Hear Brandon Bailey perform two songs live in the NPR studio. The harmonica is a staple of American blues, beginning with the Memphis jug bands of the 1920s. In the 1960s, blues-influenced artists ...

Getting his start as a member of the legendary Muddy Waters’ band, Little Walter Jacobs took the harmonica to a whole new level. Developing his own unique techniques, blues musicians still look to him ...

Phil Wiggins, a blues harmonica virtuoso who embraced the jaunty Piedmont style and toured the world as part of a duo celebrating a distinctive musical form that was revived in clubs and impromptu ...

There are myriad reasons why playing music is one of the most enjoyable and spiritually beneficial things to do on earth. Melody, rhythm and lyric are but three glorious aims. One drawback to playing ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Bruce Willis, pictured in October 2019, brought fans joy by playing the blues on harmonica. (Charles Sykes / Invision/Associated ...

No one know when the harmonica first got the blues, but WC Handy reported hearing train imitations being played on the instrument in the 1870s, and by the 1920s, after Mamie Smith hit with Crazy Blues ...

Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in ...

Blues harmonica virtuoso and onetime Muddy Waters sideman James Cotton died on Thursday at a medical center in Austin of pneumonia. He was 81. A rep for the musician confirmed his death. Cotton, who ...

The harmonica found its way into blues because it was cheap: You could buy a good one in the 1930s for a quarter. But although blues musicians discovered all kinds of tricks with the instrument, it ...

They say that the harmonica (AKA mouth organ, AKA French harp) is the easiest instrument to play – badly. A reedy favourite of blues musicians and acoustic-wielding singer-songwriters looking to and ...