Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers: A Book Review

February 09, 2009

The harmonica is an instrument that rarely gets its due from writers and musicologists, yet it has played an enormously important role in American popular music of the past hundred or so years.

Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers; The Evolution of the People's Instrument is a good effort at rectifying this situation. Author Kim Field -- who is himself a peformer as well as an aficianado of the harmonica -- traces the development and history of the intrument, with a look at the popular harmonica bands of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the use of the instrument in the genres of blues, country, rock, jazz and, yes, even classical music.

The book is especially rich in profiles of the leading harmonica players both past and present. Field personally interviewed a number of harmonica masters; his description of his encounter with DeFord Bailey (now deceased), the black harmonica star of the 1930s and '40s Grand Ole Opry, who virtually disappeared from the stage following a murky dispute with the show's producers, is particularly touching.

Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers contains many black-and-white photographs, primarily of the performers, but also of different types of harmonicas, including some of the early (and often strange) models sold by the Hohner Company. There's a helpful discography, too, for readers who want to listen to the best examples of harmonica playing in each of the featured genres. An excellent bibliography will point those interested to other works, not only about the harmonica itself, but about the evolution of American popular music.

Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers was published by Simon & Schuster of New York; ISBN # 0-671-79633-X.

H. Tim Sevets is books editor for the Solid Gold Info Writers Consortium, where he specializes in objective reviews of the top money-making reports available over the Web. Recently, he reviewed an e-book that claims to show how to make money by tearing up old books and magazines and selling them on eBay. Read his opinion at http://www.solid-gold.info/tear-up-old-books-sell-ebay.html.

Comments

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February 10, 2009 at 2:22 AM