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 ...

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, ... Telarc Blues culls their considerable holdings to provide a wholly satisfying collection of contemporary blues harmonica by contemporary and ...

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 ...

Cash awards totaling $2,500 and the opportunity to perform at the 25th Annual Battle of the Blues Harps in Long Beach, Southern California’s longest running blues harmonica event featuring top acts ...

If you ask James Montgomery if he remembers playing the Shaboo inn in Willimantic back in the day — the legendary local club that closed in 1982 — he’ll hem and haw and scratch his head and say “The ...

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 ...

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 ...

PORT ARTHUR, Texas — A Port Arthur blues harmonica player who toured the world and played with many jazz and blues greats has died. Paul Orta, 61, died at home in Port Arthur at 9:30 p.m. with his ...

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 ...

Hear Brandon Bailey perform two songs live in the NPR studio. The harmonica is a staple of American blues, beginning with the Memphis jug bands of the 1920s. In the 1960s, blues-influenced artists ...