Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 201; Larry Nager interview with Wallace Coleman, part 3 of 10

(PAUSED) So, you know, what I think drew Wallace to the sound of little Walter and, and Sonny Boy Williamson the II was, it was a brand new sound for the harmonica. This was not the country harmonica of Wayne Randy and Lonnie Glosson. This thing was big... it was mean sounding. It had that raw rock and roll sound, even though it was with the context of, what we call, Chicago blues. But this—it was dance music and it rocked. And, for a young kid, you want to make that sound. So, I think that... that’s what really kinda triggered that in him. And once he got to the big city, he was actually able to hear that music live. He was able to hear Sonny Boy live who was living in Cleveland at the time. And it’s uh, it... obviously, never went away from him, but he was able to capture that sound.

Q:

LARRY: Well, there’s a—there’s a few things that make him unique um, one of which is that he’s just one of the last of the original guys. He’s not a revivalist. He grew up in the music and uh, grew up with the music and learned from... from his idols directly. He learned from Sonny Boy directly. He learned from sharing a bandstand with—with Robert Lockwood. And that... that kinda direct connection can’t be replicated. There are some great revivalist harmonica players, but he’s one of the last true guys playing. Maybe him, Billy Boy Arnold uh, James Cotton, but um, you know, for... for Wallace to come out of, again, this slightly different tradition, coming out of East Tennessee, gives him a different sound and a different approach, so while he’s able to do the Little Walter, kind of, very urban, very sophisticated city blues. Uh, he’s also able to uh, channel that old country blues that he grew up with as well. And, you mentioned playing with Walter um... you mentioned playing with Wallace... and we—we played on that City Folk Festival when Wallace got the Ohio Heritage Fellowship. And we were on the big stage and he played Little Walter’s stuff and played amazingly. I mean, it was like, you know, ih-um-ih— I’ve never stood on stage with Little Walter but I feel I have because I’ve been on stage with Wallace. But, what was very cool was Wallace played with myself and William Lee Ellis in a smaller tent earlier that day when we were doing like a country blues set. And we were doing police dog blues, which is sort of a rag time Piedmont blues out of Georgia Blind Blake song. And uh, Bill does it with slide guitar and I was kinda slapping, kind of almost like a rockabilly or jug band kinda... kinda bass beat to it. And Wallace just came in there playing straight harp, not with the distortion, not with the Little Walter sound, but with that very deep country blues sound to it and it—that was perfect. So, he’s someone out of a number of traditions and he plays them all stunningly.

Q:

LARRY: Well, you know, guitarists uh... uh, I think... ok... you know, harmonica was there at the beginning of... of the blues. Uh, uh, there are a lot of people like Sonny Terry would still, till the day he died, play unaccompanied harmonica blues. It was portable. You know, Wallace carried his harmonicas with him when he worked at the bakery and, on his breaks he’s play harp. You couldn’t necessarily do that with a—you certainly couldn’t do it with a piano, but it’d be harder to do it with a guitar. I think uh, that’s one of the reasons that it was so universal early in the days. But once, in-you—blues got to be a professional music uh, there’s just something sexier about a guitar, plus you can accompany your singing. You could go out as a one man band like uh, BB King was a solo artist when he—when he started out. So, I think, you know, that combination uh, is one of the things that swept harmonica a little bit under the rug. Another thing, unfortunately, is some of the uh, young revivalist guys who’ve been amazing harmonica players were all... their careers were cut short. There’s a... a fellow named William Clark, who was, you know, a major—or on his way to becoming a major blues star and he passed away. Uh, even younger than him, there’s a guy named Lester Butler played with a—a –a band called the Red Devils and he backed up Mick Jagger on a record that was never released. Great harmonica player played in that old Sonny Boy style. But again, um, he died of uh, drug related uh, problems. So, some great harmonica players were rising and then they just sorta fell by the wayside. But there’s just, you know, the guitarists just as became the king of the blues in... in that battle.