Michigan Music History Podcast -- MMHP989 · Scott Baker, Gary Johnson, Fred Reif, Mike Beattie

Michigan Music History Podcast--Peter 'Madcat' Ruth: Harmonica Heard From Ann Arbor To The World Part 1 of 2

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

Big Walter Horton’s lesson was only “you do it” and “no,” yet it changed Peter Ruth’s playing.

1. Michigan Music History Podcast -- MMHP989 centers on Peter Madcat Ruth’s path from Illinois folk music to Michigan blues and harmonica work. 2. Hosts Dr. J, Sir Fred, Mr. Mike, and Scott Baker interview Peter Madcat Ruth, who is introduced as a Grammy-winning guest and a longtime Ann Arbor musician. 3. The conversation asks how a Park Ridge teenager turned Sonny Terry admiration, Walter Horton lessons, and Brubeck gigs into a lifetime on harmonica. 4. Ruth says the Kingston Trio on WFMT in Chicago first caught his ear when he was 10, then Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, and Mississippi John Hurt pulled him into folk and blues. 5. He explains that Sonny Terry became his sole harmonica inspiration for a couple of years, and that hearing him at age 15 pushed Ruth to buy Folk Music at Newport. 6. Ruth says his father owned one Marine Band harmonica in B-flat, and he discovered he could play along with a Sonny Terry tune from the Newport record. 7. He describes his first high-school band as the Petey Tweety Band with Peter Swinnerton, playing ukulele, flute, sax, guitar, harmonica, and penny whistle in church basements and youth-group gigs. 8. Ruth says Bob Kester at the Jazz Record Mart pointed him toward Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues, then The Best of Little Walter and Chicago: The Blues Today. 9. He recalls an October 1966 blues weekend in an Oak Park Unitarian youth group that brought Johnny Young and Walter Horton to a church basement instead of the higher-priced Junior Wells and Buddy Guy. 10. Ruth says one of the players with Horton later turned out to be a young Iggy Pop on drums, a detail he only learned years later. 11. He describes calling Lincoln’s Grocery Store to reach Big Walter Horton, meeting him on 39th and Indiana, and paying in advance for lessons. 12. Ruth says Horton’s teaching method was almost entirely “you do it” and “no,” but the sound coming from the other side of the kitchen table felt huge and overpowering. 13. He says he went home and woodsheded with Chicago: The Blues Today and Little Walter records for six months before returning for another lesson. 14. Ruth says he met Chris Brubeck after a jam session with New Heavenly Blue students from Interlochen Arts Academy, and Chris later wrote to him from Interlochen to recruit him for a demo recording. 15. He recounts hitchhiking from Albuquerque to Chicago and then to Interlochen, and later flying standby to Hollywood for recording at the Sound Factory with producer Juddy Phillips, nephew of Sam Phillips. 16. Ruth says those sessions used one of the first 16-track machines in the United States, and some material went to the RCA album that grew out of New Heavenly Blue. 17. He explains that New Heavenly Blue later got another contract at Atlantic after playing Chris Brubeck’s 40-minute rock opera for producers who expected only a few songs. 18. Ruth says the band eventually fell apart, then he joined the Darius Brubeck Ensemble, learned horn parts on diatonic harmonicas, and toured in Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Holland. 19. The interview is conversational, detail-heavy, and full of named places such as Oak Park, Ann Arbor, Lincoln’s Grocery Store, and the Blind Pig. 20. Listeners who like Chicago blues history, Ann Arbor music scenes, and harmonica technique will get the most from this episode. 21. Listeners looking for a short, purely chronological hit list of songs and discography details may skip it.

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