Boundary expanding harmonica player Carlos Del Junco isn’t really in a musical headspace right now, being more concerned with house renovations.
While people seem to like his latest CD “Carlos del Junco and the Blues Mongrels ’ ‘Mongrel Mash,’ it seems like people would rather download it for free rather than pay for it at shows.
“It’s very frustrating. No sooner do you release it, than it is out being downloaded. It seems like a CD is a vanity project. So it’s frustrating because CD sales are a big part of an artist’s income,” said Del Junco.
While the 2010 Juno nominee and seven time Canadian Maple Blues Award winning harmonica player of the year is often pegged as a bluesman and a harmonica player, his shows appeal to more than just blues fans and harmonica players.
“It does’t just cater to people who just like the harmonica. It’s for anybody who just appreciates good music. I submitted a CD in 2001 for the Junos but nobody would accept it because they said ‘that’s not a blues CD’ or ‘That’s not an instrumental Cd,’” he recalled.
“It’s just good music. I like to let it speak for itself,” he said.
“I don’t get booked to play a lot of hard core blues festivals. My show caters more to a theatre audience,” he said.
And while various aspects of the music business frustrate him, he really warms to a conversation about his beloved instrument the harmonica.
“The average person is exposed to the harmonica because of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. They are brilliant songwriters, but they are the most famous, worst harmonica players in the world,” he observed.
“Most harmonica players just put it on a rack and play with the chord changes. The harmonica is an invisible instrument. You never see it because it is in your hand. But it is all in how you approach it and attack it. You can get the same textures as a guitar or saxophone,” he said.
He is best known for his technique of note bending on the diatonic harmonica, and while he can give an in depth technical explanation of it he’d rather not “bore your readers” with it.
“I don’t want to scare people away, I want them to come and enjoy the music,” he said.
“Most of my show is based on the blues. It’s about 50 per cent world music and 50 per cent blues, but I’m no Little Walter. The band gets featured as much as I do. Everybody solos. The guitar player takes a lot of solos. He’s an amazing guitar player. You can’t even believe he is playing and acoustic guitar. So there is stand up bass, guitar and I play amplified harmonica and some acoustic,” he said.
The line up will be the same one (but without the drummer) which played a two day date at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod, guitarist Eric St. Laurent and bassist Henry Hellig to Average Joes, Aug. 7.
While this summer has been slower as far as touring, things are looking up for next year.
“I have another long tour of Western Canada in March for three weeks and Europe after that,” he said adding he finds European and North American audiences to be pretty similar.
“I don’t think there is much difference. It depends on the venue and how well the show is promoted,” he said adding he has a lot of fans in poorer countries like Argentina, but they don’t buy a lot of his CDs as they don’t have a lot of money — so they download them.
Carlos Del Junco plays Average Joes, Sunday, Aug. 7 with special guests Papa King, Tyler Bird and Bleu Sensashun. Tickets for the show, which begins at 8 p.m., cost $25
