NPR

Beyond The Blues: The Blues Harmonica In Jazz

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 ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Inhaling the Blues: How Southern Black Musicians Transformed the Harmonica

“Classic Harmonica Blues,” out on May 21, features 20 tracks by the blues’ greatest harmonica players. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings In the early 20th-century, southern black ...
The Middletown Press

Blues Beat: Harmonica masters coming to Black-eyed Sally’s

On Saturday, four of Southern New England’s best blues harmonica players will be appearing on one stage. Ryan Hartt, Kosher Kid, Johnny Marino, and Junior Krauss will appear at Black-eyed Sally’s as ...
The New York Times

Phil Wiggins, Virtuoso of the Blues Harmonica, Is Dead at 69

First as half of the duo Cephas and Wiggins and later on his own, he was one of the best-known musicians playing the style known as the Piedmont blues. By Clay Risen Phil Wiggins, a harmonica player ...
Smithsonian Magazine

A Brief History of the Harmonica

One of the most versatile harmonica players in pop history is Stevie Wonder, shown here in Paris in 1963 at age 13. Charley Ley / Mirrorpix Many harmonica histories begin around 1100 B.C. with the ...
The Washington Post

James Cotton, hard-blowing harmonica master of the blues, dies at 81

James Cotton, who learned to play the harmonica as a child in the Mississippi Delta and went on to be a major figure in blues music as a sideman to Muddy Waters and as a Grammy Award-winning solo ...
Star Tribune

Tom Burns, harmonica player and fixture of the Minneapolis blues scene, dies at 67

Tom Burns sometimes told friends, "You've got to live the blues to play the blues." It was a fitting mantra for a man who just scraped by when he wasn't wailing on the harmonica in bars around the ...