Jim Hughes and Rob Paparozzi talk and play

Jim Hughes was 94 when Rob and I decided to make an unplanned visit to his home in Birmingham. Rob knew about Jim’s years of session work including ‘Last of the Summer Wine‘ and many radio broadcasts, but they had never met.

Jim is possibly the best teacher of the chromatic harmonica and two of his students were World Champions.

Rob uses Jim’s highly regarded course books when teaching his own pupils.

Jim’s teaching materials, CDs, and a huge list of written scores for harmonica by James Moody and other composers are available through email – jamesmoodyscores@gmail.com

Jim was a great advocate of learning to sight read music and did so all his working life – a great asset for recording sessions. Unfortunately he is now totally blind but he practices many hours a day and has become very good at playing by ear. This has also led to him now to concentrating on his love of jazz standards.

Rob and Jim got on very well and they had a mutual respect for each other. After some discussion, they started to play together as can bee seen in the 20 mins video below. This was not a performance. It was all spontaneous and as is easy to see, a very enjoyable time for both of them.

A musical meeting of minds (and chromatic harmonicas)

Jim Hughes “Live @ Stratford (UK)”, 1983

This concert was recorded by someone and a CD-R of the concert was found in the archive I got from John Bryan.

This was the second annual convention of the independent National Harmonica League run at that time by John Walton. He had taken it over from Hohner in 1981 and it was run by a committee of members.

The concert was a part of a day long event in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare.

Jim was accompanied by Harold Rich (piano) and Richard Wright (guitar). One of Jim’s pupils, World Champion Ivan Richards, joined Jim to play the Mozart Double Flute Concerto.


Jim Hughes “Live at Stratford-upon-Avon, 1983”


01, STAR EYES, 00:00
02, SERENATA FOR A VEILED LADY , 02:48
03, BULGARIAN WEDDING DANCE , 06:13
04. SPRING CAN HANG YOU UP THE MOST , 9:45
05, GIRL WITH THE FLAXEN HAIR, 13:25
06, FIREBRAND, 15:25
07, MOZART FLUTE DUO (with Ivan Richards), 19:56
08, GERSHWIN PRELUDE , 22:45
09, CAPRICE-CRADLE SONG by Gordon Jacob , 28:57
10, BACH GOES TO TOWN ,PRELUDE AND FUGUE by J. S. Bach, 33:54
11, MOON RIVER, 37:43
12, SERENADE FOR UNACCOMPANIED HARMONICA , 40:55
13, CONCERTO FOR HARPSICHORD by J. S. Bach, 44:00
14, MARCH HARE,49:06