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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Erin Harpe

BiTS: Okay, let's make a start then. I know something about you, but this is for a publication that I

run called Blues in the South, and I assume that most of my readers, many of my readers will not
have heard of you. Tell me something about yourself.

EH: Well, I grew up in a household where my dad, Neil
Harpe, was a Delta blues musician and he played
finger-style every morning when I was growing up
and so my most recent album is going back to my

roots and the acoustic blues.

BiTS: Right, I guess there was a lot of music around
the house when you were a kid then?

EH: Yes, yes, indeed. Lots of guitar playing anyway.
We had a piano too, but I didn't get very good at
playing the piano, unfortunately, but the

guitar, that's my thing.

BiTS: I gather that your first instrument,
however, was the flute. Was that forced upon
you?

EH: Oh, no, no. When we're in elementary
school here they come through in fourth grade

and they show you all the band instruments
and I thought that the flute looked cute and
fun, so I played the classical flute from
fourth grade on and that was fun. It was
almost a little bit of trying to do

something different from my dad. A little bit of a rebellion, but it wasn't your normal rebellion.

BiTS: Do you ever play the flute now?

EH: Well, I do have a flute and I can play it, but my embouchure is kinda gone, so it hurts my lips a
bit to play. I should really get back into that one day. What I didn't like about it was they didn't
teach us how to improvise when we were kids so I kinda lost interest in that way and once I picked
up the guitar, it was just so much more fun.

BiTS: When you started playing the guitar, was it your dad that taught you or did you have lessons
elsewhere?

EH: I've never really had any formal lessons. I learned directly from my dad and when I was trying
to learn, I was actually trying to impress a boy at school because I was in high school by that time
and he knew all the words to Alice's Restaurant if you know that song?

BiTS: [Laughing] yes, I do.

EH: He was an acting student and I went home and I said dad, dad, dad, I have to learn Alice's
Restaurant, which is basically a Delta blues song that words were written over, like an old Delta

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