Originally published in 1998, my blues memoir, Mister Satan’s Apprentice, has just been republished with a new foreword by the University of Minnesota Press.  It’s the story of a young white blues harmonica player in New York City who teams up with R&B legend Sterling “Mister Satan” Magee” on the streets of Harlem during a period of heightened racial violence (Howard Beach, Bensonhurst) and how the two men forge the unlikeliest of musical partnerships, one that leads to a touring and recording career as “Satan and Adam.”  I also write about my harmonica mentor, Nat Riddles, and the tragedy that befell him.  The book encompasses much of the NYC blues world of the period, including Dan Lynch, an East Village juke joint that helped launch The Holmes Brothers, Popa Chubby, Little Mike and the Tornadoes, Ron Sunshine, Dona Oxford, and other New York blues acts.

Mister Satan’s Apprentice received a Keeping the Blues Alive award in literature from the Blues Foundation in Memphis.

If you’d like to order the book, this link will take you to a page that will connect you to both Amazon.com and the University of Minnesota Press:  http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/books.html

I’ve uploaded three video-book previews in which I read passages from the book and back them up with a soundtrack that includes street recordings of both Nat Riddles and Satan & Adam:

I flipped the site from Blogger to WordPress. Things should be  cleaner and easier to find. I will be converting all the pages (about 100 of them) as I find time.

Anyone who was a guest blogger or wants to be, just click the register link over on the right. By default you will be able to contribute. Just click the “New Post” button on the main page after you log in.

Keep any posts you make short and sweet. A picture or youtube video helps.

I want reviews, updates, announcements – almost anything as long as it deals with Harmonica, especially amplified Blues Harp.

Hi everyone,

This is my first entry in this blog, and will be posting from Spain. I will try to post on DIY for harmonicas, amps and so on.
Here is a link to a very well known webshop in Europe where you can find harp mics.
http://www.thomann.de/es/microfonos_para_armonica.html
They also have a good supply on harmonicas
http://www.thomann.de/gb/mouth_harmonicas.html
They have their own brand called Harley Benton which normally is made in china, same quialty than the big brands but sensible cheaper.

On next post I will show my DIY box for harmonicas.

Thanks,

Oliver

Satan and Adam, the blues duo (now trio, with the addition of drummer Dave Laycock), will be making a run up the Eastern seaboard next week. This is the first time we have visited Virginia Beach, Philly, Portsmouth NH, Rockland County NY, and Atlanta in more than a decade. Thanks to new restrictions imposed by the Medicare facility in which Sterling Magee (Mr. Satan) resides in Florida, this may well be the LAST time we tour outside the South. So if you’re one of our fans from the old days, or if you’ve heard about us but never actually seen us live, we hope you’ll make a point of attending a show. I’m happy to sign harmonicas, t-shirts, etc.

Here’s our itinerary:

SATAN AND ADAM SUMMER TOUR

8/12: Virginia Beach, VA – Jewish Mother (9 PM) www.jewishmother.com

8/13: Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live (7:30 PM, with special guest Charlie Sayles) www.worldcafelive.com

8/14: Portsmouth, NH – The Press Room (9 PM) www.pressroomnh.com

8/15: Piermont, NY – The Turning Point (8 PM) http://www.piermont-ny.com/turning/

8/17: Atlanta, GA – “blue Monday” party for Atlanta Harmonica Enthusiasts (time TBA). For info, please contact Jim McBride: bottle.blues@yahoo.com

Here’s a recent video of Satan and Adam in performance at a country club on Kiawah Island, South Carolina:

And here’s a video of me and Dave in our first public performance of “Crossroad Blues.” I’ve adapted the harp part from Clapton’s guitar part in Cream’s live version of the song. I’m playing foot drums (made by Pete Farmer of Bellingham, WA) for the first time in public. I WILL be playing this song on tour. Sterling is sitting it out:

If you’re a harmonica player in search of inspiration, you might think about checking out some of my recently-uploaded video tutorials.

Got My Mojo Working: The holy grail for many harp players. A song that you absolutely, positively need to know. This is a two-part lesson organized around a two-page tab sheet. First page is my adaptation of the “head” or intro that always kicks the song off; second page is a transcription of the first 12 bars of Kim Wilson’s solo on Jimmy Rodgers’s LUDELLA album–a kick-ass harp throwdown, decoded and reassembled. The head is within reach for INTERMEDIATE as well as ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE players; the solo is extremely challenging at full speed.

Harp: A
Video: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/7594912-got-my-mojo-working-mov
Tab: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/7594911-got-my-mojo-working-gussow-pdf

St. Louis Blues. This is the BEST harmonica tab of this song currently in existence. If you purchase it and don’t agree, please email me (asgussow@aol.com) and I will refund your money, no questions asked.
harp: A
video: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/6476783-st-louis-blues-mov
tab: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/6476784-st-louis-blues-pdf

Mojo 1.0 A simplified version of the classic. For ADVANCED BEGINNERS.
harp: A
video: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/6476786-mojo-1-0-mov
www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/6476787-mojo-1-0-pdf

Tequila by The Champs. This is one of the great bar-band instrumentals:
Harp: A
Video: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/5697634-tequila-mov
Tab: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/5697635-tequila-pdf

Just wanted to let fans of amped-up harp know about something a little bit different that I’ve been working on recently. I’ve always loved Cream’s version of Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” (”Crossroad Blues” when Cream does it), especially Clapton’s remarkable-for-the-time refashioning of electric guitar into something larger-than-life. So I worked up a version of Clapton’s opening 12-bars for harmonica, and added a primitive foot-stomp sound by plugging a wooden block into my 1955 Bassman. Here’s the result:

My trio Satan and Adam is about to go on tour; this experiment worked out so well that we’re planning to add “Crossroads Blues” to our set. I get to turn my amps ALL the way up! This would make any harp player very happy.

About that tour: please visit http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/personal_appearances.html for a complete list of gigs. We’ll be hitting South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Hampshire.

–Adam Gussow

A while I created a series of blues stencils that could be printed out, cut up and used with a little spray paint to put Little Walter, Rod Piazza or B.B. King on your favorite pickup truck bed, the sides of buildings, or on the wall of your room.

Rick Estrin gave me a call and asked me if he could use the stencil that I made of him. It was based on a picture that I took at one of his performances and it really came out well. I was happy to oblige. Rick is one the best players out there and one of my personal heroes. He has always taken time to talk to me when he comes to my neck of the woods. He is a great guy.

I made a bunch of other stencil images, including a couple of Little Walter. Imagine my surprise when the Facebook group Harmonica 411 appropriated one of them without so much as a by your leave for their logo.

Here’s my stencil:

Here is their logo:

My stencil is modeled on a famous Walter pose, but the 411 logo makes no attempt to hide that they borrowed it from me.

I admit that I based my interpretation on a famous photo so I guess I don’t have much of claim to it. At least I reworked the original and did not directly copy it.

I started the JT30 page back around 1994 as an AOL web page. I hand coded the page using notepad and tested it using Netscape Navigator. I originally put the page up as an advertisement for modifying and repairing JT30 mics. I found that I did not have the time to keep up with the orders so I stopped doing that. I collected lots of information about JT30s, Amplifiers and playing amplified Blues.

At one point I shut the site down because I was getting so many emails and requests for information. I later started it up when the internet got larger and other people did the same kind of thing much better than I ever could.

In 1999 I registered the domain JT30.com.

I wrote a few music theory articles and tabbed out some simple riffs and I have been getting slow but steady traffic ever since. In recent years my life has become busy and other projects have taken up my time so I have not added very much to the site. I still play a little harp when I get a chance, but I never get to the jams and seldom find the time to go out to a show. I have tried to recruit guest bloggers, but so far there are only a few takers.

In a year or so I will retire and at that time I want to start working on the site again. I would like to tab out some of my harp favorites in greater depth like I did with Sonny Boy’s Help Me. I want to give some step by step instructions for some of the mic mods that I do. I want to document some of the odd things that I’ve done with harp tuning. It will have to wait until I no longer have to spend my time making a living in hard economic times.

Several years ago I went down to Elkins, West Virginia to learn how to play harp at Blues Week. Probably the best part of this experience was John Cephas and Phil Wiggins. Their rich brand of Piedmont Blues struck a resonant chord in me. I keep their albums rotating in my play list even after 10 years.

John Cephas passed recently and he will surely be missed. Not just by the thousands of guitar players who were his students, but all of us harp players who can recognize when a good guitar man knows just the right thing to play behind a blues harmonica.

I saw Cephas and Wiggins every time they came north, which was once in a blue moon. John always remembered me and we talked fondly about the Blues Week barbecues and the concerts. He was a quiet and intelligent man. He told good stories and could pick the hell out of a guitar.

I always wanted to go back to Blues Week when my financials improved, and see John and Phil play on the porch until the wee small hours. I waited too long. John won’t be going back.

Fredericksburg.com – John Cephas leaves on a high note