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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Annie Raines

Annie Raines (born in Massachusetts on July 3, 1969) is an American blues harmonica player
who mostly plays in a down-home country blues duo with guitarist Paul Rishell. She also has a
series of harmonica tutorials and teaches online. She plays true blues and has even shared the

stage with the late, great James Cotton.

BiTS: Let's make a start Annie. Tell me

something about your background. When
you were brought up was there music in
the house then?

AR: Well my parents were more carriers
they didn't actively play music, but there

was a lot of music in the house, classical
music being played on the radio and on
records and tapes and my mother
actually had a few blues records in her
collection, that I didn't really pick up on
until later. It was the 70s, so they also

really liked the Beatles and Stones. Of
course, yeah, a little Jethro Tull thrown
in, I think. Then I started taking piano
lessons when I was eight years old, so I
was sometimes practising.

BiTS: When you were an undergraduate,
you suddenly started to want to play
harmonica. How did that happen?

AR: I was looking for a book in the store,

the novelty store and they had this book
before, it was called 'Juggling for the
Complete Klutz' because I wanted to
teach myself how to juggle through the
summer and they were out of that book,
but they had a very similar book called
'Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless'.

BiTS: I can't believe it. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I bought a copy of that book myself to try to learn
to play blues harp [laughing].

AR: I liked it [chuckles]. You tried to learn to play, did you feel like it helped?

BiTS: Not really. I'm no harmonica player. I stuck with guitar.