Fatal Attraction Part 3 by Phillip Hopkins

One day the phone rings. A musical director I worked for a few years ago is inviting me to teach an actor to play harmonica for a new musical at London’s Old Vic theatre called Girl From the North Country. The show features the songs of Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan. One of the most famous people to have incorporated harmonica into their sound, and as such, worthy of great respect. As the call to the show’s music supervisor ends, I realise that I’ve accepted this job without knowing a whole lot about the harmonica playing techniques of Mr Dylan. I’m familiar with the sound, but I was a bit young when Mr. Tambourine Man and Blowin’ in the Wind were in the charts, so I’ve got a lot of learning to do. In my favour, I’ve always appreciated folk diatonic playing – for example, FATAL ATTRACTION MY LIFE WITH THE I’m a big fan of Neil Young and I love his harmonica accompaniment to Joni Mitchell’s HARMONICA Furry Sings the Blues. (In fact I think this performance is a harmonica masterpiece). PART 3 Over the next months I have a succession of actors coming through my door to learn By Phil Hopkins harmonica for the show. There’s one harmonica player needed initially, but there will be a cast change with a new actor, and of course each actor’s understudy has to learn the harmonica. There won’t be a huge amount of harmonica in the show but the instrument has to be learnt properly. My job is to teach the actors single notes, rhythmic accompaniments, note bends, scales etc., but this is also a golden opportunity for us to study the harmonica style of Bob Dylan while being paid to do so. And what we discover is this. Dylan’s feel is unbelievable. He may not blow us away technically like a Charlie McCoy or a Tommy Reilly, but boy does he play the right phrase at the right time, with the songwriter’s knack of applying the telling lick. He has an innate sense of drama – the harmonica switches the focus away from the intensity of the lyrics, allowing the listener time to absorb the poetry. Take the hook in Like a Rolling Stone. It’s just a snatch of a phrase but it bookends the chorus like a locomotive’s wail across the American plains. The sound can be raw and at times unpolished, but it fits the music like a glove. Tough music for hard times. Dylan’s music is peppered with short harmonica phrases which help tell the story and teach a lesson I am reminded of throughout my career – less is very often more. What I’ve learned from Bob Dylan – as from Neil Young – is that a little harmonica, if applied correctly, goes a long way. From my actor students, I learn about motivation. I have taught many actors to play the harmonica for theatre shows, and they

all have one thing in common – a deadline. In five, six or seven weeks, they know they’re going to be on a stage, in front of a thousand people, playing their little solo or piece. They’re in a cutthroat profession and they’re used to hard work; the learning is dramatically accelerated and compressed but they always nail it by the time Press Night rolls around. Their sound may not be as good as that made by more experienced harpists, but the job always gets done. And I’m sure Mr Dylan, if he ever came to see a show, would be as proud of them as I am. Furry Sings the Blues Joni Mitchell www.youtube.com/watch?v=ionRca6THE8 Like a Rolling Stone Bob Dylan www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwOfCgkyEj0 Phil’s new album Harmonica Paradiso, an album of duets for chromatic harmonica and piano, is now available as CD or download from: https://philhopkins.bandcamp.com/album/harmonica-paradiso Phil’s YouTube channel is: www.youtube.com/channel/UCp2HzSYG7L_KRPC_weZyZCA

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