Harmonica Johnny Is Dead

Harmonica Johnny's basement bar
Harmonica Johnny’s basement bar

We were on bikes headed to Staples and eventually Starbucks and we were only a block from home when we stopped at a garage sale. Someone the neighbors called “Harmonica Johnny” lived in the house but we hadn’t seen him in a long time. Sure enough, we learned Harmonica Johnny had died. His sons were selling the stuff and there wasn’t much to look at. I went through the stack of lps on the basement bar (shown above) but most were cornball 1950’s harmonica records. As I walked away from the stack one of his sons said, “You didn’t find any rock ‘n roll records in there did you?” I laughed and he said “I found a Black Sabbath album in there.” I said “And it was probably yours.” He said it was.

He told me he played drums and his brother played guitar and they used to play in a band with their father. “Mostly Ukrainian weddings.”

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