In the mid-1800s, a German harmonica manufacturer named Hohner started exporting his product to North America. Being relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to play and extremely portable, the ...

Mark Hummel didn’t set out to be an impresario. He had no burning ambition to corner the market on the world’s greatest blues harmonica players. But after getting a bracing shot of energy from ...

“Classic Harmonica Blues,” out on May 21, features 20 tracks by the blues’ greatest harmonica players. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings In the early 20th-century, southern black ...

First as half of the duo Cephas and Wiggins and later on his own, he was one of the best-known musicians playing the style known as the Piedmont blues. By Clay Risen Phil Wiggins, a harmonica player ...