WestView

Lady Plays the Blues

April 2009, by L. Lynch

Funny, you don’t look like a harmonica player

When it comes to being traditional - adj. conforming to tradition, being conventional- count me out. I never really understood nor adhered to most of our basic traditions, including big weddings, owning a home, striving toward retirement and Thanksgiving turkey. I’m single, I rent, I strive to work and I don’t like turkey. I’m a kooky-haired blonde who has lived in the West Village for 35 years. I bump into people in the neighborhood who think they know me, but they don’t. They’ve probably just seen me around, either playing music, taking photographs or stumbling home. Thirty-five years is a long time.

Then there is the second definition of traditional: of a style of improvised blues/jazz associated historically with early black musicians. Count me in. I’m all tradition. When friends or students say well, you’re not black. I point to my head and say, “I’ve got black roots, don’t I?” Then I’ll play my harp. Blues is the music of the heart and soul. It makes you feel better when you’re down and out, lost in love, or just waiting to hop the next freight train.

The first week of February, I was contacted by a woman telling me she wanted to give her boyfriend blues harmonica lessons for Valentine’s Day. “He loves the blues and always talks about wanting to learn to play blues. All I hear about is blues harmonica,” she wrote. I explained to her my adherence to traditional blues music. No problem. “He loves the blues,” she insisted.

I learned to play harmonica listening to early traditional blues. Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Hammie Nixon to name a few. By poring over their records, I eventually was able to play blues on that little pocket-held, ten-hole, diatonic harmonica and make it roar. Without the feel, the notes ain’t real. It’s an instrument based on emotion.

Blues players have evolved over the last decade with some not wanting to be associated with only the sounds of the Old Blues Masters, preferring to create their own styles based on lightning-fast riffs and over-blows. But the tradition is there. That’s how they make the leap.

The Hohner Marine Band Harmonica is the most famous harmonica in the world. It’s the one recognized internationally by players for its simple beauty and resonant tone. The pearwood body, solid brass plates and patented cover design produce a musical quality that, when first heard in 1896, brought the Marine Band immediate popularity. This is the model that helped to create the sound of the blues, country, folk and rock. If you look at old blues record covers and CDs, it’s a Marine Band 1896 that these guys are playing. It’s what they played working in the fields down South and in the muddy waters of the Delta.

Last month, I finally heard from the young man whose girlfriend booked lessons with me. He e-mailed me, saying, “My goals are to be able to learn ‘Happy Birthday’ and maybe one other song. How long and how many lessons do you think this would take?”

Go figure.

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