Reasons to Love Rock Harmonica

“Whammer Jammer” A True Rock Harmonica Standard! Written by Richard Salwitz, AKA Magic Dick, with a lot of help from his band, J Geils Band.

Originally from the Boston Massachusetts area, without further ado, enjoy this clip.

Adam Gussow interviewed him back in 2008, and he revealed that the open sequence to this classic ROCK song was inspired by Sonny Boy’s ”Bye Bye Bird”.

Rock and Roll is very closely related to Blues. You probably heard the expression “The Blues had a baby and they called it Rock ‘n Roll”… That’s why learning Blues harmonica licks can be an essential part of learning Rock harmonica.

If you want to have a gas jamming along with the above video, grab your A Harmonica and play in 2nd position.

Here’s a short list of my 3 favorite players in the “Rock Harmonica Family” and the bands that made them famous:

1. John Popper “Blues Traveler”
2. Sugar Blue (some of his work with the Rolling Stones has become classic Rock harmonica)
3. Magic Dick “J Geils”

Notice how, in the video below, Steven Tyler makes harmonica look easy. Maybe that’s because it actually is easy. Steven is rocking the house with some fairly simple second position harmonica playing. He’s no Howard Levy (and neither am I for that matter). Don’t get me wrong, I really love Steven Tyler… always have… I’m just wanting you to know that it may not be as far a stretch as you think for you to kick butt at Steven’s level.

If you want to jam along with Steven in the above video here are the harmonicas he uses – Song 1: E Harmonica, Song 2: F Harmonica, Song 3: E Harmonica.

One thing I found about rock harmonica is it’s fun to turn the amp up LOUD!

If you have any questions (or I can help you on your harmonica journey in any way) please let me know in the comments sections below. I’ll be sure to get back to you.