Q: When did you start playing harmonica?
A: It’s blues harp, not harmonica. The instrument is the same but the sound is different. When I was 20 years old I was hitchhiking around the Pacific Northwest and ran into a guy who played harp. We were walking down a dusty highway trying to thumb a ride with no luck at all, and he pulled out a harp and started playing a train rhythm. I was blown away by how cool it sounded. Then he played some blues riffs and I was hooked.

Q: Was that your first exposure to the blues?
A: No. For years I had been into the blues without knowing what it was. When I was a teenager I listened to bands like Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, and Savoy Brown. I knew I loved the slow songs with the driving beat, but I didn’t really know it was a genre called the blues. My sister had a Howlin’ Wolf album that I stole from her, and that got me started.

Q: When did you get serious about playing blues harp?
A: After meeting the harp player out on the road I went to a music store and bought my first harp, a Hohner Blues Harp in the key of E. I knew I wanted to play the blues, and I thought guitars played in the key of E. I was an idiot about music. But I worked on it like a mad man and three years later I had my first pro gig.

Q: What kind of harps do you play now?
A: I still play Hohner diatonic harmonicas, but not their Blues Harp. I prefer the Marine Band harps. I play through a bullet-style microphone into a custom tube amplifier. I like an old-school Urban Blues tone.

Q: Speaking of old school tone, who were your early influences on blues harp?
A: The first was Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. He played a killer lick on “Bring It On Home” on their second album that I still hear in my head whenever I play. Charlie McCoy, a country harp player, was big. I stole a lotta licks from him. Don Brooks played harp for Waylon Jennings, he was great. Magic Dick from J Geils Band. Mark Wenner from the Nighthawks. After I’d been playing a few years I really got into the Chicago sound, like Big Walter Horton and Little Walter Jacobs. Also James Cotton, Charlie Musslewhite, Junior Wells, and others. Now I listen to a lot of Paul Butterfield.

Q: How does a kid from Wyoming get the blues?
A: I grew up pretty poor, my parents died when I was young, I knocked around a lot; all over the country; scuffled my way through my 20s. I drank way too much and ruined my music career, among other things. Now I’m back, been clean and sober for several years. I’ve played in a lot of bands over the years… country, rock, but mostly blues. This band, The Blues Allstars, is the best. These guys can tear it up, and they know the blues.

Q: What’s next?
A: Just you wait, baby. Just you wait.

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RICK DAVIS is the founding member of The Roadhouse Joe Blues Band. Roadhouse Joe won the first round of the International Blues Challenge competition in Colorado, ultimately finishing in the top four bands for the Colorado Blues Society. Rick was invited to play harp in the 4th Annual Rocky Mountain Blues Harp Blowout in October of 2010. Since his first pro gig in 1976 Rick has opened for some greats shows, including Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Herbie Mann, and Waylon Jennings. He is a veteran of blues bands such as The Davis Blues Project, Davis & Mack, and the powerhouse 80s blues rock band The Ritz.

Rick teamed with Mission Amps of Denver Colorado to design and build the best sounding blues harp amp in the world, the Mission Chicago 32-20 harp amp. He also authors the Blues Harp Amps Blog, the online authority on blues harp tone for more than five years.  Rick presently sits on the board of directors of the Colorado Blues Society.

Rick and the Roadhouse Joe band have hosted the Sunday Blues Jam at Ziggies Saloon in Denver for a year and a half, taking it from a moribund event to the biggest and livliest blues jam in Colorado. The following interview was done on the sidewalk outside Ziggies as the jam was going on inside.