Phil Wiggins, a harmonica participant of such vary that he might make his instrument sound like a clarinet one minute, an accordion the subsequent after which a whole percussion part — all within the service of the complicated melodies and regular rhythms of the type often called the Piedmont blues — died on Could 7 at his house in Takoma Park, Md. He was 69.
His daughter Martha Wiggins stated the trigger was most cancers.
For a lot of his profession, Mr. Wiggins was finest often called half of the duo Cephas and Wiggins, through which he carried out and recorded with the guitarist and singer John Cephas. The 2 had been thought-about one of many nation’s high Piedmont blues acts, they usually toured often at house and overseas for over 30 years, till Mr. Cephas’s demise in 2009.
The Piedmont blues is distinct from its Delta and Chicago cousins in its relaxed but difficult melodies and its insistent rhythms. Its influences embrace gospel, Appalachian folks and early nation music.
Mr. Cephas performed his instrument with the delicate fingerpicking typical of Piedmont blues. Mr. Wiggins would wrap all method of counterpoints round it, then burst out in a solo that may very well be aggressive or restrained, tight or relaxed.
“The harmonica works the identical means as your voice,” he instructed Blues Blast journal in 2021. “You’ve an thought in your thoughts that you simply wish to specific, and it simply comes out, the identical means talking occurs. In a variety of methods, it nonetheless feels that intuitive to me, besides that, for me, the harmonica works higher than my voice!”
Phillip Theodore Wiggins was born on Could 8, 1954, in Washington, the son of George Wiggins, a cartographer with the Inside Division, and Vicci (Carter) Wiggins, who managed the house. His father died when Phil was 7, and his mom later married Elliott Johnson, an Military officer.
Phil’s household had a well-stocked assortment of data at house, which supplied the primary programs of his musical training. He had to purchase his personal devices, he later stated, and with a small revenue from a newspaper route, the one factor he might afford was a plastic harmonica.
Whereas in highschool he started hanging out with Black musicians in Washington, a lot of them newly arrived within the metropolis from throughout the South. They’d collect on weekends in houses and barber retailers, enjoying a spread of music that mirrored the varied origins of the Nice Migration.
He grew to become particularly near a partly blind avenue singer named Flora Molton, and thru her he met a who’s who of completed East Coast blues musicians. Whereas nonetheless in highschool, he joined her onstage on the Smithsonian Folklife Pageant, then later joined a band led by one other esteemed blues artist, the pianist and singer Huge Chief Ellis.
Mr. Cephas, 24 years older than Mr. Wiggins, joined Mr. Ellis’s band in 1975, and two years later he and Mr. Wiggins set off on their very own as Cephas and Wiggins.
Inside just a few years that they had caught the eye of L+R, a German document label that specialised in jazz and blues. The label launched their first two albums and, extra vital, introduced them to Europe to tour blues festivals there.
The duo later traveled the world on the behest of the State Division and the Kennedy Heart; they made one look at a folks pageant in Moscow in 1988, earlier than the autumn of the Soviet Union. They recorded 12 albums and gained 11 W.C. Useful Awards, thought-about the blues equal of the Grammy.
Mr. Wiggins’s marriage to Wendy Chick led to divorce. Alongside together with his daughter Martha, he’s survived by his accomplice, Judy LaPrade; one other daughter, Eliza Wiggins; 4 sons, Skip, Charles, William and Elliott; a daughter, Rabiyah Khaliq; and two grandsons.
Regardless of his repute as a ferocious virtuoso, Mr. Wiggins offstage was humble and desirous to share his craft. He taught blues workshops across the nation and helped set up the blues program on the Augusta Heritage Heart in Elkins, W.Va., a corporation that promotes conventional arts and crafts. He was an everyday teacher at its summer season workshops.
“Phil was a deep and considerate musician,” Emily Miller, the middle’s creative director, wrote on Fb. “He wrote daring, important songs and carried out them alongside conventional gems that he polished to only the best gritty perfection.”
After Mr. Cephas died, Mr. Wiggins performed with a variety of different guitarists, in addition to together with his personal string band, the Chesapeake Sheiks. In 2017, he obtained a Nationwide Heritage Fellowship from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts.
He continued to play harmonica, however he additionally sang, one thing he not often did when working with Mr. Cephas.
“The principle factor about singing is telling a narrative,” he instructed Nation Blues journal in 2014. “After I try this, issues work out for me.”
