Artist description Eddie Gordon began his career at age nine with the Harmonica Rascals. This top notch vaudeville and early television act toured worldwide and gave thousands of performances. Highlights include a Royal Command Preformance for Queen Elizabeth, a tour with the Moscow Circus, and appearances on the Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle Shows. Eddie attended school while working with the Harmonica Rascals during summer vacation. Drawing from a stockpile of more than 50 harmonicas as well as the Millionizer 2000 Harmonica Synthesizer, Eddie Gordon brings his unique sound & virtuoso ability to entertain his audiences. Eddie was also honored to participate in the cataloging and history of the Smithsonian Institution's Harmonica Collection. For the last 6 years Eddie has been a judge at the Yellow Pine Harmonica Festival in Idaho. Eddie is also representing the Blue Danube harmonica, available from 101 Products. He also appears in the instructional video included with the purchase of the harmonica, available in catalogs and retail stores near you.

Music Style Jazz, Blues, Ragtime, Showtunes, variety

Musical Influences Classical music, trad jazz, bebop,

Similar Artists Toots

Artist History Eddie Gordon is one of those "legends in his own time" that we hear about only once in a great while. Born October 7, 1941, Eddie was only 9 years old when he was hired by Borrah Minevitch personally, to join the Minevitch Harmonica Rascals, and he has done nothing but live, breathe, eat and sleep harmonica ever since. This intense interest has driven Eddie to become so proficient on harmonica that he has mastered them all to perfection. Just name a tune - any tune - and he will play a chord solo: the entire piece, not just a passage. How about a Harmonetta - ask him to play "Rhapsody in Blue", "Galloping Comedians", "September in the Rain", Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No.2", or anything else that comes to mind. You will not stump him - "Never on Sunday", "The Continental", Count Basie's "Cute", or Neal Hefti's "Li'l Darlin'" as chord solos! "Peg O' My Heart"? - Eddie plays a less flashy chord solo, but more musically correct - true to the melody line with proper voicing of the chords. Fluent on chromatic and diatonic harmonicas, Eddie is also master of the Millioniser 2000, the electronic midi harmonica synthesizer invented and marketed by Walter Miller of Switzerland. In fact, Mr. Miller employed Eddie to demo the Millioniser 2000 at various conventions and shows, including the music industry's largest trade show, the Musik Messe in Frankfurt, Germany. To play this instrument properly requires a knowledge of phrasing that is unique to the various synthesized instruments - whether the bowed strings of the violin, the breathing technique of the brass and woodwinds, the glissandos that are also unique to the variety of instruments, or the many percussion instruments available. A very creative musician, incorporating vocal effects as he plays, he will cause you to laugh with excitement and approval as you listen. While playing chord harmonica, lacking a bass player, Eddie will simultaneously sing the bass patterns, whether he is exhaling or inhaling on the chord instrument! As a diatonic artist, don't miss his renditions of Whammer Jammer or Orange Blossom Special, just to name a couple. Eddie is busily working on his life story, and is also shopping a script to the film industry, that will be a delight to all harmonica history buffs when it is released, but we digress. One of his stories that is very amusing regards his childhood, when he would return to school in the fall after summer vacation. When students were asked to tell the class about their summer activities, Eddie's stories always included playing harmonica in Havana, or London, or entertaining the troops in Korea! Needless to say, he was accused of having an over-active imagination! Of his years with Borrah and Johnny Puleo, he says, "I had many friends among the players. They took the place of my father - I really had many fathers: people like Carl Ford, Jo Jo DeFulvio, Hal Harmon and Dave Doucette, but most of all, Johnny. They made sure I rested properly and ate properly. Hal Harmon took a special liking to me when I was with the Rascals and when the act didn't work out, he took me on and we worked out as a duo. We billed ourselves as the Harmonica Masters and traveled around in an old jalopy . When that broke down we went by bus. I remember doing a show for SPAH 'way back in 1965'. I was quite surprised that there even was an organization doing service toward the harmonica." In 1968 he joined a quintet formed by Dave Doucette in Las Vegas, called the Stereomonics. Eddie, an outstanding musician at home on all harmonicas, was cited by Doucette as the "finest chord player ever", while Al Fiore, chord harmonicist supreme of the famed Harmonicats, named Eddie as his "favorite chord player". Pete Pedersen has said that if he ever decided to put another act together, Eddie would be his first choice for chord harmonica. In 1972 Eddie formed a duo with Jimmy Thomas, a young and talented guitarist, and spent many years playing the casinos and clubs of Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe, and also several years in Anchorage, Alaska as well as Los Angeles, California. Known as Love's Way, they recorded an excellent LP album titled "Alive In Alaska". SPAH was privileged to present Love's Way as special guest artists at the 1985 SPAH Convention in Detroit. Unfortunately, Eddie lost Jimmy to a heart attack in 1987. Other albums Eddie has played on include the complete series of eight Audio Fidelity stereo demo albums recorded by Johnny Puleo's Harmonica Gang in 1958 thru 1964. The pioneer in stereo LP albums, Audio Fidelity chose the Johnny Puleo Harmonica Gang as its artists for one of the first stereo LP's ever recorded - the very first being just a few months previously, in November 1957! And Eddie was there, together with Dave Doucette, The Sgro Brothers - Dom & Tony, Frank Marquis, Jo Jo DeFulvio, Carl Ford, Les Magann, and Gene DeMase, among others. In 1988, Eddie teamed up with another young guitarist, Steve Ono, who studied in Los Angeles under several prominent tutors. As a duo, they have been playing Southern and Central California's many fair dates, blues and folk venues, and have produced two albums: "Harmonicas & Guitars" (1995), and "Steve Ono - Voice of a Friend" (1996). The first album has nine selections, all featuring the harmonica, while the second album has ten selections, all of which are original compositions by Steve, and Eddie assists on harmonica on six cuts.

Group Members Eddie Gordon and Steve Ono

Instruments Harmonicas

Location Oakhurst, CA - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).