The Hook with Johni & Jess
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Just like a hook in a song stays with you, every creative has something that grabbed hold and shaped who they became.
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The Hook with Johni & Jess
Roads, Reeds & Rhythm: The Gary Green Story
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From hitchhiking the East Coast with a harmonica in his pocket to performing on some of the most iconic stages in America, Gary Green has lived a life that sounds more like a movie script than a résumé.
In this episode of The Hook with Johni & Jess, Gary shares the incredible journey that took him from teaching himself harmonica on the side of the road to winning at the World Harmonica Championships, performing at the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium, and collaborating with musicians around the globe. Along the way, he opens up about playing alongside Jimmy Buffett, performing with the cast of The Dukes of Hazzard, working with Afghan musicians through a U.S. State Department cultural exchange program, and engineering sound for legends including B.B. King, Kris Kristofferson, Mavis Staples, George Thorogood, Yo-Yo Ma, Chick Corea, and many more.
Gary's passion for music extends far beyond performance. Whether he's talking about the art of supporting songwriters, the magic that happens between performer and audience, or the unexpected lessons learned through travel and cultural connection, every story reveals a deep appreciation for the power of music to bring people together.
This conversation is packed with road stories, behind-the-scenes music industry insights, harmonica geekery, and unforgettable moments from a career spent chasing great songs and meaningful connections. If you've ever wondered what happens when talent, curiosity, and a harmonica collide, this is an episode you won't want to miss.
Links & Social Media
Gary Green Official Website
Gary Harmonica Green
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@cvilletunes
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The Hook with Johni & Jess — where passion begins with a moment.
Welcome to the hook, where music and art come together with the people that created it. I'm John. I'm Jess. You're on the hook.
SPEAKER_05Our latest guest on the hook is somebody who has truly lived every side of the music business, from standing on legendary stages as a harmonica player to running sound for some of the biggest names in music history.
SPEAKER_07Gary Green has performed everywhere from the Grand Old Opry and the Ryman to the Kennedy Center, the Birchmere, major folk festivals across the country and even Afghanistan. He shared stages with Jimmy Buffett and engineered shows for artists like Chris Christofferson, B.B.
SPEAKER_06King, Dion Warwick, and Mavis Staples. And somehow, somewhere in the middle of all that, he also taught himself harmonica while hitchhiking.
SPEAKER_05Which already sounds like the opening scene of a movie. So today we're diving into music, storytelling, sound, songwriting, road stories, auto engineering, harmonica obsession, and whatever chaos happens in between. Gary Green, you're on the hook.
SPEAKER_07All right. I have to start with the hitchhiking story. So you taught yourself allegedly harmonica while hitchhiking. Can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_02You found the hitchhiking story. I did. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that was a just out of high school thing. I grew up in New Hampshire and I moved down to Virginia in the mid-70s, early mid-70s. And I would hitchhike back and forth. And that's kind of where I learned because you're all by yourself for long stretches of time, and it was the best way to work out little melodies and things like that, and just get yourself acquainted with the instrument. So I must have hitchhiked from New Hampshire to Virginia at least a half a dozen times back when you could do things like that. And then while I was living in Virginia, there was a time that I hitchhiked all the time down here because I didn't have a car. But that was the best way to learn for me at the time until I went to hang out with my friends Phil and Doug at New England College in Henneker, New Hampshire. And then that's when it all really came to be.
SPEAKER_07So where did that harmonica come from that you happen to have in your pocket the first time you were hitchhiking?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell I had one in high school because when I go back to reunions up there, I keep everybody keeps telling me, I remember when you used to play in the halls, and I have no memory of playing in the halls. But I know I had one with me because I can remember it on you know the hitchhiking things and you know eventually at New England College. But so were you just like a total hippie hitchhiking and I was a child of the 70s, so yeah, i I I would I would be guilty of all those things. I love it. And all those things that that come with that.
SPEAKER_07My mom hitchhiked all the time when I was a kid, and I was born in the in 71. Oh, she didn't. And so she would she would hitchhike in San Francisco. I mean, it's actually a miracle she's alive and that I'm alive. Because there was also serial killers at the time.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_07But yeah, I mean she hitchhiked. That's how she got around. That's how everybody got around.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have great memories of of of doing that. There's a couple times I were a little dicey, but for the most part, back then, people were comfortable picking you up and you were comfortable riding with them, and you could you could travel the the whole or the world essentially if you wanted to. You can carry it with you anywhere you anywhere you go, unlike all these other instruments. It's like your voice. You just have it with you, only this thing is four or five inches long. And I always have one. And I'll have them everywhere. I'll have them in every room of the house, every car. You can have them everywhere you know that you go.
SPEAKER_07It's like me and reading glasses.
SPEAKER_05Same. I feel like though, that's one of the first instruments for every child. I think every child gets a harmonica at some point when they're little by their grandparents or somebody. But why did you stay with the harmonica? It was just something, because you said your friends all had it in high school and all that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, you're you're absolutely right. I would I was just having the conversation earlier that this instrument has probably been played by more people than any other instrument, not mastered or even gotten good at, but everybody has put a harmonica to their lips where you might not have touched a guitar or a trombone or anything else, but everybody's tried this. So everybody relates to it on some level. And because it's like the voice, it all happens inside. There's not a second modality like you can see your fingers with guitar chords, horn fingerings, piano. There's a second modality. So you can see everything that's happening as you're hearing it with this. It's all happening inside you. It's this giant mystery. Makes teaching this thing a little bit of a challenge.
SPEAKER_05It is a giant mystery. I heard like every note though. Every note. That was so cool.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you're kind. Thank you.
SPEAKER_07Do you need to wear chapstick a lot?
SPEAKER_02There was a time early when in when I first started playing, this middle part of the harmonica they call the comb was wood, and it would swell and then shrink and then swell and stick out, and it would cut the sides of your lips and do things like that. But that's not an issue anymore.
SPEAKER_07Just in how they master them now.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell This part is made from all sorts of different materials. There's a whole custom harmonica industry out there that's really crazy. It's a great, great time to be a harmonica player because when I first started, all the harmonicas that were coming out of Germany were pretty much junk, but we all learned on them. But now it's a great time. They're just making some wonderful instruments all over the world. So and I have most of them.
SPEAKER_05I see. We do have a picture of this. It's amazing in that we'll share. Being a harmonica player, you don't hear a lot of people being this. So I imagine you are requested a lot to come and play with bands and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02There's a funny thing about that because not everybody's a harmonica fan. I was working with George Thoroughgood at the Paramount Theater in Charlesville like a few months ago, and I was just talking to the front of house engineer. I said, So does George ever let harmonica players, you know, sit in with him? And he said, Oh, you mean the monkey whistle? And I would see that but that's what we're up against. Not everybody views the instrument because there are so many people that squawk on this. Oh. In a lot of people's mind, that's what it is. Or it's the it's it's that kind of sign. And that's their reference point for the instrument, not say what I do or what you know some of my favorite players do. So that's our fight. But I've been fortunate that the people that I've worked with like what I do and feel that I can add to what they do.
SPEAKER_07Do you remember when you went from kind of just enjoying the harmonica and hitchhiking and living your life to kind of realizing that music was going to be what you were gonna do forever?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell I reference this New England College in Henneker, New Hampshire. I'll always reference this as the very beginning of it all. My friends Doug Shays and Phil Hardy were both guitar players, sitting in a dorm room playing, playing things like America, Horse with No Name and things like that. And I'd be the guy sitting there, like twiddling my thumbs with nothing to add. So I took all that hitchhiking harmonica practice and decided to start trying to accompany them. And it kind of took off from there. So I had really and I have to have those two guys to thank for the the style that I have because I was really listening to a lot of blues at the time. And we were doing some of that, but we were doing all this other songwriter stuff. And it kind of dragged me down that track away from being a hardcore blues player. Which I love. I love and I love the people that do it. And there are some really good ones right here in Richmond. But that's their lane. I found another lane and I'm you know happy where I am.
SPEAKER_07So it happened completely organically.
SPEAKER_02So I just figured that I'd work construction and play a little music. But before you knew it, this this band we had, the overdue band, was working twenty nights a month throughout Portland, Maine, all throughout New Hampshire, a little into Vermont, Massachusetts. So I really kind of learned the instrument playing in front of people. I mean to really really learned it to the to the extent that you know that got me to a place where people appreciated what I do, and it wasn't I wasn't just a squawker.
SPEAKER_07He just reminded me of the Ben Affleck movie. Ben Affleck really was the side. It was Matt Damon. Oh, Goodwill Hunting. Goodwill hunting. You're you're goodwill hunting. You were like, yeah, I'm just gonna do the blue-collar job, and then you turn out to be this brilliant harmonica play. Oh my it is literally probably the best movie that's ever been. I need to watch it again. It's so beautiful. So you mentioned the two that you were with when you kind of started having this inspiration to jump in and accompany them. What other musicians kind of inspired you early on?
SPEAKER_02Well, back then there were there were albums that we would listen to all the time. My there was this youth center in this town when I was in high school that kind of got my attention. They would play this Hooker and Heat album, which is John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat, and it was like a double album, if I remember right. And they would play it in the background while everybody was playing basketball. And that's where I kind of fell in love with this instrument to to do it really well. And that's kind of where it started. And then I discovered these little edgier harmonica players than the Chicago blue style that I'd been listening to. A guy named Norton Buffalo, who was amazing, put out two of the most iconic harmonica albums in the late 70s, early mid-70s. And then there's another player named Mad Cat Ruth, who was in a band with the Brewbreck brothers called New Heavenly Blue. And he just they just had these styles that were out in left field that were not what I had been listening to, and it just perked my interest to go in a different direction. So I kind of stepped out of the the Chicago West Coast blues style, of which there's a guy in Richmond, his name's Kurt Crandall. Oh my goodness, authentic blues harmonica as as good as you're gonna find, you know, anywhere. And he's doing that here. And I just went in a different direction. And but it's been good for me because you know, I get to do soundtrack work, I get to play other people's with songwriters, I get to do things like that.
SPEAKER_05You know, when I think about the harmonica is train train, Blackfoot. Are you gonna be able to do it?
SPEAKER_03I I don't know what they do, but I but I think it's you know, I know like that.
SPEAKER_02It's just tough.
SPEAKER_04I love it.
SPEAKER_02Everybody's got to do that. That's one of the first things you learn. Then it then it's the chuggy stuff. You know, t that's the first thing you learn. Then it just develops from there and gets more much more complicated from there.
SPEAKER_05And then you end up with a suitcase full of harmonicas.
SPEAKER_02Then you go. I had to play something.
SPEAKER_05Wow. And that was a different harmonica with a totally different sound.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm a big fan of what they they call the altered tunings. A lot of traditional players don't go that direction, but I I have, and I'm a fan of that particular tuning big time.
SPEAKER_05Well, you blew it away. Oh, yeah. It sounds like you're a fan. The harmonica feels like it's one of the hardest instruments to truly master. That's why there's not many of them. It's also just really expressive. Like watching you play, your your face lights up. So when did you feel like you found your own voice in it?
SPEAKER_02I think pretty early on with those guys in the in that first band, because I I stepped out of the blues, and once you step out of the blues, your choices are either, for the most part, country or Bob Dylan style or piano man, Billy Joel harmonica playing style. Those are the other options that most people seem to go. You know, I found Norton Buffalo and Mad Cat Ruth, and I just started going to a different place. And because you're accompanying singers and songwriters, I you get to that point, you you need to make sure that you're leaving space. And it's not about you, it's about the it becomes about the song. It's not about your solo playing. It's it becomes about how you play to support the song, the bed you create that their lyrics can sleep in. Your time comes to be really expressive. But when you're w working with songwriters, if you can't do it well, then then it's better off if you don't do it at all. In in their songs, it's like a joke someone made about a drummer. It was that kind of thing. What's the something about what's the best drummer? And it was like the one you don't have unless he's really good. It was it's something like that. If if it's not done really well, then it doesn't belong at all.
SPEAKER_05Aaron Ross Powell Then you become a monkey whistle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Well, in that scenario with the songwriters, is it their vision of where that comes in, or is it you determining that or both?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell I've been really, really, really, really fortunate that the people I've worked with for the most part just let me go and do and do what I do. I mean there might be suggestions afterwards, but by and far away, it it's you do what you do. It may be later, okay, pull back here a little bit more, or or come here, or can you do this line here, that kind of thing. But the like the songwriters in particular, whether it's Justin Storr or Peyton Tochterman or Terry Allard, I've been working a lot with those people over the last handful of years and Callie Garrett. They just let me go. And whatever comes out, comes out. And I don't know what I'm gonna do it until until it happens. It's funny. I almost hear it after I've done it, after I've played. It's a very strange thing. So much of what what what I feel at that I'm doing in the moment, I'm not really aware of. It's I'm I'm just it's just happening kind of outside of your body.
SPEAKER_07We hear that. Because it's it's something magic happening. It's you locking in with something beyond anything we could probably comprehend, you know? It's God given.
SPEAKER_02Come to a live show. Because that's that's where it happens. There's the listener, there's you, but the magic is what's ha dangling in between as it's you know forming between the audience and the and the player. And like I can do all this stuff all day long in my house, but if you put a person who's listening to me in front of me, i it just change. It just changes everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So love that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Let's uh go back to 1987.
SPEAKER_02Oh, jeez.
SPEAKER_07So that was the World Harmonica Championship.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Tell us about that. In 87, there was this Honor Harmonica is the the world's largest harmonica company, basically did a giant search. And you created something, you sent it into them, and they picked a handful of people to represent the United States in the World Harmonica Championships in Great Britain on the Isle of Jersey in 87. So all these people sent in soundtracks. I sent in Decadel, and it happened in Richmond actually, because Honor was Honor Harmonica's was in Richmond at the time. They did the national search here, and I won this one particular category. Just so you know, John Popper of Blues Traveler came in third. I'd trade careers with him any day of the week. But it was pretty funny. So then we went to Great Britain and competed there, and I won this one category with Decadel once again. That's the only thing I've ever written. But I had ideas of what I wanted to play, but I I had a I wrote it with a piano player because I needed the the chord structure underneath what I was doing. Yeah, so we brought it over there and they seemed to like it. And it was really good to me because after that I got a fair amount of commercial work and you won. And I w I was one I was one of the winners. I mean though I'll I have have to tell you that the whole music competition thing it just makes me crazy. It's it's nice if you win, but it's you know, I would never win today. There's so many tens of thousands of great players out there today. But you know, at that moment in time it was the best thing ever. And it opened up some some really big doors at the time. Well, I d yeah, like I said, I did some commercial work, commercial for Honor, some other things. It just you know, stuff would come.
SPEAKER_05Well, your name's out there.
SPEAKER_02And your name's out there.
SPEAKER_05And you beat uh Blues Travelers. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hi, John Popper. You have to joke about that. But I will say there was a guy named his his his name, his last name's Paparazzi. He was one of the judges, and he he online like years and years ago in the early nineties or when the internet started, he referenced judging that competition, he said, somebody posted it, I saw it said, I've you know, discovered two of the the the best unknown harmonica players that we have. And he's like, me and John. That was just that that just feels good that someone is recognizing what you're doing. Because any musician, I would hope any musician, but this musician you're talking to, you always have that self-doubt about the validity of what you're doing and the value of what you're doing. And you just keep going hoping that someone appreciates what you do. So the more live work you can do, the more that validation happens. And that's what I'd trying to do now.
SPEAKER_05So I actually listened to Deccadell a couple of times, your live version of that. So for those of you listening, definitely look it up because it really is spectacular. So you really should think about writing another one, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Oh man.
SPEAKER_05Well, you've accompanied songwriters and it became your niche. What drew you toward that role instead of being front and center all the time?
SPEAKER_02I guess it's it was just fate with the people that you come across in your in your life. And and it's again, it's one of those instruments that you you need somebody else to do this. Like if if Chris Stapleton was sitting here and you said, Oh, do one of your songs, Chris, and he didn't have his guitar and he you know does it did his whiskey song, it would be a cappella and it would be that's what it would be. So anything I do by myself is a cappella for the instrument. So you need an accompanist, and all these accompanists they have their own things that they want to do. So you uh it's that, okay, I'll just play along with the stuff you want to do, or the stuff that you wrote. And so it kind of goes that direction until you write your own things. But every other guitar player, piano player, they're they're all songwriters. As a soloist, you j you find yourself sliding in that role of being the soloist. There was a guy named Peter Mayer, he's a lead guitar player with Jimmy Buffett. For almost thirty years he was. And he and I both have a friend named Scott Kirby, and it used to be we would go out as the Mayor Kirby Mayer show every September. We'd tour from Maine down to North Carolina, and we'd be doing all their songs along with Peter. I was a featured soloist for the whole thing. So I'm liking that role rather than being the front and center, though I've had some some of those gigs. I like the supporting role because I can just pop out and do my thing, then sit back. And I don't have to talk to the audience if I'm in that role either.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's been an interesting conversation we've had with a few people, Will Kimborough being one, where, you know, everybody knows your name in the music business. A lot of people do. They know his. But that you can get on a plane, you can get on a ferry, you can go out to dinner. You don't have those kind of handcuffs that people that's names are bigger have, where they're very limited. It's very sad to me when you get that big, how your options change for just living every day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was just doing audio work, sound work down in Key West for the Key West Songwriters Festival at one of the venues down there. And I would have an in the round of five players, songwriters. And between them, they might have 20 Grammy nominations. Or, you know, number one hits. There might be five number one hits up there. You don't know who any of these people are. That's that's the music industry.
SPEAKER_07I'd definitely rather be in that place than have my name known, I think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And I think I'm different. Johnny wants Johnny wants to get there.
SPEAKER_05Well, I just I would love to be in your shoes where I'm touring and they know who I am so that they know what to expect, as opposed to me trying to figure out who I am when I walk into a room. Do you know what I mean? I didn't say that right. Because that's harder for me. I I would rather people already know who I am and then I can just walk in and just be me. I mean, that's not really stardom, I don't guess, but that totally makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Then you're not wearing a mask.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Because I'm not good at masks.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07So who are some songwriter, I guess, collaborations? What are some collaborations you've had over the years that have really stuck with you?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Peyton Tochterman, for one, is probably one of the biggest ones. I just love playing with him, also because he lets me go. It's like the lease is off. And that's not going to necessarily be the case with every songwriter. Justin Stora and Callie Garrett, their songwriting leaves a place for what I do that's a little bit different than the blues players and the country players. It just l leaves a big hallway for me to fill.
SPEAKER_07It's interesting that you you said that because it gave me a more understanding picturing how you see it, that there's this hallway. It's empty. It can be anything.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_07And so they're giving you the freedom rather than coming in and having it partially decorated.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, I I get to do the I get to do the decorating. I mean, they could use a violin, they could use a cello, and those are all great. The response that I usually get is people haven't heard the instrument played kind of like this. So there are players that certainly play like I do, lots of them, but people aren't don't hear them. A lot of the those players are in their bedrooms playing, in their kitchens playing, and then they're not out playing. Once you stretch outside of the normal harmonica playing, you know, that fits their understanding of the instrument, they go, Oh my goodness, I didn't know a harmonica could sound like that. And I I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, because well I I'm just playing, and they all can sound like that. People are gonna have to decide that's what they want, that's what they want to do with it.
SPEAKER_07I'm curious, now that you say that, how many times we've all listened to a song and not even identified that what we were hearing was the harmonica when it's taken where you take it.
SPEAKER_02I try to think a little bit flute ish and clarinetish, especially in uh that high register, you know. I I just love playing up there, but you know, I also love doing the, you know. But most players that do the the bluesy thing don't play up high. Up high and and don't play flute-like for some reason.
SPEAKER_05And then I see your suitcase. Explain like the whole world of of that. Because when you played the one, it was very bluesy. Everybody knows that sound. And you played the one that's really high note.
SPEAKER_02They're all in keys, and there's twelve keys. So you have to have all 12 keys. So there's 12 harmonicas right there. Yeah that you would probably want to have, depending on how you want to sound and where the note layouts land for you and what you're trying to play. If you're a performer, you also have to have two of every one of them. Because in these the reeds that vibrate, they vibrate at a certain pitch. If for some reason the read fatigues and it starts vibrating slower, it's not at the same pitch, so your harmonica is out of tune. So in some sense, you could argue, well, there's the case for 24 harmonicas, backups for every one. I don't do that. I have backups for a handful of them, because someone hardly ever play. Now there's the tunings, like these are I'm gonna play a little bit. These are all A harmonicas. So it's gonna, and there'll be I'll play like the first three or four notes. That's so cool. So everybody has to have those.
SPEAKER_05I mean, you're people can't see you, but you you're holding three harmonicas and going back and forth on all of them.
SPEAKER_02Trying to.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. No, you're definitely doing it. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so let's let's go back to you have one and it's as you it's out of tune, so you have to grab the other one. Right. Then what happens the next day? Like do you do is there a way to tune the one that was out of tune, or do you got to replace that one?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell A couple of things happen. Either either it goes out of tune and you can file the read itself and make it sharper going back into tune. Or oftentimes what happens with these stuff gets in between the read and where it vibrates, and that stops it from vibrating. And I've I've had plenty of times where I've just shoved that harmonica in a box and gone to it a month later and done this, and the piece of grit or dirt fell out of that read slot, and now the read is vibrating like it should. But there are plenty of people that for a living will fix these things. You know, drill out the reed screw and put new reads in. I mean, this can get terribly geeky. Harmonica geeky.
SPEAKER_07Harmonica geeky.
SPEAKER_02You might not want to go down that road because it gets it can get pretty pretty geeky.
SPEAKER_07What type of file are you using?
SPEAKER_02That's right. Well, they use Dremel tools, the pros do.
SPEAKER_07All right, we'll we'll bring it back with something patty. Do harmonica players secretly judge each other like a lot of guitar players do?
SPEAKER_02I would guess even more. It's kind of sad, but I I think that's the case. I try not to. One thing that I will say about something like that is I feel like I learned something from every harmonica player that I hear. Bad ones, good ones, iconic ones. I've gotten to study with some of the best players that have lived in the history of the instrument. And you learn from those people, of course. But even just Billy or Joe, you know, at whatever local bar who's just, you know, honking away, there'll be something, a tone or or something that they do, a phrase, something in their vo harmonical vocabulary that you don't use, and you'll go, shoot, I like that. It's easy, but I forgot about it. And I gotta try to make sure I remember it and reintroduce it into what I do. That's the hardest thing is expanding your vocabulary on on these things because you can get you can get in a rut where instead of you playing the harmonica, it plays you. So you just you just have to keep that in mind and gotta spank it around.
SPEAKER_05Well, do you have a favorite? He spanked one.
SPEAKER_02I have a favorite company at this point, and that's Zeidel. It's the Zeitl harmonicas are an interesting story. They were on the other side of the Berlin Wall, is how I understand this, when the whole Berlin Wall thing was a thing. They basically disappeared. They were there, but we weren't privileged to get their instruments. And now, because of the way the world is, that oldest harmonica company, Zeitl, is producing instruments that the world can access. And their claim to fame is their reeds are stainless steel as opposed to brass or phosphorus bronze that other companies are using. And so I kind of favor them for most things. The steel is uh has a little more of a rounded tone. So when I go up high, it doesn't hurt as bad as say a brashy phosphorus bronze reed. This is getting in the harmonica geeky thing, but it's a thing.
SPEAKER_05So you don't have a favorite harmonica, so to speak, but more of a brand. The side of the Ross.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. There's tunings that I like.
SPEAKER_05You like the higher, I did notice that.
SPEAKER_02I yeah, I'm a player that lives up in the high register of the instrument, and a lot of players don't. John Popper, who we mentioned, he lives up there and plays really fast up there and does all these, you know, wonderful things. Some people don't like that whatsoever. I I love living up in that register for some reason. What resonates with you, you know, your own ears, humanness, your heart, what resonates with you is you know what you gravitate to. You know, that whole thing of all that really low stuff is you know, it it's wonderful. I like it, but I go. And that's a high A. No one plays a high A. Everybody hates the high A, but I I like the high A. It's different, it's just different. You can do that guitar player speak, shred up high. And that's fun. I love it. May not be the most soulful thing, but sometimes you just want to have fun, and shredding is fun.
SPEAKER_05I was gonna say, you just want to shred, man. Yeah, but I love it. Well, what's the weirdest place you've shredded at with a harmonica gig?
SPEAKER_02The weirdest other people might not think it's weird, but uh maybe it's the context was weird. You you remember the Dukes of Hazard. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Well she loves Daisy. Oh yeah, she loves it.
SPEAKER_04I've been on stage with Daisy. Who did a love day? I know, right?
SPEAKER_02In that show, there's a Cooter, the gr the garage guy. Cooter. He did a bunch of albums and I played on them.
SPEAKER_03Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_02And he and he used to do this thing called Dukesfest. And they'd have we'd have as many as 20,000 people at the Bristol Speedway, Dukesfest. We were the band. And John Schneider, the tall blonde that everybody loved, had a country music career. So he we would be his band and he would sing, and the other ones are there, and we do all these ended up doing all these things with the whole cast, playing with Daisy Duke right beside me. The craziest show we ever did, to me it was crazy because of, like I said, the context was at the Grand Old Opry. That cast got invited down there to be on stage to do a show. So Cooter brought his band, of which we started the whole night off with the theme from The Dukes of Hazard, and I'm playing this harmonica solo in, you know, playing the Dukes of Hazard. I couldn't play it today, but Ah, I know, right? But just but it was so funny because it's it was just I can remember the it being so surreal that I'm on the Grand Old Opry stage. I have Daisy Duke right beside me. I'm playing the Dukes of Hazard theme. And it's just like this is this is kind of dream stuff, but it's also weird.
SPEAKER_00Dukes of Hazard.
SPEAKER_02You know, I love all those guys that are in the band, and I just I just actually played with them a handful of months ago.
SPEAKER_07But yeah, it's it's well for anybody that doesn't know. I mean, that show was everything.
SPEAKER_05There's a lot of people geeking out about it right now.
SPEAKER_07And and you know what? That was before we had eight million options for what to watch on TV. I mean, I don't know if that was when we had two channels, three channels. We certainly did not have HBO yet or any of that. And so it was the it was I like the dark-headed one though. I like him.
SPEAKER_02He had a small career too. He was a singer too, if I remember right.
SPEAKER_07We need to look up that entire cast again. I know. That'd be cool. That's so awesome. So they're still you're still sort of involved with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, Cooter is is not totally healthy enough to perform anymore, but his band still plays with without him doing all those things. And every once in a while they'll call me, our violin player is sick. Can you come up and you know take that role? That kind of thing. So I'll I'll do that.
SPEAKER_05That's so cool. So you fill in as a harmonica player where a violin would be or the fiddler would be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's uh it's that solo instrument that yeah. Anyone that has has a strictly solo role, vi violin, saxophone role. Yeah, I could get I could get that call.
SPEAKER_07I love that. So what what happens when there's multiple of you all? So there is you and there's a sax player and there's a fiddler. Like, do you all have to kind of coordinate where you're gonna jump in and flow?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's a big trick. This this coming in a couple of weeks up in Charlottesville to Ravenna Roots Festival sponsored by the front porch. I'm working with Terry Allard and her band, which is a seven-piece band, you know, a accordion, lap steel, mandolin, violin. So there's only so much real estate musical. In that hallway.
SPEAKER_00In that hallway. That wall's full.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I can take that spot on the ceiling. No. Yeah, seven piece. And and it's funny because she and I used to tour together in in the nineties as a duo everywhere. So now in the you know, in doing it with the whole band, it's like, wait a minute, when it's just her and I, I have the whole hallway. So yeah, it's it's it's a little it's I don't want to tricky, but it's it's you just have to be aware of that you know, okay, the mandolin's here, Pedel Steel's there, I'll I'll make my noise at the appropriate time.
SPEAKER_07So you gotta think on your feet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that kind of and that kind of thing you do. That's part of playing with other people is that that communication. It's hardly ever spoken. It's uh intuitively you you have to find your way in in that space to you know to where you're what your role is and what you're gonna do, when you're gonna do it. And some people are are really good at that. Uh and some people not so much. Especially with guitar players that want to trade fors back and forth. You know, I I love doing stuff like that. And and then all of a sudden you you're playing back and forth, and then you're weaving together at the same time and the dynamics build, and then it just kind of explodes. Not all players touch that place where they want to do that, or they can do it, or whatever. And it's like, okay, you do your solo, I'll do my solo. I'd much rather we build. Yeah. It feels better.
SPEAKER_07Well, from a listening standpoint, it's my favorite thing in the world. And I don't know anyone who wouldn't prefer that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I mean, it's exciting, it's energies connecting that just are so much more powerful together. I I love it so much. Afghanistan. Yeah. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_02I had been for half a dozen years, I don't know, this one pushes my button, but for about a half an eye half another dozen years, I g I gave this up. And I was solely an audio engineer at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville. And my friend Peyton got a call from the State Department music through diplomacy, Afghanistan, you want to bring some musicians with you. You know, and it was do I did I want to go? And at first I didn't, but I got talked into it by people really close to me that like you you need to do it. So we went. It was me, Peyton Tochtermann, Radoslav Lorkovic landed in Kabul and met our State Department people. And people say when you when you first tell this story, peop people think, well, you were playing for the troops 2012. And it's like, no, no, it's not the troops. We're we're playing with Afghan musicians. We're building that bridge. So for a week and a half we traveled the country playing and wasn't the safest time in 2012. And we landed in Herat and spent a lot of time there with Afghan musicians collaborating together with their material. And then we we finalized the whole event with a concert in the Citadel, Alexander the Great's Citadel, in the King's Court with Afghan musicians. As far as I know, we're the first people to in the maybe the even the only people to have played that space in the Citadel, Alexander the Great's Citadel, with with Afghan musicians. Maybe someone else has done it before, but it was kind of it was kind of a big deal. All the news outlets latched onto it. I think Iran came out and condemned our performance there at the time. But a lot of European media really latched onto it. And our State Department people said that we've been over here building roads and building bridges all this time. And uh this is probably the best bang for the buck we've we've spent. This music through diplomacy thing.
SPEAKER_05Music brings people together.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Always. Always.
SPEAKER_07Stanley Jordan was talking about the Palestinians playing with the Israelis at the Grammys and just how powerful that was.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Just just the idea of it's powerful. And the music, another story in itself.
SPEAKER_07Well, and that was a big part of our conversation with Stanley, is like that kind of thing should happen way more than it does. Right. Because it does have so much power to heal. Yeah. And, you know, help with divides as well. For sure. So I love that you had that. What were they like? I mean, were you able to keep it? Was it translators? Like how did that work?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we had a translator. Actually, he's up in in Canada right now, and I touch base with him every once in a while. He was a young kid, probably 20 years old at the time, I'm not sure. But it's funny because people would when you when you came back, people would say, Well, what stood out the most from you? And you'd always say, the people. There's just that human connection, and it just it just transcended all the political and you know military stuff that was happening. And you and you and you felt like they're just trying to live their lives and be happy and and you know, like we're all trying to do. And and we connected with with them in that way at that level. And obviously I mean, the music was w were were, you know, what it was all about at the time. And the funny thing is, if if you know Afghanistan and and that and that culture, music the Taliban outlawed music. So there was some places we we played where that was it was kind of a big deal that we were even there playing live instruments with people because that was that was a no a no-no under Taliban rule. And if if you were to come see Peyton and I play, he tells a story about one of our shows where all the sea of blue burkas came up to the venue and came in, and once they got in the venue were able to take them off. And and hear live music for probably the first time in their lives. That's great. Yeah. And for me that whole trip changed and because I quit playing music and it kind of re-energized the idea of this is what I need to do. I I went on and did my audio engineering and still do to this day, but it kind of redirected to me as t to where my real priority is. And it's it's the dopamine that I get from these things, I guess. Or the endorphins and just you know, that kind of self expression.
SPEAKER_07Aaron Powell How long were you there?
SPEAKER_02I think it was like ten days, maybe it's two weeks. I can't rem I can't remember. It was a while. There were some sketchy times. Whereas like we need to leave, we need to leave now. Now you know, that kind of thing. Traveling around with guys with machine guns and yeah, I I'm so glad that I did that. It was a pretty moving period of time and it still hangs with me today for sure.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you I could tell the minute I said it, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07I knew somebody when I was really young who had been very isolated from meeting anyone outside of her race. You know? Right. And I grew up in San Francisco. So, you know, I mean, we I that I didn't I didn't even understand that there were, you know, problems between people because of color or anything like that. And so one of my good friends was introduced to that friend that had been so isolated, and she got to know her my one was white, one was black. And the white person who had never been around anyone outside of her race, you know, several months later was saying, Oh, I just I love her so much, you know, she's not like, you know, and it was like, no, she is. You just got to know her. Right. And that is the whole thing. I mean, from whether it's race or cultures or countries or whatever, when you're around people that are not like yourself, you realize actually we're all we are all the same. We're just all the same. That's the big secret. And you know, going there, that was a huge, I'm sure, revelation to see that you can just blend and create and that we're not like the enemy. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's a little well, you're right. It's a little bit of both. You know, going both directions. You discover that if you're not a person that travels, you need to understand that traveling is probably the best education that you can buy.
SPEAKER_07For your soul, yeah.
SPEAKER_02For your soul.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It it all changes you. You know, I've I've been able to go to, you know, Guatemala and you know, Afghanistan and you know, throughout Europe, so on. And you just you just learn so much. And if you learn about other people and their cultures, you you find some things out about yourself simultaneously in that in that context.
SPEAKER_07So mine was Hungary. That was the biggest one for me.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I bet.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. It's crazy. The history there is just wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, that whole thing with history.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I got to do a tour of of Ireland handful of years ago, seven or eight years ago, and that's where a lot of my roots are, is you know, Great Britain and Ireland. And it was you just learn, just being in the presence of of another culture. You just you just absorb it and and it alters your whole world view in real time.
SPEAKER_07It's sad that so few people get that opportunity. Everybody just tends to stay right in the geography they were born in and raised in, and that's it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Ireland's definitely on my bucket list. Oh, dude. That is gonna be Ireland and Italy, but I want to go to Italy just to see landscapes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We went to Italy last year.
SPEAKER_05Oh, killer.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it was a top-to-bottom whirlwind, Venice. I loved Venice.
SPEAKER_05Well, let's just jump stages here. Completely jump stages from Afghanistan over to Jimmy Buffett. Tell us what that's like being able to get on stage with him.
SPEAKER_02Well, that was that was an interesting day. And I I think I mentioned about touring with Peter Mayer, Brendan Mayer, and Scott Kirby as the Mayor, Kirby Mayer thing. Midway during that tour that one year. See, Jimmy would take everybody to to Paris, to France, at the end of September, because they did some tour over there at that point. So it was it was difficult getting a window where the where the people in the Coral Reefer Band could go out and do their own things. And we this is the window we had in September. So Peter and Scott and Brendan and I were making our way down south, and we were playing in Amagansett, Long Island. And a little small 250 Cedar Club, but Paul McCartney has shown up there, Billy Joel is showing up there. It's this weird, like hole in a wall, legendary thing called the Stephen Talkhouse. Well, we had heard earlier in the day Jimmy had contacted Peter, just like, I'm in town, basically. And you know, so it was one of those things. And then like a half an hour before we were our set before we were to go, because it was our show that night, it was Peter, Brendan, Scott, and I. And Jimmy says, Hey, I want to come by and see you guys and maybe sit in with you a little bit. It's like Nah. Nah. So Jimmy, they s they kind of they snuck him in the back door upstairs to the dressing room, and it was so we all had this like half an hour of yakking and figuring out what we're gonna play. You know, Pirate Looks at 40, okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And the Mayor Kirby Mayor band and and me went down, played about 20 minutes, and then it was like, okay, time for their special guest. But this is like one of those things where at this point, because word had gotten out he's in town, the place just was already full anyways, but it just got stupid. And so he comes down from the stairs from the dressing room and dumped you right onto the stage. So he came down, and we ended up doing, I don't know, half an hour, 40 minutes of of his stuff. And, you know, at the end of Pirate looks at 40, he turns around and gives me a nice fist bump on there. And this is Yeah, it was one of those you know, it was just one of those little moments in time that you're so grateful that you're able to have and stick in your pocket. Any harmonica player knows there are certain harmonica chairs out there. There's Mickey Raphael with Willie Nelson, been with him forever, tours with him. Fingers Taylor was with Jimmy Buffett, you know, and there's a couple other what you know you'd call the harmonica chair that, you know, if someone gets and they own it for life. And so it was be able to to step in and you know take fingers be in Fingers chair for, you know, handful of minutes anyways, was just you just felt honored to be able to do that and and that he was up for it and willing to let me take that chair for that night.
SPEAKER_04So you got a fist bump.
SPEAKER_02And I got a fist bump.
SPEAKER_07That's a good day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's a good day. That was a good that was a good day. That was a good tour. I miss I missed doing that tour.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I bet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, you guys can always give back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. They're all those guys are out doing wonderful things right now. Scott just played up at Jam and Java last night up in DC. Peter and Brendan are doing their thing. I'm doing my thing. We'll all maybe collide again at some point. Like this whole music business, you know, there's that things just kind of roll along and you're just grateful for all the different seasons of your career, whatever they may be, and they all add up to something.
SPEAKER_07It makes me think of roller coaster rides. I because I love amusement parks, but you know, just thinking back in my head to all the roller coasters I've ever ri ridden, it seems like that's what it is for the musicians we talk to. And it's gonna be a different one every time.
SPEAKER_05I know, we love it. And everyone's they're all seasoned, just a little different, but it seems like they're all in the same dish. You know what I mean? But we keep hearing different things, but it's it's still the same in a way. I love it. All right, so we know that you played at Grand Ole Opry, and you also played at the Ryman.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. That was a long time ago.
SPEAKER_05Which are basically sacred ground for musicians. Did those moments feel different when you stepped onto those stages?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think so. The rhymen, maybe not as much because I was young and dumb and I didn't quite get what was happening at the time. Back in the eighties when I first moved down here, after playing with this songwriter and these songwriters up in New England, I came down here and immediately found myself knee deep in country music. So and we were uh in the living in Harrisonburg and I was recording on some things. I j I just the whole sequence of how you meet somebody who who knows somebody, and that whole and you find a trajectory. Well, I just found myself working a lot at this studio in Harrisonburg, Virginia, that was doing gospel and country. This band I end up joining with the first time I was ever a salaried musician. This is country band. Again, it goes back to these music competitions that that I'm not so fond of, but you know, it was fortunate that things worked out. This band won the Dodge Wrangler Country Music Showdown, and you know, for the for Virginia, and we were sent down to Nashville and given all this money and a van, and they gave us all this stuff, and a film crew came down, followed us down, and we played the Ryman to do this this big national Dodge Wrangler country showdown thing. The whole Ryman thing, I knew of it, but I like today I'd have a whole I'd have a whole different sense about myself about the hallow ground that the ryman is. I don't think I got it back back then. But I can list it as a as a stage. So I'm I'm gonna list it as a stage as I've been able to play.
SPEAKER_07So we love the good, the bad, and the ugly. So is there a train wreck of a story that you have from any gig you were involved in?
SPEAKER_02There was one gig I think we were playing in Richmond, actually. With the country music band. It's it's not the gig, it's what what happened right after well we played King's Dominion, it was this big deal with that country band. And after I guess I we had won something, I can't remember, or I'd I'd gotten some instrumentalist of the year by country music news or something that maybe that's what it was, but I remember afterwards running through King's Dominion at night trying to get out of there, and and I jumped over one of the fences, and then next thing I know I was underwater. What is there's some kind of water water park or something?
SPEAKER_07You were on the water park side. You went to the right. You went to the right.
SPEAKER_02But I remember literally underwater.
SPEAKER_05Wow. As long as it's not the lawness monsters. Fully dressed. You were fully dressed.
SPEAKER_02I was full. Yeah, I just got an offstage.
SPEAKER_07Was anyone there to laugh about it?
SPEAKER_02I just leapt over this like steel fence and concrete thing and thought I was landing on ground to get over the fence onto the other side, but the other side was apparently it was water.
SPEAKER_05Did that freak you out or what? What did you do?
SPEAKER_02One of those things like time just stopped. I'm underwater. This this is not real, but yes, it's real.
SPEAKER_05Well, how did you find your way out?
SPEAKER_02I can't remember now, but this was before I drank whiskey. I didn't I didn't drink whiskey back then. Whiskey is a new thing for me unless half a dozen years.
SPEAKER_07Oh my goodness. So for the engineering part of what you have done, Chris Christofferson, B.B. King, Mavis Staples, Dion Warwick, George Thurgood. Yeah. You just said George Thurgood.
SPEAKER_05Who else?
SPEAKER_02Pat Matheny, Chick Korea, Winona. And I there there's there's there's so many. And in the in this when you're the A1 at the theater, either you would mix the act or you would become the systems engineer for the act. You know, Diana Ross, you know, nitty gritty dirt, all these people that would that would come through the theater, you got you got to work with them. Bo Diddley was fun. Joshua Bell, the violin player, uh Yo-Yo Ma. But all of them have these little like I I can kind of remember the the the shows, but like Yo-Yo Ma was a situation where he came in the back door of the artist door, I don't know if you if you know who Yo Yo Ma is, it's and he just walked to the center of the stage and I'm in front of the house and I look up, there's this guy, he says, Hi, I'm Yo-Yo. Okay. I don't know. So everyone has little little things. The Dalai Lama was was a hoot. He's a f he's he's a actually a comedian.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna say that doesn't it doesn't seem to go together that the Dalai Lama is a hoot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, he's totally he's he's he's totally a hoot. That's cool. Um no. You're not even supposed to touch the hand of the Dalai Lama, but he took her hand and was dragging, you know, she was trying to bring him up the stairwell and he's like pulling on it, holding her back. And she's like, Oh my goodness, is he too frail? And the whole time he's just joking with her.
SPEAKER_04Uh oh no.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so there's there's you know, there's there's there's so many stories that you know like that, whether it's you know, whether it's political figures like the governor or the or the Clintons or or Whoopi or, you know, the all the comedians. The comedians the comedians are a hoot to work with because they are all just normal people because they all came up. None of them were you know giant stars from the get-go. They all came up through the comedy clubs and and they are all like George Carlin, you know, was You met George Carlin. I have to tell you the George Carlin story. Yes. This this is just one thing about the George Carlin story. He it soon got out that our theater would w were was buying these shows, but comedians and man management producers realized we can rent your theater and we can take all the proceeds. So they so George Carlin was one of the first to rent the Paramount as a comedian. And he came in, he was w practicing for an HBO show. So he's he came on stage with the audience with a whole bunch of sheets of white paper, and he says he's basically gonna practice on you for his HBO show. So he did that, and then it was just a matter of months later that he passed away. So I am absolutely positively sure that that night there are jokes that he told that one and only time that he never told again. And I recorded that show, and I've since talked to his sister, and I want to get that show to her because I I know there's jokes he never told before. I I can't imagine, you know, he was happy with everything. But I burned it onto a CDR back when we used to do CDRs, and I yet to be able to find it, but I will someday. Like you physically have lost it? Well, it's in my house someplace. I know it's in the house. It's just I'm I'm a little bit of a hoarder with stuff. So I'll put a half an hour into finding something. If I don't, you know, six months later I'll put another 45 minutes into finding something.
SPEAKER_05This is your calling to find that. Yeah, we need you to find that.
SPEAKER_02No, his sister would love to have it. George was a hoot.
SPEAKER_05Was there ever an artist you were nervous to meet?
SPEAKER_02Oh, besides you guys? Oh, I mean, everybody in in a little bit of a sense, you know, be just because they're, you know, they're all those people. They're all those people. They're all those people. The name on the marquee, you know, the the name in in the lights. It's funny because the the audio work that I got in Florida specifically mentioned that he asked me to do it, this guy, Greg Grew. He said, because you work with these people all the time, that you don't get the like star geeked out, starstruck thing. You know, and that you're gonna have some of those people on stage. So all of a sudden these waves of stories come, like with Whoopi Goldberg. I was trying for the first time to put a microphone around her ear, you know, like TED Talk microphones that are side of your face. Oh so I had to drop the wire down the back, and then I was trying to get reach up from behind her shirt, and she's like, just put your hand up there, Gary, with like a any old audio engineer and and pull that thing down.
SPEAKER_07She always feels to me like she's probably a pretty authentic and warm in like in real life, let's just say.
SPEAKER_05Okay. So what's more stressful? A broken harmonica or a broken microphone five minutes before show time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, the microphone. Really? Oh, because you have a thousand people. If one of my harmonicas is is not right, I can go to a different one, go to a different key and play it differently, but it'll still work within that song structure. But when you have a thousand or whatever, however many people that are listening to what you're doing as an audio engineer, something on stage that doesn't work, it's really work to like keep yourself calm because once you start losing control to stress, you can't think straight. So you can't problem solve. And much of the whole audio engineering work is problem solving or to be able to trace down the issue. There's the mixing part, which is great, fun, that's the gravy, but it's troubleshooting an issue. We've had them all.
SPEAKER_07What's it like being the person that it screamed out on a regular basis? Where's the sound guy? Oh like you're that guy. Yeah. Turn it up.
SPEAKER_01Turn it up, turn it down, turn it up.
SPEAKER_05Poor cowbell. Yeah. I have heard that you are an incredible sound person just from you know people I've known in the business. You are incredible.
SPEAKER_02I need to get this list of people and send them their checks.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, John Beckner's one of them. He loves you.
SPEAKER_02I've had some good shows. I'm I'm not the science engineer, tech techno geeky guy, but as far as getting somebody the sound that I'm going for seems to be often what works for the audience. I was really pretty happy with that part of my career. I can't go back to it though because of of ear issues. I mean, th there's an expiration date as you as you get go old and natural hearing loss and things like that. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That just happened because they happen. And yeah, I'm getting to the point where I don't trust my ear on a big professional level. I'll I'll always do it. I'll always be that guy that wants to control things with with that whatever band I'm playing with, with how things sound. But that's why I'm moving into just playing all the time.
SPEAKER_05Aaron Powell Well, that's where your joy is and your heart. Trevor Burrus Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And your expression.
SPEAKER_02Definitely that.
SPEAKER_07At least if you have to give one thing up that you love, you have another thing you love.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell I mean, I'm happy. I taught high school for 20 years and loved that too.
SPEAKER_07So I What subject?
SPEAKER_02Health in world history.
SPEAKER_05Well you get health because you're a hiker. You're a hitchhiker rather than a bit.
SPEAKER_02Hitchhiker.
SPEAKER_05More of a hitchhiker. You didn't hitchhike the Appalachian trail or anything. You thumbed a banana.
SPEAKER_02I'm not that guy.
SPEAKER_05That's so funny. I know it just registered when they send it.
SPEAKER_07I'm like, no, Johnny, no, that's not it. Gary, world history was absolutely the only subject outside of creative writing that I loved in four years of school. Yeah. World history was everything. Wow. We'll have to geek out about world history at another time.
SPEAKER_02Well the the other part of that story is is who I taught is the kids that were labeled learning disabilities or oppositional defiant or emotional disabilities all in the same high school. The high school that I did my student teaching at, I was hired at at Almoral High School in Charlottesville and stayed there for 20 years. Every once in a while I see that I see my kids. I love that part.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Well, and maybe they'll hear your podcast.
SPEAKER_02Maybe.
SPEAKER_07They'll go, ah, it's Mr. Green, it's Mr. Green. We ran into a teacher at the grocery store the other day, and my 15-year-old was like, it's so weird seeing a teacher in the in the real world. Like she's shopping, she has bananas in her car. They're normal people doing normal things. So funny.
SPEAKER_05I remember when I was in high school and I had a fake ID.
SPEAKER_07And me and my girlfriend's telling the jerk.
SPEAKER_05No, we all went to the bar because we had a fake ID, and we saw our teacher, our high school teacher, and we were like, we froze, and he was like, hey, what's up? Come on over here. It was so cool. But we the whole time we were like, oh my God, he drinks beer. He's in the barn. He's with the gum. He's with the gum and he's cool. Oh my god. It was so funny.
SPEAKER_04I'll never forget that. That's for you, Kelly Bell.
SPEAKER_07Well, you are multifaceted. I did not see the teaching career coming. Let's talk a little bit about music today versus when you started hitchhiking across the country with a harmonica and hiking. And then or hiking, as Johnny likes to say. And then I want to hear a little bit of music before we do the speed round. I'm just curious because you we started in the 70s and you've gone through obviously the 80s and 90s and all the way through to where we are today. What is the biggest change you've seen in the industry since you got into it?
SPEAKER_02Internet, obviously, but the part of the internet, especially as as a player for musicians, if we're if we look at it from that angle, there is so much out there to learn from that we didn't have. I remember needing to learn a little specific piece of a song that I would lift the needle up on the record. Play it, put it on there again and play it. And that would be to listen to it, much less ask somebody how that's done. Now there is nothing as far as uh a technique like say on my instrument that you need to learn that you can't find out how to do it. And quite possibly you'll find out how to do it from the person who you heard doing it, they'll willingly tell you online, whether it's Howard Levy, Jason Ricky, all these tr you know, tremendous ultra-world-class iconic players, you can communicate with them directly and find out how things are done. If I had this resources that musicians have today to learn, if I had that back when I was learning, I have no idea what my playing skill would be like. Would you though? No, that's that's a valid question. I I think so because some of the fundamentals that you'd learn. I think I would have dug deeper into some things. Now being older, I'm a little more lazy. I I could go back and try to do things that I that I can't and I do. I I do, but I just think the the formative times when things are becoming embedded and solidifying in your your brain as far as music goes and how you play and how you create phrasings and things like that. With everything that's available. Okay, there's there's 10-year-old kids in China that are smoking good harmonica players. Interesting. Little girls. This one girl, Tancy Lu. T-A-N-C-Y-L-I-U, I think. I I started listening to her at 10. She was duplicating Master Blues harmonica players from the 50s, like note-for-note, tone, it's just like there's people like that all over the world, and and now we have access to hear them. And the same, you see though, that with guitar players, you know, child guitar player prodigies. It's no different than with this instrument. I I go back to that part about there's so much to say on an instrument and no one says it all. You you gotta you gotta keep telling yourself your voice is valid even though you don't do this technique and you don't play like that, or you don't play like him, you don't do that. You do you, and no one else does you better than you. If if we're in talking in the context of of musicianship, there's just so much you can learn sitting at your kitchen table with your laptop open that you can discover.
SPEAKER_07It's a miracle we learned anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07You know, when you think about the what we have now, I mean, even what you were doing with the record, that's also assuming that you're interpreting what you're hearing right.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_07Which I mean, we're forever singing the wrong lyrics to songs. We've actually talked about that. And so you you know, to not have anywhere to go to actually see it written. I mean, that yeah. How do we throw?
SPEAKER_05Well, are there things about old school recording and live music that you miss?
SPEAKER_02You know what I miss about about live music? Because we were doing this back before Blockbuster, back be you know, Blockbuster video, back before you had so many alternatives of what you could do with yourself and Netflix and it used to be Friday, Saturday night game, people went out to hear live music. They might go to a movie movie screen, but you didn't sit in your house. You went out and you you supported live music because you needed that. And now you can you can substitute that with so many things. And you went to see people and supported them and gladly paid for them. And the whole you know, for people that are at this at this level of playing like the clubs around Richmond and all this stuff, if the money you made back in the late 70s or or during the eighties, if that translated to what it is today. Yeah. I mean But it doesn't there's gigs I play today that I I was making more money back in the mid-80s. When I was that salaried musician with the country band. But you wanna you need to play you need to play. It's you know, we we all have to play. It's kind of like boxing, you know, there's the people that fight in the clubs, and then there are the people that are the the the champion that fight for championships. And you know, there's nothing really in between. There's either all the money or you're all scrounging. But we're we're musicians. You need to do this. It's it's our oxygen.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I was about to say it's like breathing.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_07Well, I hope it circles back because that's really the only thing I ever want to do personally, and I know you're the same way. Yeah. It's like I don't even want to go out if if it's not live music.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_07And hopefully, you know, I just read something interesting about whatever the young genet, I can't remember it's what generation it is that people are talking about a lot right now, but they're saying that they are the ones that are gonna turn the tables. They're the ones that hate AI and that get future. No, we're genetics. Yeah, we're gen X. Yeah, no, it's like Tegan and Landon and Jace. Oh. It's that age. And they are rebelling against all the things that are getting weird, frankly, and wanting to circle back. And I I just hope one of the things is things like live music and not sitting in here at home watching 8,000 channels like a robot on AI. You know, it's all getting so weird.
SPEAKER_02I heard a blues harmonica channel that somebody posted on one of the blues harmonica groups, and they, you know, you would say, I'm not advertising this, but you need to go listen to what's happening. And I listened to it and I thought, oh my goodness, if this just popped up in the background, I would go, man, who is that? Who's singing? Who wrote this song? Who's the harmonica player? Because it was so good. And we're in the not even the in infancy, but the zygote era of AI.
SPEAKER_05And it's it's also it's it they're it's gonna get to a place where you you're not gonna be able I mean I couldn't tell without listening, listening, but I feel like it might get there for a second, but I feel like people are gonna want to go back to organic music. Yeah. Even if it does. If it even does go there with the AI, I really think people want organic music. It it's like what you were just talking about. Even the kids hate it. They hate it.
SPEAKER_02Right. Maybe it's the best thing that ever happens to live music is this to turn people back to where you know an earthquake to rebuild.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a really good point.
SPEAKER_02I like that perspective. We can go with that.
SPEAKER_05Well, and you know, with artists now, they don't sell albums, right, you know, or CDs or anything like that. So basically, you have to play arenas or or shows or whatever to make money to do what you do to support your life. It bugs me so bad. Because people don't realize these are our music angels. Yeah. We need to support them. I actually have a t-shirt that says support local music. Does it say yeah, support local music?
SPEAKER_02I did this uh soundtrack for uh is a PBS Nature, you know, that series that they do. The guy producing the show found me to do the part of the soundtrack, and he sent me a f the music to it. It was all done, except for the harmonica part that they wanted. But he had synthetic, you know, sampled harmonica to give me an idea, think along these lines. Because we always thought, and it's always been the case, and all that sampled bass, sampled drums, sampled this. No one's ever gotten the harmonica, a sampled harmonica to sound like a real harmonica player. So I did that it was I think it's called San Diego Wild. It's a nature, you know, PBS nature series soundtrack. Because there's a lot of fun to do that kind of thing. But with the stuff that I've been hearing with AI, it's like, shoot, you know, they've they've gotten to that place where they they can do it now.
SPEAKER_07They can do it now. It's terrifying. It is terrifying. All right. Speed round. Yeah, can you do like dueling pianos where we just throw out our favorite song and you do it on harmonica? Probably not.
SPEAKER_05But that was brilliant. I love that. Dueling pianos. He said probably not.
SPEAKER_04That was the quickest answer.
SPEAKER_02That's the thing about this, is especially for me, is I do solo stuff, but my thing that I do is I is I'm part of the canvas for for songwriters, and I try to do things that are special.
SPEAKER_01Have you heard of news? Well, the sun's gonna shine. I say the sun's gonna shine. In my front, I got coffee grounds in my coffee, big old bugs in my oatmeal. Tacks in my shoes keep on sticking in the heels and I keep on walking. I say the sun gonna shut. I say the sun gonna shut in my bag on day. But she's gonna flower on me. We ain't together anymore like we used to be, and I keep on walking. Keep on walking. What a sound on shot. But the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday.
SPEAKER_05And you have an incredible blue.
SPEAKER_07What in the world? How do you keep them all clean? I kinda don't.
SPEAKER_02But that's what's in the woman.
SPEAKER_07What would you do if you walked up and somebody had taken one of your harmonicas out of the case and had their own mouth on it?
SPEAKER_02That would be pretty, pretty bad. But that did happen when we came back from from Afghanistan and the Kabul Kabul Airport. We're going through. They opened it, and the guy made me play some, and then like four or five other Afghan soldiers, these are the guys with the machine guns and everything, came over and they all were grabbing them, going, you just went ahead and said, Do whatever you want to do. Yeah, that gun says a lot. That's right. And if you take one, I won't be happy, but I'm not gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_05Or rather, you can have that one.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, here's a gift. Here's a gift for you. All right, Gary. It's around time. Okay, so the key to this, don't overthink.
SPEAKER_05Whatever pops into your head. What's one musician stereotype that's 100% true?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell I'm guessing most musicians are are pretty self-centered. That whole thing that we were talking about before about are you competitive or com always comparing you're always comparing yourself. It's like storytellers or that you know people you want to he you want to hear yourself talk kind of thing. Everybody has a little little bit of that. With musicians, you always want to hear yourself play. Because it pushes all those b buttons, all the dopamine and dorphin things. Yeah, I I think there's a little bit of that. Not that it's a bad thing.
SPEAKER_07It's so funny because when you're saying that, and I always do this in a speed round, my bad. But always wanting to talk. I pictured myself when you were saying that by a campfire for some reason with a blanket, listening to everybody else talk and being happy with that and occasionally jumping up off my little spot to go and then going back to my little spot with my blanket to listen. I don't know what you call that. All right, what's the most rock and roll thing you have personally witnessed?
SPEAKER_02Art Garfunkel came to the theater to play. And all during soundcheck, you know, he's up there, he's he looked kind of like how I look now. He comes out for the show, he has a he has a damn Art Garfunkel wig from his hair for his hair for the 70s. It it wasn't his real hair. Sorry, Art. It was it was the weirdest thing.
SPEAKER_05So when you see art live now, no, it's not his hair.
SPEAKER_07I'll tell you, there's not a lot that freaks me out more than a toupee.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it just shocked we all just were shocked. We thought he would come out like he's looking like he did in soundcheck. He's a character. He'd pop his head out of the his dressing room door and just look around and shut the door.
SPEAKER_05All right, what song do you secretly love that people would never expect?
SPEAKER_02I just love that Bonnie Raitt song, but you don't you don't associate a harmonica with it necessarily. No. If I could make you love me.
SPEAKER_05Oh, totally. Okay.
SPEAKER_02There's a I the piano player I play with Callie, who's now out in Austin. We would do that song and we would start it with Acapella Harmonica. And then she would come in bloom. And she had a voice of an angel.
SPEAKER_05He's pulling from a suitcase.
SPEAKER_02We would we used to do hallelujah, which was a that's a great harmonica. Yeah, all that's amazing.
SPEAKER_04Beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Peyton talked to me when we were I was playing it in the King's Court when we were woman was there, and he has a he snuck and did a nice video of playing that thing. Oh, cool. In Afghanistan. Where's that video? It's probably on a Facebook thing or a YouTube thing somewhere. Anyway, just stuff.
SPEAKER_07All right.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_07If all those harmonicas over there, perfectly organized in your case, could complain about something, what would they complain about?
SPEAKER_04He's looking at them like they were gonna talk to him.
SPEAKER_02No, it it's funny because just today I put them on my homeowner's insurance. So I'm thinking they were probably wishing they were because this is like five thousand dollars of harmonicas here. They're probably wishing that I would insure them because if this thing ever walked away, I'd be miserable. The the harmonica belt has been stolen. They were all stolen at one point, you know, twenty years ago.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Ross Powell So they'd complain that you needed insurance on them. Yeah. I think so.
SPEAKER_07I.e., you are not valuing their life enough.
SPEAKER_02Well, the I think each one is a little jealous of the other.
SPEAKER_07Isn't it interesting? We I don't know if you heard this, but we interviewed a musician who ultimately the second half of his kind of life career has been on a cruise ship. On cruise ships. So he's managed to do that for years from one cruise to the next and doing piano and singing. But he told us this whole thing about how he really views pianos as sort of women. And so every, you know, every ship that he gets on, he's familiar with her nuances and the way she plays and the key that maybe is a little bit different than it should be. And so he was explaining the the piano at LAX. He stops and plays every time he's home, but it's you. But wait, you he names them, and he names them. Each one has a name. But you've got like a plethora of women in that briefcase, if we're looking at it that way, that are all competing for your life. That's a woman. I was gonna ask questions about that too, but that's a different thing.
SPEAKER_05All right, I'm gonna clean this up a little bit later. All you wonderful listening people, it's a good thing you can't see. Oh my god. All right, so I I think I have an answer to this question. Who would play you in a movie version of your life?
SPEAKER_02I'd like somebody a hundred times more handsome than me. Brad Pitt would do a nice job.
SPEAKER_07I was gonna say Harrison Ford. No, that's good.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say Richard Dreyfus.
SPEAKER_07Oh, I'll take that. Favorite venue you've ever played?
SPEAKER_02Well, the Paramount in Charlottesville is a pretty nice venue to play. There's ones that have historical legacies to it, like Passim's in Boston. That's where you know Dylan and Joan Baez used to play when you know there's only fifty sixty people who can fit in there, but they just have this history. So there'd be places like that. Some of the big stages Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the Philly Folk Festival, those are all you know, big st stages for songwriters that uh you know have got to play. The Birchmere. The Birchmere is a great place to play. The Millennium Stage and the Kennedy Center was a good fun time. I you know, it almost the Birchmere is a is a great venue and they treat their artists wonderfully. And the people that go to hear music there go to hear music. And so you you you feel that and you get that.
SPEAKER_05So it would be the Birchmere then.
SPEAKER_02I did have the w one little stage experience that was kind of funny. At Folks Fest in Colorado, where this guy Peter Himmelman was playing, and he just happened to announce to the audience, is there a harmonica player that can come out and play?
SPEAKER_07No way.
SPEAKER_02Seriously. And I was sort of near the front of the stage and I just had one in my pocket and it wasn't the right one, and I just kind of like waved it to off stage people, and they said, Come on, I wave me up and I go and I'm playing. So I go I run up and we're playing into the same microphone. And this was folks fest, it's a big festival, and it's like planet blue bluegrass kind of stuff. And I'll never forget I did all this really Cool fancy stuff with his and he took put his arm around me and walked back and back with our back to the audience and said, Who the fuck are you?
SPEAKER_07Right, right. I was thinking he was probably like, How did that just happen? He expected some 12-year-old kid to come up there and blow that initial stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what he won. That's what he wanted, I'm sure. So those little tidbit moments that are just I don't know. You just you just remember them. There's just, you know, it's that whole when you're when you're laying on your back, your final hour, and you're just letting letting the reel roll, you know, those little little things. You're just grateful you had those little moments in life.
SPEAKER_07That's the best story ever.
SPEAKER_05That is funny. All right. Best backstage food you've ever had.
SPEAKER_02This is where we start blending the audio engineering stuff and the performance stuff. But the that the Paramount Theater we would always eat what the artist eats. Nice. So I would have to say the the Paramount back in the day would would spare no cost for for feeding artists. I don't know if that's the case anymore.
SPEAKER_05And what was the best thing that you remember that was so good?
SPEAKER_02Well, it started off being some of the salmon, but then once you've had it twenty times, because they get it for every artist. But in the beginning.
SPEAKER_07So good. So good. All right. Artists that surprised you the most.
SPEAKER_02I'd have to go back to Chris Christofferson because he was so gracious. He was so human. He was so normal. You know, he's he was a person that could, you know, wear the the diva hat and earned it. But he was anything and everything. But he tipped he tipped the crew. His wife walked around afterwards and and tipped the crew hundred dollar bills. And he he says, I want to take pictures. It wasn't like we're going, can we teach you a picture with you? And he said, let's do pictures. He came back again later on and he wasn't quite as healthy as he was that first time. And things were different. But the very first time, that's probably one of my top moments, you know, with that kind of work and with that kind of artist. He he rises to the top as being one of the most genuine good humans that you'll ever want to meet.
SPEAKER_07That's a class act.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Love that. Okay, your favorite vice to help unwind. Well, we dove into the Irish whiskey. We've all been sipping. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07One album everyone should hear start to finish.
SPEAKER_02The first three Led Zeppelin albums. That was me. You know, the the the 15-year-old boy in front of the mirror playing air guitar with the Jimmy Page. Or Alvin Lee of 10 years after. That was just a great era for music, spe rock music, especially. I don't think the nineties, the eighties. For me, none of them compare to the that seventies rock era. And then again, that was back when we really used to listen to music. You'd put an album on and you'd sit there with your friends and you would listen. And write the words down. Write the words down. Pass the album around the room. The cover. Read the liner notes.
SPEAKER_07Flip it over to see what was gonna happen on the side B. Pull out the sleeve and see what they had on the sleeve.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was just visiting my brother in New Hampshire and I left when I left New Hampshire in the 70s to never return to live. I left him most of my albums, and he had them out for me to show me because I'd not seen him. So I had all these, you know, Jethro Toll aqua. Oh, love Jethro Toll. You know, all these things, and they're all worn to death. I'm sure some of them have some kind of value to them. And there was just odd ones that we listened to back then that you never heard of. But as soon as you saw it, you could, you know, you ride a heap. Just crazy. Crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_05Thick as a Brick from Jethro Toll was my favorite song for like ever when I was younger.
SPEAKER_02I loved the whole Jethro Tell era. I I associate that with going to buy pot.
SPEAKER_03That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02We were in the car going driving to Manchester, New Hampshire, to some crazy park where we would buy a bag of pot.
SPEAKER_07The only time I tried to buy a bag of pot at a park, I think that I got tree bark. I got oregano. Definitely learned I needed to stick with friends. We could because they probably saw us as such an easy mark. That's why. They were like, oh, we'll just do the oregano bag for these girls.
SPEAKER_04They won't know the difference.
SPEAKER_07To this day, I have issues with oregano.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_05So we've been just grilling you with questions, and you've been so gracious with putting up with us, asking you all these questions and diving deep. Now it's your chance to ask us questions, and we call it Reverse Cowgirl.
SPEAKER_07So you can ask us anything you want. One question to me, one question to Johnny, or one to both of us.
SPEAKER_02Oh man. Okay. Who first had the idea?
SPEAKER_05Johnny. It was me. I was in radio for years. And when radio started changing and took out the heart of the artists, and it was just all about the money, I wanted a place for artists to talk and do what we're doing and find out what makes them and who they are. And and I just love it.
SPEAKER_02So so far, I don't know how many of these you've done, but enough that you must be finding a common thread about people that play music as their one common thread that jumps out.
SPEAKER_07The antenna for me. There seems to be really with everyone we've talked to, the similarity of the artists aren't sitting down and trying to make songs happen, make music happen. They are just able to receive from the universe. They have what many of them have referred to as an antenna. And a lot of times some of the most brilliant music has come for them driving on a highway and having to pull over to receive it.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_07And when they sit at the table and try to force it, nothing happens. Or when they don't take in what's coming to them because of life, being busy, whatever, then a lot of them have also said they kind of get punished. Like they won't. They get a block. Yeah, they'll get a block. And so that is definitely, I don't really think there's been anyone who hasn't identified with that. You even touched on it. The hallway. I mean, you know, you're you're not planning ahead for that. But in the moment it's you're getting that. And a and people that aren't creatives, that aren't musicians, nothing, nothing happens in that hall. It's just a dark hallway. Nothing happens for me in that hallway. So it is a it, I don't know. It just it makes for me, it makes me believe in something beyond us. And and it also reinforces the fact that I think all of you are magic to me and to Johnny. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, on that note, will you do me one favor?
SPEAKER_07Yes. Oh, good. Do you want our autograph?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_03Oh, will you each play something?
SPEAKER_07Oh, God. You know, when you said this is what you this is the first level of what everybody learns. I'm like, no, not me. I didn't, I can even get the. I actually really want to hear you do it first. Oh my God. All right. So we'll identify since we're not videoing. First of all, I'm going to just assume this is a side or mouth. All right. It's Jess. It's Jess going first. Am I trying to follow you? Why do you have one right now? Are you going to try and make a note? She's so nervous. She's literally. I know. You're just terrified. At least it's not singing though. Okay, I can do this. That's next. Do you have any tips before I start? Stop it.
SPEAKER_02No, when you when you breathe, when you breathe in, think of the word wada. How your tongue hits to get that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I did hear it.
SPEAKER_02And then you blow, go huda.
SPEAKER_05Good, Jess.
SPEAKER_02Try down the the left hand side. Okay. Left hole. The other the other left.
SPEAKER_07That's what my daddy's going to do. You're making me scared. Your other left.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Keep going.
SPEAKER_02Same thing.
SPEAKER_07All right, Johnny's gonna try. All right.
SPEAKER_02All right. Now keep going.
SPEAKER_03Johnny Johnny's so good.
SPEAKER_02All right, now you gotta you have to both do it at the same time, and I'm gonna play along with you. I'm gonna solo with you while you go here. I'm gonna ruin this.
SPEAKER_07I think I'm gonna pass out. No, you just killed it.
SPEAKER_00Wada, huda, wada.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god, silver backup harmonica player. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you on the hook.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. Harmonica, thanks you. Yes. I promised I didn't spit in it. If you're creative and listening to this, we want your story. The messy one.
SPEAKER_07The real one.
SPEAKER_05The one you don't usually have the opportunity to share.
SPEAKER_06I'm Johnny. I'm Jess. You're on the hook.
SPEAKER_01Lots of newsbugs crying extra. Have you heard of news? I woke up this morning, had a meeting walking blues, and I'm walking. Tryna drive my blues away. Well the sun's gonna shine. I say the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday. I got coffee grounds in my coffee, big old bugs in my oatmeal. Tacks in my shoes keep on sticking me in the heel, and I keep on walking. Trying to drive my blues away. Well, the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday. But she dung on sour on me. Trying to drive my blues away.
SPEAKER_02It's awesome.
SPEAKER_07Make sure to follow us on social media at Johnny and Jess on TikTok, and you can find the hook with Johnny and Jess on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
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SPEAKER_07You can submit to Be On the Show by visiting our website and filling out the Be On the Hook form. Just head to johnnyandjess.com. That's J O H N I A N D J E S S dot com. That's where you'll find everything you need to get started.