“Sing Every Note:” 50 years of Mickey Raphael with Willie Nelson

Most people wouldn’t even know his name, but with over 700 album credits, you could call Mickey Raphael one of the most listened to harmonica players of all-time. Mickey’s primary gig is playing with Willie Nelson, which, after 50 years, has taken Mickey everywhere and connected Mickey to the usual suspects (Haggard, Waylon, Cash, Kristofferson, Emmylou), Willie’s menagerie of friends (Leon Russell, Snoop Dog) and studio sessions with a who’s who of popular music (Elton John, U2, Paul Simon, Ringo Starre). He’s all but in Chris Stapleton’s band now as well.

Mickey’s one of those rare cats facile enough for studio work, but whose playing is original and immediately identifiable. No small part of this is, of course, 50 years of playing with Willie Nelson where he’s asked to stretch across genres and bend to Willie’s whims. I also hear in Mickey’s playing an ability to connect to a song, a deep appreciation for the meaning of a song, and then an ability to bend the harmonica to what’s needed —through rhythm, melody, & texture in ways similar to a fiddle, guitar, or human voice. Here’s what I think Mickey’s up to, why it works, and what I’ve taken from Mickey’s 50 years of playing with Willie Nelson.

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“Sing Every Note:” 50 years of Mickey Raphael with Willie Nelson

Some time around 1996, I was ready to quit the harmonica. “Why can’t I get a clean overblow? I can’t keep up with George Thacker’s Orange Blossom Special. And what planet is Deford Bailey from? ” It’s a quick jump from that “Who even wants to hear this anyway? What’s the point?”

Looking for inspiration, I found a used vinyl copy of Willie Nelson’s Stardust. Mickey Raphael — specifically his playing on Georgia on My Mind — saved me, as it has countless times since. Rather than chaining together blues riffs, Mickey’s playing on Georgia (and all of Stardust really) grows the melody — augmented with his signature volume swells. By both leaning toward the microphone and raising the volume of his breath, he creates a lusciously smooth sound, not unlike a fiddle. The note selection and how he plays them are within the reach of most intermediate players, save his trademark vibrato, to the point where the approach sounds like the most obvious and immediately “right” thing to do. You might forget that this isn’t a natural song for most harmonica players. But Mickey doesn’t just play the melody. Through his attack, vibrato, shape, and decay, he imbues it with a sense of longing, a sadness, shifting toward maybe even anger or frustration. Kicks my ass back into remembering the point of it all is to feel something.

Mickey and Willie playing Georgia on My Mind, circa 1979. Doesn’t get any better.

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Playing with Willie: Folk Country Jazz

Part of what makes Mickey unique is that he’s not, by his own description, “a blues player,” but instead comes from the folk tradition, which is oriented around supporting a song. Mickey can and does build parts and solos around standard riffs or licks, but more often I hear him digging into the song for a part to pull out. A key feature for those less versed in the harmonica is that technically, Mickey comes from the country tradition (he was taught by Don Brooks), so his playing appears is built on the lip pursing rather than a tongue blocking technique. Simply put, there are two ways of getting single “clean” notes on a harmonica: Players (1) pucker up the lips so that the air flows only through one hole or (2) use their tongue to block the extra holes. Without starting a religious war here, the general advantages to the pucker method are that notes are brighter and cut through more clearly, and bent note runs are easier to play (see Will Wilde’s judicious description). Brighter notes fit the mood of most country music, help the harmonica cut through strings, and enable playing those fast bluegrass melodies. Most blues players are largely tongue blockers because it gives a deeper bassier sound and enables percussive effects, which we’ll get to. Religious wars hopefully avoided.

A few harmonica basics might make the rest of this understandable (if not interesting) to non-harp players. The standard diatonic harmonica has 10 holes, and each hole gets a number, 1–10. To get a note, you blow through a hole, or you draw in air (breathe in) to get a note. So harmonica players talk about notes as 1 blow, 1 draw, 2 blow, 2 draw, all the way to 10. You can blow air through multiple holes to make a chord, or you can blow through a single hole (via puckering up or tongue blocking, as we discussed). Each harmonica comes in a different key. So if the band switches keys, you don’t have to do any transposing, just go pick up the right key. This fact — plus the cheap nature of the instrument and ease of which one can make sounds on it — has given harmonica players a reputation for not being “real musicians,” and most harmonica players carry a chip on their shoulders about this. Playing with Willie — who covers jazz standards and does any number of just weird things — means that Mickey knows his way around the harmonica.

In fact, Mickey’s blues playing has a jazzy feel, which I suspect co-evolved after 50 years with Willie. Take this clip of Mickey playing “Night Life” with Norah Jones from summer 2023 (key of B-flat). The song is in 4/4 swing time with like 7 or 8 chords — enough to freak out your novice harp player because standard approaches won’t work. Mickey comes in with his signature volume swells on the one hole draw (which is the low F note, or the 5th of the chord), with loads of tremolo and vibrato. He shifts to a more percussive attack, playing a blues riff (B-flat, D, F, which is the 1, 3, 5 of the chord) on the 2 draw, 3 bent draw, and 4 draw (still lip pursing). He then slides up to the 6 hole blow (B-flat) and back down to the 4 draw (F), with notes soaked in tremolo and vibrato. All simple stuff impeccably performed with super-silky smooth tone and texture.

Mickey Raphael and Norah Jones Playing Acoustic Around the Fire

As Norah goes to the D minor 7 chord and sings “just like me,” Mickey nails a clean, bent 3 draw note with vibrato and such command that I rewound it half a dozen times to be sure that’s what he’s playing. It’s beyond our space to dig into what that is, but the note he’s playing is not “on” that harmonica but rather he’s lifting the back of the tongue and adjusting his mouth cavity to get that note. When I first heard him hitting those notes in 1996 I assumed he was switching harmonicas or playing a minor-tuned harmonica. (It’s so clean that part of me still wonders). Next, Mickey enters tongue-blocking mode, blowing the 6th note (2–5 holes) and root (3–6 hole) octaves (which is where you play holes 3 and 6 cleanly while covering 4 and 5 with the tongue). Finally, if you want to hear a clear example of the tongue blocking technique, his next descending blues riff (flat 7, natural 6, 5th note — on holes 5 draw, 5 blow, 4 draw) is a classic example. He digs in around 1:40 for some classic acoustic blues stuff, and it feels like a wonderful nod — Mickey doing the blues. Mickey is back within the structure of the song at 2:45 in that “jazzy Willie Nelson’’ way: playing smooth, following notes with volume swells and virtually no attack on the notes. This is all great, but what I love about Mickey is his presence in the song. Although he’s played the song thousands of times, his posture & eye contact suggests that he’s focused on Norah, what she’s singing, and responding to where she is in the moment.

Compare the “Night Life” blues (jazz-blues, really), with this Sonny Boy Williamson II clip. Blues harp playing (at least the good stuff) starts by laying down a rhythm. Blues players learn to accompany themselves, using a variety of techniques to establish, build and then imply grooves. (Adam Gussow calls this the Park Bench Test: Can you make up and play a listenable blues on a park bench?). Even a non-harp player listening to Sonny Boy can probably hear the chords, tongue slaps and blocks — or at least say “yeah that’s more percussive sounding.” Former Muddy Waters player Jerry Portnoy describes how even in modern electrified blues, you can strip away the rhythm section and still hear the underlying rhythm (actual and implied). In Sonny Boy Williamson’s 1963 classic “Help me” for example, the song features pretty minimal harp playing but could exist with just his harp and vocals. Likewise, a stop-time blues like Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy, can exist with just harp and vocals. And, the harp does enough work within the groove that one couldn’t imagine the harp player just bowing out in the middle, in the way that a harp player can jump in and out of a country tune.

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Mickey’s Rhythm

This isn’t to say that Mickey can’t or doesn’t carry a rhythm. In fact, in this recent little blues diddy with Beto O’Rourke, Mickey plays in a more traditional blues style with tongue blocking. More commonly, though, Mickey plays a rhythm within the song and hits the upbeats (particularly the third beat of the measure with big open chords) as on this Highwaymen version of City of New Orleans.

Take “On the Road Again.” Conjur it in your head for a second, and you probably imagine right away Willie’s voice, his flat picking of his Spanish guitar Trigger, and a harmonica chugging in the background. Mickey’s arrangement here is classically minimalist. He doesn’t come in at all until just the first chorus with some light chugs and background tongue-blocked texture, then it’s back out until his break, which is more pretty swelling notes punctuated by a tongue blocked 7 hole draw (also the 3rd note in the scale). Then he swells back down to the lower register and plays some simple but effective tongue-blocked chords — all totally within the song.

It isn’t until the second chorus that Mickey plays a signature rhythmic figure accentuating the upbeats with abrasive chops much like a mandolin might do. Listen to the crowd respond on the live version the moment Mickey comes in. It’s an instant lift of energy to a song already driving pretty hard, and, to me, it’s that harmonica that gives the song the exuberant feeling of being free on the road. Then, as fast as it’s there, it’s gone. Again, to my ears, there’s some sadness as the harmonica cuts out. I like to think that emotionally, the song is acknowledging the connections left behind and the loneliness of heading back on the road, giving it real depth. But maybe that’s just me.

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Arranging

Arranging (like all playing, I think) is a collective achievement, coming from the artist, producer, and anyone else who has ever given feedback to the musician, so you want to avoid attributing too much of an arrangement to one person. Still, listening to Micky across time, there’s a tendency to play less as parts develop and to let songs breathe. For example, this 1974 version of Whiskey River from the Austin City Limits pilot episode is Grateful dead-ish in its arrangements, with multiple parts competing for space. Mickey’s approach is a more typically rock-blues, following Willie’s vocal calls with blues riff responses. Absent are Mickey’s signature horn-like single note hits that punctuate the beat just a few years later in this Austin City Limits 1981 version, where Mickey’s amplified harmonica is in more defined toward the song. This performance opens with a wailing vibrato building tension, followed by (relatively) precise rhythmic hits accentuating Willie’s guitar with the occasional fill. More than once, Mickey has said that basically he has no idea of what to play on Whiskey River, and he’s still figuring it out. Whiskey River is weird enough that I’d believe him, but I’d more than settle for that rhythm part. Conjure up Whiskey River and you’re probably hearing Willie sing “Whiskey River take my mind” followed by this “dant da-dant dant dant.” It’s now a part of the song to me (unless, because it’s Willie doing weird Willie things like playing three Whiskey River reprisals a night, when things can get a little weird).

Mickey identifies primarily as an acoustic player, meaning he is most comfortable playing into air and letting the microphone pick up his sound — including how he shapes it with his hands. Cupping the microphone and playing the harmonica directly into it (almost always run through an amplifier) further warms and distorts the sound. He often uses a Beyer 160 vocal mic which gives a more nuanced sound than a green bullet, which “flattens” notes. I have no idea what amp he plugs into. Do yourself a solid and check out Mickey’s solo on Mötley Crüe’s Smoking in the Boys Room, itself oddly melodic and singable, considering, and it’s clearly Mickey once you know what to listen for, like that bent note vibrato. If you need a palette cleanse after the Crüe’s, check out Mickey’s amplified Heartbreak Hotel with Willie and Leon Russell in some sort of barn.

“Mickey sounds like Mickey.”

While living in Bloomington, Indiana in the 90s I was playing in a band, “The Mary Janes”. We were recording a record in Echo Park studios, which was owned by John Cougar Mellencamp guitarist Mike Wanchic. One day I walked in to find Mark Maher (current tour manager for Allison Krauss) remixing some old Farm Aid recordings.

“Wait. These are the masters? Who all is on this? I asked.”

“Willie, Neil Young, you know, all of them,” Mark responded.

“So, you have Mickey Raphael there? And ProTools.”

“Yep.”

“How about Mickey through a ’59 Bassman. Now a Fender Champ. Wait. No. Willie through a Marshall stack!”

We cut it off before it got too crazy, but much like you can hear how “‘Smokin in the Boys Room’ is Mickey Raphael, now just through an amplifier,” you could hear how no matter the rig, Mickey is Mickey. This was an incredible lesson on how equipment helps craft a sound, but basically all of the tone — built by attack, resonance, mouth shape, vibrato…all of it — comes from the player.

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“Nobody Wants to Know How Brilliant You Are”

In 2012, Willie Nelson and his son Lukas Nelson recorded Eddie Vedder’s “Just Breathe,” which includes maybe the gutsiest playing I’ve heard from Mickey Raphael (assuming it is him). Breathe is a first perspective song about a man dying speaking to a loved one, which, when sung by an octogenarian with his son takes on a certain poignance. Mickey does again the simplest, most right thing, which was just to breathe through the harmonica making chords, something so simple literally anyone could do it. And it works, even better the more you think about it.

Conjur an image of a harp player and it’s probably someone front and center, in the spotlight. Maybe with sunglasses, even indoors. Porting this approach into songwriter-oriented music is usually dicey, at best, and it’s no wonder that harp players — even the good ones — are eyed suspiciously. Often in the best case scenarios we’re stepping all over the vocals, have little sense for the song or structure, and lack much emotional range. Mickey is the opposite of all of that, and a constant reminder of why we’re playing in the first place. As a player, he reminds me that harmonica is about as close to the vocals as one can get without singing. Sing every part while you play, and you get tone, feeling, embouchure, and hopefully, something worth listening to.

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Mickey’s Rig: (courtesy, Harpslinger Podcast, Episode 3)

1. Beyer M160: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M160--beyerdynamic-m-160
2. AEA Pre-Amps https://www.sweetwater.com/c662--AEA--Preamps
3. Moog Delay https://www.moogmusic.com/products/minifooger-mf-delay
4. Royer Labs R-122 MKII Active Ribbon Microphone, Nickel https://www.amazon.com/Royer-Labs-R-122-Active-Microphone/dp/B00328HPIW

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Related Reading & Listening

2-Minute Harmonica — New Licks Every Week! (Director). (2020, May 7). Bye Bye Bird — Sonny Boy Williamson — Detailed Visual Tab (Low D). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uADNbTnJF98

93.1 KISS El Paso (Director). (2019, March 7). Beto O’Rourke’s Bathroom Jam with Willie Nelson’s Band Members Mickey Raphael and Kevin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qFUBe2rsVE

Everything You Need to Know about Willie Nelson and the Jews. (2013, April 30). Tablet Magazine. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/willie-nelson-and-the-jews

Farm Aid (Director). (2012, September 14). Willie Nelson and Family — Whiskey River & Angel Flying too Close to the Ground (Farm Aid 1994). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2GGci7VWRQ

Field, K. (2000). Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers: The Evolution of the People’s Instrument. Cooper Square Press.

Ghosts On The Road (Director). (2020, April 16). Neil Young w/Mickey Raphael — Mother Earth (Natural Anthem). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdRfT8sRloY

https://www.facebook.com/NashvilleArts. (2014, July 1). Mickey Raphael: Play True -. https://nashvillearts.com/2014/07/mickey-raphael/

Jamey Garner — The Harpslinger Podcast (Director). (2020b, October 27). HARPSLINGER PODCAST EP#3 — MICKEY RAPHAEL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBv2dn-djgk

Mickey Raphael | Credits. (n.d.). AllMusic. Retrieved August 22, 2023, from https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mickey-raphael-mn0000109552/credits

Mickey Raphael: Play True -. (2014, July 1). https://nashvillearts.com/2014/07/mickey-raphael/

Mickey Raphael — Articles. (n.d.). Retrieved August 22, 2023, from http://www.mickeyraphael.com/pages/story-3.html

Overblows tutorial — Harmonica by Rachelle Plas — YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved August 22, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_y4IewMzng&t=34s

Rhea County (Director). (2008, August 4). George Thacker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAzjG2MODk

The Texas Three (Director). (2023, April 23). FULL CONCERT (ACL Pilot October 17th, 1974) Willie Nelson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ-z1b623Qw

Willie Nelson (Director). (2021, March 25). Willie Nelson — Whiskey River (Live From Austin City Limits, 1981). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPkEmBCZTlA

Blue Oyster Cult Mr. Music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49z9OgmWKm0

Harmonica Legends — Mickey Raphael | Harmonica Essentials

Saving Country Music. https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/mickey-raphael-actually-played-iconic-harmonica-solo-on-motley-crues-smokin-in-the-boys-room/