Page 29 - BiTS_11_NOVEMBER_2023_Neat

LW: Well, I started having lessons, so I got some lessons actually for my 18th birthday
with a harmonica teacher in Manchester called Mat Walklate, and he was a great

player, and still is and plays blues, but also Irish folk music.

BiTS: I know Mat Walklate. He's

done some fills for me for my
radio show. He's a terrific harp Sonny Terry
player and he’s got the most
fabulous speaking voice.

LW: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a
great guy. He used to cycle
round to my mum's house in

Manchester in his Lycra, and
he'd have his harmonica in his

backpack or bum bag or
whatever. And he’d teach me
but very early on, he gave me
two CDs. One was James

Harman, “Extra Napkins”, and
one was a compilation and the other one that was the compilation, it was all sorts of

stuff. A lot of 50s and 60s stuff. But the song that really stood out to me was ‘Walking
By Myself’. So Jimmy Rogers, but with Big Walter Horton on harmonica, and the solo
in that was so powerful, so big, and it didn't sound like a harmonica to me in the sense

that the harmonica was this little folky instrument in my mind, and then I’d suddenly
heard this big, amplified blues sound, and basically from that day on I knew what I
wanted to do with my life.

BiTS: And what about people like Little Walter, were you influenced by him?

LW: Oh, absolutely. I mean, having heard that compilation, I think there were probably
some Big Walter, maybe some Little Walter on there and probably Sonny Boy No. 2,

Rice Miller. So I got listening to the Walters and both the Sonny Boys, Junior Wells,
James Cotton, all of these guys and tried to soak up what I could. The thing is, I always
enjoyed trying to work out what people were doing. I didn't find it frustrating, and I

always loved hearing something new that I couldn't do. To me, that's always been
exciting, and so right from the off, I was trying to work out how to play things along
with Mat’s help. I was kind of listening to stuff and going, what's that? How do you

do that? But Mat helped massively because I've heard the stories of people from
previous generations who didn't even know what 2ⁿd position, cross harp was or
things that are really crucial to the blues. They didn't know what it was until they

went to see Sonny Terry play and spoke to him, you know, or something like that. So
I was lucky in that there was a teacher around the corner who knew what he was
talking about. All of those guys and then the guy who really is still my favourite player

of all time is Paul deLay, and the reason is that Paul deLay was so creative you would