THE BLUES

The St. Louis Blues Festival takes place tonight and tomorrow. I hope to go by and get some images of the musicians. This is from a few years ago, someone playing a blues harp, a harmonica put to special use. I’m shooting the first show of the St. Louis Fringe Festival tonight.           

Harp

.

A blues singer belts it out at last weekend's festival. You might wonder if his hands were cold but that wasn't possible. I think we've had 11 days with record high temperature so far in 2012, including Sunday when these were taken.

So what is with his hands? He is playing a small harmonica. usually known as a blues harp in this context. The players bend and twist the notes like hot oil. Here's a great example, played by Paul Butterfield. The crowd loved it but evidently the fashion police had not arrived by the time I took these.

Hey, there's actually going to be an Arch picture tomorrow.