Adam Gussow interview

Adam Gussow joins me on episode 73.

Adam is a native New Yorker now living in Mississippi, working as a professor at the university there.
Adam rose to stardom as part of the blues duo Satan and Adam in the late 1980s. They found their audience on the streets of Harlem, where they were briefly filmed and appeared in a U2 documentary and album. Satan & Adam enjoyed great success, playing together for 15 years, releasing three albums before disbanding in 1998, re-forming some years later and releasing another album.
With the passing of Mr Satan, Adam formed his own one-man band, then a duo which has recently added Mr Satan’s nephew: Sir Rod & The Blues Doctors.
Adam was the first person to release blues tuition videos on YouTube and has had over 20 million hits, accompanied by his website Modern Blues Harmonica.

Links:
Adam’s website:
https://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/home.html

Satan & Adam documentary:
http://satanandadamfilm.com/

Pete Farmer kick drums and harmonica holders:
https://www.footdrums.com/

Videos:

U2's Rattle and Hum clip of Satan and Adam:
https://youtu.be/x6M2aWVx0LA

Ronnie Shellist ‘Funky Blues Harmonica’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_OchfmBc8

Gussow's classic blues harmonica videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfYHJbTZklgZU1bEVLaZyvQ

Modern Blues Harmonica YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/kudzurunner

YouTube video teaching Sunshine of Your Love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqFnpCcvUvQ

Adam busking solo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-E3qQ59VcQ

Crossroads video:
https://youtu.be/KeMis-B7f58

Sir Rod and the Blues Doctors: What’d I Say:
https://youtu.be/retCfgoCO3M

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Chapters

• 1:30 I first heard Adam playing on on his 3rd Satan & Adam album in an Oxford Street bookshop in London, in the mid 1990s
• 2:08 Adam was raised in and around New York
• 2:32 Not many people on the podcast have been from New York: and the blues scene there
• 4:22 Blues scene in New York is more modern than Chicago and other areas of the US
• 5:00 Blues scene in New York is not as vibrant as it was
• 5:17 Adam now lives in Mississippi where he is a professor of English and Southern Studies at the university there and has written several books on blues, harmonica and black culture
• 5:48 Still an active musician down in Mississippi
• 5:55 Studied at Princeton and Colombia universities
• 6:04 Played guitar in a high school jazz funk fusion band
• 6:32 Went to Berklee music school for a short stint
• 7:11 Returned to Princeton and wrote a dissertation on blues music and southern violence
• 7:51 Willie Dixon and BB King witnessed violence in the south that heavily influenced their blues music
• 9:34 Adam started playing harmonica age 16
• 9:59 Whammer Jammer was the first track that inspired Adam to take up harmonica
• 10:58 Was also learning guitar at the same time and connecting the blues scale and the pitches between the notes that really make the blues
• 11:57 Adam was a self-taught harmonica and guitar player, discovering Nat Riddles as his mentor when he was a little older
• 12:33 Summer school at Berkeley School of Music where he learnt some jazz theory
• 12:57 Stopped playing music for a little while after graduating from college before going to a blues jam in New York age 25
• 14:02 Saw James Cotton opening for the J Geils Band, BB King and Muddy Waters in New York
• 14:44 Adam was part of the famous blues duo: Satan & Adam, and how he discovered Sterling Magee, aka Mr Satan, in October 1986
• 15:44 Adam didn’t know who Sterling Magee was, e.g. that he had played with James Brown and George Benson
• 16:17 The duo made an impact on the streets of Harlem when busking, with the groove the thing
• 16:57 Took a while for Adam to find his place in the duo with Sterling
• 17:36 Busked for four years initially with Sterling, earning other money from teaching harmonica
• 18:02 They weren’t called Satan and Adam until first demo came out
• 18:16 In 1987 The duo were filmed by the rock band U2, briefly appearing in a film and album (Rattle and Hum) from the band
• 20:30 Made first album together in 1991: Harlem Blues, after signing with a high-profile music manager
• 22:00 The album was well received and had a lot of air play on the radio and a WC Handy Award nomination for Best Trad Blues Album
• 22:22 They received some publicity and started to playing in clubs and touring, instead of busking
• 23:16 Touring around US and some internationally
• 23:50 Satan and Adam documentary
• 23:56 The duo dis-banded in 1998 when Sterling became ill, and re-formed later to release another album and Adam released some recordings of them busking in the late 1980s
• 25:12 Adam’s memoirs of that time: Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir
• 25:52 After Satan and Adam, released a solo record Kick and Stomp: playing solo harmonica, vocal and a kick drum
• 27:11 Tracked down a better quality kick drum from Pete Farmer, who created what is now the Seydel Gecko harmonica rack
• 27:33 Adam started his solo project at the same age Sterling was when he first met him
• 29:14 The album received air play on a national radio show: the first solo harmonica to be aired on there
• 29:59 Southbound album, released in 2011, with Adam adding guitar and a few musicians
• 30:23 2012: formed a duo with another university professor: The Blues Doctors
• 30:37 Now joined by the nephew of Sterling Magee: to form Sir Rod and The Blues Doctors
• 31:48 Latest album from Sir Rod and The Blues Doctors is Keep It In The Family
• 33:33 Adam’s YouTube channel, starting 2007, was the first of harmonica tutorial channel on that platform
• 35:11 Has two YouTube channels now, which have had millions of views, but first channel wasn’t monetised
• 36:12 Modern Blues Harmonica website accompanied the first YouTube channel
• 36:40 Created second channel in order to be able to monetise
• 37:19 Records lots of the videos in his car
• 37:39 Son plays several instruments, except harmonica
• 38:15 Modern Blues Harmonica website contains lots of information
• 38:35 Has written six books around blues and harmonica
• 39:37 Subject of latest book: Whose Blues: Facing Up To Race and the Future of Music
• 40:30 Blues is a worldwide phenomena now, partly from US and British military bases
• 41:35 BB King also helped spread the blues around the world
• 42:06 Blues has Senegalese roots
• 43:45 Adam has been involved in numerous harmonica teaching camps
• 44:09 Has played at different festivals around the world
• 44:25 Hoping to tour to Germany in 2023
• 44:52 10 minute question: practise blues scale and licks through middle and upper harp
• 46:50 Uses some custom harmonicas from Joe Spiers but mainly plays stock Marine Bands
• 47:48 Singing
• 48:06 Has played some chromatic, but not really now
• 48:53 What is ‘modern blues harmonica’ partly involves not just playing all the classic Chicago blues songs
• 51:15 Is a Hohner endorsee and plays mainly standard Marine Bands
• 52:13 Overblows: had one lesson with William Galison, who Adam also took over the Big River show harmonica part from too
• 52:28 Adam is part of the popularity of this technique, along with Mike Turk, Carlos del Junco and Jason Ricci
• 53:55 Embouchre: puckers and tongue blocks
• 54:35 Often uses two amplifiers at the same time
• 56:05 Uses a clean vocal mic, and not a bullet mic
• 56:44 Uses a delay pedal as main effect, sometimes reverb, and delay settings
• 57:34 Future plans include teaching a blues literature class (including some harmonica) in Parchment Farm penitentiary, the famous prison in Mississippi