Blues Harp Player

Style:  Delta Blues

Influences: Phil Wiggins, Sonny Terry, Big Walter, James Cotton, Billy Branch

Interview

Kirk: So, Czechia, how was it?
Leo: Pretty amazing. It was intense...12 days of travel, with just one day off in the middle. Some drives were only an hour or so, but others were four or five hours.
We’d check into a hotel, have a couple of hours to get ourselves together, then soundcheck, play the gig, and go to bed, sometimes completely burnt out.

Kirk: Did that lifestyle suit you?
Leo: I’ve never done anything like that before. Some parts I loved, others made me a bit homesick.
I enjoy living in Glasgow, but it was fascinating to travel so much. The venues were great, and getting fed every day was a big perk...free food and not having to think about what to eat (laughs).

Kirk: Yeah.
Leo: It almost felt like being a minor celebrity with venues making sure you’re happy and taken care of, and the crowds were so positive. We didn’t have a single bad show.
The promotion was fantastic, and people seemed really interested in us, probably because we were billed as a Scottish band. We sold out all our merch in the first couple of days; the whole thing went as well as it possibly could have.

Kirk: That’s impressive! Putting together 13 gigs in 12 days here would be tough.
Leo: Yeah, getting paid, getting fed, and drawing good audiences.

Kirk: Who set this all up?
Leo: The tour organizer has bands touring year-round. He even reached out midway through to book us for another tour, but he didn’t have availability until 2028. He runs multiple types of tours—some shorter, some longer—and seems incredibly organized.

Kirk: So, how many miles do you think you travelled overall?
Leo: Easily over 5,000 miles. Some drives were short, but others were much longer.

Kirk: That’s serious travel.
Leo: We started in Pilsen, near the German border, then up to the northern Czech border, then into Germany, and back. The route was mostly logical, but there were a couple of long jumps.
We had one driver, Steve McNaughton, a longtime friend of the band—and he did an incredible job, even in tough driving conditions.

Kirk: That must’ve been exhausting.
Leo: Yeah, it was a lot. We used a Mitsubishi Triton pickup truck—just big enough for five people and all our gear. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but it did the job.

Kirk: And did you grow fond of it?
Leo: Yeah, by the end of the tour, I had some affection for it. It became part of the whole experience.

Kirk: As a harmonica player, your gear must be the lightest. How many harps did you bring?
Leo: I filled every slot in my pack—I brought 16 harmonicas. My case holds 14, and I usually carry 12, one for each major key plus a couple of spares. For this trip, I took three of the keys we use the most, plus some extras, and I still had to buy more while we were there.

Kirk: Really? Did the reeds blow out?
Leo: Yeah, I go through reeds constantly. I’ve talked to other harmonica players, and I feel like this might just be a "me" problem. But I play in a loud band, in loud venues, often without monitors. That means I can’t always hear myself properly.

Kirk: That must be tough, it’s probably harder for a harmonica player than a vocalist. At least vocalists can feel vibrations if they put their hand against their ear. With a harmonica, you've got nothing.
Leo: Yeah, it’s all muscle memory. I’ve played plenty of gigs where I couldn’t hear myself at all. I just had to trust that I remembered how it felt.

Kirk: I’ve played harmonica before—nothing fancy—but it’s such a physical instrument. It pulls you in through movement, creating a deeper connection.
Leo: Definitely. And when Taylor (Whyte) and I really lock in, reacting and bonding together, it drives him forward—and me, too.

Kirk: How important is movement to you when you’re playing? Does it just happen, or do you consciously lean into it?
Leo: It started naturally, but over time, it became intentional. I’m not a dancer—I don’t know anything about dancing—but music has always been physical for me. Even just listening, I instinctively move, even if it’s just nodding my head.

When we practiced, I started moving more, getting into the groove with everyone, and eventually, I carried that onto the stage. I think part of it is that, in a band, the drummer, bassist, and guitarist are all visibly active, but with harmonica, even when I’m playing rhythm, it doesn’t always look like much is happening. Moving helps justify my presence on stage, it shows I’m engaged, not just standing there playing.

I would also get nervous about performing, so focusing on the music and reacting physically helps ground me. Taylor’s drumming, Ray’s bass and Jonny’s guitar playing all create such great opportunities to react to one another and improvise, even with songs we’ve played a hundred times. Blues has this communal spirit where players really appreciate each other on stage.

Kirk: Yeah, I’ve seen that.
Leo: Moving, reacting, dancing, it’s part of that appreciation. Over time, people started noticing it, saying it added to the performance. Taylor even told me it helps him focus and enjoy himself. So, I leaned into it more, making it a conscious part of my performance while still keeping it genuine.

Kirk: You’ve got a consistent lineup now, don’t you? That trust must help you loosen up and experiment.
Leo: Absolutely. The more we play together, the more we can take risks and have fun.

Kirk: Yeah.
Leo: Music and movement are inextricably linked. You can’t have one without the other. That’s why getting people up and dancing at a show is so rewarding. It changes the atmosphere, makes the experience feel alive, and tells us we must be doing something right.

Kirk: I connect completely with that.
Leo: Exactly—and I think that’s part of why I move while playing. It helps create that extra layer of connection.

Of course, not everyone experiences music the same way. People’s minds and bodies work differently. But for me, the way Blue Milk plays—loud, energetic, filled with rhythm and dynamic shifts—it would feel dishonest to just stand still.

Kirk: Yeah.
Leo: Obviously, if the stage is small, I have to rein it in a bit. And it’s not instant—it takes a bit to get into it. But I genuinely believe you can’t have music without movement. If you do, you’re doing something wrong.

Kirk: Back to the harmonica: since you blow out reeds, have you ever come close to passing out on stage?
Leo: Not quite, but I’ve pulled a muscle in my shoulder more than once. I don’t know if it’s from how hard I’m blowing, the way I move, or just a lack of fitness (laughs).

Kirk: That’s intense.
Leo: Sometimes, in high-energy gigs, I’ve gotten dizzy, but I’ve never been at real risk of passing out—except when I fake it for comic effect.

Kirk: That’s a relief. So, I understand you’re now teaching harmonica. How long have you been doing that?
Leo: Not very long—I started recently. At the end of last year, a couple of people reached out looking for a harmonica tutor in Glasgow, and they couldn’t find one. They heard about me, knew I lived nearby, and asked if I’d give lessons.

Kirk: And?
Leo: I decided to try it, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I only have a couple of students, but they’re learning fast, and the process has been rewarding.

I think a lot of people struggle to learn from online tutorials, especially with Blues techniques like bending notes. A lot of teaching methods aren’t that intuitive, so I try to explain things based on how I understand them now rather than how I was taught. It seems to be working—my students have made fast progress.

It’s not a career move, just something I do for the love of it. But I do really enjoy it.

Kirk: When did your love for the harmonica start?
Leo: Around 14. I always enjoyed singing and music. I tried violin when I was really young but never connected with it.

My dad and stepdad were both very musical in different ways. One day, I just decided that harmonica seemed like a cool thing to learn—it’s portable, easy to carry anywhere. That year, I got one for Christmas or my birthday, along with a book and tape, by a guy brilliantly called David Harp, on how to play.

At first, it just sat there unused. Then, I was basically told, “Sit down and learn this.” So, I did—and got into it quickly.

My stepdad was really into The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and older music like The Ink Spots and Nina Simone. That kind of music shaped my early playing.

My stepdad would play guitar and sing, and I’d try to play along. Dylan was heavily influenced by Blues, and The Beatles had a lot of rock and roll and bluesy elements, too. Eventually, I joined an extremely bad indie rock band in school—pretty much a rite of passage for my age group.

One day at practice, I brought my harmonica. During a break, I started playing it, and our guitarist came over, excited. He asked if I liked Blues, and when I said yes, he got really enthusiastic—he’d discovered the genre through The White Stripes, which led him to artists like Son House and Blind Willie McTell.

We started diving deep into Blues together—buying CDs on weekends, listening, and eventually playing it ourselves.

Kirk: Right.
Leo: This was the early internet era, so we built a website with an email address on it. Somehow, a few guys in Sheffield—where I grew up—found us. They were Blues players too, and we met, became friends, and started going to jam sessions in Sheffield.

Jam sessions in Sheffield were very different from the electric stage jams in Glasgow. Back home, there was a pub called the Red Deer where, once a month, the organizers booked a couple of booths at the back. They’d turn off the speakers in the back of the pub, and musicians would gather with acoustic instruments, playing for each other while people listened. That was my understanding of jam sessions. Moving to Glasgow and experiencing the big, electrified jams was a shock.

But I kept playing harmonica, teaching myself, improving, listening to Sonny Terry, Big Walter, James Cotton, and others. Then, when I was 15 or 16, I got the chance to attend Blues Week.

Kirk: ‘Kin hell, that sounds amazing.
Leo: It was absolutely brilliant. Blues Week still runs every year in England—they take over a university campus for a week, and you can attend, paying a fee that covers room, board, and nonstop classes with professional musicians.

I checked recently, and the lineup now is incredible. When I attended, I was lucky—the older generation of Blues players were still alive, teaching. I took lessons from two incredible players - Tom Ball and Phil Wiggins, who played with John Cephas.

Wiggins and Cephas were an acoustic duo, much like me and my friend at the time. Everything Wiggins taught me stuck with me—he completely transformed how I played. He taught me to see the harmonica as a rhythm instrument, not just for flashy solos. It made the harmonica feel like a complete instrument rather than just an embellishment.

After that, I was fully committed. I already knew harmonica was my thing, but Blues Week sealed the deal.

Kirk: Do you have a preferred brand of harmonicas?
Leo: I grew up playing Hohners and they’re still my favourite today; I’m particularly fond of the Special 20 lately.

Kirk: Do you ever write songs and if so, is that something you do on the Harmonica?
Leo: I've only written five or six songs in my life, and at least one of them is lost to time now. I’m not a big songwriter, but there's just been a couple of times in my life when an idea came to me that I couldn’t ignore. I play ukulele, so that’s what my songs are written on. I also play the banjo, and I’ve written a few banjo tunes.

Kirk: What genre of music?
Leo: Somebody suggested the term dark cabaret, which sounds a bit pretentious, that’s the vibe. Somebody mentioned Tom Waits, somebody compared me to Jake Thackeray, which was amazing because I loved Thackeray growing up.

Kirk: Kurt Veil maybe?
Leo: Yeah, I suppose. Jake Thackeray and Kurt Veil mixed together, but then the most recent song I wrote is just like a straight GCDA thing and it sounds nothing like the other ones.

And lyrically it is a completely different turn to other ones as well. When I was a teenager, I wrote a couple of Blues songs. Most of them were exactly as rubbish as you’d expect a blues song written by an English teenager to be.

So, I don’t write a lot of songs, but I used to be quite involved with the Spoken Word and Poetry scene in Glasgow.

Kirk: So, what is that then? Is that like jazz poetry, Slam…that kind of thing?
Leo:  Yeah, people just going up and reading their poetry. The Glasgow scene and Scotland in general had quite heavily adopted the poetry slam idea.

There are poetry reading competitions. These involve reading and performing your poetry and winning prizes. That came out of Chicago originally, but it's all over now.

I competed and I came second one year and then third one year in the Scottish National competition. To be honest most of the stuff I wrote wasn't poetry; it was alternative comedy. But I just never had the balls to go and do it on a comedy night. I'd just do it at poetry nights, and it always went down pretty well.

So, I used to do quite a lot of that, and I think because I had completed a performance degree, I did ok.

Kirk: A performance degree. What’s that?
Leo: I did my degree at the RSAMD, which is now called The Conservatoire. It was a course called Contemporary Performance Practice. It's like a mixture of what they call “Live Art” these days, and applied drama. It was a bizarre experience at times, but pretty life-changing to be honest.

Kirk: Love that. So still on the topic of performance, did I see that you and Jonny (McGiffen) go out as a duo sometimes?
Leo: Yes, we play acoustically sometimes.

Kirk: Right, and what do you call yourself when you do that?
Leo: When we're out doing that, we'll say we're Johnny and Leo and we use it to market Blue Milk.

It's a more lightweight option, which appeals to some of the smaller venues. They want acoustic stuff. So yeah, we've got a few places around town that we play quite regularly.

Kirk: And you try to go out as a support act for some touring musicians with the duo lineup?
Leo: For higher profile gigs like that we always prefer to work as a full band. That’s where the focus is. I love playing acoustic blues because it’s what I grew up on, but it’s just a side project really; and a way to spread the word about Blue Milk in these smaller, quieter venues.

Kirk: We mentioned teaching earlier, if you could have a harmonica lesson from any Blues legend, who would it be?
Leo: That’s a tough one, but I’d have to say Sonny Terry.

I love traditional acoustic Blues harmonica—the kind played with big chords, where the harmonica carries the whole song. I try to do it, with moderate success, but learning directly from Sonny Terry would be incredible.

There are also a lot of contemporary players who I don’t know well. They pop up on random compilations and playlist on Spotify, but some of what’s happening in the Chicago Blues scene right now is absolutely brilliant.

I’d gain a lot from learning directly from the musicians working today. But for the legends, Sonny Terry would be a top choice, maybe Billy Branch as well.

Kirk: Yeah, I know Billy Branch—he’s a New York player, right?
Leo: Yes, I’d love a lesson from him.

Kirk: The harmonica is an interesting instrument. Has the harmonica changed much over the years, or is it essentially the same as when it was first created?

Leo: At a basic level, it’s still the same instrument.

Originally, all harmonicas had wooden combs with the holes that you blow into. Eventually, plastic combs became common, and now players can choose from different types of wood like bamboo or rosewood.

Some changes are more subtle. The Hohner Marine Band was once considered the gold standard for Blues harmonica, but its reputation has shifted over time. Some players say it’s because they manufacture them in China instead of Germany, but I’m not sure how much that impacts the quality. A lot of players now prefer Hohner Special 20s, that’s what I tend to play.

A few years ago, Hohner introduced modular designs, making harmonicas easier to take apart and repair. Now, instead of replacing an entire harmonica, you can just swap out the reed plates, which is great, it’s cheaper and more practical.

Some players enjoy fixing and modifying harmonicas themselves, but I haven’t learned how to do that yet.

There’s also variation between manufacturers. Hohner is popular, but the German company Seydel has a strong following. They use steel reeds instead of brass, which gives a different tone. Some players love it, others don’t.

In the last few years, Chinese companies like East Top and Kongsheng have started producing surprisingly high-quality harps at lower prices.

That said, if you found a well-preserved harmonica from the 1950s, cleaned it up, and played it, it wouldn’t feel drastically different from modern ones, as long as it’s the same basic model.

Kirk: I once heard that you should dunk a brand-new harmonica in Guinness before playing it. Is that a myth?
Leo: I’ve heard all sorts of stories. Someone told me Neil Young kept his harmonicas in a goldfish bowl filled with water on top of his piano.

There’s also talk about putting harmonicas in beer. When playing a wooden comb harmonica, the moisture can make the wood swell, creating a more airtight seal. In theory, a well-made harmonica shouldn’t need that, but some players swear by it.

Kirk: It sounds cool, though aged in rum and oak barrels!
Leo: Exactly! Maybe it just makes your harmonica taste better.

Kirk: Some harmonica players use an SM58, some use a bullet mic. What’s your setup for amplification?
Leo: I’ve experimented with different setups. Most of the time, I use an SM58, but right now, I have an old Ross dual impedance mic from the 80s. It looks a bit like the old Shure 585SA that James Cotton used to play.

It has dual impedance, so I can switch between a distorted, rough tone or a cleaner sound, depending on what I want. And it’s silver, which looks great.

I used to own a Green Bullet, but I lost it during a house move. Honestly, I never loved playing. it’s too big for my hands, and its flat, round shape always felt awkward.

Bullet mics are amazing for that thick, classic Chicago Blues tone, but they really only do that sound. If you want versatility, you need something else. So, I stick to mics close to an SM58, but maybe a few bells and whistles stuck on.

Kirk: Do you use any effects?
Leo: Sometimes I use an XVive Tube Squasher pedal—it mimics the warmth of a valve amp, but it’s really just an overdrive and tone control.

It can be fun, but honestly, I’ve often found it more trouble than it’s worth in most venues. If my cupping technique is solid, I can shape the tone naturally. Also, a lot depends on the PA system and what it’s plugged into.

Kirk: It seems like such a German instrument. I’ll have to look up who invented it, but it has been adopted quite extensively into American music culture hasn’t it? What do you actually refer to the instrument as when you talk about it?

Leo: It’s definitely been Americanized.

Kirk: How do you refer to it usually? Harmonica? Or harp?

Leo: I say either harmonica or Blues harp. The instrument I call the harmonica; if I’m talking about playing it, I would call it a Blues Harp. There are all sorts of fun names for it though… “The Mississippi Saxophone,” “The Gob Iron.”

There is some confusion about its origins. Before the harmonica existed, there were other “Free Reed” instruments out there. For example in China there's one called a Sheng, and there's a few other ones that generate sound the same way as harmonica, but they look different. And they are played differently.

Kirk: And so that involves human breath? It's not mechanical in any form?

Leo: Well, the Sheng has buttons. It's a wild looking thing, but the sound is generated by reeds that are attached at one end and free at the other end.

The Harmonica itself is often attributed to a guy called Buschmann, but there's no proof that he invented it, and I'm not sure he even claimed to have invented it. I think somebody, at some point, decided that he was the guy.

Kirk: The cross-harp technique wasn’t around until much later, right? Back then, it was more of a cowboy thing—picture someone lying by the campfire on the prairie, playing Home on the Range.

Leo: Yeah, that classic cowboy harmonica sound—it’s nice.

Kirk: But is that based on actual history, or just a Hollywood myth?
Leo: I have no idea, but it’s a good image.

Kirk: If you could have a 5-minute conversation with someone alive or dead about a music related topic, who would it be?

Leo: The guy who taught me harmonica, Phil Wiggins. I always wanted to see him again—20 or so years later—to show him where I ended up thanks to his lessons. But he passed away around this time last year, so I never got the chance.

Kirk: It’s amazing how much impact a teacher can have. One of my good friends, a guitar teacher, passed away recently.

He mentored hundreds, maybe thousands of kids, and I’ve never seen a funeral with so many generations represented. People from six years old to their eighties—all touched by the music he taught them.

Leo: Absolutely, yeah.
Kirk: Music teaching can have an enormous effect on people’s lives. And for those who stick with it—forming bands, playing professionally just keeps growing.

Leo: Completely. A good teacher, one who truly impacts you, stays with you forever—even if you only learned from them briefly.

Kirk: Cheers to Phil Wiggins.
Leo: And to Brian.

Kirk: Shall we take a photo?
Leo: Why not?

Kirk: What’s your connection with Glasgow Bridge?
Leo: It’s my route into town from where I live. I used to live in Glasgow’s South Side but had to move away. A couple of years ago, I managed to move back, it’s always been my favourite part of the city.

It’s also close to the Scotia, where I played my first gig in Glasgow.

People who know me know I have a thing about bridges, especially taking photos of them. I love capturing views from bridges. It would feel wrong not to take a photo here!

Note: So, we go out and we take some photos on the bridge and they are fine but I don’t feel that I am capturing the essence of who Leo is as a live performer so I suggest we go to my photography studio in St Vincent Street.

I remember that Leo made a reference to “Big Walter” (Horton) and recall a photo of Big Walter on stage that I like.  I decide to use that as a reference for the cover image of this page…