Adam Gussow
Encyclopedia
Adam Gussow is a scholar, memoirist, and blues
harmonica
player.
Gussow is currently an associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi
in Oxford
. He spent twelve years (1986–1998) working the streets of Harlem
and the international club and festival circuit with Mississippi
-born bluesman Sterling Magee as a duo called Satan and Adam
. Along with Canadian harmonicist Carlos del Junco
, Gussow was one of the first amplified blues players, in the late 1980s, to make overblows a key element of his stylistic approach, adapting Howard Levy
's innovations in a way that helped usher in a new generation of overblow masters such as Jason Ricci
and Chris Michalek
. According to a reviewer for American Harmonica Newsletter, Gussow's playing is characterized by "[t]echnical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along but once in a generation." When Satan and Adam were honored with a cover story in Living Blues
magazine
in 1996, Gussow was, according to the editor, "the first white blues musician to be so prominently spotlighted in the magazine’s 26-year history."
Raised in suburban Congers, New York
, educated at Princeton University
(B.A. 1979, Ph.D. 2000) and Columbia University
(M.A. 1983), Gussow has an atypical pedigree for a blues performer. In Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (1998), he credits his career to the mentorship of two older African American performers: Nat Riddles
, a Bronx-born harmonica player who had worked with Odetta
, Larry Johnson
, and others; and Magee, a guitarist/percussionist with whom Gussow teamed up after a chance afternoon jam session on Harlem’s 125th Street. As Satan and Adam, Magee and Gussow recorded three album
s during their years as a touring act: Harlem Blues (1991), which was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award
as "Traditional Blues Album of the Year"; Mother Mojo (1993); and Living on the River (1996). A brief extract of Magee and Gussow performing on 125th Street was included in U2
's Rattle and Hum
documentary. Gussow has produced or co-produced two additional Satan and Adam albums: Word on the Street (2008) http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/satan_and_adam_word.html and Back in the Game (2011) http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/satan_and_adam_back_in_the_game.html. In August 2010, Gussow released his first album under his own name, Kick And Stomp. Recorded in Oxford, Mississippi
, it features Gussow in a one-man band setting—singing, blowing amplified harmonica, stomping on a foot drum, and clanking on a tambourine pedal. http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/kick_and_stomp.html
Gussow's other musical credits include five months with the bus-and-truck tour of Big River; commercials for Coca-Cola
, Nestea
, and Swatch
; and two decades as a harmonica instructor at the Guitar Study Center in New York and Jon Gindick's harmonica jam camps. In 2010 and 2011, Gussow organized and produced Hill Country Harmonica, a teaching-intensive event at Foxfire Ranch in Waterford, Mississippi with an evening concert component.http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/home.html Blues harmonica players and teachers at the first two events have included Billy Branch
, Sugar Blue
, Jason Ricci
, Charlie Sayles, Billy Gibson, Jimi Lee, and many others.
In addition to Mister Satan's Apprentice, which received the "Keeping the Blues Alive" Award from the Blues Foundation
in Memphis, Gussow is the author of Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (2002) and Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York (2007). Gussow’s essays and reviews have appeared in Southern Cultures, African American Review
, Harper's, The Village Voice
, American Literature
, and many other publications.
As of February 22, 2007 Gussow has been running YouTube
tutorials aimed at passing on his proficiency and knowledge in the harmonica to those who are interested in learning to play blues harmonica. Gussow from his first lesson says, "I'm tired of this mystification, I'm going to teach you all I know." As of February 2011 Gussow has uploaded 302 videos.
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
player.
Gussow is currently an associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
in Oxford
Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1835, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract....
. He spent twelve years (1986–1998) working the streets of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
and the international club and festival circuit with Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
-born bluesman Sterling Magee as a duo called Satan and Adam
Satan and Adam
Satan and Adam, a blues duo consisting of Sterling "Mister Satan" Magee and Adam Gussow , were a fixture on Harlem's sidewalks in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
. Along with Canadian harmonicist Carlos del Junco
Carlos del Junco
Carlos del Junco is a renowned Cuban-Canadian harmonica musician.Mr. del Junco immigrated with his family when he was one year old. He started to play the harmonica at 14 years old. He graduated from college with honors at the Ontario College of Art majoring in sculpture.He specializes in...
, Gussow was one of the first amplified blues players, in the late 1980s, to make overblows a key element of his stylistic approach, adapting Howard Levy
Howard Levy
Howard Levy is a Grammy Award–winning, American harmonicist, pianist, composer, and producer....
's innovations in a way that helped usher in a new generation of overblow masters such as Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci is an American harmonica player and singer.-Biography:Raised in Portland, Maine, Jason Ricci is the son of the controversial businessman/politician/activist Joe Ricci, founder of Elan School. Ricci started playing music in punk bands at the age of 14. After discovering a love of the...
and Chris Michalek
Chris Michalek
Chris Michalek was an American harmonica player.Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was an accomplished modern diatonic harmonica player in many styles including Jazz, Funk, Blues and World Music. Michalek was also the organizer of the Global Harmonica Summit in 2000...
. According to a reviewer for American Harmonica Newsletter, Gussow's playing is characterized by "[t]echnical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along but once in a generation." When Satan and Adam were honored with a cover story in Living Blues
Living Blues
Living Blues is a bi-monthly magazine focused on covering the African American blues tradition, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel. Alligator Records owner and founder Bruce Iglauer was also one of the...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
in 1996, Gussow was, according to the editor, "the first white blues musician to be so prominently spotlighted in the magazine’s 26-year history."
Raised in suburban Congers, New York
Congers, New York
Congers is a hamlet , in the Town of Clarkstown Rockland County, New York, United States located north of Valley Cottage; east of New City, across Lake DeForest, south of Haverstraw and west of the Hudson River. It lies 19 miles north of New York City's Bronx boundary...
, educated at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
(B.A. 1979, Ph.D. 2000) and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(M.A. 1983), Gussow has an atypical pedigree for a blues performer. In Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (1998), he credits his career to the mentorship of two older African American performers: Nat Riddles
Nat Riddles
Nat Riddles was a blues harmonica player who played an important role in the New York blues scene during the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Born in Bronxville, a Westchester County suburb of New York, he was educated at Brooklyn College and the Pratt Institute...
, a Bronx-born harmonica player who had worked with Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, Larry Johnson
Larry Johnson (musician)
Larry Johnson is an American electric blues singer and guitarist.-Life and career:Johnson's father was a preacher who traveled extensively. This led to Johnson being exposed to blues records by Blind Boy Fuller, who inspired Johnson to learn the rudiments of guitar playing...
, and others; and Magee, a guitarist/percussionist with whom Gussow teamed up after a chance afternoon jam session on Harlem’s 125th Street. As Satan and Adam, Magee and Gussow recorded three album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s during their years as a touring act: Harlem Blues (1991), which was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award
W. C. Handy Award
The Blues Music Awards are presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster the blues and its heritage. The awards were started by the Blues Foundation in 1980, and are widely regarded as the highest honor for blues artists in the United States.The awards were formerly...
as "Traditional Blues Album of the Year"; Mother Mojo (1993); and Living on the River (1996). A brief extract of Magee and Gussow performing on 125th Street was included in U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
's Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by rock band U2 and companion rockumentary directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs...
documentary. Gussow has produced or co-produced two additional Satan and Adam albums: Word on the Street (2008) http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/satan_and_adam_word.html and Back in the Game (2011) http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/satan_and_adam_back_in_the_game.html. In August 2010, Gussow released his first album under his own name, Kick And Stomp. Recorded in Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1835, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract....
, it features Gussow in a one-man band setting—singing, blowing amplified harmonica, stomping on a foot drum, and clanking on a tambourine pedal. http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/kick_and_stomp.html
Gussow's other musical credits include five months with the bus-and-truck tour of Big River; commercials for Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
, Nestea
Nestea
Nestea is a brand of iced tea manufactured by Nestle and distributed by Nestle company's beverage department in the United States and byBeverage Partners Worldwide , a joint venture between The Coca-Cola Company and Nestle, in the rest of the world. It competes with Unilever/Pepsi's Lipton Iced Tea...
, and Swatch
Swatch
Swatch is a brand name for a line of wrist watches from the Swatch Group, a Swiss conglomerate with vertical control of the production of Swiss watches and related products...
; and two decades as a harmonica instructor at the Guitar Study Center in New York and Jon Gindick's harmonica jam camps. In 2010 and 2011, Gussow organized and produced Hill Country Harmonica, a teaching-intensive event at Foxfire Ranch in Waterford, Mississippi with an evening concert component.http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/home.html Blues harmonica players and teachers at the first two events have included Billy Branch
Billy Branch
Billy Branch is an American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues and harmonica blues.-Career:...
, Sugar Blue
Sugar Blue
Sugar Blue is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician, who plays the harmonica. He is probably best known for playing on The Rolling Stones' single, "Miss You"....
, Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci is an American harmonica player and singer.-Biography:Raised in Portland, Maine, Jason Ricci is the son of the controversial businessman/politician/activist Joe Ricci, founder of Elan School. Ricci started playing music in punk bands at the age of 14. After discovering a love of the...
, Charlie Sayles, Billy Gibson, Jimi Lee, and many others.
In addition to Mister Satan's Apprentice, which received the "Keeping the Blues Alive" Award from the Blues Foundation
Blues Foundation
The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 Blues organizations from various parts of the world....
in Memphis, Gussow is the author of Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (2002) and Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York (2007). Gussow’s essays and reviews have appeared in Southern Cultures, African American Review
African American Review
The African American Review is a quarterly academic journal and the official publication of the Division on Black American Literature and Culture of the Modern Language Association. The journal covers African-American literature and culture, including theatre, film, the visual arts, interviews,...
, Harper's, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, American Literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
, and many other publications.
As of February 22, 2007 Gussow has been running YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
tutorials aimed at passing on his proficiency and knowledge in the harmonica to those who are interested in learning to play blues harmonica. Gussow from his first lesson says, "I'm tired of this mystification, I'm going to teach you all I know." As of February 2011 Gussow has uploaded 302 videos.
Further reading
- Gussow, Adam: Mister Satan's Apprentice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
- The story of an unlikely musical partnership, the blues, and race in America, with a new preface by the author
- Gussow, Adam: Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner's Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007