Gwen Foster
Gwen Foster
Genres: harmonica, blues, 1920s
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About Gwen Foster
Gwen (or “Gwyn” or “Gwin”) Foster is a harmonica player, recording quite prolifically during the 1920s and 1930s as a member of the Carolina Tar Heels, The Carolina Twins, The Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, with Clarence Ashley, with David Fletcher and as a solo artist, playing both harmonica and guitar. Born in Edgemont, North Carolina on Christmas Day 1903, he was originally inspired to take up the harmonica by an uncle who player, later learning from a neighbouring musician by the name of Marshall Revels, going on to develop one of the most distinctive harmonica styles in the entire history of the instrument. Foster generally played the harmonica in a rack, whilst also playing the guitar. He seems to have tongue-blocked more or less exclusively and one of his trademark sounds is the sideways wiggling of his tongue to give rapid alternation of two notes with one or more holes blocked between them. He also made extensive use of fast trills between the bent and unbent notes in the same hole of the harmonica. Despite his considerable talents, Foster never became a full time musician, working most of his life in the textile mills and dying in 1954 of a heart attack, possibly brought on by his heavy drinking.
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