Zakk Sabbath Harmonica - "The Wizard"

Here’s a song that I just found out about today. This is a cover of Black Sabbath’s iconic song, “The Wizard”, by Zakk Wylde’s tribute band. Even though I like to play country and gospel most of the time, I’m a huge fan of rock and metal music too.
I was listening to a SiriusXM station called Ozzy’s Boneyard, which was basically a station catering to classic hard rock and metal. When I heard the opening notes to this song, I heard some harmonica growling in there and that caught my attention as I’m a huge sucker for growls on the harmonica. I think this is Zakk Wylde playing harmonica in this song, and he’s actually not too bad. Usually when it comes to rock harmonica, it is almost always played terribly like the player can only sound like Bob Dylan/Billy Joel/Neil Young/Tom Petty. But the harp in this actually pretty good for rock harmonica standards. Here’s the song so y’all can give it a listen.

Here’s also the original for comparison:

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I love this song! I can play it but I don’t have a G harp so it sounds kind of goofy on my C harp haha!

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I think if you want to give it a go you will need a D harp.

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Hello @skywalker002,

the original is played on a D harp. The key of the song is in the key of A, but you can follow the tablature in any key, even with a C harp.

Regards from Astrid

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Yes, my mistake I meant to say D harp! I have played it on my C harp but it doesn’t sound quite right, haha!

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If you want to hear someone play truly amazing rock harmonica check out Will Wilde on Youtube.

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I love Will Wilde and he does an amazing cover of this sing.

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Will Wilde is amazing! I learned a lot watching his videos!

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I played it one night with my mates blues band. I was testing the levels on the mic, without thinking I played the opening bit to the Wizard, the Lads in the band started to laugh and suddenly joined in we did the full opening and counted in a Blues number at the end ( can’t recall what it was but I think it was a Jump Blues) I live literally a stones throw from where Sabbath were formed. And the Lads who I was playing live, all knew members of Sabbath, Priest Led Zeppelin, Elo, and down in Stourbridge the Legendary Stan Webb formed Chicken shack with a girl named Christine Perfect She went on the be Christine Macvie and Joined another Little Blues band called Fleetwood Mac. You want to talk about Rock History then We’re right in the corridor where it was born.

Awesome post