Hooked on Harmonicawith Catfish Jack
Catfish Jack smiling in a red plaid shirt against a dark barn-wood wall

About

Catfish Jack: Northern California Blues Harp Player & Teacher

Playing since 1983. Teaching since 1997. Still a lifelong student of the music.

How it started

I can remember seeing the harmonica bounce off the side of the drawer. My good friend and musical mentor, Tommy "3 Chord" Nevins, handed me the harmonica and I've been gone ever since. I'll always be grateful for that day, and for Tom giving me my first harmonica. My life truly changed that day.

Since that summer of 1983 I've never looked back. How fortunate for me that at that time the blues was having a revival! I got the opportunity to see and hear many of the remaining great blues musicians, including seeing and meeting Muddy Waters' harp player James Cotton in Chicago.

Fast forward to 2001 and I got to sit in with Los Lobos and Charlie Musselwhite at the San Francisco Blues Festival. And I closed out the last set of the 25th Annual Kate Wolf Music Festival with the phenomenal Ruthie Foster. What a ride!

Catfish Jack playing acoustic guitar, fretting hand up the neck
He’s right up there with the other famous guys like Charlie Musselwhite, Little Walter, and Sonny Boy Williamson… He could play every style that morphed out of the eras and locations of blues.
Thirty years ago in West Oakland there was a little fish market where every few days two old bluesmen, “Big Bob Deance” and “Carl Good Rocking Robinson,” would come in and say “Hey, Jack! How’s the catfish today?” And that’s how he got his name.

Debra Eloise, Anderson Valley Advertiser, March 11, 2020

Played harmonica with

Some of it booked, some of it sitting in. All of it his own account.

  • Los Lobos
  • Charlie Musselwhite
  • Ruthie FosterGrammy-nominated
  • Terrance SimienZydeco master
  • Earl Poole BallJohnny Cash's piano player of twenty years
  • Seth Walker
  • Tommy ThomsenWestern Swing Hall of Fame
  • Po' GirlCanadian folk
  • The Mother Truckers
  • Sara Elizabeth Campbell

And met along the way

  • Willie Dixon 1989Chess Records — wrote “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Little Red Rooster,” “Spoonful”
  • James CottonMuddy Waters’ harp player — met in Chicago during the blues revival

The lineage

Who he came up on

Originally the Chicago players:

  • Little Walter
  • James Cotton
  • Sonny Boy Williamson
  • Big Walter Horton

Then, as he puts it, he fell under the trance of the country players:

  • Sonny Terry
  • Charlie McCoy
  • Mickey Raphael
Catfish Jack playing harmonica on stage facing Ruthie Foster, who is playing acoustic guitar

The turn

I played for years before I went back to the scales. That's what opened it up.

I'd been at it a long time, and I'd got about as far as licks and instinct were going to take me. I could hold my own. I just wasn't getting any better.

Going back and doing the work on the scales is what took the lid off.

More on the scales work

Catfish Jack leaning into a blues harp, hands cupped tight around it to shape the tone

How the teaching started

It turned out I was pretty good at teaching, so I began my teaching career in 1997.

I've been fortunate to teach at music festivals including the Kate Wolf Music Festival, Wild Iris Folk Festival and the Redwood Ramble. I'm a resident teacher at Joe Craven's RiverTunes Roots Music Camp and the West Coast Ukulele Retreat.

I'm so grateful for the hundreds of private students I've had over the years. But one of the most fun — and most rewarding — things I've done has been teaching kids to play harmonica. Whether it's in schools, music camps or libraries, it's a load of fun.

  • 1983Given his first harmonica by his friend and mentor Tommy “3 Chord” Nevins — and never looked back.
  • Saw and met Muddy Waters’ harp player James Cotton in Chicago during the blues revival.
  • 1989Met Willie Dixon — the man who wrote “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Little Red Rooster” and “Spoonful,” and much of the Chess Records songbook.
  • 1997Started teaching — and has taught hundreds of private students since.
  • Living in Austin, Texas, started sitting in with the Grammy-nominated Ruthie Foster — and with Seth Walker, the Mother Truckers and other Austin regulars.
  • 2001Sat in with Los Lobos and Charlie Musselwhite at the San Francisco Blues Festival.
  • Closed out the last set of the 25th Annual Kate Wolf Music Festival with the phenomenal Ruthie Foster.

Watch

Out playing, which is where all of this comes from.

A full band set under the Old Caz Beer tent — Jack on harmonica, and a kid out front who could not help herself.
Two-piece in a garden under string lights, with a vintage trailer parked behind the band.

Photos

On stage, in class, and at the camps.

Catfish Jack playing harmonica on stage facing Ruthie Foster, who is playing acoustic guitar
Playing with Ruthie Foster at the Redwood Ramble, 2017.
Catfish Jack playing harmonica on an outdoor stage among redwoods, with the crowd's hands raised in the foreground
On stage among the redwoods.
Seven adult harmonica students posing in a redwood grove with harmonicas held in their mouths, name badges on
A harmonica class at Joe Craven's RiverTunes Roots Music Camp.
The whole RiverTunes music camp gathered for a group photo, instruments in hand and arms waving
The whole camp, RiverTunes.
Five kids playing ukuleles around a picnic table outside a school, one belting out the song
Teaching kids at a school — ukuleles this time.
A band jamming in a barn under strings of fairy lights — harmonica, bass, accordion, fiddle and a big frame drum
A barn jam, everybody in.
Catfish Jack sitting on railroad tracks with an acoustic guitar across his lap, playing harmonica
Guitar on the lap, harp in both hands.
Catfish Jack sitting on the edge of a stage, singing and playing acoustic guitar under a single spotlight
Sitting on the edge of the stage.
Close-up of a hand fretting a chord on an acoustic guitar
Working on a chord shape.

Want to learn?

I feel grateful and honored to pass this on. Send me a note and we'll set up a time to talk.

Email Catfish Jack More ways to reach me