“A song is like a women’s dress, it’s got to be long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep you interested.” – James Harman

Make no mistake, a giant has departed our mortal coil. James Harman left us all alone, in this mean old world, to fend for ourselves. On May 19, 2021, just three weeks shy of his 75^th birthday, James Harman died. He played the part of an irascible, roguish, raconteur with great conviction. Harman was also one of the most universally admired and respected blues men of his generation. 

He was an effective harmonica player and a terrific singer. He was a bandleader who always fronted topflight ensembles. Yet, he will likely be best remembered as a songwriter without peer. He was both prolific and had a very high batting average. His albums featured mostly original material, covering a wide range of topics.

He was as creative as he was complicated. Harman had a keen sense of irony and had the observational skills of a police detective turned sketch artist. There was no detail too small or insignificant to be left out of the story he was telling through song. Everything was delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

He may have lived in Southern California for the better part of the last 50 years, but Calhoun County, Alabama, was where his voice and musical sensibilities took up permanent residence. His performances were often like a tent revival, travelling medicine show and the midway of a county fair all rolled into one. He had the flair and flourish of a country preacher, street corner hustler and carnival barker. He seemed to revel in the role of bar room bard. Nobody, it seemed, ever left a James Harman performance disappointed or without merch.

James Harman was a perfectionist. You can hear it in the attention to detail in every one of his songs. It is in these songs where he could assert the most control over his presentation. There wasn’t one aspect of the recording process, right down to the album cover art and liner notes in which he wasn’t intimately involved. He oversaw everything and the public never saw it or heard it, until he liked it and was completely satisfied.

I believe that this was a way to compensate for an imprecise, imperfect world of the live performance aspect of his art. This is the real world in which he lived and where he had precious little control. From fouled up airline schedules to bad sound guys, stoned and asleep at the switch, from unsavory nightclub owners, to obnoxious drunken fans, bad P.A.s and lighting, to lousy food and cheap drinks, Harman has seen, felt, heard and tasted it all. He never suffered fools lightly. Yet, he suffered more and more in recent years, as the music industry and blues music in particular was practically ripped out from under him.

He took a deep global view of the blues, it’s history and where he fit into that ongoing narrative. In 1998, I was talking to Harman backstage at the massive Long Beach Blues Festival where he was on the bill. He said, “Dave, look out there. What do you see?” I told him I saw a lot of people. He said, “That’s true but only 10% of them are blues fans.” He went on to explain that, “90% of them were rock fans slumming it for the weekend.” He then focused his ire on the blues society crowd and told me, “It is their mission to kill this music and reshape it into something they like, which is classic rock.”

I told him I thought he was full of shit. To which he just shrugged and said in his always distinctive Anniston, Alabama, drawl, “I’m just sayin’...” I thought at the very least, that he was taking an absurdly cynical view of this music. I thought, ‘How can anybody not love it the way I do?’ Through the years of course, I came to realize he was dead bullseye, spot on and 100% right about his assessment. I have never been able to give Harman the proper credit (until now) for inspiring my famous (or infamous) editorials relating to these “sorry, misguided thieves”, as he called them, because he couldn’t afford to lose even a tiny percentage of his audience, which these “crooks, posing as do gooders” represent.  

Long before the blues society scourge infected the scene, James Harman had been hustling and scuffling in the blues world. His move to Southern California in the early ‘70s started out modestly enough with his Ice House Blues Band. They famously backed up Los Angeles area transplants like Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Big Joe Turner and others. It wasn’t long before The James Harman Band was formed, subtitled: “Those Dangerous Gentlemen.” They were just that.  The band had various iterations, but was always fronted by Harman, who has been described as being the most authentic Caucasian blues singer of all-time. He played harp with conviction and verve. He seemed to know what each song required. This is where his mentorship from Big Walter Horton shined through.   

He always left plenty of space for his other band members and provided a large platform and bright spotlight for them to blossom. Perhaps the most celebrated guitar tandem in modern blues was in the James Harman Band, when David “Kid” Ramos was joined by Michael Mann, aka…Hollywood Fats. Harman should be credited for putting Hollywood Fats in front of large audiences for a few years. This band also featured bassist Willie J. Campbell and Stephen Hodges on drums.

Finding recordings by this band isn’t difficult, but you have to know where to look. Perhaps this search should come with the following addendum: Every album released by James Harman through the years is a collection of songs. Harman was like a chef. He knew what ingredients were needed in each dish. Each of his albums had various musicians who Harman would add to give each song the best flavor. Each song would also complement each other to create an aural feast. However, the albums in which this famous guitar tandem can be heard are Those Dangerous Gentlemen, Thank You Baby, This Band Won’t Behave (EP, only available on vinyl), Extra Napkins and Strictly Live in ’85.

Like previous Harman Band member, pianist Gene Taylor, Hollywood Fats would join Phil Alvin’s Blasters. Alvin himself got his start with James Harman. Ramos got off the road with Harman to start a family before joining up with Harman alum Taylor and Campbell in Kim Wilson’s reformed and retooled Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Guitarists Joel Foy and Teddy Morgan signed on for a brief stint with Harman and can be heard on songs that appeared on 1991’s Do Not Disturb and 1993’s Two Sides to Every Story respectively. Then young Robbie “Sugar Boy” Eason of Fallbrook, California, settled in for a spell and appears on albums which include Cards on the Table and Black and White.

It was during this period where Harman really found his wings. Working with producer Jerry Hall and the inner workings of a nimble mind, songs continued to pour out of Harman. The best blues musicians in the greater Los Angeles area lined up to be in the studio with him. They included, but were not limited to, Fender bassist Jeff Turmes, who also could be found playing an occasional bottle neck slide guitar, tenor or baritone sax, pianists Tom Mahon and Fred Kaplan, as well as guitarist Junior Watson. 

The blues is always on uneven footing, but it couldn’t stand up straight after the tragic events of 9/11/01. By “tragic events” I include the George W. Bush presidency and the economic collapse brought on by his political party’s deregulatory love fest and greed. With the global economy in a free fall, a reoccurring feature of Republican administrations, the blues revival of the ’80, and especially the ‘90s, also came to crashing halt.

Yet, James Harman persevered largely through an association with another guitarist from the small rural community of Fallbrook, Nathan James. Nathan, his bassist Troy Sandow and drummer Marty Dodson were with Harman until his passing.

Harman’s influence on the young guitarist can’t be overstated, but the opposite is also true as well. Nathan James was an incredibly stabilizing influence on Harman during this difficult period in his life. Separated by a generation these two were kindred spirits. Harman isn’t prone to hyperbole and is cursed with unflinching honesty in his communiques, yet, he heaped effusive praise on Nathan James. Harman has repeatedly called him his favorite guitar player. Nathan could play the old timey finger picking blues styles of previous generations in ways that Harman truly enjoyed. Nathan’s laidback manner helped to cool Harman’s often fiery temper.

Nathan, Troy and Marty (these guys are so cool they even have me using their first names) were more often than not joined by percussionist Mike Tempo. This twenty plus year association with these four musicians turned out to be part of the final chapter in the career of James Harman.

They executed one of the most creative and unexpected leaps of faith heard in the world of blues music. They followed their leader’s original yet traditional blues with a world music sensibility. Mike Tempo is a sensational session musician. He added the missing ingredients to this multi-cultural stew that had been simmering in Harman’s brain for years. Tempo (yeah, that’s his real last name) played congas, bongos, claves, guiro, maracas, tambourine, timbales and anything else he could get his hands, elbows and feet on. He literally, as well as figuratively, brought all the bells and whistles to the bandstand. These musicians allowed James Harman to expand his musical palette even further.

With some harsh economic realities closing in, Harman was forced to make his annual summer European tours without his regular band. He was fortunate and happy to find extremely qualified blues musicians all over that continent who were thrilled to be playing in support of a true living legend. He was a big hit on the lucrative European summer festival circuit. Harman once told me “It was hamburger at home and steak on the road.”

He was often backed by the international ensemble, based in Sweden, Trickbag when he was in that country as well as in Finland and Norway. Harman returned the favor by appearing on two Trickbag albums 2013’s Trickbag with Friends Volume 1 and 2016’s Volume 2. These appearances include Harman singing and blowing on his own original compositions.

Peter Nande and Ronnie Boysen, the great Danes, did the same for Harman in Denmark, booking shows for him in that country. Nande in particular was a Harman devotee, as he recorded three albums, two of which have been released, 2006’s Big Boy Boogie: California Sessions Volume 1 and 2008’s Jelly Bean Baby: California Sessions Volume 2, as well as Rootin’ Around California Sessions Volume 3, which is still sitting on the shelf. Harman produced all three albums, contributed original tunes, sang and blew harp on a few tracks. He served as vocal coach to the Danish blues man. If Nande sounds a lot like Harman, and he does, it is for a very good reason. All three albums were recorded at Nathan James’ Sacred Cat Studios in Oceanside, California.

Two for the Road is a 2009 Tim Lothar and Peter Nande album that was produced by James Harman. Harman sings on three and co-wrote two songs. He even wrote the liner notes.

In 2018, James Harman produced an album by Belgium’s Shakedown Tim and the Rhythm Revue entitled Shakedown’s Th’owdown. He contributed his harp to three songs including his own instrumental, Icepick’s Shakedown Th’owdown. Harman’s old pianist Gene Taylor sits in with this group on the album.

The 2019 album entitled Catawampus by a European collective called Cornbread closes with Harman in spoken word vocal mode reciting his Grandmothers cornbread recipe, complete with the kind of details one might expect from any Harman recitation.

James Harman has received production, vocal, harmonica and/or songwriting credits on albums by Jamie Wood, Gary Primich, the Mannish Boys, Patrick Recob, ZZ Top, Mark Hummel, Enrico Crivellaro and many others.

I particularly enjoy the contributions he has made to longtime Harman side man, Kid Ramos’ albums such as 1999’s self-titled offering, 2000’s West Coast House Party and 2001’s Greasy Kid Stuff. The same can be said for his generosity towards Nathan James’ projects, 2003’s This Road is Mine, 2009’s I Don’t Know It, 2012’s What You Make of It and 2017’s What I Believe.

Harman used to carry with him in the studio a satchel full of songs he had written but not recorded. He also carried completed songs on various media, that have been recorded but never released. In later years these were all condensed on a laptop. He had literally hundreds of songs from which to choose for any project…anywhere. Harman songs are scattered all over the world.

It was his talent and facility for songwriting that separated Harman from the pack. He was a veritable waterfall of ideas that never dried up and just keeps cascading down the side of a mountain without ever letting up or drying out.

“A song is like a women’s dress, it’s got to be long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep you interested.”

James Harman took an artform that is deeply rooted in tradition and added to that elusive language without stripping away anything that makes blues music so beautiful in the first place. This alone made Harman a compelling figure and one of the most important persons to stride across the modern blues landscape. He also reminded us that this music can be fun. That is something that can be easy to forget, but is as important a gift that he could have given us. I think I speak for all of us when I say, “THANK YOU BABY.” 

- David Mac