Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Richard Gjems interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 51

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Richard Gjems joins me on episode 51.
Richard hails from Norway, with its many blues clubs demonstrating how popular the music is there. 
Richard is a real student of the blues, and the place of the harmonica within it, and he is involved in archiving music at the National Library in Norway.
Richard has incorporated pre-war styles into his contemporary approach to playing the harmonica, where he covers multiple genres, including Nordic folk music.
A big exponent of different tunings, Richard likes to pick the tuning that works best for a particular recording.
He has released three acoustic albums with a pianist, two electric blues albums and will soon be releasing some of his ‘field recordings’ from his extensive YouTube channel.


Links:
Richard's website: http://richardgjems.wix.com/richardgjems

Videos:

YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/RichardGjems

You Don’t Have To Go (rack playing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyO4qobTuy8

Strange Love (vocals):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUZd3D2ExEs

Harmonica Didgeridoo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq6lbRX4lLM

Natural Minor Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEFhWI_lfMM


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_01:

Richard Jems joins me in episode 51. Richard hails from Norway with its many blues clubs demonstrating how popular the music is there. Richard is a real student of the blues and the place of the harmonica within it, and he is involved in archiving music at the National Library in Norway. Richard has incorporated pre-war styles into his contemporary approach to playing the harmonica, where he covers multiple genres, including Nordic folk music. A big exponent of different tunings, Richard likes to pick the tuning that works best for a particular recording. He has released three acoustic albums with a pianist, two electric blues albums and will soon be releasing some of his field recordings from his extensive YouTube channel. Hello Richard Jems and welcome to the podcast. Hello Neil, thank you. A pleasure to have you on and you're talking to us from Norway today. So how did you get into the harmonica and the blues and everything else you play up in Norway?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I got into the blues when I was like 13 years old. I had this music teacher that played a lot of blues recordings for us, actually. And he played stuff like Blind Willie Johnson and Sanitary and Brown and McGee and John Lee Williamson. And there was something about the sound of the harmonica that really got to me. And I still, more than 30 years after, I don't have any rational explanation for why. But it seems to be a thing among a lot of Norwegians because Norway is actually famous for having almost... 80 blues clubs in a country with only 5 million inhabitants. So the blues is pretty big up here. And what really got me into it was the sound of the harmonica. It just spoke to me in a way. Paul Butterfield used to call the harmonica the heart's horn or something like that. And I think it's that kind of vocal quality that you can get out of a harmonica that I really fell for.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great. And so are you one of the long list of people who were first inspired by Sonny Terry then by the sounds of it? I'm Born in 1976.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm probably too young for that, actually. But in a way, I am. Because, you know, Sonny Terry played, I think it was something of the last, probably the last session he did, was playing on that Crossroads soundtrack.

UNKNOWN:

¶¶

SPEAKER_03:

So in the blues revival thing at the beginning of the 90s, he kind of had this stamp on soundtracks and so on. It was kind of hard not to bump into Sonny's playing in a way. But of course, he influenced a whole generation of players back in the 70s that got to hang with Sonny and see him play live. He actually played in Norway too in the 70s a few times. So yeah, he was one of the big inspirations and actually John Lee Williamson.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, so getting back to Norway and the big blues scene there, as you said, 80 blues club. clubs it's amazing isn't it and it's the same with me I grew up in the northwest of England and we had a couple of blues festivals there which went on each year and that was quite a big inspiration for me so it's interesting isn't it how the blues has popped up in all these different places a long way from the US and you know it's gone on to inspire lots of people to play it around the world

SPEAKER_03:

yeah I think it's fascinating and at the same time being a cultural historian from the University of Oslo I tend to analyze why I got into the blues and you know what is the blues and why do we play a blues and is it? Do I have the right to play the blues and so on? If you don't ask these questions, it's kind of strange playing the blues, especially being a music based on the Afro-American experience of suffering, racism and so on. You have to reflect on that stuff, I think, in a sincere way. And that raises a lot of questions around why the blues and what attracts you to the blues. I think it's important to think about the blues as an idiomatic tradition, a way of going into the act of making music based on timing, texture, and tonality. It's quite like when we talk about jazz today, it can be anything of improvised music. It doesn't have to be the traditional jazz thing. But if you talk about blues, everybody associates it with a specific period and with a specific 12-bar format and so on. But I also think there's some inherent qualities in the playing of the great blues masters and of blues music per se, which is based on this idiomatical stuff, which is connected to the way you use your timing, the way you use your tonal qualities, and the way you use texture and chords and so on. And I think for me, being a blues musician from Norway, I played with quite a few traditional Afro-American blues musicians. And I think the most important thing there has been that you got the idiomatically, I wouldn't call it correct, but idiomatically deep way of playing under your skin. I think that aspect of making blues music is really important. And I think it's often under-communicated when we talk about the blues.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And, you know, it's not just people who play the blues that it connects with. Like you say, there's 80 blues clubs in Norway and blues gigs still happen all around the world. So there's something that connects with the audience as well, isn't it? That raw emotion of the blues. Absolutely. And I really

SPEAKER_03:

don't believe in these clear-cut genres or boxes of using different categories, so to speak. I more believe that playing music is a messy network of different connections and different kind of use and perspective. You know, the blues that has been played around the globe the last 20, 30 years is something quite different than the original blues that was played back in vaudeville clubs in the early 20s. It's something that's really different when it comes to meaning and context. But there's some similarities too when it comes to the way of playing and the way of using timing, tonality and so on.

SPEAKER_01:

So you mentioned there you're a cultural historian and you've done some archive work, haven't you, about researching into the blues and harmonica history. So maybe tell us a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I have been working at the National Library in Norway for 15 years now, with archiving and collecting Norwegian music in different genres, mainly so-called popular music, whatever that is. When it comes to playing harmonica, I come from the blues tradition, but after a while you also get interested in the traditional way of playing harmonica in the Scandinavian countries, and you dabble a little bit into that. I would not say in any way that I'm an expert in that aspect of harmonica playing, but I find it quite fascinating. Also because there's some similarities between the traditional blues harp tradition and there's some differences, especially when it comes to the use of diatonic harmonicas compared to using tremolo harmonicas, the whole repertoire playing waltzes and Scottish songs and so on, based on one-three time patterns and so on. So there's some differences there. But at the same time, if you listen to archival recordings of Scandinavian harmonica music, all of and play tongue block. You have this polyrhythmic thing going on. You have this use of double stops and use of intervals that are quite similar to players like the Forbalian. So I think it's fascinating to listen to this stuff. I tend to take a little bit from this tradition and a little bit from that tradition and so on. After a while, I'll dabble into something else. So I'm kind of like, I'm a little bit of everywhere. And I like also to listen to contemporary stuff too. I think that's a fascinating thing about an instrument like the harmonica, where you have this hundred years of recorded history. There's a lot of things that you can get into and it never stops.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you have some sort of material available in the library there in Norway, or is there anything online, anything like that?

SPEAKER_03:

The National Library of Norway has actually a streaming service for Sherlock 78 records, all Norwegian 78 records until 1958, which was the last year of the Sherlock record before you had vinyl records, can be listened to from Norwegian IP addresses. But when it comes to harmonica, there was very few commercial recordings with harmonica. There were some harmonica orchestra in Bergen, town in Norway, and that's about it. when it comes to harmonica instrumentals or harmonica music. The other things are archival recordings done in the mainly 50s, 60s and 70s with tape recorders. And some of that stuff are released on compilations together with accordion music because, you know, those repertoires are very closely connected. There's more stuff to be released there in the future.

SPEAKER_01:

So going back to your, you know, you're getting started, you say you had a teacher at the age of 13 and you started then getting into the harmonica. Was the harmonica your first No, piano was my

SPEAKER_03:

first instrument. I was a very lazy piano student. I played a simple version of the classical pieces and I never rehearsed. And I was a lousy sheet music reader, but I had a good ear so I could kind of, you know, improvise and get away with it. So I started out on piano and I think that's a big advantage when it comes to playing harmonica later on, because it's very easy when you play piano to visualize the different intervals, the different keys and tunings. So I think, you know, learning all the positions and so on, being a piano player, I think that's a really good thing. And I think some of that way of thinking is also reflected in a lot of, you know, Howard's instructional videos and so on. He's not to compare me to Howard by any means, but he's a fantastic piano player too. And that really helps giving you a good foundation, I think. So I would recommend everyone to be a lazy piano student.

SPEAKER_01:

So piano, and you also play other instruments which you still play now, yeah? So you play some pretty good guitar and we'll get on so i've heard you also play some pretty good um blues mandolin as well on the on youtube

SPEAKER_03:

yeah i uh i've been dabbling a bit with the blues mandolin too i love that whole blues mandolin tradition if you can call it a tradition so i've been you know listening to guys like yanni young or yank rachel and a lot of those mandolinists they also played with a lot of good harp players john lee williams or big walter hork so they're kind of connected the mandolin and the harmonica

SPEAKER_01:

so you play as well guitar you know sorry wendy Did you start picking up the guitar and is that something you've incorporated into your playing?

SPEAKER_03:

I think I started playing guitar when I was like 15 years old or something. I took some guitar lessons. But the competition was so hard on the local music scene on the guitar part. So I stuck with the harp because that made me stand out in a way. At the same time, getting individual signature on the blues guitar is pretty hard. It's very hard. It's hard on the harmonica too, but I found it easier on the harp finding my own voice in a way. So it spoke to me in another way than the guitar did back then. But I've been playing a lot of guitar too. But if you ask me, my primary instrument is, of course, harmonica. But I would recommend everyone to play different instruments because it feeds back on your harmonica playing. So you can, you know, play guitar for a month and don't pick up the harp. And next time you're out playing, you have some new ideas or, you know, some new things that you get from your guitar playing or mandolin playing for that sake. And I would recommend all harmonica players that play, you know, traditional Chicago blues to study the guitar playing of a guy like Robert Lockwood Jr. that plays on a lot of classic little recordings. Really good at backing up harp players. I've been studying with his stuff for a while and he gives me a different understanding of that whole concept of ensemble interplay. That is the definition of good Chicago blues in my ears, which I think a lot of people tend to forget sometimes. I went to Chicago like eight years ago, went to this club and I heard, I think I heard Willie Buck with a beautifully in on guitar, and it had Martin Lang, which is a great harp player, playing harp there. And when I heard those guys playing, it kind of stuck me that, you know, I can't play Chicago Blues. Not the way they play, you know, the way of playing it in an ensemble, where they all have these interlocking parts that are so connected to each other, and where the harp player doesn't play, for example, a specific kind of turnaround, because the guitar player plays the turnaround, and they have these parts that really fit together in a very Very, very nice way to play that kind of music, just like playing Dixieland or something. I think it's important to understand the role that the different instruments that they have in the whole context, so to

SPEAKER_00:

speak.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and one thing definitely picked up from you is you did some very nice rack playing. You're playing some Jimmy Reed that I saw you playing on YouTube. What about, you know, touching on playing harmonica on the rack? Is that something you do a lot? I've been

SPEAKER_03:

playing harmonica in rack, well, playing guitar for 10, 15 years or something, but I didn't do it for many, many years because I just focused on my harmonica playing for a while. And now during the pandemic and the lockdown and so on, I haven't had that many gigs. I bought myself a new rack and I started playing harmonica and guitar again. My take on that is that the coordination between your hands and the harmonica playing just needs a lot of practicing because there can be playing these tremolo patterns on the harp that you use a lot in the blues. For example, something like... Something like that. While playing the guitar... It's quite hard. It's like playing boogie boogie piano, you know. You do one thing in your right hand and another thing in your left hand. And sometimes to make these neural patterns in your brain, it takes really a while. So I've been working on

SPEAKER_00:

that.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_01:

Of course, you're singing as well whilst you're doing that. So some good vocals as well. So is vocals something you've always done and worked on?

SPEAKER_03:

Mainly I've been an instrumentalist, but I played in a band called, we actually had a reunion last year, called JB and the Delta Dukes like 20 years ago. And I just forced myself to start singing. It gave me new opportunities in the context of that band. I think a lot of hard players, they sing because getting a gig as a pure really hard player, it's not that easy, especially if you play the blues and so on. But at the same time, you know, singing is, it takes really a while to get comfortable with your own voice, especially when you hear it on record. I've been working on my singing the last two or three years and now I'm feeling more comfortable with it than I used to because I think it's all about being relaxed and being focused at the same time. Like singing traditional blues without trying to mimic the classical singers, which has quite a different resonance You can never touch that stuff anyway. I sing and I'm more comfortable with it than I used to be, but I don't think I will be as comfortable as a vocalist as I am as a harp player. I'm working on

SPEAKER_02:

it. You know, and

SPEAKER_01:

again, just finishing off this topic of playing on the harmonica on a rack obviously it's a bit different you know you're not holding you don't have the same sort of control but i mean what do you see about the advantages of doing it and maybe you know going out as a solo artist and you know being able to take all the money yourself etc you know is that something you'd want to push with or do you prefer playing in an ensemble you know just just doing the role of harmonica player for me

SPEAKER_03:

one of the big advantages of playing harmonica in rack is that it makes you focus on the bare essentials of the song of the bare essentials of playing the blues. You can't play all the triplets, and you can't play all the ornaments that you tend to put in when you're playing with a whole band. And it kind of makes you focus on the song instead of focusing on your ego, which I think can be a problem, because when you get to a certain level playing harmonica, if you are in the widest kind of context good, then a lot of people that start out playing the blues, they start going down this path of being more and more flamboyant, doing different difficult stuff and so on. That's, you know, natural, challenging yourself. I've done that myself, you know, trying to play Charlie Parker lines, Jason Rich stuff, which I really respect, all that kind of stuff. But I think it's good also to, you know, try to connect in another way when you play harmonica in rack, when it's more, it's a part of the whole context. Especially appreciate good harmonica playing in rack when I listen to artists like Ray Bonwill.

UNKNOWN:

oh

SPEAKER_00:

Canadian

SPEAKER_03:

singer-songwriter that uses the harmonica in a very kind of, you know, bluesy way on his songs, which really add texture to the whole expression. Playing harmonica in rack has made me a better harmonica player, but I'm not playing in rack because I tend more to focus on playing the melody properly, getting my points across and let the music in itself speak more than my egos. I think something that attracts people to the harmonica and that probably attracts to me through harmonica when I started out playing, is this kind of poetic, human voice-like quality to the instrument. This casualness, this kind of romantic sound when you end up playing bebop in 12th or 11th position with a lot of overblows, that kind of stuff, that aspect of a harmonica evaporates in a way. It gets in the background. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I think a way of connecting to that primal quality of the harmonica, like the sound of John Mayles' harmonica play, which is really, in a way, in a good way, simple, but that really connects with people. The way of getting back to that quality is by playing, for me, harmonica in rack, because then I have to focus on that in a minimalistic way.

SPEAKER_01:

And you mentioned earlier on that you like to play different genres. Lots of us do, but you do too. But one thing you've done, and obviously you're a Scandinavian, is you play some Nordic folk music. So there's an example of a song on one of your albums called, help me with the pronunciation, Midisjollen, is it? Which is a Norwegian folk song, I think, from the 17th century.

SPEAKER_03:

That pronunciation is quite good, actually. It's Midisjollen, which is actually from the part of Norway, the south-eastern part of Norway, which I'm from originally, which had a lot of immigrants from Finland coming over in the 17th century. It's Finnish-Norwegian folk music, so to speak. And a lot of it had this kind of minor quality that suits harmonic or natural minor harmonica really well.¦So with a good friend of mine and a great musician, Tor Einar Becken, I've been working with some songs in that idea on over, I think we have three records out. I didn't have any reference there. There was not a lot of harmonica playing or nothing from that part of Norway that I'd found. A lot of accordion playing, though. I came up with my own expression based on a fusion between traditional blues harmonica playing and more hybrid Norwegian-Finnish folk music. Because the traditional harmonica playing in Norway has been more, you know, focusing on the repertoire that accordion players played from the late 19th century, which is more like the German marches, waltzes, dance numbers and so on, you know, like... and so on. While this Finnish-Norwegian folk music that we've been dabbling with has more melodic side to it, which suits second position blues-based harmonica better.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, so we'll get on to the albums you mentioned there with the pianist Tor Eina Beckin, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you've done three albums with him. So an album in 2009, Songs from a Forest. Two first ones are instrumental albums. So quite a nice mixture on there. So picking out a few of the songs. The Forest song, which is the sort of title track from the album. Is that played on a chromatic? That is played on a chromatic.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_03:

How much chromatic do you play then? You know, I used to play quite a lot of chromatic. When I was 18 years old, I got my driver license, mainly to drive to a big blues festival in Notodden in Norway, because Charlie Musselwhite was playing there. So I got my driver license the same day as I drove to Notodden, I think. And I heard Charlie playing with his band. This was back in 94. And he played chromatic on quite a few songs and also in different keys and positions. after that I really got into chromatic and George Smith and Rod Piazza and Larry Adler but these days or the last 10-15 years I've been playing less and less chromatic because for me I think it's difficult to have good embouchure on both chromatic and diatonic at the same time and I prefer the sound the tone of the diatonic harmonic I'm not so fond of the wolvey sound or the sound of wolves but that's just my take on it so I have been working more on different diatonic tunings than playing the chromatic but sometimes there's some studio gig or some passage that's impossible to play legato and with a good tone

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so this album is you know let's say 2009 to 12 years ago so there are a few songs in chromatic and you play goodbye pork pie hat which is a classic charlie mingus jazz song

SPEAKER_03:

so

SPEAKER_01:

Is jazz still something you're playing? Are you attempting that more on the diatonic than the chromatic?

SPEAKER_03:

I don't play jazz that much but I listen a lot to jazz and it blends into all my playing and I have so much respect for playing jazz that I don't like to call myself a jazz musician or jazz player but I listen a lot to especially pre-war blues you know if you listen to like Bessie Smith or you listen to Eddie Lang or Lonnie Johnson this blurry line between blues and jazz and that I really like. I also really like Django Reinhardt, a lot of string swing music, and I also tend to like romantic Gershwin stuff with Larry Adler. So I pick up a lot of motifs and riffs and ideas listening to that stuff. But I don't play jazz standards that

SPEAKER_01:

much. No, not too much now. Yeah, cool. And another song on there, which I picked out, was Blues for Bird Head. Some nice, tasteful, high-end playing.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

I really got interested in why Lil Walter is such an iconic harmonica player in that way that there's almost no harmonica player on earth today that in some way is not influenced by Walter or, you know, doesn't sound like him. I really got into this pre-war compilation to listen to, you know, the harp players before Walter to study, you know, that stuff. And then I got into Blues Birdhead as one of the, you know, more jazzy, bluesy pre-war first position players. And I got, like, Rhythm Willie, which I actually think was from Chicago or around Chicago, that Little Walter really respected, according to Dave Myers in some interview way back. So those songs that I recorded them, they're kind of like a homage to that tradition and those players.

SPEAKER_01:

And then your next album with the piano player, Becken, is called Slaveriette, which I believe means slavery. So this is just the, you know, you're alluding to earlier on, the history of African-American black There's

SPEAKER_03:

a double link there because this is also recorded in Kastel in the eastern part of Norway in the city of Kongsvinger. Recording facility used to be a prison for military or war prisoners that they called the slavery in Norwegian. So that also gave allusion to the title there. So there's a double meaning. Yeah, absolutely. And we play a lot of Afro-American traditional music on that record mixed with Norwegian songs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was going to matter point there's absolutely that mixture with norwegian songs with various about half the title is having in norwegian and half of them in sort of english slash american do house of the rising sun on there and you do battle hymn of the republic you know what made you choose that american song

SPEAKER_03:

i think i heard battle hymn of the republic on a recording with the flute player herbie man from the 60s or something and i found it quite peculiar that he did a version of that and then suddenly i just struck me as you know it'll be interesting to see if you can do a take on that and we threw that in playing in that constellation with him, which is very open, very free. It works in the context playing it with him because we're this duo where I'm playing the harmonica and he's playing the grand piano usually and he's really good at taking a song and developing the harmonical aspect of the song with his deep knowledge of chords which kind of makes all these different songs connect in a way both harmonically but also in the form of rhythm and also in the form of the harmonica as a semi-human voice so to speak so I think our records are also part of showing that traditional music or you know folk music in general it's like Louis Armstrong said folk music I never heard a horse sing a song you know to show that this music connects in a way you know there's some connection there because i think people today are so into talking about difference and what difference and what they dislike and so on and we are more into talking about what we like and all the similarities you can see between things

SPEAKER_01:

absolutely i'm picking out some of the norwegian songs it's quite a gentle feel with this which that nice combination of piano and harmonica isn't which comes out you do a tag of anson what what does that one translate to tiger swanson

SPEAKER_03:

that means the tale of the tiger which is actually a reference to manual saw they used for a cutting timber in the woods. So it's based on that kind of rhythm they used when they cut down the trees like 150 years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

And you've also got a classical piece on this. Is it Vugasang, is it? Which is his cradle song, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's the Brahms' Gradle song, which we picked up because we saw a cartoon, I think, the night before with that song, Tom and Jerry or something like that. And I said, it's actually a very nice song. And they said, well, let's record it because it's been done to death or it's been done many times, but we don't care. We just want to do our take of it. So, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

piano plays softly

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so quite a mixture on this album, then. Lots of different genres on there, as you say. Some definitely blues, some jazz, some Norwegian, some classical. We have

SPEAKER_03:

played quite a really big blues festivals together, Tor Einar and I, and jazz festivals, and we played the Royal Albert Hall together, actually, two years ago. I remember when we came out on this big blues festival and we're going to play, and we started out with a number of famous Swedish accordion players. He's like Carl Juhlarbo. He's like the biggest traditional accordion player in Skatte ever and we started out with you like boo and you can hear a gasp going through the audience you know all these blues people they were freaked out they're playing you like boo and i lost their mind but we did our kind of bluesified version of it and everyone really dug it after a while

SPEAKER_01:

And when you're playing within that setup, what's the usual lineup?

SPEAKER_03:

Very simple. It's just the grand piano or upright acoustic piano. Tor Einar also sings sometimes. And I play acoustic harmonica. And I have a suitcase full of harmonicas in different tunings. And I also use the Harpois by Roly Platt. I really love that for this acoustic stuff. And I never use distorted harmonica or amplified harmonica for this concept. So it's very straightforward. forward and easy in that way, but we work a lot with the arrangements and I work a lot on using harmonicas in different pitches and tunings, you know, to make things varied and interesting, both for me and the audience for two hours.

SPEAKER_01:

You then would play with another band, which is more of a full-on blues band, which is Blatt Room, I think is Blue Room, yeah? Yeah. This is your amplified sound.

UNKNOWN:

......

SPEAKER_01:

You've got a couple of albums out that

SPEAKER_03:

I picked out with those guys. Yes, that's traditional Chicago blues. And that's a guy called Ronny Jakobsen, a very good friend of mine that I started out playing with in blues clubs in Oslo in the late 90s. Six or seven years ago, Ronny said to me, oh man, we got to get a band together just to play this traditional stuff because I need to get it out of my system. We did two records. One was nominated for Norwegian Grammy, the first one. And we played with that ensemble for two or three years beforehand. dissolved into different projects. It's a good example of me playing more traditional electric Chicago blues.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I really noticed you got really authentic sound, like I got my mojo work.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I really love that stuff. It's my deep love for the Chicago harmonica tradition, for Little Walter, for all his recordings. It challenges me to try to do other things too, because it's so hard to do. It's unsurpassed. It's really hard. It's like copying Mona Lisa, the whole expression So I've been working a lot for years on playing electric Chicago harmonica. With that band, I've worked a lot on trying to play it idiomatically correct or in a fresh way without doing complete mimicry of the originals. My favorites has always been, besides Little Walter, has always been like James Cotton, which I think has had such a fantastic sound in the late 60s, early 70s, before he started playing just acoustic. And there's so many great harp players in that tradition. And as I mentioned earlier on, when I went to Chicago some years ago when I heard guys like Martin Lang playing. Still in that tradition are Dave Waldman. They're the guys that listened to and hung out with guys like Big Leon Brooks in the late 70s or late 80s. There were guys like Little Willie Anderson that also hung out with Little Walter back in the 60s. There's this kind of, I wouldn't say unbroken tradition, but there's this line there. And I really love that tradition. And I think it's really a challenge to play it in a fresh and good

SPEAKER_01:

way. Another thing you've done a lot of, and there's plenty to see, is your YouTube channel, which has got well over 100 videos of you playing mostly solo harmonica. What about that, and any particular thing you're trying to feature on there? Is it just lots of different styles and different positions? I have some

SPEAKER_03:

different conceptual ideas that might be different harmonica tunings, or it might be a... song I've been dabbling around with that I really like. Or it might be some kind of genre that I'm getting into or tuning or something that I make a YouTube video and I put it out just to force myself to work on it. It's also very good because I've been getting a lot of feedback from other harp players and people from all around the world that have questions and that have suggestions and so on. So I really like that interaction aspect of the social media. And I think the Harmonica community is really healthy in a way because it's very constructive and positive. That's been the main drive behind that YouTube channel. And I got in touch with a record company, Norwegian record company, this year called Apollon, because I did some sessions on one of their rock and roll records. And then they listened to my YouTube channel and I said, yeah, we want to release your field recordings. They said, are you kidding me? I said, no, no, we want a full album based on your YouTube session. So I'm actually releasing an album with, I think it's 15 of those youtube recordings next year actually on cd and vinyl as well as streaming

SPEAKER_01:

excellent and they're the recordings straight from the youtube videos rather than you know you're not re-recording them no they're based

SPEAKER_03:

on the youtube videos and they're based on compressed files i have on my samsung telephone but we have been working a bit with the mixing and mastering of them and adding a bit of reverb and doming doing something with them you know

SPEAKER_01:

superb so you're getting a solo harmonica album coming out on the back of this that's great

SPEAKER_03:

yeah and for this album coming up next year which I think is called actually the YouTube sessions it's harmonica and almost all the tracks I think but I also have a one mandolin track there on the mandolin and some tracks where I only play guitar and sing too so it's a little bit of everything and some harmonica instrumentals I just I like to mix it up to make it interesting

SPEAKER_01:

I think they say it's a great medium that YouTube channels isn't it and yeah great to see you can just go and do your own thing can't you which is brilliant you know it's just whatever you want to do you put a video before you put a video out, do you agonize about kind of make it as perfect as you can? Or, you know, do you just kind of record it once and put it out

SPEAKER_03:

there? Sometimes I just have this urge to get it out of the system or to just play it. And then I can see that the video angle is not that good, or it's not good. I've done more, done a better filming or a better sound recording, but I still put it out because I like the, you know, the feeling of the tape. I like to have them as like your spontaneous field recording. So I don't do too much with them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so brilliant. And you played with, you know, with various people as well. And quite, you know, lots of session work. You've played with quite a notable Norwegian musicians, haven't you? Stenor Albrigsten, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

he's a famous Norwegian

SPEAKER_03:

country singer or folk musician. And I played with Stenor in his regular band for like three or four years when I was doing my master thesis. And we had a lot of gigs and travel around playing his music, which is a blend of country music, jazz, rock. rock and roll, pop, everything. And I learned a lot of playing with him. I had to find out how to use the harmonica in a good way in different kind of genres and contexts. And I had to dabble with country harmonica tradition with different ways of using the harmonica in an intelligent musical way.

SPEAKER_01:

Also listed that you played with a lot of famous harmonica players, Callisto Junco and Mark Hummel and various of the blues musicians as well. How did you meet up with these guys? In the late

SPEAKER_03:

90s, early 2000s, there was this blues club in Oslo called Muddy Wall blues club and I lived in Oslo as a student so I used to play in the house band at that club with my good friend Keith Anderson which now plays with Rick Estrin and the Night Cat and so I used to play with him and a lot of other very good Norwegian blues musicians backing up artists coming over to Norway so that was one way of coming in touch with all these people and when you play at festivals and so on you meet people and a lot of hard players are really easy going guys that easy to get along with and if they start talking to people they First time I met Mark Hummel, he said something like, I think I've been talking to Mark for like 20 seconds. And he said, so you play? And I said, yeah, sure. Let me hear. And we were standing there at some festival playing Walter's Boogie together or something. That's really bizarre, but it's really sweet too. And that's what makes the harmonica scene really special. I remember in the early nineties, when I first had access to internet, the first thing I did was going into Harp L, that famous mailing list for harmonica players. I went to the Harp L archives and I read everything about So

SPEAKER_01:

you've done lots of session work as well. You've done various movie soundtracks up in Norway again. And I have to test my Norwegian pronunciation with some of these. So this is the song, Goat is Born.

UNKNOWN:

Goat is Born

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's a Norwegian composer and musician, Lars Hielevold, that makes a lot of soundtracks for Norwegian movies, like this series for kids, The Lille Traktorn Gråtas, The Little Tractor, what do you call that in English? Old Grey or something like that. It's by The Little Tractor. He has used harmonica for a lot of these children movies, because it suits the soundtrack. So I've been working with him, and I've been also working with Martin Horntvett from Jagajassist, which is an unbelievable musician I've done a lot of soundtracks for NRK and for different movies and so on and working on soundtracks is something I find really exciting and it's also very good for you as a musician to work with a visual medium especially when you can come up with new ideas and you can contribute to the whole package of visual and musical expression together so you learn a lot of doing these soundtracks I have learned a lot by doing it

SPEAKER_01:

Have you made it any tv appearances in norway playing the harmonica any of these things

SPEAKER_03:

yes i made quite a few tv appearances as a hired gun mostly and when they need a harmonica part for some kind of live act number but for the last 10 years i haven't been doing that kind of work that much and i haven't been doing live gigs as much as i used to do because i had i had a daughter 11 years ago and then you of course you don't have the ability to travel that much and i have their job at the National Library and so on. So it's been more convenient working in studios with soundtracks and recording than traveling around and doing live gigs and things on TV and so on. One comment on playing on TV or doing live shows broadcasting is that you never know how things are going to sound out, how things are going to sound when you play. That's my experience. You really have to be flexible and expect anything. And that That's also a good thing too. It keeps you on your toes because I think a lot of hard players are very focused on good tone, having their good sound, their favorite amp and their favorite valves and so on and so on. But when push comes to show, it doesn't always matter that much. And when you're playing, doing a broadcast or something and you get a terrible monitor sound and they put flanger on your harmonica sound when it comes out on the national TV, you just have to, you know, make the best out of it and kind of make a statement. I think it's a good thing doing gigs like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, so a question I ask each time, Richard, is the 10-minute question. If you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_03:

I probably would be practicing on different minor tunings, working on material for the next record I'm going to do with Tor Einar Becken, which is inspired by Norwegian and Finnish folk music, but it's mainly based on free-form improvisations. So my answer is I would work on different minor tunings and different themes. I don't work on playing scales that much. If you ask me what scale are you playing now, I probably couldn't answer, but I really like to work on different tunings to develop different harmonically IDs and to practicing on playing, you know, contrapuntal stuff to use octave, double stop and to play around with the same minor theme in different minor tunings, for example, you know, to see what kind of suits the songs the best and gives you most opportunities

SPEAKER_01:

sure yeah so you mentioned a few times as you're interested in playing different positions and different tunings and obviously the minor tunings you just talked about there so you know how do you choose the tuning you go for a particular song I mean I take it you've got various harmonicas and different tunings if my role

SPEAKER_03:

playing the song is like playing the melody then I pick the tuning where the melody can be played in a most pleasant legato way that's one very important point. And sometimes my role is to just play chords or to play long, you know, kind of ambient lines that are going to complement the melody. Then I can use a different tuning for that. Maybe not the same tuning as I use for playing the melody. It depends a lot. And it depends on the chord changes and whether I'm going to improvise a big part of the song or a small part of the song, or whether I'm just playing the theme. It's stuff like that. For example, you have something like do it tuning which is like a dorian minor tuning like you can play minor third position in that tuning

SPEAKER_01:

i have one

SPEAKER_03:

of

SPEAKER_01:

those

SPEAKER_03:

yeah it's very good for you know playing chordal stuff but if you're going to improvise a long solo for three minutes then i would probably rather go for playing second position on a natural minor harmonica because I can play with more fluid and I can play different ideas. And so it's aspects like that that are important for me when I consider what harp to use. I've been lately using the Dorian second position tuned harmonica, which I know the French harmonica player J.J. Milton is a really big fan of. And I'm a really big fan of him because he's a really clever harmonica player that focuses on the context of the harmonica and the poetic quality of it more than shoving off. And he uses this tuning, which is a blend of minor and major tuning. And I think a tuning like that is very nice to use to come up with new ideas playing in minor second position, for example.

SPEAKER_01:

JJ Milton's a fantastic player. I'm a massive fan of his playing. He's really

SPEAKER_03:

a philosopher of harmonica. I actually think he's very underrated. And he also managed to come up with something new all the time and reinvent himself all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

He's done some fantastic songs on harmonica. Yeah, I think he's one of the best out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Bye.

SPEAKER_01:

yeah no so i mean what about people who are you know reluctant to try different tunings and you know a lot of people stick to the paddy richter tuning because you know that's the kind of one they know and you know what would you say to that and how do you adapt to playing different tunings obviously the notes are in different places yeah so you've got to do different things i would suggest that you

SPEAKER_03:

start out with tuning similar to the standard edition tuning which most hard players are used to and you can start within major tuning like melody maker which you can play almost the same patterns in second position that most players are comfortable with and it's quite easy to add up to just small changes on the blow three hole and the draw five hole so you can start with

SPEAKER_01:

one or two notes just changing one or two notes and yeah and doing it that way yeah yeah

SPEAKER_03:

but getting into like a tuning like the power bender tuning for example where you can bend all 10 holes or in draw on all 10 holes like and you have quite a quite a different note layout especially when it comes to chords playing something like that for blues or so on it it takes a lot of more work at least it did for me

SPEAKER_01:

mentioning um brendan powers powerbender have you seen his new modular reed harmonica he's just come out with i just read about it i haven't tried

SPEAKER_03:

it no

SPEAKER_01:

no I haven't tried it myself but yeah I mean that takes this whole this concept of you know different tunings to a whole new planet doesn't it as Brendan comes up with yeah so

SPEAKER_03:

I know I mean he's a genius when it comes to harmonica tuning yeah

SPEAKER_01:

so yeah really interested about just to try that one out yeah I mean so the idea of people that you aren't aware is that you're able to change any reed yeah at all because you can individually change the reeds which means you can have in theory any tuning and then so yeah an incredible possibilities but certainly even just the the fact that you could use it simply just to change a reed that you regularly blow out, but then the other end of the scale being you can change any reed.

SPEAKER_03:

I just want to say two things when it comes to alternative harmonica tunings and a genius like Brendan Power. And one is that kind of understanding of different tunings and different concepts, both musically and technically, that Brendan has is really unique. I'm not in the same galaxy. I just have to say that. Nobody is. Nobody, really. And he's such a good player. too you know has this this lovely vibrato this lovely touch and everything it does it just sounds like brandon power and it's so nice but uh for me personally i think that there's a lot of different harmonica concepts during the years like the xb40 or like these hybrid kind of concepts where you can use bends instead of using a button for the chromatic harmonica or using extra valves for like pt gazelle uses for for his stuff you know i'm not personally and this is personally not so fun of all those concepts because what I like is the sound of the simple diatonic harmonica with a chamber with only two reeds in it. The resonant sound you get like... I really like that sound, that resonance, you know? And if tinkering with a harmonica, it takes away that resonance, that kind of tonal ideal that I have there, then it's not probably for me. And some of the, a lot of alternate tunings, I think it's still possible to play with that sound and it suits it very well. Like the powerbender, same powerbender, where you can play...

SPEAKER_01:

I really like it because you have this bluesy quality. You can bend the draw on the high notes. That's a good thing

SPEAKER_03:

about it. Yeah. You know. But I really like that and I'm always curious of what Brendan will come up with when it comes to new

SPEAKER_01:

concerts. And he seems to come up with them almost every week as well. That's the other thing. So you're a Seidel endorser, yeah? You've been a Seidel endorser since 2009?

SPEAKER_03:

I am a Seidel endorser. I've been in it since 2009. And I really like Seidel because they're such a nice company with a good philosophy. and they always come up with new stuff almost every week and they have you can order different tunings directly from the factory and they can do things for you that are just in between traditional harmonica production and more customization you know so I really love them for

SPEAKER_01:

that and you play the steel reeds yourself then I take it

SPEAKER_03:

I do but at the same time I use honours also I would lie if I don't say that to you

SPEAKER_01:

and I know you like playing low-tuned harps quite a lot. You mentioned Rory Platt's Harmonica Warrior. You do a nice version of that Harmonica Didgeridoo, which you do with a low harp. So what about those low harps?

SPEAKER_03:

I like the low harps because they tend to sound like a different instrument they give you another of course they're one octave lower and they make you they force you to play in a different way often because you can't play the same kind of phrases in the same way but it's really hard to work on when it comes to you know pitch control bending but they can add such a nice ambience to a lot of songs too that really you know adds something to it and the challenge of using low tuned harmonicas too is using them in a live context I would say because they tend to be you know low

SPEAKER_01:

they don't cut through do they it's always really hard yeah

SPEAKER_03:

no they don't cut through in the same way no so but I really like using low harps

SPEAKER_01:

it certainly works on solo stuff doesn't it so on your YouTube and this album you're talking about I'm sure we'll hear some low harps on there will work

SPEAKER_03:

yes and I just want to add one for me important point too it's that I think I really like the quality of the honor harmonicas in the way they are tuned because I had this reference in all the traditional blues recordings. I like the sound of... That's what I like, you know? And that's the sound of a specific compromise tuning and of the brass reeds that they use. But if you use a sidal harmonica, you don't get quite the same sound. You get a different sound. It might be good for, you know, it depends on the context. If I use a sidal harmonica, harmonica or a hammer harmonica that's my point it's just like guitar players no one would say to a guitar player like i guess you only use fender guitars and not gibson and we say are you crazy and there's only hard players doing stuff like that yeah it's like hard players say well you only play a hundred harmonicas i guess and you only play 12 bar blues i mean come on give me a break you can use different harmonicas from different producers on different stuff it just depends on the competition

SPEAKER_01:

yeah and of course we're in a as i said before a sort of golden age i think of now where the harmonicas are really really great quality. We're very lucky these days that we've got all these great choices. It's so good, you know. So what about overblows? Do you use many

SPEAKER_03:

overblows? I use overblows, but I mostly use them as passing notes or grace notes on up-tempo songs or other stuff. I don't tend to like the embouchure on the overblows for ballads

SPEAKER_01:

and so on. Yeah, so you like to put them in sparingly and well used. Yeah. And what embouchure do you like to use?

SPEAKER_03:

i mix i play a mix of pucker and tongue block i prefer using tongue block over all holes after hole four up to hole 10 and i use pucker from hole four down to hole one mainly but it depends i can mix them up but it's quint essential to learn how to play with tongue block to get a proper blues embouchure end of discussion

SPEAKER_01:

yeah absolutely yeah and um you mentioned amplifiers and things early on so What about your microphone and amplifiers of choice? When you're playing with a pianist and also when you're playing with a full-on blues band, what are the differences there?

SPEAKER_03:

Lately, I've been playing over the last 10. 12 years, I've been playing 90% acoustic actually, just playing to a regular Shure microphone using all kind of hand effects and so on. An SM58 for that? An SM58 for that, or an SM58 Beta. And I don't like that compressed sound of playing with a stick microphone or dynamic microphone with these effect processors and so on. I'm not such a big fan of that. Do as you like to, but but it's not my thing.

SPEAKER_01:

So do you tend to play off the mic then so you can use the hand effects?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and sometimes you just need to cup the mic if you're playing with a full band or so on. You can, like a player like J. Lo Johnson can play beautiful stuff, subtle stuff with a hand held microphone playing acoustic. So that's quite possible. But if I play electric, then I usually use a Fender Super or Bassman or this Memphis Mini amp that I have with sure brown bullet element in a static shell. or i use an i have some different aesthetics microphones usually dynamic or crystal

SPEAKER_01:

And what about when you're recording? Do you use any particular setup for that? Just your Samsung Thorn, as you said earlier on?

SPEAKER_03:

No, if I'm at a proper studio, I usually use three microphones, one to take the ambience in the room, one that I use to mic up the amp, and one that I use to get my acoustic sound, and then I blend them all in a mix afterwards, you know, to get a good sound. And I prefer Neumann microphones, for example, in a proper studio. But when I record things at my place, Then I use a Zoom recorder, actually. It's an okay sound for acoustic harmonica.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we all like those Neumann microphones. If they didn't cost quite so much money to have at home, thousands of pounds. So are you using condenser microphones enough in a studio when you're recording in that way?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, sometimes. But sometimes I've been using all kinds of different... It depends on the studio. Once I did some kind of black metal, really death metal project I was playing on. I played straight into the board with gold kind of effects on it using an electro voice microphone that I held in my hand and it sounded good for that kind of music so it depends on the context there.

SPEAKER_01:

When talking about effects and any effects pedals you use regularly?

SPEAKER_03:

I have a Strymon I think it's called Blue Sky or Big Sky or something which is a delay and reverb pedal digital one that I really like and I use it if I play with an electric with a band so I can you know mix up my sound during the night and that's the effect i mainly use i used in the 90s to dabble a bit with a octave pedal after hearing carrie bell but i tend to get tiring after one or two songs so i don't use that much and i don't like i'm not a big fan of you know auto vava or vava effects for on the harmonica i don't like that very compressed effect compressor sound on the harp in general

SPEAKER_01:

and final question richard again thanks for the time so what about your future plans and you know getting out gigging can people see you see you around gigging in norfolk where and elsewhere? I'm

SPEAKER_03:

releasing this solo record in the spring of 2022. And then I'm going to do some gigs in Norway in the blues clubs, promoting that. I'm also recording, I hope, a new record with Tor Einar Becken next year. And we're probably going to play some concerts, jazz clubs, churches and so on with that folk music jazz concept. And I also had this dream to go to one of those harmonica conventions that I've never been to. Like in Trossingen or the one that they have in Klingenthal, the Seidel one, or maybe the Harping by the Sea in the UK or something like that. That's also one of my goals.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I've been to Harping by the Sea a good few times. So if you want to go there, yeah, you might know Richard Taylor already. But yeah, let me know if you come across for sure. Yeah, I think we're all itching to travel now, aren't we? So I'm thinking myself that one of the German festivals next year has got to be on the cards too. So yeah, maybe I'll see you there. Yeah, I hope so. So superb.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So thank you very much, Richard Jems, for joining me on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_03:

My pleasure. It's been really nice talking to you and rambling on about harmonicas and harmonicas.

SPEAKER_01:

That's episode 51. Thanks all again for listening. And if anyone again wants to make a voluntary donation to help the podcast running, please check out the podcast page where you can find the details to do so. And finally, just handing over to Richard to play us out with some beautiful low Nordic harmonica. Over to you, Richard.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_00:

¶.

UNKNOWN:

We'll be right back. Thank you.