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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

John Popper recalls the moments after he received his first harmonica for his 14th birthday. “It was a Hohner and I read the little poem that came with it that said, ‘Take a Hohner with pride … it ...

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 ...

Bill Tarsha and the Rocket 88s led the 18th annual blues harmonica blowout last week at the Rhythm Room. More than 35 blues harmonica players performed. Tarsha and his band opened with a couple tunes.

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NEW YORK — James Cotton, a pioneering harmonica player who worked with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and helped establish his instrument as an integral part of modern blues, died Thursday in Austin, ...

Blues harmonica legend James Cotton died Thursday at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas. He was 81. The cause of death was pneumonia, according to Alligator Records, the Chicago label for ...

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 ...