Perhaps it was written in the book of fate that Tamás Szabó had to become a harmonica player and have a lasting affiliation with the blues. He started out as a graphic artist but his ambitions soon turned in a new direction. Playing music from an early age, his mother had always supported him in his effort to try out as many instruments as he wished. From the piano he switched over to the trombone and then to the mandolin. Eventually, while still attending a secondary school for printing, he bought his first harmonica and changed his life for ever.
We are sitting in a smoky cafe and he seems tired and stressed out. He lights one cigarette after another and his leg is constantly tapping away. But once I ask my first question, why he has chosen the harmonica, the barrier breaks down. His answers are effortless and composed. Like one who knows very well what he wants to say.
His first experience with the blues was a Muddy Waters recording that had such a strong impact that he picked up the harmonica and (he had no other option) taught himself to play it. Since then, he has written a primer for harmonica players and has had many students. He is one of the most highly regarded and in demand harmonica players in Hungary. Yet, he is usually not recognised by fans in the street (which he does not mind at all). He has contributed to numerous compilation albums that have come out in Finland, France and the USA and his second solo effort, Taylor’s Clothes / New Lodger, went to number nine in the charts in Greece. World fame has not come his way, yet but that, he says, does not bother him. He believes he is destined for other things. His role is (and has been) to lay the foundations for blues in Hungary, remove the obstacles and “pull down the wall” in order to prepare the ground for a new generation of harmonica players.
He is proud of what he has achieved so far. And the list of what he has accomplished is long. More than 20 years ago, he founded the first Hungarian band playing authentic Chicago blues, the Palermo Boogie Gang. He published the first acoustic recording in Hungary, featuring one of the first Hungarian female blues singers, Barbara Dorogi. He has introduced zydeco to Hungary (another American roots music typically performed on piano accordion and a form of a washboard known as a rub-board), which had been previously unknown here. In addition, he has collected old recordings of Hungarian harmonica players. He was one of the organisers of an international harmonica and accordion festival in 1994. He is a founding member of the Hungarian Harmonica Association. In cooperation with the Blues Pharmacy Public Foundation, he prepared the first anthology of Hungarian harmonica players Harponic Movements.
Breaking out of the boundaries of blues, he has turned his talents to new musical settings, such as the classical music album of 2001 entitled Blue Orange and the 2004 Part of Silence, featuring film-like soundscapes. On his first solo recording, he even included rap. All members of his former blues and boogie-woogie band called Spo-dee-o-dee have built successful careers in Hungary or abroad. He says he is very proud of their successes.
The people he feels most indebted to are Zorán and Gábor Presser, who taught him how to act on stage, the orchestrator Imre Czomba who taught him maturity in music and Zoltán Somogyi, his personal mentor.
Szabó is turning 40 this year and also pursues a career in photography—and he has published two volumes of poetry. When asked whether he plans to blow his harmonica even at age 70, he bitterly smiles through the cigarette smoke and says “I will not make it to 70. Musicians rarely do.” Well, let’s hope he will, even longer than that…
Szabó has played together with the following musicians and groups:
Larry Garner (US), Ripoff Raskolnikov (A), Chester Washington (US), Magic Slim (US), Erich Trauner (A), Big Jay McNeely (US), Louisana Red (D), Champion Jack Dupree (US), Blues Wire (G), Harry Wettenstein (A), Carry Bell (US), Steve Baker (D), Jeanne Carol (US), Carol Cass (US), Erwin Helfer and Chicago Allstars (US), Todor "Thoso" Todorovic (D), Homsick Mac (UK), Raw Hide (YU), Eb Davis (D), Ronald Abrams (N), Christian Sandera (A), Monty Waters (US), Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead).
