Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Charlie Musselwhite interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 27

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Charlie Musselwhite grew up in Memphis, rubbing shoulders with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Work took him north to Chicago were he discovered the South Side blues scene, where he befriended several legends of the blues harmonica. Sitting in with Muddy Waters got Charlie noticed and he was soon recording his seminal album, Stand Back!

This led him to the West Coast, from where he has recorded over thirty albums, received numerous Grammy nominations, won a Grammy in 2013, been inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame, and appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 film.

Charlie’s latest album, 100 Years of Blues shows that he still loves the blues just like he did when he first got started.

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

Links:
Charlie's website:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/

Discography:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/discography/

Charlie's store:
https://stores.portmerch.com/charliemusselwhite/

Seydel tunings:
https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Categories/Configurator/Config_Welcome/Configurator_Help


Videos:

Website video page:
https://www.charliemusselwhite.com/video/


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/

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SPEAKER_01:

Charlie Musselwhite joins me on episode 27. Charlie grew up in Memphis rubbing shoulders with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Work took him north to Chicago where he discovered the Southside Blues scene. where he befriended several legends of the blues harmonica. Sitting in with Muddy Waters got Charlie noticed and he was soon recording his seminal album Stand Back. This led him to the West Coast where he's recorded over 30 albums, received numerous Grammy nominations, won a Grammy in 2013, been inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame and appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 film. Charlie's latest album, 100 Years of Blues, shows that he still loves the blues just like he did when he first got started. 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, Charlie Musselwhite, and welcome to the podcast. Glad to be here. So first off, let's start off about your early life. You were born in Mississippi, and then from the age of three, you moved across to Memphis.

SPEAKER_02:

That's true. I moved to Memphis, but I kept spending my summers with my grandparents in Mississippi and visiting different relatives. I mean, Memphis is right on the border of Mississippi, so it's not like I went that far.

SPEAKER_01:

As you say, you were in Memphis from a young age, and that's the music scene that you grew up in, and a very good music scene, I think. You enjoyed quite a lot of range of music around there when you were growing up.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Memphis was a real music city. I don't know what it's like now, but when I was growing up, it was great gospel and you could hear it on the radio. I loved to go to the tent meetings. I didn't go in. I would drive up next to them and drink beer and watch the show and hear all the great singing and everything. Johnny Burnett, the rockabilly guy, lived right across the street from me. Johnny Cash didn't live that

SPEAKER_01:

far away. I understand you went to school with Johnny Cash's brother

SPEAKER_02:

yeah Tommy was on the basketball team and because of that Johnny would come to the basketball games

SPEAKER_01:

and also Elvis was around at the time as well wasn't he and this is something you saw around and went to some of his parties I understand

SPEAKER_02:

yeah I had his phone number I'd call up find out where he was holding he would have parties around town he would like rent a theater and have some the latest movies or he might rent the whole entire fairgrounds with all the rides free and free hot dogs and hamburgers And they would always go from like around midnight till dawn. And I like to go because there was a ton of really pretty girls there.

SPEAKER_01:

Excellent. So he was famous by this point, then I take

SPEAKER_02:

it. He was famous, but also he really meant something to local people because he like validated the poor boy from Mississippi type of guy. You know, Memphis is full of poor boys from Mississippi like Elvis. And we all combed our hair like that and bought clothes on Beale Street. But we were considered like white trash. but Elvis like he made us cool

SPEAKER_01:

absolutely and you still are so obviously some great people around Memphis but also some good blues harmonica players and blues players so Will Shade and Gus Cannon around there as well did you manage to check those guys out when you were younger

SPEAKER_02:

oh yeah I spent a lot of time with those guys and there was another guy named Harmonica Joe but he recorded for his son another guy named Johnny Moment and a friend of mine named Clyde L. Smith but as usual there's more guitar players than harmonica players Well, I have a whole album out of

SPEAKER_01:

guitar

SPEAKER_02:

music. There's another one in the can I recorded in Clarksdale with a drummer named Quicksand. I don't know when I'll release that, but hopefully within a couple of years or so. I did two tours with B.B. King over the years. opening for him in one in Europe and one in the US, where I just came out and sat down and played guitar.

SPEAKER_01:

And the harmonica on the rack at the same time?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, not on every tune, but a lot of the tunes.

SPEAKER_01:

And which album is that? Have you got an album where you're playing the guitar with harmonica on the rack?

SPEAKER_02:

I believe the title of it is In Your Darkest Hour. It's on the Henrietta label.

SPEAKER_01:

talking about other instruments then and getting into obviously you also play guitar as well as harmonica and singing of course was it the harmonica which came first for you

SPEAKER_02:

Well, in a way, it seemed like everybody had a harmonica when I was a kid. You know, they were real cheap. They only cost like a dollar or something. And kids would get them for Christmas or for their birthday. It was a common toy. You know, it was considered a toy. And I had one. You know, I just tooted around on it like a kid might do. And when I was around 13, I became interested in blues. And I really loved the way the first Sonny Boy sounded. I remember thinking to myself, well, you got a harmonica. It sounds so good. to listen to it, I bet it feels even better to play like that. And I just take that harmonica out in the woods and just try to make up my own blues. And that's

SPEAKER_01:

where I got started, out in the woods. You mentioned the first Sonny Boy there. Was there any particular songs of his that really grabbed you?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I used to go around Memphis looking in junk stores for old blues 78s. Well, I got a lot of Sonny Boys and one of them, one of my first ones I really liked was The Big Boat and Sonny Boys Jump. That was, I loved that one.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

I still love those tunes. They sound great to me. And then what age did you pick up the guitar? When I was 13, about the same time I got interested in playing blues on harmonica, my dad gave me his guitar, which was an old Supertone. I started playing that, trying to figure out how to play the blues on it. There were guys, there were street singers I'd watch in Memphis, and I'd go home and I'd watch what they were doing and go home and try to

SPEAKER_01:

duplicate that. Do you think learning the guitar at that time also helped you as a harmonica player?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think anything you learn helps with other things. Any new way you can think about music helps the other ways you have of playing it. Sometimes I'll figure something out. You know, harmonica, you can't see anything. And sometimes it's easier to visually look at the fingerboard on a guitar and figure something out and then translate that to the harmonica.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I hear on your recordings, quite often you do a thing where you play in unison with the guitar.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

So is that maybe something you got interested from, you know, from playing the guitar yourself and, like you say, working things out on the guitar and on the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it could be. I just know that's kind of a cool sound when you can play in unison. Catches people's ears.

SPEAKER_01:

And, of course, singing is another thing you're very well known for. Were you also singing back then or did it take you a little bit longer to find your voice?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm still finding it. I always thought if you really want to sing, the best thing to do is go to church, but I just wasn't much of a church goer, so I just kind of figured it out on my own.

SPEAKER_04:

¶¶¶¶

SPEAKER_02:

I like to think of myself as a lifelong learner. I'm still learning guitar and harmonica and singing.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's great to hear that you've still got that passion for learning. It's a good lesson to everybody, isn't it, that you've got to keep that interest in learning and improving all the time. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

I do it from the point of view of pleasing myself. Even if I had never recorded or had a career in music, it's still what I'd be doing. If I worked at the factory and never left Chicago, I would still be playing music if it wasn't for anybody but myself because I just love it that much

SPEAKER_01:

and it makes me feel good your father of course did play some harmonica and guitar but he didn't encourage you to pursue music did he oh no That wasn't a real job in his eyes. It turned out well for you. Was he proud of what you managed to achieve in the music?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, finally, he came around. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

and your family, I think you came from quite a musical family, didn't you? Lots of your family members played instruments, including your mother, tinkered on the piano.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, a lot of people, they weren't necessarily professional, but they played guitars or harmonicas or something. And I did have an uncle that had a one-man band. And I asked him one time, who did you play for? And he said, He just followed the harvest. You know, when people were harvesting in the fall, he'd be right there when they got off of work playing for them for tips. Field workers. And almost every mussel I've ever met plays some kind of instrument. And so maybe it's kind of partly genetic. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's in the blood. It's in the blood somewhere. Did you play? Did you jam with your family members?

SPEAKER_02:

No, not really. I just wanted to play blues. And they kind of looked down on blues or weren't interested in blues.

SPEAKER_01:

Really? read some quotes from you about the love that you have for blues and what the music means to you. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

I say it's your comforter when you're down and your buddy when you're up. It's always there for you.

SPEAKER_01:

So then you moved from Memphis up to Chicago. I think you were in the early 60s. You went up there just looking for work. Yeah, you didn't even know Chicago was a blues town, did you, when you went up there?

SPEAKER_02:

I didn't know that at all. I was aware that these labels like Chess and BJ were in Chicago. It said so on the label, but that didn't mean to me that there was a big blues scene there. I had been told that anybody that was an entertainer, they either lived in New York City or Hollywood. So in my mind, I kind of picked Richard, a guy like Muddy Waters living in New York City or something. I didn't know. So it was a big pleasant surprise to me to suddenly find myself, find this whole big blues scene. It was just, I was like a kid in a candy store.

SPEAKER_01:

So this was in the early 1960s. I think you took a job and you became aware of the blues clubs around and you saw them. I think you were driving a truck, weren't you? And you became aware of the blues clubs and that's how you started going to the blues clubs around Chicago.

SPEAKER_02:

It wasn't a truck. It was a guy who was an exterminator and he had a car. It was a little car called a Lark. And I would drive him and his tanks for spraying roaches. I'd drive him all over Chicago, which was perfect because I got to learn the whole city right away, real fast. And that's where I saw posters and signs on the front of bars for Muddy. I remember seeing Elmore James Tuesday night. Once you find a couple of those bars, you find out all the rest of the

SPEAKER_01:

places to go. These are mostly black clubs, yeah? So you went and you were like one of the only white guys in there?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Rarely saw any white faces, but it didn't bother me. I was always perfectly comfortable with black people. I'd known black people all my life. Even when I was a baby, my mother was in Silver Service, which took her away from home, and my dad was in the Navy, and I was left in Mississippi alone with a black lady named Velma, and she was like my other mother. And my mom would come home, and I'd be with her for months. My mom would come home and want to cook for me, and I'd say, no, I want Velma's cooking. She told me it hurt her feelings, but she got over it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's great to hear. And I think, you know, the message I saw there is that you got a great welcome from all these blues musicians in Chicago, these black blues musicians. And they sort of saw you as coming from the South where, you know, where some of them had come from and their family had come from. And you were welcomed into that scene and they were very welcoming and encouraging to you, you know, the kind of only white guy in the club.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they were really flattered. I knew who they were and I had their records and I knew the names of their tunes and I was their fan. And that's why was there.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's because at the time, their records were really only selling to black audiences, were they? It wasn't popular with white audiences at that point.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, for one thing, young black kids my age had no use for blues. They didn't care for blues at all. When I would talk to guys my age about Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, they just thought I was crazy. They'd say, man, that's the old folks' music. You've got to get up with the times. So it was the music of their parents, and they didn't want nothing to do with it. So not only did I stand out because I was white, but I stood out because i was young this was strictly adults for as far as i was concerned there wasn't anybody my age black or white in these clubs for both those reasons they were real flattered and uh being from down south seemed to really mean something i wasn't a local yankee when i would be introduced to other people that always add that you know charlie he's from down home like that really meant something that was important

SPEAKER_01:

were you part of that wave of the you know the sort of white blues boom you know you obviously yourself and paul butterfield and mike bloomfield and obviously the british blues boom did the british blues boom come sort of before the american blues boom or you know how did that work

SPEAKER_02:

well i was playing blues before i ever heard of any english groups playing blues when i did hear english groups playing blues i was i thought that was cool because you know blues was like really underground for a long time there wouldn't there's nothing like it is today you couldn't read anything you might find a book on jazz it would have a little chapter on blues and they would just talk about Bessie Smith or something. You didn't read about Lightning Hopkins or nothing like that. And I mean, all these things you have today, like blues societies and blues festivals and blues cruises, and none of that existed. Blues was really underground. You couldn't hardly find blues records. You had to like really search places for them. And it's a whole different world now. It's all accessible with the DVDs and everything, YouTube. I mean, you can just saturate yourself with blues. But back in the early 60s, it just wasn't it

SPEAKER_01:

that's really interesting to hear you say that because certainly i have a perception that you know chicago was a great blues town and obviously there were lots of blues clubs but like you say probably somewhat underground and within the black community

SPEAKER_02:

no there was a big blue scene on the south side of chicago in the black part of chicago there were a lot of blues clubs and occasionally guys would come out with a 45 like alan wolf or sunny boyer it wasn't a big scene outside of the south side outside of the black neighborhoods you know you didn't pay up the paper and read about you know Muddy Waters is playing tonight you know it might be an ad in a local black paper it was all underground and hidden you had to find it for yourself but like I said once you found a couple of clubs and got to know people that were blues lovers you would find out about all the other clubs too and everybody it was kind of a network that you got into and you met people that knew about the other clubs and musicians and the bands and where they were playing and but you know there wasn't any internet back then nothing like that you had to really figure it all out a lot of great blues and a lot of clubs but they're all small it wasn't enough you couldn't hardly make a living playing and if that's all you did well a lot of those guys had day jobs only guys that didn't have day jobs were guys like wolf and muddy that were they were still putting out singles and touring and when they weren't on the road they had their home club that they would play at like wolf was always at sylvio's when he was in chicago and muddy was always at peppers when he was in chicago

SPEAKER_01:

that's when you got your your sort of break here you you sat in with muddy at pepper's club and uh you know that's that's maybe when you first got your name known for playing the harmonica

SPEAKER_02:

yeah i wasn't going around asking to sit in i didn't even ever tell anybody i played anything they just thought i was a fan but i got to know this waitress real good i played for her one time at her apartment next thing i know she's telling buddy you ought to hear charlie play harmonica buddy's like surprised he didn't know i played anything and when he found out that i played he insisted i sit in which i Wasn't unusual to sit in with Muddy. People sat in with Muddy all the time. It was very casual, but it was just unusual for a young white kid or any young kid to sit in. And I got a lot of attention right away. And other musicians that hung out at Peppers when they weren't working, they heard me playing. And right away, people started offering me gigs. Boy, that got my attention, really. I thought, wow, you're going to pay me to play? All right.

SPEAKER_01:

So when you first played with Muddy, were you quite a good player by that stage?

SPEAKER_02:

I could play. I mean, I was playing I just I had never thought about doing that for a living or I didn't have a goal to be on stage that wasn't anything I ever thought about it I like to play the blues and I just played it for myself I didn't have any intent intention of becoming a known musician that just happened to me

SPEAKER_01:

great to hear that Muddy was encouraging and some of the other harmonica players I've spoken to on here have said the same Kim Wilson and others

SPEAKER_02:

well after that anytime I saw Muddy he always would have me sit in no matter where I saw him he would call me up to sit in.

SPEAKER_01:

And whilst you were in Chicago, you obviously hung out with a lot of other blues musicians and you lived with Big Joe Williams who wrote Baby Please Don't Go. But also, I mean, harmonica player-wise, you knew Sonny Boy II, you knew Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, of course, plays harmonica. So were you hanging out with these guys? Were you playing with them, getting any tips from them or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02:

No, people didn't really talk about stuff like that. You just, you know, everybody expected you to play, you know, and everybody seemed to have something to do with it. offer. You know, a guy that might not play a whole lot, what he did play was respected and important. You know, like a guy like John Rencher. I really loved his playing, but it was, well, even Helen Wolfe. Wolfe didn't play more than about three or four notes, but it sounded so good the way he played. I mean, his tone was just massive. That's all he needed. He could have got away with just playing one note.

UNKNOWN:

...... Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

There wasn't much talk about technique or what kind of mic you have or what kind of amplifier you have. I never heard anybody talk about any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. Again, not like today when that's all over the internet. And I'll talk to you about

SPEAKER_02:

it at the end too. You know, one thing comes to mind about as far as technique. I saw Walter Horton playing one night and he had two harmonicas back to back and he would play one and he'd flip it over and play the other one. And one of them I could tell from the his phrasing he was playing in second position but the other one i couldn't tell what he was doing i never heard anything like that and he was playing in the key of a you know the d harmonica he showed me that he the other harmonica was c so he was playing in fourth position on a c harmonica i had never heard of such a thing i didn't know if there was first second and third i'd never heard of anybody ever mentioned anything about playing another key another position well that was pretty mind-blowing for me back then and a couple of weeks may Maybe after that, I saw Little Walter on 63rd Street. I'll never forget it. He was standing on the sidewalk, and I walked up to him, and we were talking, and I remembered seeing Walter Horton playing the key of A on a C harmonica, and I told Little Walter about it, and I still remember Little Walter just shrugging his shoulders and saying, oh, that ain't nothing. You can play in the key of E on a C harmonica, too. And I thought, damn! Then I got to thinking, it seemed like if you could find any artist octave on a harmonica there's one some way to get between those two notes and make it make yourself playing in that key but uh five positions is enough for me

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i guess again though interesting looking back on when you were you know learning these things back then you know compared to now when it was all over the internet i mean so how did you learn these things is just from talking to other players or were there a few one or two books around and things like that or just playing along with records

SPEAKER_02:

No, I just listened. I would soak it up just listening, and then I would sit around and just fool around with the harmonica and figure out stuff for myself. I would play a note, and I'd think to myself, what's the next note you want to hear? And I'd find it. And I'd say, what's the note you want to hear after that? And I'd find that note. Another thing that Walter Horton told me, he said, learn your patterns. Figuring out the note you wanted to play one by one, that was a pattern. When you started playing in different keys and learning the patterns for those keys or positions, they were the patterns that he was talking about. That's what I put my time into, is learning the patterns. I wasn't necessarily trying to play like anybody else, and I never was much for memorizing anything. I did, at one time, knew how to play juke note for note, but I don't remember that anymore. I think that was the only thing I ever really memorized.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned Big Walter there. Big Walter did give some lessons, didn't he? Did you ever go around to his place and have a lesson from him?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I used to spend a lot of time with Walter. We were just real good friends. But a lesson was really just sitting around drinking. That was a lesson. We'd play together. But he didn't give me any instruction, you know, like, don't do that thing you're doing there or do it this way or nothing like that. We'd just have fun together. And we would walk around. We'd walk all over Chicago, going to different people's homes he knew. The idea was that we would go in and play for them. We'd get a free drink. We'd do that all over Chicago, all over the

SPEAKER_01:

South Side. You've got some recordings with him on the Chicago Blues Today album. So is that your first recording session?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not sure. I know that Sam Charters had hired me to play on an album by Tracy Nelson called Deeper the Roots.

UNKNOWN:

Music

SPEAKER_02:

and I remember playing for some folk singer, I don't remember his name now, he wanted a harmonica on his record, but I don't know what came first, I just don't remember anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

No, that's fine, but yeah, I mean, there's some great, you know, I think there's three tracks on that Chicago Blues today, and you're playing Rockin' My Boogie with Big Walter.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_07:

Well,

SPEAKER_02:

Sam Charters, he got the idea to do that because he had seen us play together. So he wanted to capture that two harmonica thing and he put it on that album.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you did your first album, the Stand Back. Here comes Charlie Muswight's Southside Blues Band. So you were 22 years old then. And I think you recorded this in one session, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we had to do the whole thing in three hours. We did it in under three hours. If you went over three hours, according to the union, they had to pay you double. And Vanguard wasn't going to have that. So we had to get it all done in under three hours.

SPEAKER_01:

Came out and it was very successful for you, that album, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, much to my surprise. I had no idea it was going to do anything. I mean, the whole idea of me making an album was kind of a lark to me. I just had no idea anybody was interested or it would do anything. And as far as I looked at it, it was a session. I thought I'd make some money from the session so I could buy a new amp. But when the union got the check and they told me to come down and get it, the check was only for 36 cents. And to get that check, the union wanted me to give them$4 work dues. Well, I never got the check. 36 cents wasn't going to do much for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you get anything from the sales of that album? Was that all owned by the record company?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, the deal I signed with them was really a bad deal and I didn't know anything about the business. I had no manager, I had no booking agent or nothing. I knew zero about the business and I had nobody to advise me or tell me anything or how to do it.

SPEAKER_01:

But nevertheless, it was still a great album for you and definitely got your name out there. It gave me a career and put me on the road. It was worth that 36 cents. So, I mean the song you're very closely associated with and you've recorded on several of your albums is Cristo Redemptor. which I think was originally a sort of jazz tune from a trumpet player, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

That's true, but I remember the first time I heard it, thinking that would sound great on a harmonica. You know, they had it on the jukebox in the blues clubs. That's where I heard it. Anyhow, I just knew that that melody would sound really pretty on a harmonica. I think I was right.

SPEAKER_01:

absolutely yes it's a very haunting melody it's a it's fantastic tune yeah so yeah and then there was help me and early in the morning so you know you did a lot of the obviously the blues songs that you loved at that time yeah so it's a great album and it came out very well and still i mean it still holds up well today doesn't it that's

SPEAKER_02:

it's never been a friend it's been in it's been available for over 50 years

SPEAKER_01:

fantastic and just 22 years old then as well so that's the start of it for you so and then i think that was in 66 and then is it 67 you moved to California and was this sort of on the back of the success of the album that your sort of name and you got some gigs in California on the back of the Stand Back album?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, after that album came out, I started getting calls from different places to come play and I kept putting it off. And finally, some guy in California put together a whole month of work for really good money, way better than I was making in Chicago. So I thought, well, I'll just go out there and make that money and come back to Chicago. But when I came out to California, I saw that there was a ton of work all up and down the whole West Coast and that blues was kind of something exotic. They didn't know about blues on the West Coast. coast the hippies didn't anyhow they were the ones going to these ballrooms and so that's where the money was at so i just i didn't go back to chicago

SPEAKER_01:

was this a sort of start at least for you as you know the kind of white blues band and do you think you were one of the forerunners of that you know moving over to california and doing well over there with that

SPEAKER_02:

well it wasn't uh on purpose that it was white it was just whoever was available i could get to play with me later on i got a lot of guys to come out from chicago i had lewis myers and jack myers and fred below and freddie roulette and a lot of guys i brought out from chicago later on when i could afford it

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so i mean obviously you didn't see it as a racing like you say you were very well integrated with the guys in chicago anyway but obviously there's that kind of white kind of blues band in the 60s and um obviously yourself and paul butterfield i mean do you think you were the first in that or were there were there a few other bands around at the time you know sort of white blues bands

SPEAKER_02:

well there was a couple of guys in chicago uh and then on the west coast there wasn't much they I knew about at the time I mean later on I got to know other people and I'd run into people that white guys my age that were playing harmonica that a lot of them because of they had heard me or Butterfield and were inspired because of that that they could do that too

SPEAKER_01:

so then you made you made another album in 68 Louisiana Fog which is another good album and then in 1969 I've got to I've got to talk about this one Charlie Memphis Charlie your Memphis Charlie album that's the first time I heard you Charlie and I absolutely loved it ain't right, I'm finger lickin' good.

UNKNOWN:

finger licking good.

SPEAKER_01:

And Memphis Charlie, you were known, I think, as Memphis Charlie in Chicago, weren't you? Hence the name of the album. Yeah, Big Joe Williams

SPEAKER_02:

gave me that name when I first met him. That's where that name comes from.

SPEAKER_01:

You've had a great recording career. I mean, I think I'm counting on the discography on your website that you've got 34 albums listed on there and you've recorded on numerous others as well. So a great long list of albums. I mean, picking through the albums to talk about, it's difficult to choose because you've done so many, you know, and it what about your your long recording career how have you managed to keep that going and

SPEAKER_02:

well it seemed like there's always somebody interested in you know a label or promoter or somebody interested in recording me so that helped you know i never quit playing i never quit touring and so i've always had an audience that would buy my records and you know eventually i started putting them out on my own label called the henrietta label which is my wife's name and she's also my manager

SPEAKER_01:

another album going to the late 70s now the harmonica according to charlie musselwhite some great songs and some great harmonica instrumentals on there such as harping on a riff You do Armonica Instrumental really well.

SPEAKER_02:

Originally, that album was supposed to be just a, it was a company, I forget the name of it now, but they just put out instructional books with an album. Kickin' Mule, that was the original label. That's all that was about. It's just supposed to be with an instructional book. That other label that it's on now bought it and put it out itself.

SPEAKER_01:

Did it come out with a book at the time?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was a book. It had a lot of mistakes in it, and every time I would try to correct the mistakes, they would just add more mistakes.

SPEAKER_01:

But you It's a good album. I think it was recorded in London, wasn't it? That's right. It was recorded in London. There is a chromatic instrumental on the Blues in the Dark, which is a George Smith song. That was done on chromatic, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

knew George the first time I met George Cotton had quit Muddy and I went down to see Muddy at a club in Otis Bend I see him walking over to my table with this tall guy with him and he comes over and says hey Charlie I want you to meet George Smith our new harmonica player well I already knew who George Smith was because I had some 45s of his and we became friends right then we were friends from then on

SPEAKER_01:

because he's another west coast player wasn't he so was he out in the west coast when you were

SPEAKER_02:

yeah but I met him in Chicago because Muddy brought Brought him out to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01:

And so, I mean, talking a little bit about blues chromatic, then you do play quite a lot of chromatic, don't you? Blues chromatic on your albums.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I play, you know, mostly for myself, I play a lot. I should probably start playing more in person. I have a lot of fun with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Going up to the 90s now, your first album on... Alligator Records, which you've had several. I think your first Grammy nominee album, which was Ace of Harps in 1990. So what about signing for Alligator?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's a good company. I mean, Bruce Iglar, the owner, is one of the real honest guys in the business. You make a deal with Bruce and he'll stick to it. He loves the blues like we all do. So it's nice to work for a guy that is not just a businessman, who actually does love the music. Also, a guy like Chris Strock, which he really loves the music too. He's also one of the few really honest guys in the business. honest guys in the business. Alligator really knows the business. They know how to sell records, and it's a good label to be on.

SPEAKER_01:

And that album, Ace of Harps, you've got that very interesting song, Yesterdays.

UNKNOWN:

Yesterdays

SPEAKER_01:

You often do this, don't you, where you step out of the blues genre. This is quite a minor, ballady, almost jazzy type song. You play a bit of jazz and Tex-Mex and different genres. You've always been interested in doing it. You started developing it in some of your later albums.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, back when I was a kid in Memphis looking for blues 78s, they were so cheap. They were only like a nickel or a dime. I'd buy anything that said blues on it. I didn't have to know who it was until I took it home and listened to it. anything else that looked interesting, I'd get that too. So I discovered a lot of music that had a bluesy feel to it, like Arabic music and Greek music and stuff from different parts of the world I didn't know anything about. I got the idea that every culture around the world had its own music of lament. You know, like anywhere you went in the world, there's a guy standing on the corner singing about My Baby Left Me. That's a human experience anywhere you go. And also in the blues clubs, those a lot of jazz on the jukebox, especially like the trios like Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff. Those guys were playing blues, you know, but they would do other tunes too and they would blues them up. So it was interesting to me how you could take blues and blues up something that's not necessarily a 1-4-5 tune and make it better. So I've always been interested in how you could use blues to make other forms of music interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, Charlie Parker, probably, you know, renowned to be the greatest improviser ever. A lot of the jazz songs he's worked with were blues songs, sort of blues songs with more complicated chord structures, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Thelonious Monk is a blues player. Really, a lot of his tunes are 1.5. Even Coltrane recorded whole sides of albums that were blues.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you talk about obviously different cultures there. An album which you're quite well known for is Continental Drifter, which I think you recorded with a Cuban band, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Quarteto Patria. from Santiago de Cuba. And the leader of that band is Eliadis Ochoa. He also appears in that Buena Vista Social Club movie or video, the guy with the big white hat. But actually, I liked his group better than anything you hear on the Buena Vista Social Club situation. And to me, Eliadis is like the muddy waters of Cuba. He's really down home and a great guy. And his music really comes from the heart. I asked him about harmonica. I said, I guess you've never heard anybody play harmonica with a traditional Cuban son. And he said, oh no, it used to be a tradition, except there's hardly any harmonicas left in Cuba. It turns out that there was a black guy from the South, and I don't know when this was, maybe in the 20s, he went to Cuba. He must have been a blues player because he started adapting what he knew to the local music, which was traditional son. It sparked a lot of harmonica players, according to what Eliades told me. And it'd be interesting to go to Cuba and find if any of those harmonica players are still around and how they played and what they sound like.

SPEAKER_01:

So how did that album come about with the Cuban band?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I already knew who Eliadas was and I had all his CDs because I love that music. It's just so infectious and has a lot of heart in it. And it's also a music that came from African and European music came together to spark a new music and a new place just like blues did in the American South. Anyhow, I was playing a festival in Bergen, Norway. And I was talking to the promoter, and it turns out he was also a big fan of Quartetto Patria. And neither one of us had ever met anybody that even knew who they were. So we were really excited to finally meet somebody else that knew who Quartetto Patria was. Well, a couple of months go by, and that promoter calls me up and says, hey, I found Quartetto Patria. I'm bringing her to my festival, and you got to come back. And I thought about it, and I thought, well, this would be great. I hope I get to see her. sit in with them. It'd be wonderful to hear them play. And I thought, well, if I get to sit in with them, it'd be nice to get a recording of that. I should have something with me to tape it. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. Surely they have a studio in Bergen. We'll just go in the studio and record, just see what happens. So I go to Bergen, and I meet Eliado Sochoa, and we talk it over, and he's really interested, and we have some rehearsals, and I played him some blues. I thought, well, they could play the one-fourth chord change with the Cuban rhythm, but that wasn't going to work. I saw it pretty quickly. I said, it's okay. I know your music. We'll record your tunes and I'll put my lyrics to it. And that's what happened. And Elianos was really happy about it and liked what I did. And... After that, we got to tour together quite a bit, and that was a lot of fun being on the road with those guys.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, again, a great album, and again, showing the diversity of what you've done there, different genres, different styles, and putting the harmonica in that different context, really interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

I thought it really fit, and it worked, and it didn't sound contrived. It was very comfortable.

SPEAKER_01:

and another album which I really like of yours which again is a little bit different is Sanctuary again it's just really got that atmosphere a little bit like Cristo Redempto it's really got that atmosphere which you do so well and that song for example Shadow People it's just kind of eerie sort of harmonica music You know, that's a really good album. I love that one.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01:

Ben Harper played on that album, didn't he? And we'll obviously get on to Ben shortly, but that's where you first recorded with Ben.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think we did a tune called Homeless Child.

SPEAKER_01:

And Alicia is another song I really like.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. So that's an excellent album, that Sanctuary one. Yeah, I love that one. Released numerous songs all through the last 20 years as well, getting into the 2000s. Sanctuary was 2004. The Well is another Grammy-nominated album like a lot of yours have been. I understand, is it right that The Well was based on a girl trapped in a well and that sort of inspired you to give up drinking?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was on my way to a gig and I'd been toying with the idea of quitting drinking. It's funny how when You're trapped in that world. You can't see how to get out of it, or at least that's how it was for me. I'd been cutting down, drinking less and less and less, but the final hurdle was to get on stage without drinking. I'd never really been on stage without drinking. It didn't suit my nature to be in the spotlight. I never liked being in the spotlight or having people looking at me or performing for people. As much as I love the music, I didn't get into it for attention. Drinking made all that really easy. I knew that it made sense to quit. I just couldn't do this forever. So that was the last hurdle, to get on stage and play sober. And I'm on my way to work, listening to the radio, and I'm hearing them talking about this little girl, this fella in the bottom of this well. I think she had a broken arm. And I was struck by her bravery. I mean, here she was in a life and death situation, and she was down there in that well singing nursery rhymes to herself. I thought, I don't know if I told you The story about

SPEAKER_04:

little girl she fell way way down in a deep old texas well i was on my

SPEAKER_02:

way to work when i heard it on the news she took my attention from a night of getting real loose

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I've done that little girl for inspiring you to do that. And then coming up to 2013, you've had numerous Grammy nominees, and then you finally got the Grammy you deserved in 2013 with the Get Up album with Ben Harper.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that was a big surprise. It sure meant a lot to me and everybody else involved. And Cindy Lauper, my old friend, was there. She was the one that announced it. It made it even more special. She's a big blues fan,

SPEAKER_01:

too. So, I mean, what is it you think about that album, which won the Grammy over the other? you've had numerous nominations for Grammys. What do you think it was about that one?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I couldn't tell you. I have no idea. The way the voting process goes, I don't know who they are or how they think about what they're listening to. I just know it happens and it happened this time and I was glad it was for me. It's a real nice honour and I'm real thankful.

SPEAKER_01:

No, superb. Well done for that. Have you got the Grammy in your house there?

SPEAKER_02:

It's at my Clarksville, Mississippi home.

SPEAKER_01:

Excellent, yeah. So, So yeah, well done for that. And a nice song on there. I'm in, I'm out and I'm gone. through the 2010s, you released numerous albums, I Ain't Lying, which is a bit of a catchphrase of yours, isn't it? I Ain't Lying.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's just something I used to say. I didn't actually think about it. I came up with that for some reason. It was just a saying of mine. I would say it without even thinking. People would laugh about me saying that. We decided to name the album that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then you recorded another album with Ben Harper, No Mercy in This Land, which has got another Grammy nomination. And, you know, sadly, I believe the lyrics to No Mercy in This Land were written about, unfortunately, your mother was killed in a burglary. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's what happened. She was murdered in my home, the home I grew up in. And the guy wanted money for Christmas, so he stole her. After he killed her, he took her little keyboard and her Casio keyboard and her TV and and a bunch of stuff like that and hocked it at the nearest pawn shop.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, terribly sad. And then the song for that won the Song of the Year and the Blues Music Awards in that year.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, there was another song also I did with Mavis Staples called Sad and Beautiful World that I wrote about my mom's death, too. I thought it came out really nice with Mavis.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, mama, your child is crying Such a sad and beautiful world Mama, your child is crying Such a sad and beautiful world Mom!

SPEAKER_01:

And then your most recent album, so the 100 Years of Blues with Elvin Bishop. Great, so lots of fun. You can hear the camaraderie between you and Elvin. He's great with the sort of witty lyrics. So yeah, that's a really fun album. That Birds of a Feather talks about how the two of you are playing together and really captures the fun of that album, I think.

SPEAKER_03:

Here we are, birds of a feather, whole bunch of blues lovers gathered together, fixing to get loose, have a good time like Brother Charlie's I ain't lying. So clap, stop, holler and yell. We're all friends here.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we really enjoy playing together, and we're good friends, and we've known each other a real long time, and we love the music in the same way, and playing together is just so effortless. It's just automatically fun. We don't have to rehearse or nothing. We just sit down and play. We just know what to do. I don't think there was any second takes, hardly. We just played it like we played it live.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's great. And that 100 Years of Blues song tells a story that you're both in Chicago and you've been playing the blues for such a long time and still, like you said earlier on, still learning, still improving, still working on your playing. So yeah, it's really got a lot of energy and a lot of fun in that album. Yeah, I really enjoyed listening to it. As well as all these albums you recorded under your own name and with some other guys, you've recorded with numerous people. Of course, John Lee Hooker, you're quite famously associated and you have recorded with him, you recorded on the Healer album, That's Alright.

SPEAKER_00:

When you love a woman, you know she's doing you wrong. But love is blind, love is blind, love is blind. You, you, you, you know you've been you, you know you've been

SPEAKER_01:

you. He knew John Lee Hooker is quite a friend of yours, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02:

He was a real good friend. I first met him in Chicago. He lived in Detroit, but he would come to Chicago to play gigs. And that's where I met him. And we became like instant friends. It was like we'd always known each other or something. We always stayed real close in touch with him and often spend the night at his house. And he was all his family. And I was at his funeral. And he was a real good friend. He was a good man. And anybody that knew him, I know they all miss him like I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and an amazing hypnotist. blues style he had as well you know really distinctive sound that he had in the blues and they're amazing

SPEAKER_02:

i love his solo guitar playing oboe blues and crawling king state that stuff just kills me that's some of the most nobody sounds like that even if they try to play it like it just doesn't sound the same the same with jimmy reed there was a guy his music is so simple you would think when you try to do it it just doesn't come out the same he can't copy that

SPEAKER_01:

And then some of the other people you played with, you played with Cyndi Lauper, as you mentioned, on the Memphis Blues album. You played with Tom Waits, the Chocolate Jesus song, played with Bonnie Raitt. But another song, I didn't realize this was you, Charlie, until I did my research over the last week or two, is you played on the Way Down in the Hole song, which was the theme tune to the Wire TV series with the Blind Boys of Alabama.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, that's on their album called Spirit of the Century. That solo was in fifth position.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, great, long, amazing recording career. And as you say, you've toured all around the world. You've always been on the road. I mean, what's life been like being on the road since what, pretty much since you were, you know, the late 60s, early 70s? Have you been on the road since?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, pretty much, except now with the pandemic, things have come to a halt.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I pretty much lived out of a suitcase for 50 years or so. My suitcase is still sitting on my floor in my office waiting to go, but ain't no place to go right now. I'm enjoying being home. I never had so much time at home. It's really a luxury.

SPEAKER_01:

I think reading here, you've got 13 Grammy nominations. You won a Grammy with Ben Harper for the album Get Up. You've won various Blues Music Awards. But you were also inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that was real nice. And also the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, too, just a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you even played for President Obama in 2013 as well.

SPEAKER_02:

That was really nice. I had already met Obama. We have a mutual friend And I met him at my friend's home, and I gave him a harmonica. I remember telling him, I hear you like blues, and if you're interested, I can give you some lessons. And he said, well, that's great, Charlie, but I'm a little busy right now.

SPEAKER_01:

As well as your recording career, you've also been in numerous films and you were in the Blues Brothers 2000 film in the band there at the end. I heard a story, is it true that Elwood

SPEAKER_02:

is based on yourself? Well, that's what Danny has told me several times and I've seen where he's been interviewed and said the same thing. I used to play a club in Canada and he was a college student and he hung out at that club and he would see me there. I didn't know him then, but he would see me and that's where he got the idea for the look. I didn't wear a hat and i didn't wear a handcuff so much with my heart back then i used to wear a black suit with shades and my hair slicked back and pretty much like i did in chicago

SPEAKER_01:

and then you're in that great band at the end in the in the sort of band competition at the end of the blues brothers so yeah great to play with her with all those legends you know bb king and jimmy vaughn and eric claps and so it must have been a lot of fun

SPEAKER_02:

it was a lot of fun i wish they'd filmed all the behind the scenes of just us hanging out talking and joking and carrying on that that could have been a whole movie right there

SPEAKER_01:

Dan Aykroyd obviously plays harmonica as Elwood in the Blues Rivers do you know have you ever talked to him about his harmonica playing

SPEAKER_02:

oh just a little bit he would tell me listen I'm not a harmonica player I'm just an actor that plays harmonica

SPEAKER_01:

But I think he has a blues show now, doesn't he? So he's still very much interested in blues. And I do have a sort of book of his, which is about blues as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, he loves blues. He's a big blues lover. He has a radio show, The House of Blues radio show. And then you've been in a few other films as well. Yeah, there's a new one. I don't know if it's out yet or not, called Rough Boys, which is a biker movie. And the same guy made another one called Rebel on the Highway. It's another biker movie. And a lot of bikers are blues fans and happen to know a lot of them. And I was in a horror movie called Pig Hunt, and it's about a 3,000-pound wild killer pig, and a lot of people get hurt. Are

SPEAKER_01:

you acting in these films?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I deliver the lines, and my wife appears in Pig Hunt. She didn't have any lines, but you can see her standing behind me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, excellent. You've got your style of playing. You've got this quite laid-back style, haven't you, when you're playing and then you're singing, and it comes off, it's very relaxed.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I just follow my heart, as I put it. I don't really try to style myself after anybody. I just try to play what I believe is right. And I know you can't satisfy everybody, so I just try to please myself and figure somebody will like it. It seems to have worked out okay.

SPEAKER_01:

It certainly has. So a question I ask each time, Charlie, is if you had 10 minutes, what would you spend 10 minutes doing? playing on the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I really like the way Hank Crawford phrases. I would listen to him and try to play along with him.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so you have tried to emulate saxophone players then. Has that been quite a key part of your learning?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I get a lot of ideas listening to it. saxophone. Also, Grant Green's guitar playing, a lot of his licks are perfect for harmonica. And these guys are all real bluesy players.

SPEAKER_01:

Superb. So we'll move on to the last section now, which is talking about gear. We'll get a little bit harmonica geeky now. So first of all, you're a harmonica of choice. I know you're a Seidel endorser these days. So that's obviously your harmonica of choice these days.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I discovered them before they discovered me. I mean, I was not an endorser at first. I discovered a Seidel and I started playing them and I just loved them. immediately and it's just the best. As far as I'm concerned, it's just not a better harmonica. People sometimes give me custom-made harmonicas and I've yet to find one that's any better than a saddle. I'm right at home with a saddle. I like the 1847 with the wood comb and the stainless steel reeds. They also make a really killer chromatic called the Symphony and that's my favorite chromatic.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the one with the magnetic slide, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but I don't get it with the magnet and I get it with the spring

SPEAKER_01:

okay do you have a favorite key of diatonic

SPEAKER_02:

oh not really i mean they all have something to offer c is always good because uh i taught myself how to read music and i could read for c it would say if something was written in c and i could play it on a c i could you change it to f well i just pick up an f harmonica and play it the same way so i can root for the diatonic or the chromatic and

SPEAKER_01:

guitar too yeah super and do you play any different tunings on the diatonics

SPEAKER_02:

uh yeah there's Just some that I just fool around with for fun. I don't know. I like the circular tuning, and I like the one that they call the ED harmonica that Saddle makes. You can get some real bluesy stuff out of there. The circular tuning is just, it seems like the melodies just pour out of there.

SPEAKER_01:

What about overblows? Do you use any overblows?

SPEAKER_02:

I can do that on a good day, but so far I don't think I've ever recorded doing anything like that. It just doesn't occur to me when I'm playing to use that technique. Sometimes sitting around, I'll fool around with it just out of curiosity, but when I'm on stage or recording, I never think about

SPEAKER_01:

it. And what embouchure do you use? Are you a tongue blocker or a puckerer?

SPEAKER_02:

I go back and forth. Sometimes you really want to bear down on something and I'll lip block it The rest of the time, I'm tongue-blocking.

SPEAKER_01:

Amplifier-wise, I see on your website it mentions the Sonny Junior amp. Is that your large amp of choice?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've got all different models, the Avenger, the Cruncher, and the Super Cruncher, and the Super Sonny, but I also have some old, smaller amps I use just for recording. Like, on the cover of 100 Years of the Blues is a magnetone right at my feet. I use that for recording sometimes. And you've got an opening there called Fat Tone, and they make what they called the Fat Box, which you can plug in to play through the PA, which is really a nice way to go, especially if you're traveling and you've got to fly and you can't bring your amplifier with you. A Fat Box from Fat Tone will serve you well.

SPEAKER_01:

Any other effects pedals?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't actually use anything. I just have a mic and an amp, and that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so not even a delay or anything like that? No, never. Microphone-wise, I think it blows me away, microphone.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's a company owned by my friend Greg Heumann, and he lives right here in this little town I live in called Geyserville.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's mixed some beautiful-looking microphones. They look so beautiful, don't they? And a friend of mine over here, Richard Taylor, owns one of them. I tried it, and it's a very nice mic. I think I saw you playing one on the video. So is that the mic you use typically when you're using a sort of bullet mic?

SPEAKER_02:

That's all I use. I mean, I've got several, and they have different elements in them. You can have whatever you want, every kind of element you want. won't end it. And they can customize the grill. You can have your initials or just a design or anything on the grill. And I really like the wood. It's just a really good, you know, blues microphone.

SPEAKER_01:

They've got nice volume controls on the end as well, haven't they, which are useful.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. And also he has another microphone called the bulletini. At first I didn't, I thought it was okay, but as time has gone by, I've really, really got to like it a lot. And I'm using

SPEAKER_01:

it more than ever. Superb. So yeah, just um up to the up to the final question now then so looking at your website you do have some gigs showing on there for next year so you're still hoping to get out there next year obviously dependent on how we get on with the pandemic

SPEAKER_02:

well we keep hoping i mean a lot of those gigs have just been rebooked and rebooked and rebooked hoping that uh this will come to an end and those will be able we'll be able to do them and keep them on the calendar but if it keeps going we'll just have to rebook them again till we get her done

SPEAKER_01:

well they're in the u.s at the moment aren't they that's the safer option at the moment but you will you still be planning to do some international gigs if you can

SPEAKER_02:

well sure I don't right now I don't want to get on an airplane but once this gets squared away and the dust settles I'm I'm ready to go

SPEAKER_01:

well hopefully I'll see you over in the UK again hopefully even next year Charlie but maybe the year after that hopefully things settle down thank you very much for talking to me it's a real honor I've been a big fan of yours for a long time and as I say when I first heard I ain't right I was I was hooked from that point on so thanks very much Charlie

SPEAKER_02:

well thank you like I said before I admire your taste, and thanks for the good work you're doing, and I look forward to meeting you either here or there one of these

SPEAKER_01:

days. That's it for today, folks. Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica. Be sure to check out their website. Charlie, it just ain't right.

UNKNOWN:

...... Thank you.