ADAM GUSSOW:
I never met Junior Wells personally--and in fact, my remembrance would be the first time my parents had a copy of 'Hoodoo Man Blues.' I don't know where they got it. My mother said, "We thought you might want this." And it was, you know, a vintage copy of 'Hoodoo Man Blues.' And hearing that for the first time, and really feeling like I had been plunged into a smoky southside Chicago club in the early sixties. I mean, that's...just about the most intimate club recording that I've ever heard. And so, it would be the revelation of his vibrato, of his whole way of playing. Maybe it's not as wild as his 'Blues Comes to Big Town' recordings were, which I've heard a little bit of later on, but something about his attack and his vibrato--you gotta know who the harp player is after you hear three or four notes on the radio. That's my test for a classic harp player. Do you know that sound? And once I'd heard that Junior Wells, I couldn't ever forget it...
He would come to New York and play at Manny's Car Wash...actually I saw him once in the New Checkerboard Lounge. And he came on and did the same songs that he'd done when I saw him in New York, but it was for a hometown crowd and he had a way of mixing harmonica with "[pop]HuOOOuh!" and do kind of groans and "Shhhhuuh! Huhhh![pop]" You know, he'd make all those different sounds, it was a whole sonic kind of palette that he had. So I learned that from him. I don't make those sounds, but now I know they're there. (11/8/98 AE)
I never met Junior Wells personally--and in fact, my remembrance would be the first time my parents had a copy of 'Hoodoo Man Blues.' I don't know where they got it. My mother said, "We thought you might want this." And it was, you know, a vintage copy of 'Hoodoo Man Blues.' And hearing that for the first time, and really feeling like I had been plunged into a smoky southside Chicago club in the early sixties. I mean, that's...just about the most intimate club recording that I've ever heard. And so, it would be the revelation of his vibrato, of his whole way of playing. Maybe it's not as wild as his 'Blues Comes to Big Town' recordings were, which I've heard a little bit of later on, but something about his attack and his vibrato--you gotta know who the harp player is after you hear three or four notes on the radio. That's my test for a classic harp player. Do you know that sound? And once I'd heard that Junior Wells, I couldn't ever forget it...
He would come to New York and play at Manny's Car Wash...actually I saw him once in the New Checkerboard Lounge. And he came on and did the same songs that he'd done when I saw him in New York, but it was for a hometown crowd and he had a way of mixing harmonica with "[pop]HuOOOuh!" and do kind of groans and "Shhhhuuh! Huhhh![pop]" You know, he'd make all those different sounds, it was a whole sonic kind of palette that he had. So I learned that from him. I don't make those sounds, but now I know they're there. (11/8/98 AE)