Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Jerry Portnoy interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Jerry Portnoy joins me on episode 20 of the podcast.
Jerry grew up with the sounds of Maxwell street in his ears. It took him a few years to pick up the harp, but when he did he enjoyed a tremendous career. Starting out with Johnny Young’s band, he had only been playing for six years before his talents landed him the greatest harmonica chair there ever was, playing with the Muddy Waters Blues Band. 
Jerry went on to play in the Legendary Blues Band and then with guitar legend Eric Clapton. He’s played at the White House, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. 

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Links:
Jerry's website: https://www.jerryportnoy.com

Teaching:
Jerry's Masterclass tutorial: https://www.jerryportnoy.com/lessons.html
Sonic Junction: http://www.sonicjunction.com/jerry-portnoy

YouTube:
Jerry playing with Muddy Waters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu3CbGyKgiA
Jerry playing Misty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb2CZenVvp0

Amps:
http://www.victoriaamp.com/
https://memphisbluesamps.com/mini-amp-docs


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/

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Hey everybody and welcome to episode 20 of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast. Jerry Portnoy joins me today. Jerry grew up with the sounds of Maxwell Street in his ears. It took him a few years to pick up the heart, but when he did he enjoyed a tremendous career. Starting out with Johnny Young's band, he'd only been playing for six years before his talents landed him the greatest harmonica chair there ever was, playing with the Muddy Waters Blues Band. Jerry went on to play in the legendary blues band and then with guitar legend Eric Clapton. He's played at the White House, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. A word to my sponsor again, thanks to the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more designed for harmonica. Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf. Hello, Jerry Portnoy, and welcome to the podcast. Hi, Neil. Glad to be here. Starting off a little with your background, I understand you grew up in Chicago, the blues town, and your father had a store on Maxwell Street, of all places.

SPEAKER_02:

That is correct, and that world is gone. Yeah, as a kid, I spent a lot of time on Maxwell Street. My father had a rug store down there, and there was all kinds of music. There was every kind of humanity down there, and there was music on the street. There were gospel groups, but mostly blues. Sunday was the big day, and people would swarm onto Maxwell Street from all parts of the Midwest because you could buy almost everything. Everything was for sale, and you haggled for everything. There were no set prices. It was quite a scene. And, of course, little Walter used to play right down the street from my father's store, and I used to go into a delicatessen store, to pick up some sandwiches and Walter would play right across the street from that at the alley. So I heard blues when I was growing up.

SPEAKER_00:

Were you aware at that age that that was little Walter playing and

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, I call it the soundtrack to my childhood, but it was the ordinary environment. As a child, it didn't strike me as anything extraordinary. It was just what I heard running around the streets. Of course, later on, I knew who was playing down there, but at the time, it was just part of the scene. The main thing was that it imprinted the blues in my head. See, I was down there probably every Sunday morning from 1947 to 1953. In 1953, the city was building an expressway, and they bought up the block that my father's store was on to make way for the expressway, and that was the end of his business down there, and that was the end of my trips down to Maxwell Street for a while. So... I didn't hear blues for a while, and then, you know, 20 years later, when I started hearing it again in the late 60s, you know, when there was some interest in blues again, and especially in white blues when record companies were signing people like, you know, Paul Butterfield and Johnny Winter and all that, that's when I started hearing blues again. And when I heard it, it just triggered something in me because there was just a shock of recognition probably from hearing it again. so much when I was a kid, and I just went crazy for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think we're all, you know, really envious that you're able to experience that Maxwell Street, you know, busking sessions, and what a time that must have been, yeah, so amazing to hear that first-hand account of that. I understand, then, you tried a few instruments out before turning to harmonica a little bit later. What did you try out before you, you know, you came to the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I generally like music, and my family was quite musical. My mother was a singer. She had done some cabaret singing, and she actually passed a couple auditions for of the Lyric Opera in Chicago. You know, we heard music in the house, but it wasn't blues. You know, my mother had opera records. My sister and my mother could both play the piano and sing. I tried my hand at various instruments. Back in the early 50s, you had a lot of door-to-door salesmen that would come by. One time, some guy came by sewing accordion lessons. They signed me up for that, but I was a pretty small kid, and I could hardly hold that accordion up. As I say, the world was spared another rendition of Lady of Spain. I tried that. I tried learning guitar. I tried learning piano. And my experience was that everything took a certain degree of digital dexterity. You know, you had to use your fingers or both hands or feet or whatever. And in 1968, I was over at a friend's house. I was going to take a trip to Europe. I was at a friend's house and he had a harmonica sitting on his mantelpiece. And I picked it up and I put it in my mouth and there was almost like an instant epiphany. I just had an innate sense of that I could make sense out of it because I was kind of oral. I had to be talking or shoving something in my pie hole or kissing my girlfriend, something with the mouth. So when I put the harmonica in there, it just made natural sense to me. I figured low notes to the left, high notes to the right, breathe in, breathe out, I can do this. And my friend told me to take it with me when I went to Europe. I started fooling around with it, playing little melodies that I heard or little song snippets or whatever.

SPEAKER_00:

Were you

SPEAKER_02:

learning it

SPEAKER_00:

while you were traveling around Europe? Is that when you first started learning on the streets of Europe?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. I'd be hitchhiking and standing on the side of the road and just playing to kill the time and fool around with it. And then I met a guy who could play some blues and then I went up to Sweden and I was staying at this kind of hippie crash pad. This is 1968. And one day I went... downtown. This was in Uppsala, Sweden, which was a university town. I had a friend up there. And I went into this record store, and I found this album by Sonny Boy Williamson, number two, Rice Miller. It had stars on it. Sonny Boy's head was on the cover in profile, and he had a harp stuck in his mouth the long way.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

So I bought the album, took it back to the place I was staying, and put it on the turntable, and I never came back. So I was already, you know, fooling around with harmonica, but once I heard that, I just said, that's it. From that moment, I was totally focused on learning how to play.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You came to the Harmonica quite late. I think you were 24 when you started playing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was almost 25. You

SPEAKER_00:

started playing professionally in 1970. So was that just a couple of years later you started playing with Johnny Young Band?

SPEAKER_02:

Right, yeah. I played with Johnny Young for a couple of years. Played some in Chicago and a lot of Dates around the Midwest. We played at colleges and clubs in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa. I did that stuff with Johnny Littlejohn, too. I also worked with Sam Way.

SPEAKER_00:

How did you get the first break playing with Johnny Young's band? He was a pretty big name back then, wasn't he? He was touring around and doing well for himself.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he was playing around Chicago quite a bit and around the Midwest. He played at a... There was a club on the north side of Chicago on Wrightwood Avenue called Alice's Revisited. I think Holland Wolfe cut a live album there. But anyway, Johnny was playing down there, and I first got to know him because... Shortly after I returned to Chicago in 1970, I was in Europe in 1968. I came back to the States in November of 1968, and I went back out to California for a while. Then my dad got sick, and I moved back to Chicago in 1970. Of course, By that time, I was really focused on trying to learn how to play, and it was a great move to go back to Chicago because Chicago was just full of blues everywhere. I mean, all the guys were still, you know, go see Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters and Freddie King, and I mean, just, it was an endless list because all the guys were still around back then. So when I got back to Chicago, I was down at the jazz record mart on Grand Avenue, and that was, you know, Bob Kester's place who owned Delmark Records, and I saw a in there advertising Johnny Young at a great club on the north side called the Wise Fools Pub. So I went up there. He was going to be there Friday and Saturday. So I went up there Friday night. And I'll never forget, I mean, I was walking towards the club. And as I approached the club, I could hear Big Walter's harp just pouring out of the doorway. And when I got to the door, I could hardly pull my money out. out of my pocket fast enough to get in there. And I walked in, and then the music room was to the left, and I peeked in the music room, and there was Johnny Young on stage with the Aces, with Louis Myers, Dave Myers, and Freddie Bielo, and Big Walter was playing harp. So, you know, I was completely hypnotized, and... I stuck around until the end of the night, and then I kind of went up and talked to Walter and Louis for a little bit, and I went back the next night, and eventually, I would start going over to Walter's house. I asked him if he'd give me a lesson, so he said, well, call me. He gave me his number, and I called. He said, well, come by tomorrow, and I went down there. sat around. I did that a number of times in my hat with Big Walter. Subsequently, he would play with Johnny Young again down there. One time, I went down there and I'm sitting in the audience. The bandstand wasn't that large, so the Aces and Johnny were on the stage, but Walter was standing on the floor playing. In the middle of the set, while he's playing, he walks over to my table and he hands me the the microphone, and of course I had some harps in my pocket, I had the right key, and he just gave me the mic, here, you finish the song. Because he knew I could play a little bit because I was hanging out with him. So I got up there and finished the tune, and I did another one. So that's how Johnny first knew of me. And then he was playing at Alice's Revisited one night, and I went down there and sat in with him. And he told me that he had some gigs coming up in Wisconsin, and would I play with him. So that was my first professional gig was Appleton, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_00:

Going back to Big Walter, you had some lessons with him. What were they like?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they're nothing like... Technical lessons like I would teach or any of these other guys teaching now where, you know, they tell you what holes to play and what holes to block with your tongue and what syllable to pronounce. You know, none of that. So I said something like, oh, man, show me how you play the intro to Evening Sun. which is one of his great numbers that he did with Johnny Shines. And he'd say, well, he'd go like this. And then he'd just play it. And that was the lesson. Now, I would go down there with a tape recorder. you know, take some of it. And then I'd go home and I'd listen. I mean, I'd get frustrated. I mean, Walter, his sound, there was nothing like it. I mean, he'd play a foot from my ear acoustically. It was just the greatest sound. you ever heard come out of that instrument. So I go home and I listen to the tape and I kind of get mad. I'd say to myself, well, you know, he's just a human being. He's got lungs, he's got lips, he's got a tongue, he's a mouth, just like I do. So there's got to be a way I can figure this out. Obviously, nobody really exactly matches anybody's tone. You know, I mean, I don't sound exactly like Big Walter, but I managed to figure out The basics of how to get good sound on a harmonica, I learned all my tongue blocking and things like that. I learned how to bend with my tongue on the harp. I was a pretty good technical player, but obviously that's not the end-all and be-all of playing. The technical ability is one aspect, but knowing how to play blues is the other.

SPEAKER_00:

So you played with John Young then, so it gave you a break playing professional level with blues bands. And then in 1974, you got the greatest gig known to any harmonica player, which is playing with Muddy Waters Band. So maybe tell us what led up to that time, maybe what you were doing before then, and then of course how you ended up joining Muddy's Band.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's quite a story. Well, of course, after Johnny, I stayed with Johnny Young for a couple of years and then I played with Johnny Littlejohn for a year and a half or so. And he was a wonderful player and he's very underappreciated. And like I said, I played with Sam Lay for a while. I had a day job at Cook County Jail. you know, I would play around town at night. I was starting to get my own band together, and I had rented some rehearsal space, so I was just starting on that little project. I got word that Johnny Young had passed away, and there was going to be a benefit for him at a club called On Broadway. The morning of the benefit, I went to work at the jail, and I put a few harmonicas in my pocket because I figured after I got off of work, I'd grab some dinner and go down to this benefit, you know, get up there and play with somebody. I knew all the guys around Chicago and I figured I'd get up with whoever was there. I had no idea that Muddy himself was going to be there. So after work, I grabbed some dinner and then I went up to this club. When I walked in, the place was packed solid, wall to wall. I had the urge to turn around I just didn't feel like dealing with all those people and a big massive crowd and I really thought about turning around but just as I was about to do it I looked towards the bandstand and at the table next to the bandstand there was Muddy Waters and he was looking directly at me and there was no doubt about it he locked eyes with me so I'm looking at him and he motions with his little forefinger like come over here that was like a uh a royal summons and uh... obviously i I put all thoughts of leaving out of my mind, and I elbowed my way towards his table. When I got there, he looked up and he asked me if I would play his set with him. Now, I had sat in with Muddy before. I used to hang out with Paul Osher, who used to play with him beforehand. So Muddy knew me, and I had sat in with him before, and I looked around and I saw all the other guys in his band, except Mojo Buford, who was his harp player at the time. So anyway, when it came time for him, I went up there and played his set with him, and when I came down, he was quite pleased with my play, and he told his manager to get my number. I thanked him for letting me play with him. It was an honor. And then I left, and I walked outside the door of the club, and there was a little awning over the door, and it was raining. So I decided to wait under the awning, not only for the rain to lighten up, but also because I knew that Muddy, having finished his set, wouldn't be wasting any time there and he'd be leaving. And I could thank him again for letting me play with him. So sure enough, a minute or two later, Muddy came out with his manager and he looked at me and he said, I get emotional every time I say this. He looked at me and he said, can you travel? These are the exact words I said to him. I said, Muddy, wherever in this world you want me to be, You just tell me and I'll be there. He looked at me and said, you're going to hear from me. I went home and I'm 10 feet off the ground. I'm fantasizing. Eventually, I decided, okay, let's get back to reality. It's probably not going to happen or whatever. A couple days passed. That was on a Tuesday. I remember that was on a Tuesday. Friday, I came back from work at the jail. I was in my little studio apartment and the phone rang. The voice on the other end, Jerry, I said, yes, this is Jerry. And he said, this is Scott Cameron, Muddy Waters' manager. And when he said that to me, time stopped because I knew there was only one reason he could possibly be calling me, but it was too big to stare in the face. So I just kind of went on automatic pilot and let him talk. And he said, well, Muddy wants you to call him. Do you have his number? Which I did. And he said, call me back as soon as you talk to him. So I said, OK. And I hung up and I dialed Muddy's number. And he said, hello. And I said, hey, Muddy, this is Jerry, you know, the harmonica player. And he said, well, we start May 25th in Indianapolis, Indiana. And the boys are playing down at Queen Bee's this weekend. You might want to go down there and get used to them. And I'm just standing there holding the phone. I didn't even know what else to say. I said, okay, Marty, I'll be down there. Thanks a lot. I hung up. And then I immediately called Scott Cameron back and he told me, you know, I asked for my social security number, told me to get a passport because we were going to be playing on the French Riviera the following month. So, and then I said to him, Because I had a real job at Cook County Jail, and I said to him, you know, I got to quit my job. It's no problem, but there's no chance of this falling through, is there? And Scott told me, look, he said, money's worth as good as gold. It's a done deal. And then when I hung up with Scott, I just went crazy, man. I ran out of my apartment. I didn't even close the door. I was just running the burn-off steam, and I ran up Sheridan Road toward this record store that A friend of mine had, and I burst in the door and said, Muddy Waters just hired me. And that's how it went down.

SPEAKER_00:

That's amazing, isn't it? So the best gig you can get is playing with Muddy Waters. I'm a massive fan as well. It must have been such a thrill to get that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, yes. I mean, it's a total one-off. I mean, there's only one job like that. Like I say, you can want to be a brain surgeon, and there's a path to be a brain surgeon. You can study, and you do your internship, and eventually you're a certified brain surgeon. But if you want to play harmonica with the Muddy Waters Blues Band, that's a one-off. The stars have to align for that, and fortunately for me, they did, and I'll be forever grateful.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, and Test went to a great point as well. It's like you say, they've only been playing for six years, so to get hired by Muddy's band, fantastic. But then you went on, I think, and you played with Muddy through the 70s, well, from 1974 to about 1980. And you released what I think are some of Muddy's best albums, certainly... following from his early sort of classic you know little walter chest time you know obviously we don't look at those albums being the really classic muddy albums but those albums in the 70s you know you played on the i'm ready album you played on the uh the muddy mississippi waters live album and also the king b album those three three really great albums in that period in the 1970s i think muddy was really a you know at a really great level at that stage and the band wasn't it

SPEAKER_02:

It was a great band. I mean, we had the sound of that band, that lazy lope in the rhythm section and all the air and space in that band. You know, I'm not a fan of frantic-sounding music. That band was the opposite of it. It had that kind of a lazy lope to it and a lot of space and air, a very relaxed sound to it.

SPEAKER_00:

What was the sort of role of the harmonica in the band? How was that explained to you, maybe by anybody himself?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we never rehearsed, ever, ever. And nothing was ever explained. I mean, he hired you because he figured you knew enough about his music and you had the chops and whatever and the sensibility to be able to do the job. So you didn't really have any direction. But, you know, the direction was in the classic records. And obviously I had immersed myself in those. I knew where to put it. I mean, the function of Otis Spann's famous dictum that the harmonica is the mother of the band, that's true in a Chicago blues band. It is. It's the second voice to the actual vocal. Generally, you want to get in and out. You want to answer the vocal line or comment on it or embellish it and then get out. What Muddy Wood says, he would say, give me the send back, which means after you do your fill, you finish the fill in a way that sets up the singer to come back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. Because like you said, the harmonica features very heavily in Muddy's music. So in many ways, you're probably playing more than you might do with some other bands. But Muddy obviously wanted that, didn't he? As you say, you're not stepping on the singing, but it's weaving in and out the singing a lot, isn't it, the harmonica on those songs you're playing? Right, it's

SPEAKER_02:

weaving in and out and it's knowing how to get in and get out and how to get out in the right way, like to set him up. Sometimes you can play while the singing is going on, but you have to make sure that you're supporting underneath the vocal that you're not kind of cross-cutting it, because if he did that, you might get a look from Muddy that he wasn't Cleave.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then you talk about obviously knowing the music, which as harmonica players we all do, particularly that early sort of 1950s stuff. So a song like Baby Please Don't Go, which has got a very recognizable six-solo, which you play... Did he just choose to kind of try and stick reasonably close to the original solo, or was that instructed to

SPEAKER_02:

do so? No, he never told you, but he liked it when you played Walter's parts. If you got close to the original, that was a good thing. You know, he didn't really stop you from playing your own. You know, I mean, I didn't play everything like Walter, and I have my own solos or whatever. You know, a lot of his classic versions that were done in the early 50s, that was the template. And the closer you could get to that on a lot of the songs, the better he liked it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and super. Like you say, that lazy feel to that band and your style, very smooth, but fitted really nicely into that sound. I think it's all fantastic. So you played with Muddy for six years. You toured all around the world. You'd take it with him and did lots of gigs. It was a full-time job for you during those six years, was it?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

This has been a real thrill. I heard you talking about the first time you appeared and they announced you were in the Muddy Waters band, and that was a great feeling. Maybe tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, yes. On the very first gig, when I called Muddy to Scott's instructions and he said, we start May 25th in Indianapolis, that was the gig. It was at a baseball stadium. We walked out on stage. It was a hot summer day. We took our places in front of our amps and I'm standing there and I'm holding the mic and the harp and I'm waiting for the PA announcer to give us our intro. And finally, this disembodied voice over the PA system said, ladies and gentlemen, the Muddy Waters Blues Band. When I relate that story, it just thrills me. To hear those words for the very first time and know that I was part of it I mean, I played at the White House and Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. I did all this other stuff. But honest to God, that was the single greatest thrill I ever had, was hearing those words for the very first time. And then I just kicked off the wall, and we were off to the races. But that thrill has never been surpassed.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, amazing. So you played with Muddy for six years, and then in 1980, you left the band. I think you went on to form the Legendary Blues Band. Is that the reason you left Muddy? What happened there?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's a long story, and if I've ever finished my book, the truth will finally come out. But suffice it to say that we had some business disagreements, at the root of which were his manager. It got to be an untenable situation. They would try and divide and conquer and all this kind of stuff. And so the band, we decided we were going to stick together. You know, we were all technically independent contractors, but we decided we're going to stick together as a band. So we had a bit of a dispute with them. I'll just say it led to the breakup of the band, and we went off on our own as the legendary blues band, but it was just the four of us. It was me, Willie Big Eye Smith on drums, Calvin Jones, Fos Jones on bass, and Pinetop. Guitar Junior went his own way, and Bob Margolin went his own way, but the four of us stuck together. I wasn't really in favor of that name, but Willie kept insisting that when we were with Muddy, we would frequently be introduced as Muddy Waters and his legendary blues band. So Willie said, well, we'll just be the legendary blues band. I thought it was a bit self-aggrandizing, but nonetheless, it actually worked out. To our benefit, especially initially, you know, getting off the ground, we got a contract with Rounder Records and we put out our first album. had been... Well, I knew this about Muddy. Muddy was very upset that we left, but I knew... that he took great pride in the people that came out of his bands, that he turned out stars. I mean, if you think about B.B. King and his long career, you can ask even blues fans, you can ask people, well, name somebody that was in B.B. King's band, and they can't name a... Maybe they can name Sonny Freeman, his drummer, maybe. But most people can't name anybody that was ever in B.B.''s band. But Muddy... turned out blues stars all over the place. You know, Otis Spann and James Cotton. I mean, people that were with Muddy, Junior Wells, Big Walter, George Smith, all these guitar players, I mean, Pat Hare. The list is endless. If you were in Muddy's band, that put you on the map. So I knew that if we proved our point and were successful, that Muddy would take great pride in that. I knew that. I knew that Muddy would say, those are my boys. I trained them. You know, he'd take pride in our success. After our first album came out, Life of Ease, I went to Muddy's house. Door opened and he threw his arms around me. And I went in there and we ate. And he brought up a couple of bottles of champagne and told me how proud he was of us and how much he liked the record. And that was a great thing because a month later, he was gone. For me, it was so important to have that meeting and, so to speak, bury the hatchet. There was no real hatchet, but the upset of the band breaking up, that totally healed it, and I was glad I had that opportunity to be with Muddy in that circumstance.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so then moving on. So you were with the legendary blues band for another six years. I think you got, was it an album that you got nominated for a Grammy, was it? Was that with the You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Dead and Gone album? That was a tribute to Muddy Waters' album, I think, actually. Oh, yeah, yeah, that was a

SPEAKER_02:

Grammy. Yeah, that was a Grammy nominee. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you played with Ronnie Earl's band in the late 80s before forming your own band in the Streamliners. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

actually, first I had a band called the Sidewinders before the Streamliners. But at any rate, that went on for a few months, and then Ronnie Earl came to me asking to start a band, because he wanted to leave roomful, and he had left once before trying to go on his own, and it didn't work out. So he came to me asking me to put a band together, and so I did, and we were successful, but he wanted to go in some other direction, and so that didn't work out, and so then I put together the Streamliners, and I worked at for about four years and then I got the call from Eric to go to play with him at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991 and that was the year he did the 24 nights he did six six nights with a small rock band six nights with a big band with a big rock band that included horns and he had six nights with a blues band and and six nights with an orchestra. So that was his 24 nights. So I was part of the six nights with the All-Star Blues Band. We had Johnny Spampanato on bass, Jamie Oldacre on drums, Johnny Johnson on keyboards, and then the guitar players were Eric, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Robert Cray, and Jimmy Vaughn. It was quite a thrill. It was a great show. And he invited me. He was quite taken with my playing, I guess. And at any rate, before I even left, he invited me back for the shows in 92. He wanted me to come back the following year. So I left England, I think, in March. We played at the Albert Hall every year, February, March. At any rate, I came home, and I think it was two weeks later that the accident happened where his son fell out the window. So the shows in 92 didn't happen. But he called me back to do the Albert Hall in 93, and I became a part of his regular band because he devoted himself exclusively to blues for a while. So I stayed with him almost four years, and we did the From the Cradle album.

SPEAKER_00:

So how did it compare playing to a big rock band like Eric Clapton and playing with Muddy Waters? Did it feel different or kind of similar?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it wasn't quite as loose. We actually did rehearse. But as a band leader, Eric was very similar to Muddy. I mean, he hired you because he thought you could do the job, and he let you do it according to your own lights. In that respect, he was similar to Muddy as far as being fairly laissez-faire. He didn't really give you a lot of specific instruction. I mean, occasionally he'd say, can you play this line? And, you know, if I could play it, I'd do it or I'd find a substitute, you know, node or something like that. But there wasn't a lot of instruction.

SPEAKER_00:

What about your kind of equipment playing in such a big setup, you know, playing these massive stadiums? Did you just use your own amp and mic and then they just mic'd it up? Was there any particular setup?

SPEAKER_02:

No, I mean, I'd use my own mic and amp, and his crew doesn't get any better than Eric's crew. They know what they're doing, and they'd mic it up. Actually, they tended to put my mic, they'd have a baffle on it or something because they thought it was very loud. It was just an ordinary 410 bassman. That was their job. My job was to play the harmonica. Their job was sound reinforcement, so... They took care of that end of it. One time, I forget where we were flying to. We were in London, and we went to the airport and got on the private jet to fly somewhere. I was sitting on the airplane, and I realized that I had forgotten my harps, my harp case, which I had left sitting in front of the hotel on the sidewalk. And I panicked, and I told Peter Jackson, the road manager, and he was not happy. So he got up and jumped in a limo and ran back to the hotel, and my harp case was still sitting there on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and he grabbed it and brought it back to the airplane, and he said, you're not touching your equipment again, because I would carry my own stuff around. After that... The roadies to carry, they assigned me a roadie, and when I'd finish playing, instead of packing up my own stuff and carrying my harp case off the stage, I just left everything sitting there, and the roadies would pack it up, and it would be sitting there the next time I walked on stage.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so brilliant. So playing with Muddy Waters, then playing with Eric Klatt, some tremendous gigs you've had there. And then you also went on, you did a bit of recording with Bill Wyman, the bass player from the Rolling Stones as well. And then you recorded a few albums under your own name as well. You released the Poison Kisses album, which was reissued as home run hitter in 1991. And then another album in 2001, which is your second solo album, I think it's Down in the Mood Room. which contains quite a different eclectic sort of mix of songs, isn't it? Quite a few jazzy songs on there. You've got Doodling, I think it was Horace Silver, the first one. You've got Stormy Weather, Lullaby of Birdland. So yeah, as well as blues and other music, you've got a few sort of jazz tunes on there as well.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there were some tunes that I always wanted to fool around with or record. And, you know, they were the kinds of things that you couldn't really do with a straight-ahead blues band. But of course, my great friend, Duke Grobelard, who can play any kind of American music, he helped produce it and we recorded it at his studio. Yeah, I was quite pleased with the result. And I wanted to show off just some other aspects to the diatonic harmonica, what it could do. I wanted to record with horns and I wanted to make the harmonica stand up against the horns, be as muscular. And I think I was pretty successful with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, a great album, as you say. So you obviously have that interest in jazz standards, and were there, you know, Stormy Webber and Lullaby of Birdland, were those songs that you played for a long time you wanted to get down?

SPEAKER_02:

No, I just really did them for that album. Although Misty, which isn't on that album, which is on the other album, I do that live in my show.

SPEAKER_00:

And this is all on diatonic harmonica, as you say?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I only play chromatic on a need-to basis. All the songs that Muddy did, you know, I'm Ready or I Just Want to Make Love to You. So, you know, I learned to play those songs. I was never all that enamored of the chromatic, and it always felt like somebody put a baseball bat in my mouth. So it's not something I ever really concentrated on. I learned to use it well when I needed to. Yeah, so you could certainly get around playing some third position blues stuff on the chromatic.

SPEAKER_01:

That's how you used it.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you also did an album with Pintop Perkins as well. Kidney Stew was one of the songs on there in 2005. Yeah. You carry on guesting with other people through the years as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. I played on something with Bo Diddley, too.

SPEAKER_00:

So, yeah. So, fantastic crew, playing with some fantastic people. So, yeah. Congratulations, Joe. You also played at the White House as well and at Carnegie Hall. So, did you play for a president at the White House? Who was that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I played for Jimmy Carter. I'm sitting at my desk actually looking at a picture of me at the White House with Jimmy Carter shaking my hand. Yeah, I played at the White House, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, the Royal Albert Hall. It's very strange when I think about it. It seems like another world, like it happened to a different person. It's very strange when I think about my own career and how fortunate I've been.

SPEAKER_00:

And you also played on Sesame Street.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I did. I wrote a song. Actually, the very first song I ever wrote was the song for Sesame Street. Then I realized I had a little bit of a gift for it. Yeah, in 1977, when I was marrying my first wife, she was Canadian. She was an artist, and a friend of hers was a producer for Sesame Street, and he asked me if I could write a song, gave me the visuals, what it was going to be appearing with. So I wrote a clever little song, and then I did a little harmonica thing for the letter Z. Yeah, my daughter was... I think maybe four or five. And I had my daughter and a bunch of her little friends in the studio, and I had them shout into the microphone, Zed! Z! You know, it's part of the Sesame Street thing. I had some little jingle I played for the letter Z. And I still get royalty checks. They're only for a few pence. But royalties are the greatest thing ever invented because you only do the work once and you get paid forever.

SPEAKER_00:

So as well as your playing, you've done some teaching. I remember listening to your, when I was young, your Jerry Portnoy's Blues Harmonica Masterclass. I think that was an audio recording, wasn't it, rather than a video at that time?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it's three audio CDs.

SPEAKER_00:

So is that still available

SPEAKER_02:

on your website? At the moment, it's not available on my website because I've got some kind of problems with PayPal. I've been remiss in addressing that, but when I do, eventually it'll be available on my website. It is actually available on Amazon, but I'd rather people order it through me so I actually make something on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and also you do some teaching now through Sonic Junction.

SPEAKER_02:

I have some lessons there. I haven't done any fresh lessons in a while, but there's quite a library of my lessons. And when I stopped doing them live, I turned it over to Dennis Grunling and to my buddy Rick Estrin. So they still contribute new material. Most of my lessons, I break down classic songs, you know, Key to the Highway or Juke or, you know, a bunch of stuff from the classic Chicago Blues songbook.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's great. I'll put some links up to that. And the question I ask each time, Jerry, talking, you know, sort of linked a little bit to teaching, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, just 10 minutes in the day, what would you spend those 10 minutes working on?

SPEAKER_02:

The two-hole draw. I once walked around my house for almost two weeks playing nothing but the two-hole draw. It's the tonic note, and it's your root note. It's where you come back to all the time. Playing long tones. You know, note selection is very important. I mean, I've never particularly cared about impressing people with technique. The point of playing music is to communicate emotion. And so whatever tools you need to accomplish that is what you should use. And you don't need to use anything more or anything less. To me, what moves people, what moves people emotionally, what reaches them inside and stirs them is the sound of the note. While your note selection is important because the combination of notes and where it's leading can create moods and feelings, it's the actual sound of the note that gets up in people's chest. And so the first order of business is in playing music is to make a good sound come out of your instrument that's the first thing and then know where to put it and that is really what music is about make a beautiful sound come out of your instrument and know where to place it just getting your note to sound good you know if i had 10 minutes i'd just sit on one note and try and make it make it beautiful make it sound different ways, put different vibratos on it, tongue floaters, make it sharp sounding, trebly, try and make it more bass sounding. Learn how to control that note. If you have an hour a day to practice, whatever you're going to practice, you're better off, if you have 60 minutes to devote to practicing, then you're better off bringing that up into practicing four times a day for 15 minutes. or three times a day for 20 minutes because it's all about muscle memory. And the more times you come back to reinforce it, the more effective it will be in imprinting that muscle memory. So if you've got 60 minutes, you're better off doing three sessions of 20 minutes spaced through the day or four sessions of 15 minutes because each time you come back, you're reinforcing that muscle memory. If you just practice once for an hour every day, I don't think you get the same result.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, thanks very much. And the harmonica, of course, that's your vocal instrument. Getting that tone is so key to it, isn't it? Yeah, so great.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

A few questions about gear to talk through now. The first question is, what is your harmonica of choice?

SPEAKER_02:

I like to play either the Marine Band Deluxe or the Marine Band Crossover. Either one of those is fine by me. Those are the ones I play.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, both great ones. I really like the crossover myself. What about back in the day with the 70s when you were playing with Muddy? Was it the Marine Bands back then?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, just stock marine bands right out of the box. Although, you know, later, Felisco was making them for me. But I had to really adjust my playing to play those Feliscos because they're so quick and so responsive. I had to kind of back off my attack. I just play them out of the box now, just regular marine band deluxes or crossovers. In the 90s, or I forget when it was, when the quality of the stock marine bands went down because they weren't being machined. I think the things they were being machined on were old. At any rate, they were leaky, and they just didn't play well. But due to a lot of noise being made by some of the professional players, Steve Baker and Rick Epping and Joe Felisco, and Hohner paid attention. And they got the quality of their instruments back up to snuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you have a favorite key of diatonic?

SPEAKER_02:

I never leave the house without an A harmonica in my pocket. I generally like to play, well, at least for instrumentals, between an A flat and a C. Really between A-flat and B-flat is my favorite, but C is okay too. I like the lower key harps. I mean, they're a bit warmer, not quite as stiff. And it's just a warmer, richer sound, especially on the chords. So I like that range from A-flat to C.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's the popular answer to that question, yeah. And you talk about playing stock chords, so say you don't play any different tunings.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, no. Oh, well, there's one song I play, an original of mine called Can't Remember to Forget. I use a harp on that where I file the five draw so that it's raised a half step. And actually, I think they make a commercial harmonica with that tuning. I don't know what they call it. I'm not much of a gear person. I do raise that five draw a half step because it gives me a note I really want. That's the only one I use on a regular basis. Now, I do have a complete, I've got all kinds of different tunings because there's the mad genius of the harmonica is a fellow named Pierre Beauregard. I don't know if you ever heard his name. He actually lives close to me. He lives on Cape Cod where I reside. He's a terrific harmonica player and a great musician, and he builds all these harmonicas with different tunings, and some of them are really, really useful. The analogy I can give you to that is that, let's say you're a touch typist, and you can type 90 words a minute or something. Now, somebody presents you with a typewriter where the keys are all in a different place. Well... Now you have to hunt and peck what you're looking for. So on a standard Richter tuning harmonica, diatonic harmonica, I can improvise. I know where all the notes are. But when you have a harmonica where the note layout is completely different, in order to freely improvise on that, you have to really know that harmonica and spend a lot of time with it. I have a lot of different tunings that Pierre has made for me. I have all his prototypes, his soul band and the jazz band and the folk minor band. He's got all these tunings because he understands how chords work. For specific things, if I were called on to do a session and I had to listen, well, that's not going to be easy on a regular Marine band. And I would sometimes fool around and see, well, maybe one of these other tunings I can get what I want to play on it. So apropos of that, I will tell you a quick little story. I called up Pierre just before I was going over to play with Eric one time. I think it was before I went over in 1993. And at any rate, I called Pierre up and I said, hey, I'm going over to play with Eric. Do you have a harmonica I can play Layla on? So he said, yeah, I think so. Come on over. So I go over to his house and sure enough, he gives me this harp and it's all there. So cut to England. I'm sitting on stage at our rehearsal and and we would rehearse in like an airplane hangar with the full stage and the full sound and all that. We were taking a break, but Eric starts fooling around with Layla, because he used to do that with his rock band, and sometimes when we do a mixed show, he'd do an acoustic version. At any rate, we're sitting on stage at rehearsal, And he starts playing Layla, and I grabbed this harp, and I started playing it with him. And it blew his mind. And he looked at me. He said, how are you doing that on a harmonica? I'm going to confess on your show now. I didn't tell him that I had a special. I just said, well, you hired Jerry Portnoy. I just said, I come prepared. Did

SPEAKER_00:

you know what that tuning was, particularly to play that?

SPEAKER_02:

I can't really recall what Pierre called it. I'm not really sure. It

SPEAKER_00:

can remain your secret, Jerry. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. But I play other songs when we do mix shows. I play Tears in Heaven, but I played that on a regular harmonica. But I think we did My Father's Eyes, and I had some special harmonica for that. So as a musician, I try and do whatever... the job calls for. So if it's something I can't play on a standard tuning, you know, I'll look, if I have a harmonica that can get closer to what I want, I'm not averse to using it. But what happens is that I learn a specific part and can play that part. I would have trouble just completely improvising on one of those harmonicas off the top of my head because...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. Totally, yeah. Do

SPEAKER_00:

you use

SPEAKER_02:

any overblows, Tom? Not a single one.

SPEAKER_00:

No

SPEAKER_02:

overblows, no overdraws. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about your embouchure? You mentioned that you play tongue-blocking. Is that your favorite embouchure?

SPEAKER_02:

I use both, and I switch seamlessly. You know, obviously tongue-blocking is essential for certain kinds of things and sounds and whatever, and octaves and... Other things, you get that big fat chord for a split second under your lead note. But also, you know, I also use my lips for certain things, you know, triple tonguing. And also, it's a treble-ier sound than tongue blocking. But at any rate, I can bend with my tongue on the harp or with my lips. I can do pretty much... I can play out of both sides of my mouth. I just switch seamlessly, just whatever... I just sing about the music and let my mouth execute it, whichever way it wants to go. And it usually chooses the good way.

SPEAKER_00:

And amplifiers, you mentioned the bassman for your big amp. Is that still your... large amp

SPEAKER_02:

of choice? Well, I have a, it's actually a boutique copy of a 410 basement. I used to have a real 410 basement, and then I had the reissue I had. I still have it. It's actually serial number 00005. The amp I use now is a Victoria, which is made by a guy in Illinois, and it's a fabulous amp. It's all hand-wired, it's all handmade, and it's made to the original specifications of the original 1959 410 Bassman and Mark Bayer, who owns the company and who builds these. He got the original specs from the guy who originally built the amp.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about a small amp? Do you use a small amp that it's called for?

SPEAKER_02:

If I have a little gig, I really don't like to drag the big thing around. It hasn't gotten any heavier, but I've gotten weaker. I'll be 77 in November, so I don't like dragging that thing around. So I've got a little Memphis Mini, which does the job, and it's got a line out, so I can plug it into... into the PA system if I need to.

SPEAKER_00:

What about microphones?

SPEAKER_02:

I still use a JT-30, a static JT-30. I mean, I've used various microphones over the course of my career. You know, I've used a Shure Green Bullet, you know, the 520, and I've used tape recorder mics and AKGs and, you know, mostly earlier in my career, but I don't vary from the JT30. I've had the same one. I've used the same one probably for the last 20 years at least.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that got a crystal element?

SPEAKER_02:

I believe it's a crystal, yes. I've got quite a nice microphone collection that I have on display in my bookcases, but I don't use any of them. I've got all kinds of Assures and Turners and Aesthetics. Cool-looking microphones. They look cool, but I just use my Aesthetic JT30.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about when you're recording, when you have been recording, do you use any particular microphones for that?

SPEAKER_02:

No, if I'm playing amplified, I just use my own, generally my own rig, certainly my own mic. When I recorded the Down in the Mood Room album, originally I brought my Victoria down there, but Duke had this beautiful old Gibson, and it was very warm sounding, and I really liked it, and I recorded all the... amplified harmonica down in the mood room is on that old Gibson.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so you generally play through the amp and then capture that sound during recordings. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

I'm playing acoustic and then whatever mic they set up for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, brilliant. So you mentioned obviously we're in pandemic time now and so none of us are very busy at the moment, but have you got any particular plans coming up for during now, what you're doing during this time or anything afterwards?

SPEAKER_02:

Nothing really planned. I don't really look for gigs anymore. I mean, I've got a beautiful wife down here on Cape Cod. I've got a beautiful house a couple hundred meters from the ocean. I've got kids. I've got four grandkids, four beautiful granddaughters. I've got a nice life. So whatever I do musically now... comes to me, so to speak, over the transom. People contact me by email or call me or whatever. And if it's something I want to do for whatever reason, then I'll do it. But I don't really search out gigs. But I try and pick up the harp enough to keep my chops in reasonable shape. I mean, it's hard. Listen, when you play every day and you're on the bandstand a couple hours every night, you never need to practice because your practice is up there. You keep your muscles sharp and strong and quick to grab. Also, you keep your mental flow going. So if you're working all the time, it's easy to just keep on doing it. But when you don't, I mean, I have to make a conscious effort to pick up the harmonica every day and just do something. But I try and keep my chops in reasonable shape so that if something comes along that I want to do, that I can still get up there and do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's great to hear you're still playing as well, Jerry. So, yeah, thanks very much, Jerry Portnove, for speaking to me. It's been a real pleasure to speak to you today. Well, thank you, Neil. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. It wouldn't be the same without you. And thanks again for my sponsor, the Long Wolf Blues Company, helping me keeping this thing going. They build great purpose-built equipment for the harmonica, so be sure to check them out. Jerry, let's hear some doodling on that there harmonica of yours.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.