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tcate@holyharmonica.com
Hello folks! And thanks for stopping by!
I think my grandfather must have given me my first harmonica when I was a kid. I know I had that old Marine Band for years and I played it and a Hohner 260 chromatic through college. Sadly I have no idea what ultimately happened to the Marine Band but thanks to Dr. George Miklas at Harmonica Gallery, the 260 lives on. So, I've been tooting on a harp for years, playing for friends and family but never taking it seriously.
Maybe 15 years ago I was invited to play at an open mic and things kinda changed from there. I played with other folks, I played different kinds of music and I played stuff in funky keys. But probably the biggest change was I played publicly. And I played and played and played.
About that time I ran into a guy in a bar playing music I was familiar with and just happened to have some harps in the pocket of my overalls. I started playing with him and we haven't stopped yet. That guy was Kevin Dalton and he was just starting Kevin Dalton & the Tuesday Blooms (named after his daughter who had just been born on a Tuesday). Kevin's music is without any real genre and it pushed me to evolve into more than blues and folk. All of a sudden I was playing Doc Watson and Marilyn Manson and James Taylor and Primus and all of Kevin's crazy original songs. And my playing started changing.
That was the point that I knew I need some help so I started attending SPAH events (Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica) and found a whole new world of harmonica players and teachers. And I leaned on Carlos del Junco for some lessons and started really working on some technique. And also figured out that playing is easy but playing well is not. And that work continues on.
But I've realized there may be other folks making this same journey and that's why I thought a website might be handy. My good friend, Joe LaMay, has kindly organized this site to make it easy to find things. So, over there on the left-hand side are several links. There's some shameless self-promotion stuff like pics and contact info and a performance schedule and links to videos.
I have a YouTube channel titled "Danged Good Music" and it has all sorts of stuff on it - stuff with Kevin, stuff with Kevin and the Blooms, stuff with some of my musical friends in WV, and stuff I've videoed for Church and Christmas and family. There's nothing that's professional but there's a lot of fun stuff that has been captured on video.
On the left is also a link for the Gospel Hour that we do at Jarfly Brewing on the first Sunday of each month From 4:00 to 5:00 pm. That's kind of mushroomed and the Gospel Hour Band is now playing pretty frequently - it's really cool to take Gospel music to places where you don't normally hear it!
Maybe most important for harp players - there's a link over there for Helpful Harmonica Stuff. I'll post links there for all the people and things that I've found to be really useful - both organizations and individuals. For those of you making this journey these may be some handy resources. And if you have some that you've found, please feel free to email a link to me and I'll post them there as well.
Ok... That's way too much verbiage but it gives you an idea of what's here and why it's here. Let me know if there's something I can do to help your harmonica journey and I look forward to seeing you out there somewhere.
Tommy
