Robin Sunflower - a Local Hero

Robin and Toots

Robin Sunflower has made his living from the chromatic harmonica for 30 years. But you might not know of him. Robin has his own regular gigs near Stockport. He is also in Baked A La Ska and other groups, including a quartet, The Robin Sunflower Band, with top jazz guitarist Adrian Ingram. Robin plays a mix of jazz fusion, swing, pop, country, reggae, ska, blues, Balkan, and Latin, with a relaxed but dynamic, melodic approach. He likes tunes by The Beatles, Bob Marley, Duke Ellington, John Lee Hooker and plenty of his own compositions. The Robin Sunflower Band does an annual week of Toots Thielemans tribute gigs around the North of England. ROBIN Childhood piano lessons gave him a solid musical background (“I didn’t like Mozart and Brahms as much as SUNFLOWER - Status Quo, Suzi Quatro and Medicine Head. So I gave up piano for many years.”) He didn’t play harmonica until A LOCAL HERO about age 30. Robin ran a vegan cafe, and he told regular customer Victor Brox (yep, the legendary bluesman of The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation) that he got a cheap Dave Taylor harmonica for Christmas. In a few months he learnt diatonic blues and was playing gigs with Victor’s band. But hearing Toots - the king of jazz harmonica - play Sophisticated Lady with violinist Svend Asmussen changed everything. That was the sound he wanted. Somebody else at the cafe told him a chromatic was for sale in a second-hand shop. Honeysuckle Rose was the first tune he played on chromatic. During the pandemic, Robin finished sorting out the gigantic collection of confectionery wrappers and other pop culture ephemera that his father had amassed. This was celebrated in the book Wrappers Delight, written by Jonny Trunk, with an introduction by Jarvis Cocker and published by Fuel. I visited Robin to find out more.

So, Toots: is he any good?

Ha ha ha. Well, people say, Toots is good, but Tommy Reilly, Charles Leighton, George Fields, Stan Harper, they’re better. But it’s about speaking music from your heart and Toots just does that. When I hear him, it’s just so beautiful, it takes me to a different kind of place. A lot of other players, I feel they’re trying to achieve, rather than being. They seem to be striving to be louder, faster, harder and more intricate. I don’t like that strive. When I listen to the blackbirds and the goldcrest here (in my garden) I don’t hear “this is difficult”, it just kind of happens. And that’s how it feels with Toots.

Your brother got you tickets for two Toots concerts in 2011. What happened?

I got on the Eurostar train and saw him for two nights in Antwerp,

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Belgium. His manager said to just come down to the front of the stage after the show. Ten minutes after doing a two-hour gig, the 89-year-old Toots came out and sat at a desk, meeting and greeting people for another two hours. Amazing. We chat for a bit, then the following night I’m standing around, he calls me out from the crowd and beckons me to sit down next to him. “This man comes all the way from Manchester, UK to see me play, and I’m so touched”, he said. He was just the loveliest person. I also met people from Japan and Argentina who had come just to see Toots.

How did you actually learn to play chromatic?

I am still learning. At first I just played scales, not from books, but from the piano: I made a map of the notes. I’ve never had any lessons. I do have perfect pitch though. I listened to Toots. You don’t instantly get tone on a chromatic, you need to learn about embouchure and it’s about putting your heart into it.

Have you ever given lessons?

No, but I say to people, I’ll speak to you for five minutes now and that should be enough. Music teachers will hate me for this. So, you’ve got a harmonica: can you play single notes? Should be able to play individual notes, up and down. The next part is familiarity with the instrument, knowing where notes are. Same as riding a bike or learning French.

What do you think about amplifying the chromatic?

People said an SM58 mic would be best, but I use an SM57; it’s easier to hold. I have a bespoke Mambo combo amp, made locally by Johnny Mambo. Can’t recommend them highly enough. Guitar star Larry Coryell ordered 50. It has a clean sound, and I have some FX pedals. I had a Polytone combo before, but it was stolen. I had a Pro Amp Viper some years ago, but the crunchy gritty sound was all it could do.

HarmonicaUK wants to bring new members in, because our average age is about 67. Can you think of any ways to appeal to younger people to try harmonica?

A lot of it is about the cult of celebrity and role models. So we need Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa, etc. to start playing harmonica themselves, or get a harmonica player as part of their regular setup (like Micky Raphael playing for Willie Nelson).

Thank you Robin.

Thank you Dave. Website: www.robinsunflower.com/ Bake dal a ska: www.bakedalaska.biz/baked-a-la-who/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/robinsunflower