There is a man headed to Vancouver Island right now with a harmonica in his pocket. He has had one (at least one) there for the better part of 30 years. At a jam in the Czech Republic, it came out. At a campfire on the bank of the Alsek River, it came out. At Junior Wells’ regular table at Buddy Guy’s Legends bar in Chicago, it came out.
That man is Ethan Askey, and when he sat down with us on The PULSE Community Podcast, I had the feeling I was talking to someone who had done a very long, very deep apprenticeship in the art of paying attention.
Ethan is a singer, songwriter, and blues harmonica player based in Cranbrook, BC. Known in music circles as Shorty, he spent decades as a sideman before stepping out front with his 2022 debut album Walk When You Wanna Run – a record that spent over 160 weeks on the Canada Roots and Blues Top 50.
His new album, Outside the Lines is out now with his band The Elevators, featuring contributions by Steve Marriner, Susie Vinnick, and Jimmy Bowskill. That list tells you everything about the company he keeps.
He was a teenager who liked AC/DC and Scorpions, but on Sunday afternoons alone at home, he found The Band. The Last Waltz. Paul Butterfield. Muddy Waters. “I kept digging backwards,” he told me, “and I found Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.”
A young Ethan caught Junior Wells performing in Calgary. Between sets, Wells overheard him working through some riffs and came over. He gave Ethan his phone number and his address. Years later, Ethan took him up on it – and wound up walking four blocks through the Deep South Side of Chicago with a cedar box of smoked salmon under one arm, delivering it to Wells’ mother. “She spent the day picking it apart, drinking a pot of coffee, loving this fish,” Ethan said. That story became the album’s title track, and he told me every word of it is true.
Ethan spent years learning how to serve the song, how to fit in, how to play the part nobody applauds. “I’m a rhythm harmonica player in that I love playing organ parts and horn parts,” he said, “not out there just blowing my horn.” There is a discipline in that, and a generosity. He has taught at the Hornby Island Blues Camp, and when I asked what he tries to give players earlier in their journey, he said: “I try to demystify the instrument. Inside that little instrument, there’s almost infinite possibilities.” He said. “It’s all about the notes you don’t play.”
Ethan Askey and the Elevators will be performing across Vancouver Island this summer, including at the Parksville Museum Concert Series.
Hear the full conversation with Ethan Askey and the tune “Swing Like That”, on The PULSE Community Podcast at: https://bit.ly/S2EP38PulsePodcast
The PULSE Community website: ThePulseCommunity.ca
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/