Stoney Brooks

CRITIC’S PICK (and Interview with Stoney Brooks): The harmonica’s lonely call and intimate connection with its player seems perfectly suited to blues music, but in the hands of the wrong person, it can sound shrill and off-putting. In the hands of the right person, however, it’s as though it has a voice of its own that amplifies the colors of human vocals with sounds of punchy yellow and mellow green. Stoney Brooks is the right person.

While the harmonica seems like a simple instrument to play, Brooks’ years of study prove differently. In actuality, it has an “unseeable, mysterious, and elusive nature,” says Brooks, and he continues to be fascinated by the instrument and its latent potential and hidden complexity.

Brooks first encounter with its power was in 1974. “A fine local player named Jay Norem took me up on the roof of his apartments across the street from Piedmont Park to smoke. Hippies were playing frisbee and touch football. He started playing and they stopped and started listening.”

Brooks was hooked. He hit him up for lessons and learned some techniques of Delta blues pioneers like Sonny Boy Williamson II, Big Walter Horton, and Little Walter Jacobs. Another local player, Carrie Bell, taught him more combinations, patterns and grooves in the wee hours after his gigs. Brooks’ then-job as a long distance truck driver was perfect for refining his skills as he filled in the solitude at the end of a long driving day.

Perhaps his greatest lesson had less to do with how to play the instrument and more to do with whom he was playing for. Mentor Grady “Fats” Jackson’s “powerful wisdom in the form of gentle chastisement” taught him that, in fact, playing the harmonica was not such a lonely pursuit after all. Jackson’s words seem fresh to this day: “It ain’t my gig. It’s OUR gig – yours, mine, the rest of the band, the club owner, the bartender, the waitresses, and especially the customers in the place. It’s OUR gig.”

This approach is evident in Brooks’ performances today. For those new to harmonica-heavy blues, you’ll be caught up in the energy swirl in no time. While he’s describing his learning process, he might also be describing yours: “After a while you relax, and it just happens.” –Shannon Marie Tovey