Beyond the music, the long-running festival has a stated mission: keep the harmonica alive in the hands of young people.

“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 ...

Conversations and arguments about who the best guitarist ever is still raging, but Paul Butterfield can stake a strong claim ...

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 ...

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 ...

Things are chugging along pretty well these days for the Harmonica Shaw Band. They’re working on a new, as yet untitled, CD due to be released early next year by the Toronto label Electro-Fi Records.

Austin, Texas, September 24-- Gary Primich, considered by many to be one of the greatest harmonica players in the world, passed away suddenly on September 23rd. Not only is this the loss of a ...

Mark Hummel can claim any number of credits. A recipient of numerous honors and awards — among them, a Grammy nomination, two Blues Award wins, and his success as a chart-topping musician, band leader ...

After writing his third symphonic piece for harmonica and orchestra, two words crowded the thoughts of bluesman Corky Siegel: Never again. The work of writing for a symphony was too tedious, too ...

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 ...

Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in ...