Stevie Wonder
Though the music Stevie Wonder plays may not be strictly blues, his harmonica playing is a great inspiration to me.
I never found any interview with him specifically on harmonica technique and improvising.
His playing and comping is amazing, e.g some live performances with Sting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9R4egeg_I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnZgNYoZkeU
Any chance at all that David Barrett could ask him a few questions?
Thank you very much for the analysis Winslow Yerxa.
I did listen to the songs you recommended and that made me discover a lot of other songs from his early years.
The explanation on his playing does help me a lot in trying to play along and trying to replicate what I'm hearing.
I fully understand that a big artist like Stevie is hard to get to. Maybe his old director could give us any meaningful insights, that could be an option.
Stevie's notoriously hard to get to . He has people, and his people have people :) But maybe David can pull it off.
That said, I can offer a few observations on his style and how it developed.
Find two early Motown recordings, Paulsby, and Square. Notice how they're more jazz-influenced, but also notice how he's
1) Playing in C on a C chromatic
2) Moving the slide in and out on the draw notes, which gives him the blue notes in the scale: Eb (flat 3), Gb (flat 5) and Bb (flat 7) and also the Draw C.
3) jabbing the slide in or letting it out as a way of approaching a note - sort of like a tongue slap, but with the slide.
Now find Fingertips, the live version (the original studio recording has him playing bongos with melody on the flute, and sounds nothing like the live one). On this one, you hear his fully developed early style, moving fluidly through the C blues scale. One of his key moves in that early style is to :
1) Play a draw note
2) jab the slide in and let it out
3) Play the blow note in the same hole
Later he applied this approach to G and F scales, then moved it around to many different keys.
As an improviser on harmonica, Stevie has really been mainly about melody,and also about groove. He's never been much about licks or extended inpprovisations (although in recent years live video shows him doing more of that). For instance, listen to the extended version of "Isn't She Lovely?" (Key of E major on a C chromatic, early 1970s). He largely delivers the melody and noodles around close to it while seldom launching out very far. All the time, he keeps the groove going.
Also, find on YouTube his recent White House performance of "What's It All About, Alfie?" He recorded this under the pseudonym Eivets Rednow on his all-instrumental album in 1968, but here you get to hear him really milking the groove for all it's worth.
Little-known fact: Stevie Wonder played in an all-harmonica band as a child. He named the adult director in a 1980s magazine interview. It'd be interesting so see if the director is still alive and what he might have to say.