WEEKLY MORSEL: THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

...And the element of CHANGE.

I've been reading "BLUES WITH A FEELING", Little Walter's bio, kindly lent to me by harp wizard Hank Shreve. What it's done is open a time portal that's allowed me to imagine what it must have been like within the seminal early years of Walter's playing and recording in Chicago. Imagine this: It's late '52 or early '53. Horn players from Roy Milton's big band are standing around a cafe juke box that's playing Walter's new single, "MEAN OLD WORLD" trying to figure out what was producing "that sound". These guys were contemporary professional musicians -and they didn't have a clue! The sound of amplified harp was THAT NEW, THAT DIFFERENT!
Moral of our story? Dare to take chances, break rules, be different. Your efforts just might pay off and become part of the collective language...