RIP Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Snow, a great singer and reportedly an admirable person as well, has died. She was not a friend of mine, nor even an acquaintance. But her music was wonderful, and I’m sad to see her go. Rob Paparozzi, one of the elite harp player/singers…
Gear Review: Three mics to do it all
Different mics produce very different sounds, as the samples here show, and no mic by itself can do the best possible job on everything that a harmonica player might want to play. But a harmonica player can cover an amazing range of material and performance…
Fixin’ to Live
Here’s a rough mix of a tough instrumental blues, “Fixin’ to Live,” by myself and my brother Mark Hunter. This piece began life as a solo slide guitar recording by my brother. I added bass, drums, and harmonica. The harmonica is recorded through an Audix…
The Buckeye festival was cancelled–what does it mean?
It was reported today on the harp-L internet mailing list that the Buckeye State harmonica festival–one of the world’s longest-standing, and a venue that I headlined in 1999–was cancelled for 2011 due to “lack of interest”, meaning a dearth of paid attendees. It’s always tempting…
Gear Review: The Powerbender diatonic harp
Brendan Power, by any measure one of the most skillful and innovative harmonica players and composers for the instrument of all time, has recently offered an introductory package for his PowerBender diatonic harmonica tuning. The package includes a Suzuki Harpmaster diatonic harp with PowerBender tuning…
A coupla new clips with 3 amp modelers
I’ve been trying various configuration of multiple amp modelers lately. In these clips, I’m using a Digitech RP355 and a Zoom G2NU for the main sound generators, with a Digitech RP255 at the end of the FX chain. I’ve been using Digitech amp modelers for…
Video of the Day 15 April 2011: Vincent Bucher with Tao Ravao and Jean-Noel Godard
Vincent Bucher has been one of my favorite harmonica players since I played with him at a jam session at Utopia, a club in Paris, France (as opposed to Paris, Texas) five or so years ago. He plays frequently with African musicians like Tao Ravao…
Wim Dijkgraaf has some cool stuff in the works
I’m listening to the pre-master recordings by the Dumee and Dijkgraaf Quinteto, based in Brazil. The harmonica player is Wim Dijkgraaf, who also runs the Effortless Harmonica blog that you can find in my list of links. This is amazing music, definitely Brazilian and definitely…
Beginning to play around with some new gear
I’ve just begun working with a non-Digitech amp modeler, the Zoom G2nu. I like some of the sounds in it right out of the box, and I’m going to keep working with it for a little while. The big advantages of this particular device are:…
Richard Hunter: Widow’s Walk
