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 ...

Blues harmonica legend James Cotton died Thursday at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas. He was 81. The cause of death was pneumonia, according to Alligator Records, the Chicago label for ...

Blues harmonica master Carey Bell died on May 6 of heart failure in his hometown of Chicago. He was 70. Bell – the 1998 winner of the Blues Music Award for Traditional Male Artist Of The Year – was a ...

“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 ...

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 ...

When it comes to blues harmonica, it’s all or nothing at all. In the wrong hands, the harp becomes a weapon of mass distraction, a screeching annoyance that can completely destroy any song. But, as ...

Wilmington harmonica player Nel Moore Nichols has been involved with the Cape Fear Blues Festival since it began 22 years ago. In fact, her husband, Lan Nichols, helps run it. Nel Nichols, known ...

NEW YORK — James Cotton, a pioneering harmonica player who worked with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and helped establish his instrument as an integral part of modern blues, died Thursday in Austin, ...

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 ...

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Blues harmonica virtuoso and onetime Muddy Waters sideman James Cotton died on Thursday at a medical center in Austin of pneumonia. He was 81. A rep for the musician confirmed his death. Cotton, who ...