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BiTS: Yeah, that sounds right.
MH: Yeah, I did two gigs in Brighton, actually.
BiTS: Tell me something about the upcoming Harmonica Blowout. Is the picture on the poster
you?
MH: On which one?
BiTS: There's a picture of somebody with
a mass of black hair playing a harmonica on
the poster I've got. Is that you?
MH: And the poster is from where?
BiTS: For the Harmonica Blowout.
MH: Oh no, that's a picture of Lee Oskar
with the Afro. Yeah, if it's an Afro, it's Lee
Oskar.
BiTS: Yeah, that's you, is it?
MH: No, it's not. It's Lee Oskar.
BiTS: Oh, Lee Oskar. Okay, that's fine. I
understand now. Lee Oskar is one of the
people that's appearing?
MH: Correct. He's the main headliner on it.
And you know who he is, right?
BiTS: I do indeed. Yes. He's not exactly what
I would call a blues person. Or at least he
hasn’t been. He's starting to get there.
MH: Yeah, I wouldn't call him a blues player,
but the bottom line is he's been doing my
blowouts since 2006, and he's been a real
good guy to work with. He's obviously got
the harmonica company. The fact that he played with the band War for so long. They were a great
band, and they still are a great band, but just under a different name. But yeah, I mean, when I
was a kid, I was really a big War fan and I was a big J. Geils fan, and those were the guys, him and
Magic Dick were the two guys. I mean, you know, as well as all the blues guys, they were the ones
that I copied all their licks, and you know because they were on the radio all the time down in
LA where I grew up as a teenager.
BiTS: Tell me, one of the people that you've got is Jason Ricci. I’m never quite sure how you
pronounce it. He's a fabulous player.
MH: It's ‘reechi’. Yeah, he's amazing. That guy’s truly a virtuoso. Yeah, I'd have to say out of all
the overblowers, and you know, there's guys like Howard Levy that pretty much started the
whole overblow trend, but I think Jason is really one of the most spot-on of anybody out there
doing the overblow thing.
BiTS: And he's still, by comparison with you and me, pretty young as well.