“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 ...

In the mid-1800s, a German harmonica manufacturer named Hohner started exporting his product to North America. Being relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to play and extremely portable, the ...

Beyond the music, the long-running festival has a stated mission: keep the harmonica alive in the hands of young people.

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 ...

Mark Hummel didn’t set out to be an impresario. He had no burning ambition to corner the market on the world’s greatest blues harmonica players. But after getting a bracing shot of energy from ...

He first rose to fame as a high-energy sideman for Muddy Waters during a 12-year stint into the '60s, having made his initial recordings for Sun Records in 1953 at age 15. "'Cotton Crop Blues' was the ...

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 ...

“Write this down: Blow 3, blow 4, draw 3, blow 3,” Phil Kaplan said to his new class of Newton harmonica students. Kaplan told the class he pulled the riff from “Mannish Boy,” the popular 1955 Muddy ...

Most musical instruments are not primarily associated with one particular style of music, especially in these days of cross-cultural collaborative adventures. Sure, notable harmonica artists can be ...