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 ...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — James Cotton, a Grammy Award-winning blues harmonica master whose full-throated sound backed such blues legends as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin’ Wolf, has died ...

Every once in a while, the mail brings a CD that sparks a small revelation. A few months back, a two-disc anthology arrived called “Blues Harp Women,” and until that moment I didn’t realize that my ...

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 ...

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 ...