Great history! Very interesting. When I early teens I played along with Little Walters records for hours at a time . I always loved his beautiful double tones and overtones with the concert hall sound!
Back then almost all the amps sounded good for harp,,,basic circuit like this man said. Walter had that grease that was his sound. Like James Cotton to this day it dont matter his sound comes through anything he plays.. all the mics were great also in those 40 to 60 ,s .Plus they played with dynamics and knew how to play ,,,,today everyone wants to play loud as hell period.
This is a great interview. Blues history, especially the post wwII Chicago sound, is fascinating. Incidently, growing up I knew author Nadine Cohodas, who wrote "Turning Blues into Gold, the Chess Brother's Story."
Couldn't you guys be talking about two different things? One is what we hear on records (studio sound) and another is Walter's live performances in bars that he just used whatever electric equipment that there was in each time: tube amps+Asthatic or house PAs with a simple mike for vocal and harmônica?
cool interview. nobody will ever know, but Scott has done enough research that what can be known is probably in this interview and/or in the book he co-wrote, so check it out!
I heard that during the predjudice 50s lil walter got the back door of the studio and the basement they used to drop a mic down the heat pipe which gave them the echo/reverb sounds plausable at any rate lol
I'm a blues harp player - about 50 years now. I don't own an amp, I always play through the PA or whatever is available. That said, when I was a teenager in Australia, I used to correspond with Charlie Musselwhite. He said Walter used to go to pawn shops and junk yards to find amps and speakers that he used to take home and experiment with.
A story you hear over and over from guitar players as well: it's the person playing, first and foremost; the equipment is secondary. Jamie Glaser wanted to get an Allan Holdsworth sound, actually bought his amp, and was dismayed that he just sounded like he always did. Same with people wanting to sound like Robben Ford etc.
People spend a fortune on every conceivable amplifier - supposedly custom made for the ultimate harp sound - the irony is that Walter probably used whatever was around if he didn't have an amp. He strikes me as someone who made do, and wasn't inclined to waste a lot of time driving equipment around. Like a lot of good guitarists, the secret is in his technique....some people can make any old shit happen. Chess studios knew what they were about, and they knew exactly how to get the sounds they wanted; it's probably a mistake to think Walter sounded like he did on a 45 in some club on the road in terms of distortion and echo.
A lot of it is the technique of the musician. Two different harp players can sound very different on the same rig, because of technique. Muddy was kind of the same way about amps as Little Walter. He just knew where to plug in the cable. The rest was his ear and his technique.
Green Bullets (and Astatics, etc etc.) will indeed screw onto a mic stand, via the threaded recess on the bottom. Not that many would choose to use them this way.
To paraphrase Lance Armstrong: "It's not about the bike" - It's not about the equipment, except when it is. He played more acoustic like the two Sonnys, but his amped harp clearly hovered inches away from terminal distortion and the echo gave the eerie power that exemplified his unique style of interweaving melody and chord interludes. The Black Keys use old simple equipment to great effect, not because it is intrinsically better, but because it is NOT, that forces them to keep their sound simpler. Les Paul excepted, very little great music depended upon the engineering to make it great.
WE USE WHATEVER IS AVAILABLE AT ANY GIVEN TIME TO EXPRESS OURSELVES - IN OTHER WORDS - WE DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT - "WHAT THE MESSAGE COMES/IS DELIVERED IN..." - DID YOU GET THE MESSAGE..." - WHAT GETS THE SOUND OUT - NO MATTER HOW SOFT/HARD ONE WOULD LIKE TO DELIVER SAME... - PEOPLE GET CAUGHT IN A MUSICIANS EQUIPMENT - INSTEAD OF THE AUTHENTICITY/SPIRITUALITY OF THE MESSAGE... - WE MUST STOP IDOLIZING/HAVING THE BEST EQUIPMENT - AND - PLAY FROM THE SOUL...WE'LL FEEL/HEAR YOU - FOR SURE
Sars Brooks, of course. Don't assume the rest of us aren't as aware as yourself. This specific discussion, however, is to explore the equipment component.
My expertise only comes from listening to and may I add trying to emulate his sound and the conclusion that I have come to is that he was born with a harp in his mouth and could have played through an iced cream cone and would have still sounded fantastic.People with natural talent probably never really understand their gift.Great interview though.
I can add to this - photos show a CalRad or Tandy lavalier small element crystal stick mic - and the records, which are the big deal, reveal tape echo was added post gain but for sure Walter could hear it, Scott is way wrong - also key is that the board channel is over driven on Flying Saucer, Teenage Beat (and the deck providing the echo made a crazy hiss, which they left)- and our guy would have hidden a bag of pot, not a bottle of hooch - just sayin'
@@checker764 on most of the Ampexes in period you could use the front panel rotary selector - plus of course Walter could booth an amp & run harp mic into the control room, thus perform with plate or spring or chamber reverb coming over the loudspeakers.
@@andrewgillis8572 What I'm asking is how would he have heard what was going on in the control room while he was recording a track? Neither Chess nor Universal was using headphones in the tracking room while recording in the 1950s. And you can't run the sound back through the studio monitors while recording without causing feedback problems. When asked, LW did not know and could not explain how the reverb was added to his tracks. I'm not claiming to have the last word on everything regarding Little Walter - I know enough to know I will never know it all. I'm just passing along the information I've gathered from 40 years of research. If you have more information or new research, please share it with the rest of us. But guesses about what might or could have happened, without any context or confirmation, are just guesses.
@@checker764 Pont taken - and I'm 50 years, in - but it's a long way before those control room monitors do feedback - Walter knows all about it. No worse than any club he's playing. The leakage, I can hear - sounds like he's on the floor, with band. As it would. Le Roi de Blues LP tracks reveal echo sopping before Walter is done, playing - which would not happen in 'post'. But would happen if the producers at session thought they had their track & a good ending. For the producer Terry Brown of Rush I played a ceramic capsule JT 30 with not even 12 ft of cable to an amp, in booth, adjacent - Brown did have phones at ready to double check levels as we went. I needed no phones and was listening now to what sounded like 2 Bassman amps, and with plate reverb, about as loud as on stage at the bar downtown. But, better. This was 1990 and Brown considered it common practice. Would this not be be how Sam The Man Taylor, Harmonicats & other acts could perform with delay the way they & Walter did? Educated guesswork, is what I call it - I see no fresh source of evidence coming our way, better than our own ears. And one part was not guesswork - the part about Walter loving weed. We know that from the guys in Quicksilver Messenger Service!.
Listen, you don’t know what Little Water played through either. You’re assuming he played through this or that he played through That, I seen Little Water two times right in front of me once in 59 and once in 62 and I got to talk to him about things 78 records things like that harmonicas believe me you don’t know what he played through you’re just guessing like everybody else. I happened to see what kind of amp he played through and Mike, he played through, I’m 79, Walter gave me a 78 record , last night , on checker lable😎
Talking about mics, Dirks says that Lil Walter used whatever was available. That's more or less true. And then Dirks says "and what he used HAPPENED to give him this really cool, unique sound." Wrong. This casual statement of Dirks enormously underestimates Lil Walter's technique and his discernment, judgement and control over his sound. Lil Walter didn't just HAPPEN to get his sound, he was a master musician and a master of all aspects of technique and tone. Dirks is correct in some of what he says (yes, Lil Walter STARTED from what was available in PA mics and amps). But the idea that the mics Walter played through JUST HAPPENED to give him a great sound is dead wrong. If that was the case, then every other harp player would have gotten the same sound -- and almost no one else ever did. Lil Walter STARTED from what was available in PA mics and amps -- and took it to a new level of mastery and control. Dirks should have more respect for the man.
@Thomas Swan -- Hey, what a totally unexpected pleasure to hear from someone who REALLY KNOWS. I remember hearing your name around 1969 or 1970 -- you did great work man. Those Vintage albums were truly outstanding. They probably had more influence on me than anything else I listened to at the time, and I still listen to them today. Hugely influential for me, and for the people I knew then in Chicago. Great stuff. Yeah, it's real interesting to hear what you say about Lil Walter's mikes. I've got a couple of those kinda "stick mikes," made in the late fifties or early sixties I guess (there's one that I've got that was made for the Roberts brand, another by Aiwa, both get excellent tone). I don't know if those were "tape-recorder mikes" or not, but I know for sure there are some other "tape-recorder mikes," made a little later I'd say, that also get excellent tone. Convenient, good-sounding little mikes, all of them. And I'm sure that Lil Walter chose his mikes carefully. The only song of Lil Walter's I can think of, where I ever said to myself "that's an Astatic JT30 for sure, or something a hell of a lot like it" -- yeah that would be "Confessin' The Blues," with that grainy, kinda "desperate" dry tone that Lil Walter used there. A masterpiece. It wouldn't be the same with a different mike. It's great that you got to be around Lil Walter some, and got to know Louis Myers. Yeah, Louis Myers was a master musician, one of the truly GREAT guitarists. A giant. It took some years for me to realize that a big part of the reason that a lot of people didn't cover most of Lil Walter's stuff was simply because their bands weren't good enough. And their guitarists in particular. Yeah, Louis Myers and Robert Junior Lockwood? There are very VERY few who compare. Those guys were GREAT musicians, just like Lil Walter was. It must have been great to get to talk to Louis Myers (and Lil Walter too, of course -- although I get the impression he mighta been kind of an introvert, not the most outgoing -- but it must have been great just to see how he carried himself, to hear what he DID say). Yeah Scott Dirks gathered a lot of good information for his book. Lots. But yeah IMO he's way too casual in this interview snippet about Lil Walter's sound. Of course it was Lil Walter's amazing "musicianship" above all else, his tremendous mastery of the instrument and his great arrangements that he worked out with the band. Of course -- that was the thing "above all." So from that angle, sure, the equipment might be seen as kinda "secondary." But Lil Walter shaped that SOUND. The whole thing. That SOUND. He was aware of it ALL. And he did it like a maestro.
Robin - Dirks is as aware as any of us - yourself included - that Walter sounds like Walter, no matter what. You're not revealing anything we don't already know and understand. This particular discussion happens to be about the gear. Live with it 😉
Robin Sandow, you completely missed or overlooked the point I was trying to make, which had nothing to do with LW's talents or abilities. My statement was ONLY intended to convey this: it is coincidental that the only equipment available - low powered amps and narrow frequency response mics - happened to be perfectly suited to creating the sound we now know as the amplified harp sound. That's it. Any other interpretation is wrong.
A reminder that the question and answer above was ONLY about Little Walter's equipment, excerpted from a much longer interview about LW. Also, hi ttswan! I promise I haven't forgotten anything I learned from you :) I just don't go into it all in the excerpt above. I hope you're well!
Dirks is too full of himself. Not only Little Walter but nemesis Big Walter (also a Chicago player) commonly used tape recorders as amps. Grundig made a little recorder that had great 5W output. For echo, Walter used a long hallway for delay and echo effects. That's a FACT and published. There were very few amps and guitars had to be mic'd before Les Paul introduced the 50's ELECTRIC GUITAR.
Great history! Very interesting. When I early teens I played along with Little Walters records for hours at a time . I always loved his beautiful double tones and overtones with the concert hall sound!
People are more concerned about equipment than practice and technique. A good player can sound good on anything.
Walter was probably blasted when they asked him the question LOL
Scott Dirks plays very nice blues harmonica. Apparently all of that research on Little Walter has had a nice effect on Scott’s wonderful blues chops.
Back then almost all the amps sounded good for harp,,,basic circuit like this man said. Walter had that grease that was his sound. Like James Cotton to this day it dont matter his sound comes through anything he plays.. all the mics were great also in those 40 to 60 ,s .Plus they played with dynamics and knew how to play ,,,,today everyone wants to play loud as hell period.
This is a great interview. Blues history, especially the post wwII Chicago sound, is fascinating. Incidently, growing up I knew author Nadine Cohodas, who wrote "Turning Blues into Gold, the Chess Brother's Story."
Couldn't you guys be talking about two different things? One is what we hear on records (studio sound) and another is Walter's live performances in bars that he just used whatever electric equipment that there was in each time: tube amps+Asthatic or house PAs with a simple mike for vocal and harmônica?
cool interview. nobody will ever know, but Scott has done enough research that what can be known is probably in this interview and/or in the book he co-wrote, so check it out!
I heard that during the predjudice 50s lil walter got the back door of the studio and the basement they used to drop a mic down the heat pipe which gave them the echo/reverb sounds plausable at any rate lol
I'm a blues harp player - about 50 years now. I don't own an amp, I always play through the PA or whatever is available. That said, when I was a teenager in Australia, I used to correspond with Charlie Musselwhite. He said Walter used to go to pawn shops and junk yards to find amps and speakers that he used to take home and experiment with.
Charlie Musselwhite is a great harp player but he never knew Little Water
@@johnnyacevedo681 How do u know this?
dedicated to all my friends spending millions of hours on choosing equipment. ( & who rarely take a definitive decision, actually)
great stories...I just ordered the book!
A story you hear over and over from guitar players as well: it's the person playing, first and foremost; the equipment is secondary. Jamie Glaser wanted to get an Allan Holdsworth sound, actually bought his amp, and was dismayed that he just sounded like he always did. Same with people wanting to sound like Robben Ford etc.
People spend a fortune on every conceivable amplifier - supposedly custom made for the ultimate harp sound - the irony is that Walter probably used whatever was around if he didn't have an amp. He strikes me as someone who made do, and wasn't inclined to waste a lot of time driving equipment around. Like a lot of good guitarists, the secret is in his technique....some people can make any old shit happen. Chess studios knew what they were about, and they knew exactly how to get the sounds they wanted; it's probably a mistake to think Walter sounded like he did on a 45 in some club on the road in terms of distortion and echo.
A lot of it is the technique of the musician. Two different harp players can sound very different on the same rig, because of technique.
Muddy was kind of the same way about amps as Little Walter. He just knew where to plug in the cable. The rest was his ear and his technique.
Green Bullets (and Astatics, etc etc.) will indeed screw onto a mic stand, via the threaded recess on the bottom. Not that many would choose to use them this way.
LEO MOON I'd like to know what that bullet shaped device was that he played his harp against was , it was silver !
To paraphrase Lance Armstrong: "It's not about the bike" - It's not about the equipment, except when it is. He played more acoustic like the two Sonnys, but his amped harp clearly hovered inches away from terminal distortion and the echo gave the eerie power that exemplified his unique style of interweaving melody and chord interludes. The Black Keys use old simple equipment to great effect, not because it is intrinsically better, but because it is NOT, that forces them to keep their sound simpler. Les Paul excepted, very little great music depended upon the engineering to make it great.
WE USE WHATEVER IS AVAILABLE AT ANY GIVEN TIME TO EXPRESS OURSELVES - IN OTHER WORDS - WE DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT - "WHAT THE MESSAGE COMES/IS DELIVERED IN..." - DID YOU GET THE MESSAGE..." - WHAT GETS THE SOUND OUT - NO MATTER HOW SOFT/HARD ONE WOULD LIKE TO DELIVER SAME... - PEOPLE GET CAUGHT IN A MUSICIANS EQUIPMENT - INSTEAD OF THE AUTHENTICITY/SPIRITUALITY OF THE MESSAGE... - WE MUST STOP IDOLIZING/HAVING THE BEST EQUIPMENT - AND - PLAY FROM THE SOUL...WE'LL FEEL/HEAR YOU - FOR SURE
There are no "musts."
(There is, however, a "Shift" button on your keyboard - try it!)👍
Sars Brooks, of course. Don't assume the rest of us aren't as aware as yourself. This specific discussion, however, is to explore the equipment component.
Yea, the old KISS rule !!
David you should invite Gleidson Sousa for an interview about gear
I have... the guys is busy! We'll do it at some point.
@@bluesharmonicateacher Nice!!!
Scott has... he talks about that in the rest of the interview.
Makes sense to me.
Mojo Buford said he played through an Echoplex.
hi I MN Minneapolis and
played piano with buford.he used drive walter around.he said walter never told him or showed him nothing about playing or amps
What are the harmonicas that walter used?
Hohner Marine Bands
My expertise only comes from listening to and may I add trying to emulate his sound and the conclusion that I have come to is that he was born with a harp in his mouth and could have played through an iced cream cone and would have still sounded fantastic.People with natural talent probably never really understand their gift.Great interview though.
That's correct.
I can add to this - photos show a CalRad or Tandy lavalier small element crystal stick mic - and the records, which are the big deal, reveal tape echo was added post gain but for sure Walter could hear it, Scott is way wrong - also key is that the board channel is over driven on Flying Saucer, Teenage Beat (and the deck providing the echo made a crazy hiss, which they left)- and our guy would have hidden a bag of pot, not a bottle of hooch - just sayin'
How would he hear it?
@@checker764 on most of the Ampexes in period you could use the front panel rotary selector - plus of course Walter could booth an amp & run harp mic into the control room, thus perform with plate or spring or chamber reverb coming over the loudspeakers.
@@andrewgillis8572 What I'm asking is how would he have heard what was going on in the control room while he was recording a track? Neither Chess nor Universal was using headphones in the tracking room while recording in the 1950s. And you can't run the sound back through the studio monitors while recording without causing feedback problems. When asked, LW did not know and could not explain how the reverb was added to his tracks.
I'm not claiming to have the last word on everything regarding Little Walter - I know enough to know I will never know it all. I'm just passing along the information I've gathered from 40 years of research. If you have more information or new research, please share it with the rest of us. But guesses about what might or could have happened, without any context or confirmation, are just guesses.
@@checker764 Pont taken - and I'm 50 years, in - but it's a long way before those control room monitors do feedback - Walter knows all about it. No worse than any club he's playing. The leakage, I can hear - sounds like he's on the floor, with band. As it would. Le Roi de Blues LP tracks reveal echo sopping before Walter is done, playing - which would not happen in 'post'. But would happen if the producers at session thought they had their track & a good ending. For the producer Terry Brown of Rush I played a ceramic capsule JT 30 with not even 12 ft of cable to an amp, in booth, adjacent - Brown did have phones at ready to double check levels as we went. I needed no phones and was listening now to what sounded like 2 Bassman amps, and with plate reverb, about as loud as on stage at the bar downtown. But, better. This was 1990 and Brown considered it common practice. Would this not be be how Sam The Man Taylor, Harmonicats & other acts could perform with delay the way they & Walter did? Educated guesswork, is what I call it - I see no fresh source of evidence coming our way, better than our own ears. And one part was not guesswork - the part about Walter loving weed. We know that from the guys in Quicksilver Messenger Service!.
i have a green bullet mike. they do not sit on a mike stand. too bad too. i like my shaker mike
connie b
Little walters sound come from little walter there will never be another L.W.
Listen, you don’t know what Little Water played through either. You’re assuming he played through this or that he played through That, I
seen Little Water two times right in front of me once in 59 and once in 62 and I got to talk to him about things 78 records things like that harmonicas believe me you don’t know what he played through you’re just guessing like everybody else. I happened to see what kind of amp he played through and Mike, he played through, I’m 79, Walter gave me a 78 record , last night , on checker lable😎
What did he play through?
Talking about mics, Dirks says that Lil Walter used whatever was available. That's more or less true. And then Dirks says "and what he used HAPPENED to give him this really cool, unique sound." Wrong. This casual statement of Dirks enormously underestimates Lil Walter's technique and his discernment, judgement and control over his sound. Lil Walter didn't just HAPPEN to get his sound, he was a master musician and a master of all aspects of technique and tone. Dirks is correct in some of what he says (yes, Lil Walter STARTED from what was available in PA mics and amps). But the idea that the mics Walter played through JUST HAPPENED to give him a great sound is dead wrong. If that was the case, then every other harp player would have gotten the same sound -- and almost no one else ever did. Lil Walter STARTED from what was available in PA mics and amps -- and took it to a new level of mastery and control. Dirks should have more respect for the man.
@Thomas Swan -- Hey, what a totally unexpected pleasure to hear from someone who REALLY KNOWS. I remember hearing your name around 1969 or 1970 -- you did great work man. Those Vintage albums were truly outstanding. They probably had more influence on me than anything else I listened to at the time, and I still listen to them today. Hugely influential for me, and for the people I knew then in Chicago. Great stuff.
Yeah, it's real interesting to hear what you say about Lil Walter's mikes. I've got a couple of those kinda "stick mikes," made in the late fifties or early sixties I guess (there's one that I've got that was made for the Roberts brand, another by Aiwa, both get excellent tone). I don't know if those were "tape-recorder mikes" or not, but I know for sure there are some other "tape-recorder mikes," made a little later I'd say, that also get excellent tone. Convenient, good-sounding little mikes, all of them. And I'm sure that Lil Walter chose his mikes carefully.
The only song of Lil Walter's I can think of, where I ever said to myself "that's an Astatic JT30 for sure, or something a hell of a lot like it" -- yeah that would be "Confessin' The Blues," with that grainy, kinda "desperate" dry tone that Lil Walter used there. A masterpiece. It wouldn't be the same with a different mike.
It's great that you got to be around Lil Walter some, and got to know Louis Myers. Yeah, Louis Myers was a master musician, one of the truly GREAT guitarists. A giant. It took some years for me to realize that a big part of the reason that a lot of people didn't cover most of Lil Walter's stuff was simply because their bands weren't good enough. And their guitarists in particular. Yeah, Louis Myers and Robert Junior Lockwood? There are very VERY few who compare. Those guys were GREAT musicians, just like Lil Walter was. It must have been great to get to talk to Louis Myers (and Lil Walter too, of course -- although I get the impression he mighta been kind of an introvert, not the most outgoing -- but it must have been great just to see how he carried himself, to hear what he DID say).
Yeah Scott Dirks gathered a lot of good information for his book. Lots. But yeah IMO he's way too casual in this interview snippet about Lil Walter's sound. Of course it was Lil Walter's amazing "musicianship" above all else, his tremendous mastery of the instrument and his great arrangements that he worked out with the band. Of course -- that was the thing "above all." So from that angle, sure, the equipment might be seen as kinda "secondary." But Lil Walter shaped that SOUND. The whole thing. That SOUND. He was aware of it ALL. And he did it like a maestro.
Robin - Dirks is as aware as any of us - yourself included - that Walter sounds like Walter, no matter what. You're not revealing anything we don't already know and understand. This particular discussion happens to be about the gear. Live with it 😉
Robin Sandow, you completely missed or overlooked the point I was trying to make, which had nothing to do with LW's talents or abilities. My statement was ONLY intended to convey this: it is coincidental that the only equipment available - low powered amps and narrow frequency response mics - happened to be perfectly suited to creating the sound we now know as the amplified harp sound. That's it. Any other interpretation is wrong.
A reminder that the question and answer above was ONLY about Little Walter's equipment, excerpted from a much longer interview about LW.
Also, hi ttswan! I promise I haven't forgotten anything I learned from you :) I just don't go into it all in the excerpt above. I hope you're well!
I've not eaten a boiled egg for ages....
You copuld have said a bottle of medicine and some lip salve.
copuld is right.
GRADY BLEDSOE Who is Could ?
Dirks is too full of himself. Not only Little Walter but nemesis Big Walter (also a Chicago player) commonly used tape recorders as amps. Grundig made a little recorder that had great 5W output. For echo, Walter used a long hallway for delay and echo effects. That's a FACT and published. There were very few amps and guitars had to be mic'd before Les Paul introduced the 50's ELECTRIC GUITAR.
Shootnwhiners In your comment, you sound a bit too full of yourself. So it goes
Where is it published? Please provided a link or a source. Thanks.