Announcing the SPAH Award Nominations 2017!
Every year, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) accepts nominations for a few awards that represent great contributions to the harmonica, the music it makes, and the people who support it. Those awards include: The Bernie Bray Harmonica Player of…
How I recorded the big harmonicas that light up “Make the Noiseâ€
Sometimes it takes years to write a song. I wrote the first draft of some of the lyrics to “Make the Noise,†the leadoff song on my record “The Lucky One,†15 or so years ago for a piece called “In the Time of Your…
How I Recorded the Effected Chromatic Harps for My Instrumental Love Song “Deeper”
I released my first recorded version of “Deeper” in 2002-3, when I had just started a series of monthly releases of free original pieces for harmonica. The recording of this song that I made for my record “The Lucky One” represents the first time that…
How I recorded the alien harmonica on my cover of Morphine’s “Early to Bed”
I love Morphine–the band, not the dope. I also loved Treat Her Right, Mark Sandman’s band prior to Morphine, with harmonica and vocal ace Jimmy Fitting (now performing with Session Americana in Boston) among others filling out the roster. Both bands featured unconventional instrumentation, Treat…
How I Wrote and Recorded “Why Should I Make History”
How I wrote “Why Should I Make History” Thanks for checking out my series on the harps and FX I used to record “The Lucky One!” If you haven’t heard the rest of the pieces in this series, check the record out on CDBaby. I’ve…
The Harps and FX I Used to Record “96 Tears”
“96 Tears,” the cover song that closes my record “The Lucky One,” is a perfect teenage-stupid song about unrequited love (and self-pity, of course–it’s a teenage-stupid song!). The original is as messy (the organist makes an outright mistake at one point, and the structure is…
How I Recorded “Vivid”
“Vivid (Hurt and Far)” is the only piece on “The Lucky One” that uses nothing more than reverb and delay on the harmonica, and while there are three harmonica parts on the record, they’re all performed using the same (uneffected) chromatic harmonica in C (a…
The Harps and Gear I Used to Record “50 Grand”
“50 Grand” is the only piece on my record “The Lucky One” that has something close to a standard 12-bar blues structure. I broke up the 12-bar form with a vamp that includes a cool harmonica horn section, and the lyric structure–unlike a typical blues–does…
How I recorded “The Road Out of Here”
“The Road Out of Here†is inspired by Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne—I think of “Highway 61 Revisited†by the former and “Redneck Friend†from the latter. In style and to some extent theme (one verse is about lyin’ and cheatin’) it’s some kind of…
The Harps and Gear I used on “Orphan Black”
“Orphan Black” is the theme song for the BBC series of the same name (which is about a bunch of clones, in case you didn’t know). The piece was written and produced by Amon Tobin, who (if you’ve heard the original) is pretty deep into…
