KudzuRunner's Blow Out Harmonica Lessons Sale - 'Folks, He's Giving Away The Store!!!'

March 7, 2008 10:29 PM

Well respected as a player, instructor and scholar, Adam Gussow teaches blues harmonica online at Modern Blues Harmonica. For a fee.
On YouTube, as KudzuRunner, he also gives lessons. For free. He's put up around 145 videos now--145 videos with like about a million hits in return...
via Tom Muck's Blog
posted by y2karl (12 comments total)

This is great! I got one just today!
posted by pantsrobot at 11:44 PM on March 7, 2008

My neighbors would appreciate being awakened at 2.00 AM by a novice harmonica player, right? Everyone likes music...

*Reaches for the ol' Hohner*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:54 PM on March 7, 2008

*Reaches for the ol' Hohner*

That's what Mrs. Hohner said!

Thanks for the post, y2karl. This might make me start blowing more than one note into some of these blues harps I've got lying around.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:29 AM on March 8, 2008

Wow. That's best of the Web! Great find. Thanks.
posted by RussHy at 2:43 AM on March 8, 2008

Hey, thank you, I was forgetting sonny terry, tony glover, and my teenage years.
posted by nicolin at 3:06 AM on March 8, 2008

Now to find my ol' harmonica!
posted by tomble at 5:36 AM on March 8, 2008

I went to grad school with Adam (though he was a few years ahead of me in the program). He was a great guy--strong academic command of the material (his dissertation, as I remember, was on blues lyrics), plus he could actually play the stuff. If I remember correctly, he got his tenure-track position at the University of Mississippi by unexpectedly breaking out his harmonica in the middle of his on-campus interview.

I saw him perform as half of Satan and Adam a couple of times; he also has a small appearance in U2's Rattle and Hum that he was always pretty modest about.

If you can find a copy, his memoir Mister Satan's Apprentice is of interest.
posted by Prospero at 6:09 AM on March 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is good.
posted by jeremias at 6:19 AM on March 8, 2008

His explanation of the blue third is very cool.
posted by caddis at 6:35 AM on March 8, 2008

Jeez! Watch vide number 6! Adam is absolutely sound on Butterfield: that Butterfield was a unique player, who drew from African American sources, but went way, way beyond Little Walter and all the rest of them. And most amazingly, Adam reveals that BUTTERFIELD DID NOT TONGUE STOP! The man BLEW all those notes like a horn.
posted by Faze at 6:43 AM on March 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

He's very good at teaching on these videos. He manages to explain what he's doing, but not belabor it, like some piano videos I've seen. His excitement about his own topic and the mixing in of the history with the technical lesson is what makes the whole thing. He should get his own show on PBS.
posted by ctmf at 3:21 PM on March 8, 2008

I saw him once in Satan & Adam too - he was/they were fabulous. Another awesome post, y2karl - thanks.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:59 PM on March 8, 2008