Neil Warren, a musician who started out playing blues harmonica, discusses his progression into jazz and folk music. He currently plays in two bands, one acoustic and one electric. The conversation focuses on the origins and goals of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast, favorite moments from the first 100 episodes, and the interviewee's efforts to document harmonica players. They also discuss playing in multiple bands, the fascination with a skilled one man band, different harmonica tunings, and future plans for the podcast.
Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn (with it’s 4000 holes). He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons for several years, and then folk music. Neil currently plays in two bands around his local area, an acoustic act playing blues and folk, and an electric band playing different genres, such as ska and funk and blues, including use of the DM48 midi chromatic.
He has won three categories of competitions at the UK National Harmonica League festival and helped organise the Chromatic Weekend festival for them for several years.
The discussion then turns to focus on the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast, how it got started, how he sources the people to interview, what the podcast tries to do and some of his own favourite moments from the first 100 episodes. Links:
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