Marcos Coll joins me on episode 86. Marcos is a Spaniard who has been living in Berlin for the last twenty years. Marcos rose to fame at a young age on the Spanish blues scene playing with the Tonky Blues Band before forming the the Los Reyes del KO band, touring the world and sharing the stage with many famous names. Moving to Berlin in 2004, Marcos became a regular on the vibrant blues scene in Germany and recorded with many great artists. In addition to playing blues, Marcos likes to mix modern beats such as hip hop into the blues, as well as playing traditional Spanish and Latin music, inc ..read more

Ed Hopwood joins me on episode 85. Ed is from the UK where he started out playing drums and he shares some tips on how to bring some rhythm into our harmonica playing.  Ed loves early styles of harmonica and performs a range genres, including jug band, early blues, cajun, bluegrass and old-timey music. Ed has a one man band show where he plays harmonica, guitar, sings and a whole host of percussion instruments. He’s brought many of these skills to his main band, The Rigmarollers, a trio who play a mixture of barrelhouse blues, ragtime, jazz, swing, gospel and infectious zydeco grooves. As ..read more

Hendrik Meurkens joins me on episode 84. Hendrik is a German chromatic player who has been living in New York since the early 1990s. Toots Thielemans was Hendrik’s inspiration to take up the chromatic and he performed a live radio show in Germany with Toots. Hendrik is also a vibraphone player, which he studied at the Berklee College of Music. Shortly after this he spent a year in Brazil to immerse himself in the music there. This helped him form his brand of Brazilian music, Samba Jazz. Hendrik has a large album catalogue, including six albums with the prestigious jazz label Concord, and has ..read more

Annie Raines joins me on episode 83. Annie is an early pioneer as a female blues harmonica player. Hailing from the Boston area of the US, she drew on the rich source of harmonica inspiration from nearby Cambridge, regularly attending a jam there in her youth, and meeting many great players and joining the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra.  Annie then teamed-up with her long time musical partner, Paul Rishell, after also meeting him around the Boston area. They have now been performing and recording together for over 30 years, releasing seven albums, and winning a WC Handy award for one of t ..read more

Steve Guyger joins me on episode 82. Steve is from the Philadelphia area of the US and he absorbed the blues harmonica players when he first got into playing, with John Lee Williamson a big early inspiration. Steve was also great friends with the late Paul Oscher, making  three albums with him. Steve also teamed up with the legendary Jimmy Rogers, over the course of fourteen years.  Steve has released five albums under his own name, with a great mix of diatonic and chromatic blues. Steve’s long-standing band is the Excellos, who   are still performing more than forty years after ..read more

Ben Bouman joins me on episode 81. Ben is a Dutch blues player who always strives for originality in his playing, partly inspired by his admiration for the playing of Paul deLay. Ben’s current band is The Marble Tones, who took their name from the amplifier company, with Ben helping develop their range of harmonica amps. Ben also helped Seydel prototype their steel reeds before they released them some fifteen years ago, and he tells us all about polishing and profiling steel reeds, his own business selling customised Seydel harmonicas, and how he helped persuade Seydel in moving over to Compro ..read more

Todd Parrot joins me on episode 80. Todd is a gospel harmonica player who was inspired to play harmonica after first hearing it in church. He went on to join the church band and has gone on to develop a heavenly tone on the instrument. Todd listened to a lot of country harmonica and was influenced from several players from that genre, including Terry McMillan.  Todd released a self-produced solo album, Songs From The Harp, where he learned to play several instruments to accompany his harmonica playing, as well as using other musicians. He is also a sought after session musician, appearing ..read more

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78. Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to release some great music in that genre. He’s also an expert blues player, has played chamber music, Arabic music and much more on both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas. Marko also runs the successful Berlin Harmonica School, where as well as one-to-one group classes he has some great online video tutorials from players around the world. Offering lessons in a range of different ..read more

Rocky Lok joins me on episode 79. Rocky lives in Hong Kong, where there is a vibrant harmonica scene. Harmonica is taught in many schools there, which is how Rocky got started playing himself some 50 plus years ago. He went on to become part of the Kings Harmonica Quintet which has played many prestigious concerts, including in front of an audience of twenty thousand, as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and winning the group competition at the World Harmonica Championship in Trossingen.  Rocky is a former president of the Hong Kong Harmonica Association where he was involved in setting-u ..read more

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78. Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to release some great music in that genre. He’s also an expert blues player, has played chamber music, Arabic music and much more on both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas. Marko also runs the successful Berlin Harmonica School, where as well as one-to-one group classes he has some great online video tutorials from players around the world. Offering lessons in a range of different ..read more