In the mid-1800s, a German harmonica manufacturer named Hohner started exporting his product to North America. Being relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to play and extremely portable, the ...

As the founder and blues-drenched harmonica master of the King Biscuit Blues Band for 20 years, Ken Schoppmeyer was known as a perfectionist. If a band member played a sour note, he’d sternly, and not ...

The blues world was changed forever on a sunny day around 1960 when a little boy walked into a five-and-dime in Los Angeles. ...

Blues harmonica master Carey Bell died on May 6 of heart failure in his hometown of Chicago. He was 70. Bell – the 1998 winner of the Blues Music Award for Traditional Male Artist Of The Year – was a ...

Mississippi blues harp player James Cotton was certainly considered lucky for the break he got joining Muddy Waters’ band in the late 1950s, taking over a spot previously held by such venerated ...

Among the harmonica’s many wonderful and unique traits, there is this: You have to really suck to be good at it. As one of America’s finest and busiest harmonica players, Denver’s Ronnie Shellist ...

When it comes to blues harmonica, it’s all or nothing at all. In the wrong hands, the harp becomes a weapon of mass distraction, a screeching annoyance that can completely destroy any song. But, as ...

Austin, Texas, September 24-- Gary Primich, considered by many to be one of the greatest harmonica players in the world, passed away suddenly on September 23rd. Not only is this the loss of a ...

Blues harmonica virtuoso and onetime Muddy Waters sideman James Cotton died on Thursday at a medical center in Austin of pneumonia. He was 81. A rep for the musician confirmed his death. Cotton, who ...

After writing his third symphonic piece for harmonica and orchestra, two words crowded the thoughts of bluesman Corky Siegel: Never again. The work of writing for a symphony was too tedious, too ...