My Three Big Contributions
I’ve been playing harmonica since 1967, recording for myself and other artists since 1970, and helping other harmonica players make better music since 1980. In the last fifty-plus years I’ve made 3 major contributions to the art of the harmonica: 1) I wrote Jazz Harp,…
Brendan Power Harmonicas Lucky 13 is a Great Blues Harp UPDATED
Brendan Power is a virtuoso harmonica player and a tireless innovator in building new tools for harmonica players, including new instruments and add-ons that increase the usefulness of traditional harmonicas. One of his latest innovations is the Lucky 13, a harmonica that adds a full…
How I recorded “Put The Lever Down” (2017 version)
Where “Put the Lever Down” came from I wrote the lick and harmony on which “Put the Lever Down” is based while I was hanging out in my car at one of my daughter’s skating meets around 1981, playing with a Dorian Minor tuned diatonic…
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…
