I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!
I agree with you @Dai. I have dreams to play harmonica in more genres that young people listen to and I agree with you that regurgitated Little Walter grooves are not appealing to MOST people under 30.
I had a duo called Nowelo that imploded right before I started working with Harmonica .com, where we were attempting to fuse blues and rap. Warning: explicit content:
After that I produced one more hip hop tune featuring a harmonica solo later in the piece, called Natural High.
I have a dream of returning to that sort of thing one day. Damn Rooster by Dirtwire reminded me of this dream recently, but sadly most of their tunes don’t have harmonica like this one. Great hip hop vibe harmonica tune though.
I like the Amanda tune, shredding over what’s basically a ripoff of Glory Box by Portisehead.. (No disrespect to the beat maker - everything comes from somewhere - “there’s nothing old or new under the sun.”) Portisehead is one of the defining artists of the Trip Hop genre.
For modern blues harmonica, in addition to @Corky_Music’s stuff which you can check out here, I love Carlos Del Junco Band’s Just Your Fool album, and Roly Platt’s Inside Out album. You might find a lot of satisfaction in those.
Carlos has a new recording out too that I haven’t had a chance to hear yet, but that Just Your Fool album is by far my favorite of his, and he’s a very “modern” player who’s not just regurgitating Little Walter riffs.
For a more roots sound, I love Joe Filisko and Eric Noden Destination Unknown. I saw them perform it “live” on Zoom, haven’t bought the actual album yet, but I intend to.
I’m so happy that you’ve started this thread and we can keep sharing stuff here as we come across it.