the harmonica)

07:42 - Started out playing blues harmonica, after converting from playing an electric kazoo

09:37 - The Tony Glover Blues Harmonica book was an early source of learning about the different blues harmonica players, but that book had some inaccuracies

10:14 - Received first Marine Band as a Christmas present at a young age

10:27 - Was always interested to learn more about harmonicas, and that has led on to gathering the knowledge that he has gone on to share widely with the harmonica community

10:55 - Picked up playing the harmonica quickly and listened to great players as part of learning, including chromatic players

11:49 - Learnt diatonic and chromatic at the same time

12:01 - Initially learnt third position blues on chromatic

12:25 - The great tonal varieties of Larry Adler

12:54 - Heard Tommy Reilly playing at a young age, the theme on a Canadian children’s TV show

13:52 - SPAH, founded in 1963 in Detroit by members of the Ford motor company, was initially focused on the chromatic harmonica

14:21 - Different harmonica clubs still exist in the US and the chromatic versus diatonic SPAH wars

15:52 - Winslow takes part in a number of harmonica ensembles

16:40 - Sophisticated pieces for harmonica bands are available

17:22 - Usually plays chromatic in the harmonica bands, and occasionally some bass and chord

17:42 - Winslow was the President of SPAH from 2012-2015 and what that involved, including the yearly conventions and the SPAH magazine

18:55 - How Winslow became President of SPAH

20:48 - SPAH convention is still well attended despite the impact of Covid on in-person get togethers

21:07 - Winslow is still involved with SPAH, on the youth and entertainment committees

22:03 - Harmonica UK and the name change from the National Harmonica League and the UK magazine

23:02 - Winslow is the author of the books: Harmonica for Dummies and Blues Harmonica for Dummies

24:16 - The Dummies series involves very intensive writing

25:46 - Harmonica For Dummies is written for diatonic, covering different styles

26:25 - Lots of online resources for learning now, meaning learning from books is less appealing

27:10 - Floated the idea of a Chromatic Harmonica For Dummies book but publisher didn’t think it would sell enough

27:43 - How to monetise online content, and successful examples such as Liam Ward, Tomlin Leckie, Ronnie Shellist and Jason Ricci

28:27 - Winslow does have a good YouTube channel of harmonica content

28:36 - Published the Harmonica Information Publication magazine from 1992-1997

29:09 - The initial idea for the magazine came from transcriptions Winslow had made of Toots Thielemans solos, and was in discussion with Toots about creating an instructional book with Toots

30:07 - Put the out HIP magazine by himself at first to prevent the same writers always being published

30:57 - The HIP magazines are available to buy from Winslow’s website

31:13 - Might publish the Toots Thielemans interviews that he did

31:48 - Winslow was a strong contributor to early harmonica forums, such as the harp-l email forum (founded in 1992 by Chris Pierce at Western Kentucky University)

32:56 - Composes songs which he releases via YouTube and Bandcamp, using lots of different types of harmonica

34:33 - Creates videos, often with narration over the top

35:25 - There It Stood song is played in 6th position

35:53 - Made some jazz recordings with a violin player

37:17 - Has made a series of YouTube videos on the JDR Trochilus / Bushman Gamechanger harmonica, which comes in three different tunings

37:37 - The blue JDR Trochilus / Bushman Gamechanger tuning explained

38:22 - The yellow JDR Trochilus / Bushman Gamechanger tuning explained

38:59 - The red JDR Trochilus / Bushman Gamechanger tuning explained

41:44 - Plays lots of different types of harmonica, with the JDR Trochilus / Bushman Gamechanger adding to that list

42:10 - The XB40 and harmonica players wanting the same form factor

43:15 - The Hohner Pentaharp

43:45 - More on the XB40

45:18 - Teaches harmonica online and in-person and also taught at the Berklee School of Music until Covid curtailed that

46:02 - Ran the Harmonica Collective camp with Jason Ricci, with the last one being run in 2018

48:00 - Ten minute question

49:37 - Uses special tunings and is interested in the chords they can produce

49:58 - No favoured brand of harmonica, as wants to remain impartial as an online reviewer and why doesn’t endorse any brand

51:01 - Uses overblows and learnt about the in the 1970s from Will Scarlett and the arrival of Howard Levy

52:03 - Toots Thielemans recorded overblows in the 1960s

52:25 - Alternative tunings can get you the missing notes but still sometimes nice to get the sound of an overblow

52:34 - Roland van Straaten use of overblows

53:24 - Embouchre: tongue blocking and puckering and corner switching, and briefly experimented with u-blocking

54:56 - Amps: has a clean amp and a Digitech pedal

55:37 - Mics: uses a vocal mic such as the Shure SM58, and recently bought a Blows Me Away Productions SM57

56:16 - Adds effects post-production when recording

56:38 - Future plans include more YouTube videos and instructional material

56:57 - Videos of the ‘Bunch O Guys’ recordings made at SPAH in 1997 with Joe Filisko, Dennis Gruenling, Larry Eisenberg and Chris Michalek, among others