Hello,

This is where all the asked and unasked qustions get answered. Who is this guy the Colonel? What makes him such an authority on Blues Harmonica as to be able to put up a website called The BluesHarp Page and determine who is a harmonica legend and who isn't? If he's so great, how come he doesn't have a legend page of his own?

BIO

I was born John Thomas Fuhrmann in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.

My parents immigrated to the US in the 50's and so for my formative 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 stuffed armchair or couch and by the next time we saw them, they were so full of dust, hair and the other debris 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!!!"

The Colonel - just chillin' at Chilliwack Lake

The Colonel's House - used to be a Church

 

 

-MORE- 'bout the Colonel

 

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