Harmonica Blowout Blows Out Moe's Alley

Moe's Alley was surprisingly packed for $30 a ticket on a Monday night when a handful of musicians played an instrument that is often confused for a toy.

Mark Hummel has spent years honing his annual Harmonica Blowout show, bringing musicians of the 10-holed instrument from around the world to places that may never have seen them before.

While the musicians Monday weren't particularly exotic, the theme was: It was a night devoted to Marion Walter Jacobs, who died in 1968 at the age of 37, and who in 2008 was the first harmonica player inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame solely for his work on the instrument.

His 1952 song "Juke" was the only harmonica instrumental to make the #1 slot on the R&B charts, and he was such an inspiration to later generations, that for years Carlos Santana used his name as an alias when he stayed at hotels.

Five harmonica players covered Jacobs' songs, including Charlie Musselwhite and Billy Boy Arnold, who played around Chicago during Jacobs' lifetime. Arnold, who switched during his performance from guitar to harmonica, was the man who gave rock artist Bo Diddley his name and his famous beat.

Others included Curtis Salgado, who was the model for John Belushi and Dan Ayckroyd in the Blues Brothers movies, Sugar Ray Norcia, formerly with the East Coast band Roomful of Blues and Hummel, from Walnut Creek.

They played some three and a half hours of music to an appreciative crowd that stayed out late on a school night and waited until the final song, when all the musicians traded solos.

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