John Popper
John Popper |
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John Popper (born March 29, 1967) is an American musician and songwriter.
He is most famous for his role as frontman of rock band Blues Traveler, performing harmonica, 12-string acoustic guitar and vocals. He is widely considered a harmonica virtuoso, and is listed by harmonica manufacturer Hohner as a "Featured Artist", an accolade reserved for only the best and most successful harmonica players.
Life and career
John Popper was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. He wanted to become a musician after seeing the film The Blues Brothers (1980).[citation needed] Popper tried the piano[citation needed], the cello[citation needed], and the guitar, but finally settled on the harmonica. He formed a garage band with high school friends in Princeton, New Jersey, which evolved into Blues Traveler in 1987[citation needed]. He soon began to perform solo concerts in addition to touring with Blues Traveler.
In 1992, Popper founded the HORDE Festival as a venue to gain exposure for up-and-coming independent musicians. In October of that same year he was involved in a traffic accident on a motorcycle while traveling to a studio to record for Blues Traveler's third album. The accident put him in a wheelchair for several months, but Popper continued touring with the band despite the difficulties it created.
The Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1996 was awarded to "Run-around", a song which Popper composed.
He took over in 1998 as frontman of jam-band supergroup Frogwings, which released the live album Croakin' at Toads. Bolstered by Blues Traveler's mainstream success, Popper released an album with his own John Popper Band, Zygote, in 1999 and toured in support of it.
Also in 1999, he suffered a near-heart attack brought on by years of compulsive overeating. (He had been diagnosed with diabetes a few years earlier.) Doctors performed an emergency angioplasty which saved Popper's life (he had 95% arterial blockage)[1], and he later underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost a large amount of weight.
Popper recently formed a rock/jazz/hip-hop fusion group The John Popper Project with DJ Logic, which released an album in 2006 and performs occasionally.
A prolific songwriter, he has composed a majority of the lyrics and music of Blues Traveler's songs. He also frequently appears as a guest performer with musicians both famous and obscure. He has performed with, among others, jam bands Dave Matthews Band and Phish, bluesmen Eric Clapton and B.B. King, singer-songwriters Jason Mraz and John Mayer, saxiphonist Karl Denson, San Francisco's Culann's Hounds, and even with the Hungarian Ambassador to the United States. He sat in with The Smashing Pumpkins on the second day of their acoustic 1997 Bridge School Benefit appearance, contributing harmonica for their song "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans"; Popper's solo garnered major applause from the audience.
He has been a recurring guest on Howard Stern's and Bill Maher's shows and sits in with The CBS Orchestra on The Late Show with David Letterman on occasion.
Popper is a gun collector and member of the Libertarian Party [2] , and has previously expressed support for the Republican Party and the American armed forces. He has toured the Middle East, performing with the Band of the Air Force Reserve and Jamie O'Neal at various military camps.
Legal trouble
In 2003, he was arrested for possession of marijuana.[3]
Popper was also arrested on March 6, 2007 near Ritzville, Washington by Washington State Patrol.[4] He was the passenger in his own vehicle and was found to be in the possession of a small amount of marijuana and weapons. Popper was released the same night. Popper had a stash of hidden weapon compartments in his vehicle that contained four rifles, nine handguns, a switchblade knife, a Taser, and night vision goggles. Popper's vehicle also had flashing emergency headlights, a siren and a public address system. Popper explained that he had installed these items in his vehicle because in the event of a natural disaster he didn't want to be left behind. Popper also said he was a weapons collector.
Officers also recovered a small amount of marijuana and a marijuana pipe. The vehicle was seized.[5] [6]
Equipment
John Popper uses Shure microphones and Marshall amplifiers, a setup nearly identical to what Blues Traveler guitarist Chan Kinchla uses himself; Popper noted in an interview that "I just asked Chan what he used." He also uses D'Addario strings.
Trademark equipment
Popper has developed some equipment innovations to accommodate his use of harmonica during onstage performance: Due to the fact that diatonic harmonicas are tuned to one particular key, he has fashioned belts (worn as suspenders) with enough pockets to hold an entire set of harmonicas in 12 different keys, plus extras. This allows Popper to change keys during a performance quickly without looking; he often exchanges harmonicas multiple times within one song.
Popper has also rigged a special microphone with switches that change the audio effect of the harmonica as it is played through an amplifier.
He has also fashioned a floppy-brimmed hat with flattened harmonica plates on its band, which he almost always wears during appearances with Blues Traveler.
He is also fond of Smith & Wesson revolvers.
Performances and appearances
Featured music appearances
- Duet with Eric Clapton on "Christmas Blues" from A Very Special Christmas Live
- Duet with BB King on "Back Door Santa" from A Very Special Christmas Vol. 5
- Solo instrumental track "Harmonica Musings" from the soundtrack of Blues Brothers 2000
- Harmonica solos of character Buster Blues in the Blues Brothers 2000 film
Guest music appearances
- Harmonica on "More Than She Knows" plus background vocals and 'inspiration' on "Two Princes" from Pocket Full of Kryptonite by The Spin Doctors
- Harmonica on "What Would You Say" from Under the Table and Dreaming by Dave Matthews Band
- Harmonica and vocal duet on a cover of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again" from Treasures by Dolly Parton
- Harmonica on a group cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone" from Garage Inc. by Metallica
- Harmonica on "In The City" from This Time Around by Hanson
- Harmonica on "Country Love" from Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections by Cee-Lo
- Harmonica on "Curbside Prophet" and "Too Much Food" from Tonight, Not Again by Jason Mraz
- Harmonica on Soul Bones by Tom "Bones" Malone
Television appearances
- Popper performed a duet with Dolly Parton on her Treasures television special in 1997
- Appeared on a 1996 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman to surprise Manny the Hippie with a harmonica duel
- Appeared as a guest on an episode of the Cartoon Network comedy talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast
- Had speaking lines on an episode of the sitcom Roseanne as character Stingray Wilson, a musician similar to Popper himself (Popper later wrote lyrics for the show's bluesy theme song, which was performed by Blues Traveler in the final season of the show.)
- An animated clay charicature of Popper fought a match in the MTV parody series Celebrity Deathmatch. Popper defeated singer Fiona Apple.
- Popper appeared on Penn and Teller's Sin City Spectacular, playing harmonica during a card trick performance
- Was a guest on Comedy Central's The Daily Show in 2003 promoting Blues Traveler's album Truth Be Told
- Was a celebrity coach in the final round of America's Got Talent
Other appearances
- Popper has played his Jimi Hendrix-inspired harmonica rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball games, including the World Series.
- Popper is seen at the end of the movie Kingpin with Blues Traveler.
Notes
- ^ Skanse, Richard. "Popper's Inferno", Rolling Stone, 7 September 1999.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Mug shot of Popper
- ^ Associated Press. "Singer Busted With Arsenal Of Weapons In Car", 8 March 2007.
- ^ Geranios, Nicholas K. "Manager says Blues Traveler's Popper legally had weapons", Associated Press. 9 March 2007.
- ^ "Blues Traveler rocker arrested on gun, drug charges", The Times of Trenton, 9 March 2007.
External links
- John Popper at IMDb
- John Popper's biography at BluesTraveler.com
- John Popper collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive