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 ...

“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 ...

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, ... Telarc Blues culls their considerable holdings to provide a wholly satisfying collection of contemporary blues harmonica by contemporary and ...

Among the harmonica’s many wonderful and unique traits, there is this: You have to really suck to be good at it. As one of America’s finest and busiest harmonica players, Denver’s Ronnie Shellist ...

Cash awards totaling $2,500 and the opportunity to perform at the 25th Annual Battle of the Blues Harps in Long Beach, Southern California’s longest running blues harmonica event featuring top acts ...

It’s been nearly 50 years since Chicago singer and harmonica player Billy Branch heard blues music for the first time as a 17-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Branch said it ...

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 ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This harmonica was made by M. Hohner ...

There are many types of music that Detroit is known for. With a long rich history of musicians in nearly every genre, our shining city has been a part of it all. With Motown of the '60s and the ...