Harmonica Shah
Encyclopedia
Harmonica Shah is an American
Detroit
and electric blues
harmonicist
and singer. His playing was influenced by Junior Wells
, Jimmy Reed
, Little Walter
, Lazy Lester
, and Little Sonny
.
, with his blues harmonica and guitar playing grandfather, Sam Dawson. Dawson had recorded for both Alan Lomax
and Duke Records
. His mother, a beautician
, encouraged him to be a salesman for Jet
magazine in the latter part of the 1950s. This allowed Shah access to Oakland's bars
and clubs
, where he heard musician
s such as Lowell Fulson
, Jimmy McCracklin
, Juke Boy Bonner
and Big Mama Thornton
.
Shah told Living Blues
magazine that his grandfather's passion for the blues inspired him. "Well see I picked it up from him, he'd be out in the fields singin' all that (sings in a slow moan) 'Tell me how long, whoa, tell me how long it's been since you've been away from home' Well, that's raw! That's a big damn difference from 'Good Golly Miss Molly'".
He moved to Detroit in 1967, and worked for Ford Motors
for fifteen years. Shah bought himself a cheap harmonica in 1976 and, while operating as a taxicab
driver, Shah was introduced to local blues jam session
s. "Hell, that was it, no turning back then", Shah recalled.
Over the years, Shah has played alongside Bobo Jenkins
, Eddie Kirkland
, The Butler Twins
and Willie D. Warren
. His debut album, Motor City Mojo was released by Blue Suit Records in 2000.
His 2006 album, Listen at Me Good, was recorded in Toronto
, and included contributions from the Blues Music Award winners Mel Brown
on guitar, and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith playing the drums.
He has toured across the United States
, as well as in Europe
, Russia
, Japan
and Australia
. Closer to his roots, Shah still occasionally performs for free at John's Carpet House in East Detroit
. He legally changed his birth name to Seward Shah.
Shah's most recent release was the 2009 album, If All You Have Is a Hammer, on his current record label
, Electro-Fi Records.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Detroit
Detroit blues
Detroit blues is blues music played by musicians resident in Detroit, Michigan, particularly that played in the 1940s and 1950s. Detroit blues originated when Delta blues performers migrated north from the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, Tennessee to work in Detroit's industrial plants in the 1920s...
and electric blues
Electric blues
Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...
harmonicist
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...
and singer. His playing was influenced by Junior Wells
Junior Wells
Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...
, Jimmy Reed
Jimmy Reed
Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter, notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries...
, Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
, Lazy Lester
Lazy Lester
Lazy Lester is an American blues harmonica player, whose career spans the 1950s to the 2000s....
, and Little Sonny
Little Sonny
Little Sonny is an American electric blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. His early mentor and inspiration was Sonny Boy Williamson II. Nevertheless, Little Sonny stated that his nickname originated with his mother...
.
Biography
Born in California, Shah also spent time in Somerville, TexasSomerville, Texas
Somerville is a city in Burleson County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,704 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area...
, with his blues harmonica and guitar playing grandfather, Sam Dawson. Dawson had recorded for both Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
and Duke Records
Duke Records
Duke Records was an American record label, started in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1952 by David James Mattis and Bill Fitzgerald, owners of Tri-State Recording Company. Their first release was Roscoe Gordon singing "Hey Fat Girl", issued on Duke R-1, later amended to R-101.After forming a partnership...
. His mother, a beautician
Cosmetology
Cosmetology is the study and application of beauty treatment. Branches of specialty including hairstyling, skin care, cosmetics, manicures/pedicures, and electrology....
, encouraged him to be a salesman for Jet
Jet (magazine)
Jet is an American weekly marketed toward African-American readers, founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois...
magazine in the latter part of the 1950s. This allowed Shah access to Oakland's bars
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
and clubs
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
, where he heard musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s such as Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...
, Jimmy McCracklin
Jimmy McCracklin
Jimmy McCracklin is an American pianist, vocalist, and songwriter. His style contains West Coast blues, Jump blues, and R&B. Over a career that has spanned seven decades, he says he has written almost a thousand songs and has recorded hundreds of them...
, Juke Boy Bonner
Juke Boy Bonner
Weldon H. Philip Bonner, better known as Juke Boy Bonner was an American blues singer, harmonica player, and guitarist. He was influenced by Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and Slim Harpo...
and Big Mama Thornton
Big Mama Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million...
.
Shah told 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 that his grandfather's passion for the blues inspired him. "Well see I picked it up from him, he'd be out in the fields singin' all that (sings in a slow moan) 'Tell me how long, whoa, tell me how long it's been since you've been away from home' Well, that's raw! That's a big damn difference from 'Good Golly Miss Molly'".
He moved to Detroit in 1967, and worked for Ford Motors
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
for fifteen years. Shah bought himself a cheap harmonica in 1976 and, while operating as a taxicab
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
driver, Shah was introduced to local blues jam session
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
s. "Hell, that was it, no turning back then", Shah recalled.
Over the years, Shah has played alongside Bobo Jenkins
Bobo Jenkins
Bobo Jenkins was an American Detroit blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He also built and set up his own recording studio and record label in Detroit...
, Eddie Kirkland
Eddie Kirkland
Eddie Kirkland was an American electric blues guitarist, harmonicist, singer, and songwriter.Kirkland, known as the "Gypsy of the Blues" for his rigorous touring schedules, played and toured with John Lee Hooker from 1949 to 1962...
, The Butler Twins
The Butler Twins
The Butler Twins were an American Detroit blues and electric blues duo, comprising the twins Clarence and Curtis Butler . Long time, semi-professional performers in the local blues scene in Detroit, they gained international recognition following the recording of three albums in the late 1990s...
and Willie D. Warren
Willie D. Warren
Willie D. Warren was an American electric blues guitarist, bass player and singer. In a long career, he worked with Otis Rush, Al Benson, Little Sonny Cooper, David Honeyboy Edwards, Baby Boy Warren, Guitar Slim, Freddie King, Jimmy Reed, Morris Pejoe, Bobo Jenkins and Jim McCarty...
. His debut album, Motor City Mojo was released by Blue Suit Records in 2000.
His 2006 album, Listen at Me Good, was recorded in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, and included contributions from the Blues Music Award winners Mel Brown
Mel Brown
Mel Brown was an American-born blues guitarist.Brown was nominated for a Juno Award in both 2001 and 2002.Brown, a long-time smoker, died aged 69, on March 20, 2009, in Kitchener, Ontario, of complications from emphysema....
on guitar, and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith playing the drums.
He has toured across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Closer to his roots, Shah still occasionally performs for free at John's Carpet House in East Detroit
Eastpointe, Michigan
Eastpointe is a city in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 34,077. Eastpointe forms a part of the Metro Detroit area. It borders on 8 Mile Road on the northern edge of Detroit.- History :The community was first settled by Irish and German...
. He legally changed his birth name to Seward Shah.
Shah's most recent release was the 2009 album, If All You Have Is a Hammer, on his current record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Electro-Fi Records.
Albums
- Motor City Mojo (2000) - Blue Suit Records
- Deep Detroit (2001) - South Side Records
- Tell It to Your Landlord (2003) - Electro-Fi Records
- Listen at Me Good (2006) - Electro-Fi Records
- If All You Have Is a Hammer (2009) - Electro-Fi Records
Compilation albums
- Hastings Street Grease Vol. 1 (1998) - Blue Suit Records
- Hastings Street Grease Vol. 2 (1999) - Blue Suit Records