Most nights, you can walk into a blues club and find a harmonica player blowing their heart out onstage. The wailing, honking sound associated with Western movies and juke joints is what many harp ...

This is the latest installment in our Unlikely Encounters series, where a local musician interviews a big-name artist. You can check out the whole series at ...

“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 ...

Dick Salwitz, known internationally to music fans as Magic Dick, is one of the most celebrated harmonica players of modern time. He just finished touring with his mates from The J. Geils Band, rocking ...

SANTA CRUZ >> Harmonicas litter the table in Rio’s Santa Cruz Beach Flats studio — Hohners, blues harps, 16-hole chromatics, even giant bass harps. As Rio plays, the notes dance through the converted ...

Harmonicas were commonly called “French harps” or “mouth organs” and mountain men played them superbly. Some still do, though such old-fashioned music is not nearly as common as it was before and ...

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 ...

In the summer of 1963, a strange record by a 12-year-old boy who’d already racked up a string of flops spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It’s largely a showcase for that ...

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 ...

One of the most versatile harmonica players in pop history is Stevie Wonder, shown here in Paris in 1963 at age 13. Charley Ley / Mirrorpix Many harmonica histories begin around 1100 B.C. with the ...