Artist description BIO I was born John Thomas Fuhrmann in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada on April 4, 1949. By 1950 my parents had moved to Vancouver BC. In 1953 they immigrated to the US and for the next 15 years I lived in Bellingham, Washington. My earliest musical influences were the 78's in my mother's and grandmother's music collection. Big band stuff by the Dorsey brothers, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and various Tin Pan Alley Jazz recordings. My first experiences with the harmonica (my first musical instrument) were rather short-lived. My dad would buy them for my brother and I as Christmas stocking stuffers but after about a week they would get lost in the crack of a stuffedarmchair or couch and by the next time we saw them, they were so full of dust, hair and the otherdebris that lurks in the depeest recesses of upholstered furniture, that they were by then, unplayable. In 3rd Grade I began learning to play the clarinet and continued with it until I was 14. Then I kinda/sorta got booted out of band cuz whenever the band teacher came into the classsroom after lunch I would be playing marching cadences on the drums. When I was 18, I was walkin down the street one day and I saw this guy sittin on the steps of a building on the corner, playing the harmonica. I guess Wailin' on the harmonica would be closer. The sound really affected me. I said to myself "I GOTTA LEARN HOW TO DO THAT!!!" So I bought my first harmonica. A Marine Band like the ones I still play. In 1968 they cost $2.25! I was real shy 'bout anyone hearin' my first efforts so I went out to my parent's car to practice and I learned my first tune, "Mary Had a Little Lamb". I think it took me about four hours to get it right. Around this time, Jan. 1969, I received an invitation from then President Lyndon Johnson to show up for induction into the US military. I was a Canadian Citizen and had no intention of goin to Veitnam to shoot at people I had absolutely no quarrel with, so I immediately moved back to Canada. The first harmonica player I really listened to and tried to imitate was Paul Butterfeild. I owe a lot of my sound to Paul (May he Rest In Peace). The first harmonica album I ever bought was Little Walter's "Boss Blues Harmonica" double Album which contains about half of the tracks he ever recorded under his own name. The first time I ever played through an amplifier was when I stopped by my uncle's church one time (he was the minister) and checked out this funky old amp I found sittin' there. I asked him if he had a mike and he found me one. It was one of those gigantic Shure Bros. models, all chrome and grill. The sound that came out of the thing was ENOURMOUS and it totally blew my mind! I was hooked on amplified harmonica from that point on. I later bought that amp, a 1953 Gibson Les Paul and I still have it. I got my first chance to actually play amplified with a band about a year later. It was a dance at theis funky little hall in Burnaby BC. By then I was ready to jam. I remember the exhilaration of knowing the harmonica well enough to make up all kindsa stuff as I went along. Soon I formed my first band "The Union Street AllStars" in 1971. We mainly played at a local strip club, behind the dancers. The totally nude exotic dancers could be a little distracting at times to say the least. We played mainly "White Boy Blues", The Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Paul Butterfield Blues Band etc. During this time I also played a lot on "Skid Row" the term for the 100 block of Hastings Street in Vancouver. In fact, this is where I really developed the foundation for my improvisational style, playing with the Blues, Rock and Country bands in places like "Fort Boogie", "The Kit Kat Club", "The Smilin' Buddah", "Frank's Caberet" and other dark and seamy places. The bands who played these places were always glad to let me sit in. I was also beginning to play occaisionally with one of the "name acts" that was big in Vancouver at that time, "The Seeds of Time". In 1974 I formed the band "Juke". The name comes from Little Walter's only number one hit by the same name. We played a lot lot around Vancouver and eventually, we became the band of choice to open for "name acts" at what was then gem of the Vancouver Concert scene, The Commodore Ballroom. So, during the 1970's and early 80's I had the priveledge of opening for: Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Willie Dixon, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Norton Buffalo, Hollywood Fats, Albert Collins, and others. I also jammed a lot with some of Canada's premeire blues bands of the time, including Downchild Blues Band, Whiskey Howl and The Powder Blues Band. The hottest nite club on the local scene in the late 70's and 80's was called The Anchor and I used to practicly live there. At the Anchor, I got to work and play with: Sunnyland Slim, Jay McShann, Lowell Fulsom, Joe Duskin and many other great bluesmen. In 1980 I stopped makin my living solely as a musician and went to school to study Broadcast Video Production. Shortly thereafter the Juke band was disbanded. Since 1980, I have continued to play, mostly on weekends and continue to develop my style of playing. During the Expo 86 world expostion in Vancouver, I worked the entire duration of the fair with The John Cooper Blues Band. In 1990 I joined a band called "Party Pigs" for a short time. We mainly played parties. Our theme song was "Makin' Bacon'". In 1993 I moved to Nelson, BC and lived there for 2 years. The local blues bar in Nelson was called "The Zoo". I played with pretty much every blues act that came through Nelson, including: Amos Garrett, Harpdog Brown, Dr. Fun and The Nightcrawlers, Johnny Vee and Don Johnson. In 1995 I moved Back to the Vancouver area and have been playing a bit less since I live about 100 miles from the city centre. I also put up the Bluesharp Page on the net in 1995. In the summer of 1999 I toured BC with Canada's "Prime Minister of the Blues" Dutch Mason. I currently play with a band that hails from Maple Ridge BC called "The Shakers". The Shakers are very cool becuse they play at a reasonable volume and play very few "White Boy" tunes. Their repetoire includes Roots Rock, Blues and Swing. Lately I have been studying the roots of Rock'n Roll a lot and Napster has made it easy for me to listen to my current fave artists like Wynonie Harris, Louis Jordan and Bullmoose Jackson.

Music Style Chicago Blues

Musical Influences Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, Big Walter, William Clarke, Wynonie Harris, Louis Jordan, Lee Oskar

Similar Artists Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, Big Walter, William Clarke

Instruments Harmonica

Location Rosedale, BC - Canada

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