At 14, Jason Ricci was fronting a punk band in Portland, Maine when his bandmates handed him a cheap harmonica so he would have something to do with his hands. His mother told him that if he was going to play it, he had to study the blues. This deep dive traces the path from that accident to a Grammy-winning session, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance, and a reputation as one of the most technically advanced harmonica players of his generation.

We explain the overblowing technique popularized by Howard Levy that turns a one-key diatonic harmonica into a fully chromatic instrument, and the fast pentatonic approach Ricci absorbed from Pat Ramsey. We follow his 1995 move to Memphis, gigs with R.L. Burnside and the Kimbrough family, a descent into addiction and a year in jail, then a comeback that included the 1999 Mars National Harmonica Contest, an endorsement from Adam Gussow, and the bands New Blood and The Bad Kind.

• Awards including Muddy Waters Most Promising New Blues Artist in 2005 and Blues Music Awards in 2010 and 2018
• The album Done with the Devil and the friction created by bringing occult themes into traditional blues
• Being disinvited from venues as an openly queer musician, and feeling alienated from mainstream gay culture at the same time
• Playing on Johnny Winter’s Grammy-winning Step Back and performing Born in Chicago at the Paul Butterfield Blues Band induction
• Co-founding the Harmonica Collective and teaching the instrument through free online lessons