Around the World with 80 Great Harmonica Players

AROUND THE WORLD WITH 80 GREAT HARMONICA PLAYERS

Red Hot And Live, An Interview With Peter Golding Sam Spranger, Editorial Team

An interview with Peter Golding is a hard thing to put into a two page article. He was born in Willesden, London, and his father was a headmaster. His obsession with playing chromatic harmonica as a lad began when he heard one of his friends playing the instrument at his boy scouts chapter. He went on to cut his teeth when he lived in the infamous Beat Hotel in Paris where he busked on the streets and in cafes on diatonic, chromatic, and guitar. He went on to busk around Europe and parts of the Levant, riding from city to city on a Lambretta he picked up in Milan. Since then he’s done various musical projects, most notably his blues album Stretching The Blues and performing at Larry Adler’s memorial. Oh, and he’s also famous in the fashion industry for making the coolest designer jeans known to man. His latest album, Red Hot and Live, explores his love of Gypsy Jazz and is a pre-lockdown concert recording of his Cafe Django band performing at the Chelsea Arts Club.

Tell me about your approach to the harmonica?

I will use whatever I can get to get the sound I want. The sound always comes first over a specific technique or discipline. My playing has always been a natural style based more on the heart than the head. I don’t overthink things. The feel is almost getting lost today in music and we can become obsessed with the technicalities. I really respected what William Galison said during the Chromatic Harmonica Weekend, ‘The whole thing is about the tune and the audience.’

And equipment do you use?

In those early days I joined the Hohner song band league, and Normans’ harmonicas was THE guy to get harps from. He turned me onto Hering Chromatic harmonicas which are fantastic and also the old Hohner Pro-Harps. Hering chromatics have got a certain sound that means you can be as rough as you like with them. I use a variety of keys which lets me be adaptive, especially with Gypsy jazz, as you’re sometimes playing in the relative minor to the key stamped on the harp. I would often get them customised by Brendan Power, as well as go to Joe Filisko and Richard Sleigh for Marine Bands. For years I’ve also enjoyed Steve Baker’s amazing SBS harmonicas as well. As regards to mics, for the blues I have this old beaten up Shure 707 which is fantastic. I’ve played a range of amplifiers including the Fender Bassman and Bandmaster, but recently I love using a smaller old Kalamazoo amp. For Gypsy Jazz it’s just a SM58 or a Beyer dynamic through a powered speaker with XLR into the PA for a more natural sound.”

As you know I’m a teacher in a school and I played Red, Hot, & Live to the kids and they loved it! Tell me about the album.

Well, it’s been said we are probably “The only Harmonica led Gypsy Jazz band!” I’m so thrilled the kids liked it, wonderful! The album came about as I was looking through my old recordings during lockdown, and I came across a CD which was a direct feed from the sound-desk during a Cafe Django gig at the Chelsea Arts Club and I couldn’t believe how good it all sounded! So I edited it from the download at a studio in Camden. What I really enjoy about the playing is the reward of having created the band and seeing how everyone interacts… and as everyone knows, if you wanna play harmonica in a band, you better start your own! You can learn more about Peter as well as listen to and download Stretching the Blues and Red Hot and Live at www.cafe-django.com You can also watch the Full interview online @mybrokenharp on YouTube.