THE HARPDOG BROWN STORY
By James Judge --- January 2017
Once again, Harpdog Brown & his Travellin' Blues Show with guitar player Jordie Edmonds are gigging their way across the country and on the 13th of January they will be appearing at the RockStar Bar in Sault Ste Marie for the Sault Blues Society Presentation. Sitting in with them will be local drummer Mark Gough. If you’re hooked on the blues this is a must see event. Even if you’re not into the blues come anyway, this will be sure to heal you!
Harpdog Brown sings and plays harp in that old-school blues style- My women just left me, cupboards are empty, lost my last cent on the roll of the dice, I’ve seen better days. You know- The Blues. His voice builds up from way down deep, then let’s loose and growl’s like a dog about to bite. His cross harp playing can bend the reeds for the souls of chain-gang convicts on the run.
Harpdog was born in Edmonton Alberta in 1962. “I was the creation of a fifteen year old girl and a seventeen year old bad boy”. He was put up for adoption without knowing his natural mother. It was 29 years later when she found him. However he was raised by, as he says “A good God fearing family” that gave him a lot of love.” I knew I was loved by all but I never had sense of belonging. I think that’s true of a lot of adopted kids.” At five years old he started to entertain himself on his adopted mother’s Hawaiian guitar. “I was too young say guitar so I called it a ‘Weeewa’ because of the sound it made”. At fifteen he stared taking acoustic guitar lessons but he didn’t like them. “I was learning notation and not music. A couple of years later I found another guitar teacher that taught me how to play. He let us bring records in and we would actually learn songs. And that’s when I took up singing”. To this day Harpdog still writes his songs on the guitar. ” I get the groove going, take what I need off the guitar and let it breed from there.”
Harpdog says “The harp is something I always wanted to play but I've always found it elusive. It’s probably the most difficult instrument to learn, and probably the most difficult instrument to teach. I can show you things on a guitar, I can show you things on a piano, but the harp is played internally, no one can actually show you what to do. There was no one around back then that taught how to play it”. Then at 17 years of age he went to see James Cotton in Edmonton- “That was kind of my turning point. I can fondly say that he ruined my life. I probably would have been an accountant or something if he hadn’t come along; but I chose the path that I’m following now, and it’s something I do not regret. I love my life.” Harpdog started playing harp and singing professionally in 1980 and by 1982 he was sitting in with the likes of Matt Guitar Murphy, Dutch Mason and Amos Garrett.
Oddly enough, Harpdog says the reason he got into the music business 36 years ago was to travel. “If I had of done that accountant thing I probably would have dropped it joined the circus anyway. Now I don’t know if it was luck, fate or both that music found me first. I love to travel. Back then every town had three bars, every bar had a band, and every band played six nights a week. You didn’t have to be very good to be living the life of a rock star. However it was a good time to learn and develop - or on the other hand a good time to discover that this life not is for you. If it was an easy way of life it would be crowded, but because it’s not easy, it’s not crowded. It takes a certain character flaw to be balanced in this imbalance crazy way of life - always on the road, sleeping in different beds every night, living out of a suitcase. I'm a misfit and I belong in this misfit world - I calculated that on this last seven week fall tour, my guitar player Jordie Edmonds and I had only slept in our own beds for six nights. I like to say talent will get you on the ice, but if you can’t live out of a suitcase you’ll never make it to the NHL”. In the last 29 months he has put a hundred and thirty thousand kilometres in his 2013 full-sized Chevy Express van. In one tour they travelled fifteen thousand kilometres in a five week period playing gigs from BC to Ontario and back, then down through the U.S. Western Seaboard.
In Februaryof 2016 Harpdog was in Hayward California recording his latest album TRAVELIN ‘WITH THE BLUES. “We recorded live off the floor with all vintage mikes, vintage gear, no monitors or headphones. Like they did it back in the fifties.” This album has got some heavy weight guests on it: The legendary Charlie Musselwhite, Rusty Zinn and Little Victor who produced the album– you might have heard him with Harpdog in the Sault a year and a half ago. Then there’s Kid Andersen, Jimmy Morello, a drummer who is sought after by some of the biggest blues artists in the business, Big Jon Atkinson who just turned 28 but one of the most incredible living blues players today who plays drums, guitar, harp and sings and let's not forget Carl Sonny Leyland and Danny Michel. Since the album’s release Harpdog says ”It’s been charting quite well throughout the land".
On January 23rd Harpdog will be at Koerner Hall in Toronto for the Maple Blues Awards where TRAVELIN’ WITH THE BLUES has been nominated in the category of Best Recording/Producer of the year. Harpdog himself has been nominated in two categories, Best Harmonica Player and best Male Vocalist. He already is a two time MBA winner for best harmonica player. To add to his tributes he is the only Canadian to win the Muddy Award. He’s won a Fraser Valley Music Award Winner, is a two-time Western Canadian Music Awards Nominee as well as a Juno Nominee.
After the Maple Blues Awards there’s a couple more gig’s in Toronto and Hamilton and then it’s back on the highway to the 2017 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Harpdog said, “To me the International Blues Challenge is an opportunity to showcase, to get connected to someone with a larger plate. However in my opinion the actual competition is over. The real competition was getting invited to Memphis.” To enter in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis you must win the right from within your own Blues Society which can be found all around the world. “I've attempted to represent my own blues society, the White Rock Blues Society for the past three years in a row.” Harpdog explains. “I lost, went home changed some things, tweaked it, and then tried again the next year. I did this and in the fourth year I had won. So in a sense, the competition is now over for me. Only winners go to Memphis, there are no losers. Now all I want out of Memphis is for someone who is connected to see us and like what we do, to take us to the next level. Someone else telling us where we are going and I tell them when I want three months off!”
They wrap up at the blues challenge on the forth of February but Harpdog won't be resting yet. “We submitted ourselves to other showcases, trying to open up a larger market and been accepted to a showcase for the Folk Alliance International in Kanas City. This opens up a great opportunity to get into other festivals, into the college circuits, and concert circuits. Things like that.”
They will have twelve days off between the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and the Folk Alliance International showcase in Kanas City. For this trip they didn’t book any shows beforehand so they didn’t bother to get proper paperwork to gig in America. That gives them the time they want to go down to Clarksdale Mississippi for a couple days where they plan to stay at the Shacked Up Inn on the Hopson Plantation. It’s the ”Cradle Of The Blues” where it all got started, just three miles from the Plantation is Robert Johnson’s legendary Cross Roads".
Says Harpdog on Charlie Musselwhite, “He's one of the most timed, balanced, as well as rounded type of guy. The time had come to do a harp duet called MOOSE ON THE LOOSE, a song that Little Victor and I wrote. I asked Charlie if he was interested in doing the Harp duet with me and he was only an hour and a half drive away from where we were in Hayward California. So my manager and I went to pick him up - we stopped for some Mexican food along the way, we were hungry. We got back to the recording studio to lay down the tracks. So I blew out what ended up being my last D harp and Charlie opened his case, reached in and said, “Here have one of these” and he hands me a brand new Seydel 1847 Original - it’s a brand of harp that in my opinion is one of the best harps ever made. I was over the moon; Little Victor said I shouldn’t even play it. I looked at him and said ‘Are you kidding me? I need this!’ We went on to finish up the recording. Now a harp is like a tooth brush, once someone else has used it the original owner won’t want or take it back. It’s almost been a year since then and that Seydel is still in my case”. Harpdog describes his harmonicas as “The old original marine band thirty dollar harp is like driving a Pontiac, the Marine Band Deluxe is a Cadillac and the Marine Band Crossover harp is like a Maserati, but the German made Seydel 1847 Original, once owned by Charlie Musselwhite and comes with a story attached is The Best Harp on the planet!”
Check him out at the Rock Star in Sault Ste Marie on Friday January 13th 2017, it’s an event you won't want to miss! Find more on Harpdog at, http://www.harpdogbrown.com/ or the Sault Blues Society at saultblues.com
By James Judge --- January 2017
Once again, Harpdog Brown & his Travellin' Blues Show with guitar player Jordie Edmonds are gigging their way across the country and on the 13th of January they will be appearing at the RockStar Bar in Sault Ste Marie for the Sault Blues Society Presentation. Sitting in with them will be local drummer Mark Gough. If you’re hooked on the blues this is a must see event. Even if you’re not into the blues come anyway, this will be sure to heal you!
Harpdog Brown sings and plays harp in that old-school blues style- My women just left me, cupboards are empty, lost my last cent on the roll of the dice, I’ve seen better days. You know- The Blues. His voice builds up from way down deep, then let’s loose and growl’s like a dog about to bite. His cross harp playing can bend the reeds for the souls of chain-gang convicts on the run.
Harpdog was born in Edmonton Alberta in 1962. “I was the creation of a fifteen year old girl and a seventeen year old bad boy”. He was put up for adoption without knowing his natural mother. It was 29 years later when she found him. However he was raised by, as he says “A good God fearing family” that gave him a lot of love.” I knew I was loved by all but I never had sense of belonging. I think that’s true of a lot of adopted kids.” At five years old he started to entertain himself on his adopted mother’s Hawaiian guitar. “I was too young say guitar so I called it a ‘Weeewa’ because of the sound it made”. At fifteen he stared taking acoustic guitar lessons but he didn’t like them. “I was learning notation and not music. A couple of years later I found another guitar teacher that taught me how to play. He let us bring records in and we would actually learn songs. And that’s when I took up singing”. To this day Harpdog still writes his songs on the guitar. ” I get the groove going, take what I need off the guitar and let it breed from there.”
Harpdog says “The harp is something I always wanted to play but I've always found it elusive. It’s probably the most difficult instrument to learn, and probably the most difficult instrument to teach. I can show you things on a guitar, I can show you things on a piano, but the harp is played internally, no one can actually show you what to do. There was no one around back then that taught how to play it”. Then at 17 years of age he went to see James Cotton in Edmonton- “That was kind of my turning point. I can fondly say that he ruined my life. I probably would have been an accountant or something if he hadn’t come along; but I chose the path that I’m following now, and it’s something I do not regret. I love my life.” Harpdog started playing harp and singing professionally in 1980 and by 1982 he was sitting in with the likes of Matt Guitar Murphy, Dutch Mason and Amos Garrett.
Oddly enough, Harpdog says the reason he got into the music business 36 years ago was to travel. “If I had of done that accountant thing I probably would have dropped it joined the circus anyway. Now I don’t know if it was luck, fate or both that music found me first. I love to travel. Back then every town had three bars, every bar had a band, and every band played six nights a week. You didn’t have to be very good to be living the life of a rock star. However it was a good time to learn and develop - or on the other hand a good time to discover that this life not is for you. If it was an easy way of life it would be crowded, but because it’s not easy, it’s not crowded. It takes a certain character flaw to be balanced in this imbalance crazy way of life - always on the road, sleeping in different beds every night, living out of a suitcase. I'm a misfit and I belong in this misfit world - I calculated that on this last seven week fall tour, my guitar player Jordie Edmonds and I had only slept in our own beds for six nights. I like to say talent will get you on the ice, but if you can’t live out of a suitcase you’ll never make it to the NHL”. In the last 29 months he has put a hundred and thirty thousand kilometres in his 2013 full-sized Chevy Express van. In one tour they travelled fifteen thousand kilometres in a five week period playing gigs from BC to Ontario and back, then down through the U.S. Western Seaboard.
In Februaryof 2016 Harpdog was in Hayward California recording his latest album TRAVELIN ‘WITH THE BLUES. “We recorded live off the floor with all vintage mikes, vintage gear, no monitors or headphones. Like they did it back in the fifties.” This album has got some heavy weight guests on it: The legendary Charlie Musselwhite, Rusty Zinn and Little Victor who produced the album– you might have heard him with Harpdog in the Sault a year and a half ago. Then there’s Kid Andersen, Jimmy Morello, a drummer who is sought after by some of the biggest blues artists in the business, Big Jon Atkinson who just turned 28 but one of the most incredible living blues players today who plays drums, guitar, harp and sings and let's not forget Carl Sonny Leyland and Danny Michel. Since the album’s release Harpdog says ”It’s been charting quite well throughout the land".
On January 23rd Harpdog will be at Koerner Hall in Toronto for the Maple Blues Awards where TRAVELIN’ WITH THE BLUES has been nominated in the category of Best Recording/Producer of the year. Harpdog himself has been nominated in two categories, Best Harmonica Player and best Male Vocalist. He already is a two time MBA winner for best harmonica player. To add to his tributes he is the only Canadian to win the Muddy Award. He’s won a Fraser Valley Music Award Winner, is a two-time Western Canadian Music Awards Nominee as well as a Juno Nominee.
After the Maple Blues Awards there’s a couple more gig’s in Toronto and Hamilton and then it’s back on the highway to the 2017 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Harpdog said, “To me the International Blues Challenge is an opportunity to showcase, to get connected to someone with a larger plate. However in my opinion the actual competition is over. The real competition was getting invited to Memphis.” To enter in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis you must win the right from within your own Blues Society which can be found all around the world. “I've attempted to represent my own blues society, the White Rock Blues Society for the past three years in a row.” Harpdog explains. “I lost, went home changed some things, tweaked it, and then tried again the next year. I did this and in the fourth year I had won. So in a sense, the competition is now over for me. Only winners go to Memphis, there are no losers. Now all I want out of Memphis is for someone who is connected to see us and like what we do, to take us to the next level. Someone else telling us where we are going and I tell them when I want three months off!”
They wrap up at the blues challenge on the forth of February but Harpdog won't be resting yet. “We submitted ourselves to other showcases, trying to open up a larger market and been accepted to a showcase for the Folk Alliance International in Kanas City. This opens up a great opportunity to get into other festivals, into the college circuits, and concert circuits. Things like that.”
They will have twelve days off between the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and the Folk Alliance International showcase in Kanas City. For this trip they didn’t book any shows beforehand so they didn’t bother to get proper paperwork to gig in America. That gives them the time they want to go down to Clarksdale Mississippi for a couple days where they plan to stay at the Shacked Up Inn on the Hopson Plantation. It’s the ”Cradle Of The Blues” where it all got started, just three miles from the Plantation is Robert Johnson’s legendary Cross Roads".
Says Harpdog on Charlie Musselwhite, “He's one of the most timed, balanced, as well as rounded type of guy. The time had come to do a harp duet called MOOSE ON THE LOOSE, a song that Little Victor and I wrote. I asked Charlie if he was interested in doing the Harp duet with me and he was only an hour and a half drive away from where we were in Hayward California. So my manager and I went to pick him up - we stopped for some Mexican food along the way, we were hungry. We got back to the recording studio to lay down the tracks. So I blew out what ended up being my last D harp and Charlie opened his case, reached in and said, “Here have one of these” and he hands me a brand new Seydel 1847 Original - it’s a brand of harp that in my opinion is one of the best harps ever made. I was over the moon; Little Victor said I shouldn’t even play it. I looked at him and said ‘Are you kidding me? I need this!’ We went on to finish up the recording. Now a harp is like a tooth brush, once someone else has used it the original owner won’t want or take it back. It’s almost been a year since then and that Seydel is still in my case”. Harpdog describes his harmonicas as “The old original marine band thirty dollar harp is like driving a Pontiac, the Marine Band Deluxe is a Cadillac and the Marine Band Crossover harp is like a Maserati, but the German made Seydel 1847 Original, once owned by Charlie Musselwhite and comes with a story attached is The Best Harp on the planet!”
Check him out at the Rock Star in Sault Ste Marie on Friday January 13th 2017, it’s an event you won't want to miss! Find more on Harpdog at, http://www.harpdogbrown.com/ or the Sault Blues Society at saultblues.com