![]() ![]() JG: I just write my own lyrics, a few of my own chord changes, but it’s basically based on tradition. I take something standard from Blues and I just put my own lyrics on it, sometimes I just make the chords a little different, now I use a lot of Zydeco influences. Like a John Lee Hooker boogie or a swing or something like that. I take standard patterns of music, shuffle, swing, rhumba, boogie. I used to get into jams and people would say do you know Stormy Monday and I would say yeah, and I knew the lyrics but I created my own lyrics over that pattern. Now I like to sing Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf I like their lyrics too. ![]() I started with them and went backwards, tracing their influences. Geils song like Whammer Jammer, came from James Cotton’s The Creeper, and I learnt that, and then I learnt that James Cotton was a student and he hung around with Sonny Boy Williamson, so I started listening to Sonny Boy and that’s how I got into the Black American Blues, from the white guys in the 60’s, John Mayall and all the hippie bands. JG: My brothers had a lot of blues albums, Paul Butterfield, Canned Heat, J. PM: Did it just come naturally to you and why were you attracted to the harmonica? JG: When I was a kid around 13, I started in bands when I was 17, I was born in 1962, and started playing full time in 1985. PM: When did you first start playing the harmonica? One is called the Suzuki Sub30 and the other Brendan Powers PowerBender, which is a new tuning this gave me a more original flexible sound. I got to give a lot of credit to harmonica inventor Brendan Power, because I am playing his new harmonicas that he just developed in 2013. Over one hundred and sixty Blues Societies are represented, that’s a huge amount of musicians, it’s really hard to make it through the cuts you know, but I happened to get chosen. JG: There’s the international Blues Challenge, it happens in Memphis every year, so I went down in 2014 and we got into the semifinals, and then out of all the semifinalists, the group of judges pick the best and luckily I won. PM: I read about you being the “World’s Best Harmonica Player” and I wondered how does one become the world’s best? I had the opportunity to interview Jerome Godboo during the Blues and Jazz Festival in Barrie. This summer he once again headlined at the Montreal Jazz Festival and Mont-Tremblant Festival. ![]() The “others” being a diverse and impressive list of names, from various genres of music including Alannah Myles, Ronnie Hawkins, Levon Helm, James Cotton, The Tragically Hip, Prince, Pinetop Perkins, and the late, great Jeff Healey. Toronto is home base for Jerome Godboo but touring has taken him across our country, the US and a large portion of Europe, either heading his own band, or playing with others. It is no wonder he was awarded the Lee Oskar World’s Best Harmonica Player in the International Blues Challenge 2014 in Memphis. You may remember Jerome Godboo from the 90’s with the “Phantoms” with almost three decades in the biz, he has been making music, albums and a glowing reputation among his peers and fans. When Jerome Godboo graces the stage, he wears his trademark tool belt low on the hips with ease he draws forth a stunning array of harmonicas, one in every key his harp blows talent, musically he slays the audience. In TV westerns hero cowboys with quicksilver fingers, are capable of drawing their weapon from deep slung holsters in the blink of an eye, pegging off tin cans or rattle snakes without pause. ![]()
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