Here’s another great harmonica club from down in Florida. This seems like a great blues harp club. Check out the videos and join their message board.

This seems like a fun group. (the dog, though is playing the harp backwards, I think.)

SunCoast Harmonica Club

Monroe Heide emailed me about the Pocono Mountain Harmonica Club.

We have recently organized THE POCONO MOUNTAIN HARMONICA CLUB.

First meeting was Jun 18 in Tobyhanna PA

Next meeting will be July 16 2007

VFW Post 3448 – 440 Sterling Rd (Rte196) Tobyhanna PA. 7:00 PM.

Don’t know yet which we’ll be Chromatic or diatonic. With luck some of both.

Offering free lessons to members.

Contact: Monroe Heide pmhc@ptd.net

570-839-9820

I noticed that BassHarp did not include the Augusta Heritage Center’s Blues week on the gig list. This is July 15th to 20th. It costs $410. You should stay on campus and room and board is cheap. This is way out in Elkins, West Virginia. It takes me about 9 hours from NY in spite of the fact that google maps claims it only takes 7 hours. Those West Virginia hills take forever to climb through. If you don’t want to drive, there is an airport not far away, but it is a remote country area and you have to work to make the right connections.

This year they have Little Annie Raines, Terry Bean, Phil Wiggins and Joe Filisko teaching harp. Bob Margolin, Muddy’s backup slide player, will be there for the jams. The best week of my life was at Blues Week. (Watch out for the White Lighting at the barbecue!)

You can still call them and sign up. They like you to register early, but one year I just walked in and they found me room. I learned to bend from Phil Wiggins at Blues Week about a month after I took up harp. The guy in the next dorm room was a long haired punk kid named Dennis Gruenling, who was also just starting out. (Dennis practiced a whole lot more than me.)

If you live within driving distance of Elkins, you should drive out on Thursday night for the concert or Saturday night for the big jam, even if you don’t sign up for the week.

Augusta Heritage Center’s Blues week

I just checked out BassHarp’s giglist. I have been linking to this for 10 years, probably.

If you play harp, make sure that you send your gig calendar to BassHarp so you can get on the list.

This month’s list has an incredible number of workshops and festivals. I’ll list a few that are coming up this summer. Check them out on the list.

July 27, 2007 – JOE FILISKO BLUES HARP WORKSHOP & CONCERT

July 30 – August 3, 2007 – ROBERT BONFIGLIO’S CHROMATIC SEMINAR FOR DIATONIC PLAYERS

August 3-5, 2007 – YELLOW PINE HARMONICA FESTIVAL

August 4-5, 2007 – DAVID BARRETT’S HARMONICA MASTERCLASS SOLOING WORKSHOP

August 14-18, 2007 – SPAH 2007 HARMONICA CONVENTION

August 18, 2007 – 4th ANNUAL ATLANTIC CANADA HARMONICA FESTIVAL

BassHarp’s International Giglist

When I first tried to learn how to pay harp, I heard about the Garden State Harmonica Club. I went down a few times and had a good time. They aren’t a blues club and although some are interested in blues they are mostly a Chromatic Peg-O-My-Heart bunch of guys (and a few women). I did meet Carlos Colina there, which led to him playing with my brother and forming the Straight Up band. Mostly though these guys are WWII vets.

If you are more interested in the Harmonicats than Little Walter or like the Harmonica Rascals rather than Kim Wilson, then stop by their website. The Garden State Harmonica club also has a great festival once a year so if you can make it, you might want to stop by.

The Garden State Harmonica Club

Check out this Argentinian Blues Harp Player. There’s lots of MP3 files to download. It sounds damn good. I like their girl singer.
Anibal Repetto

Premier Guitars has a very nice Texas Shuffle clinic for guitarists. Why should a harp player care? They have a Jam track that you can use to practice harp. The “Jam” links on the page allow you to download a very cool MP3 file of the just the bass and drums. Very cool. Who needs the stinkin’ guitar player anyway, when you can jam along with a very cool Texas shuffle.

Premier Guitar – Premier Clinic: Blues – Jul 2007 – Premier Guitar magazine.

People often forget the original Sonny Boy – John Lee Williamson. Here’s a great documentary about Sonny Boy’s life.

Sonny Boy Documentary