{"id":724,"date":"2016-09-05T16:08:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T16:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=724"},"modified":"2016-09-05T16:11:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T16:11:20","slug":"frv-deak-harp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"FRV: Deak Harp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cNo one wants to see a drunken bluesman anymore\u201d. \u00a0Pretty profound words from Deak Harp who was just that and as a result, he was considered a five time loser (as in \u2018failed rehab five times\u2019), messed up, unreliable, and black balled by just about all the blues clubs in New York and Chicago. \u00a0\u201c<\/span>They all had enough of me when I was drinking. I had a bad reputation for being a drunk back then,\u201d Deak recently said<\/span> in an interview for Blues Blast Magazine. \u00a0So why is Deak Harp being interviewed in Blues Blast Magazine given his own bleak assessment of the 1990s segment of his career? \u00a0Quite simply because he survived his two worst enemies: \u00a0the bottle and himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0According to Harp, he found himself \u201csick of being sick\u201d in 2001 and figured he had to stop letting alcohol control him. \u00a0The complete quote of his sobering revelation goes, \u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve been sober since 2001 and that\u2019s helped me out a lot. I mean, nobody wants to go see a drunken bluesman anymore. \u00a0That\u2019s old stuff (from) back in the fish fry days when they would go out to the juke joint after picking cotton all week. These days, people don\u2019t want to pay good money to go see a drunken performer.\u201d \u00a0With a newly released CD (<\/span>Clarksdale Breakdown<\/span><\/i>), he has kept himself busy as an in demand harp instructor, a staff writer for <\/span>Big City Rhythm and Blues Magazine, <\/span><\/i>and as the proprietor of a very unique business in Clarksdale, MS called <\/span>Deak\u2019s Mississippi Saxophones and Blues Emporium.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Deak\u2019s primary business in Clarksdale is harmonicas. \u00a0He sells them, fixes them, tunes them, and by all accounts talks about them. \u00a0Famed harpist Charlie Musselwhite will drop by when he is in town just to hang and talk harmonica for hours. \u00a0Deak perhaps describes his passion for working on harps best:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of do what Hohner doesn\u2019t want to do to their harps. It\u2019s not that they\u2019re bad harps, because they\u2019re not. I mean the best harp you can get is the (Hohner) Marine Band harmonica. Almost all the blues players use those. \u00a0But they have little problems. \u00a0Years ago, the wood used to swell up and cut your mouth when you got them pretty wet. \u00a0What I did was to figure out a way to re-seal the cone by taking the harmonica completely apart and eliminating that problem. \u00a0And I also fine-tune the harmonicas so they are exactly in tune. \u00a0A lot of professional players that use octaves when they tongue-block \u2013 which is an advanced way to play harmonica \u2013 those imperfections stick out like a sore thumb, because if you\u2019re trying to play two of the same notes and they don\u2019t ring perfectly together, that drives the artist nuts. So basically they (Hohner) don\u2019t spend as much time on the last phase of production \u2013 the tuning \u2013 before they send their harps out, as I would. \u00a0When I get done with them, they\u2019re tuned perfect on a strobe tuner. My harmonicas have sold all over the world. \u00a0I mean, who wouldn\u2019t want a Mississippi-made blues whistle?\u201d \u00a0Don\u2019t take the \u2018all over the world\u2019 statement too lightly; \u00a0he was boxing up a repaired harmonica that had been sent to him from Australia as <\/span>Blues Blast<\/span><\/i> was interviewing him for their article.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Deak Harp has been known to blow the harp, pluck a guitar or diddley-bow, and keep time on a bass drum all at the same time. \u00a0He has been branching out of late working with several drummers which allows him to give a more energetic show than \u00a0he can put on seated behind a drum. \u00a0\u201cI just set the groove and they follow me and it\u2019s like a juke party, man. \u00a0I mean, I could cause a riot with this show,\u201d says Deak describing his evolving live show.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How good a friend is Musslewhite? \u00a0Charlie offered to buy Harp\u2019s old 60s Ampeg amp because he loves the sound. \u00a0Deak said, \u201cNo way, but you can use it when you come to town,\u201d which is exactly what Musslewhite did when recording his latest CD <\/span>I Ain\u2019t Lying. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cCharlie also invited me to be on his newest DVD to play backup harmonica while he\u2019s running through five different positions on the harmonica. I play in the other key that doesn\u2019t interfere with what he\u2019s doing (in the DVD). \u00a0It\u2019s coming out in three or four months.\u201d \u00a0If you are going to have friends in the harmonica field, you could do worse than chum around with a legend like Musslewhite. \u00a0Unless, of course, you had previously worked for, lived with, and opened for another harmonica legend, James Cotton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Deak credits his time with Cotton for developing his tone: \u00a0\u201cHe told me to stop playing harmonica with my lips \u2026 that\u2019s what it is. When I worked for him, I\u2019d have to do the soundchecks and he would be there standing by the soundboard in the middle of the venue and he\u2019d be going, \u201cCome, on \u2026 dig a little deeper. Come on!\u201d He would be working me to get that tone that I needed. \u00a0That\u2019s how I learned to emulate James Cotton\u2019s tone. \u00a0\u00a0He forced me \u2026 beat it into me, to get that tone. \u00a0He called me more names \u2013 in a good way \u2013 to get me where he thought I needed to be. \u00a0You know, I learned from James and he learned from Sonny Boy (Williamson), so I\u2019m third generation, man.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My dad was the harmonica player in the family and he loved hauling it out to entertain the grandkids before lights out at our camp, The Swamp. \u00a0He and my mother made it a point to go and see the Harmonicats anytime they made a swing through Upper Michigan so even though I never learned the instrument, I have always had an appreciation for harmonica players. \u00a0I also like the back stories of people who find themselves down and out but manage to pull themselves up by the bootstraps to make a positive change in their lives. \u00a0\u00a0Deak\u2019s story resonated with me so as soon as I finished the <\/span>Blues Blast<\/span><\/i> article about him, I ordered <\/span>Clarksdale Breakdown.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0I got the CD on the Wednesday before Porcupine Mountain Music Festival #12 and found myself listening to it while going back and forth to the festival on Friday and Saturday. \u00a0I am not sure how long it will take before something else will push it out of the player in my car because it is a terrific CD. \u00a0We will be airing it \u00a0on Pete and Zenith\u2019s Blues regularly beginning next week. \u00a0Tune in to WOAS-FM 88.5 and have a listen to the owner of one of the few (if not the only) brick and mortar harmonica emporiums in the world, Deak Harp. \u00a0He sounds just like the kind of guy I would like to see on stage at PMMF#13 next summer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece video – Deak Harp working the street in Clarksdale, Mississippi – with a live drummer, of course!<\/p>\n