Hearing Muddy Waters and Jerry Portnoy at the 1974 New Orleans Jazz Fest turned Jon Erblich on to the harmonica. In St. Louis, he found a teacher when he heard Tom “Papa” Ray playing with Silver Cloud at Calico’s. They made a deal – he sold Tom’s records at the Soulard Farmers Market for lessons and free albums.

St. Louis harp legend Keith Doder also became a mentor. He schooled Jon in Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, James Cotton, Lee Oskar and his own style that Jon says was “very funky and brilliant on chromatics.” Ray and Doder pushed Jon to play and he joined them in playing clubs all over town gaining the respect of black and white audiences and musicians alike.

Erblich would go on to play with Tommy Bankhead, Larry Griffin, The Rockin Luckies, Clayton Love and for the last 15 years with Jeremy Segel Moss and the Bottoms Up Blues Gang. His Hohner Crossovers and Golden Melodies have shared the stage with blues royalty: “I got to back up Johnny Johnson and Chuck Berry and open for Albert Collins and John Lee Hooker.” That’s why Eric McSpadden gave him the moniker “Johnnie Diamond.”

While Jon “can still hear Doder in his playing,” he says his earlier “study and replicate method has changed.” The BUBG collaboration has led to “more jazz type lines and shifting to a wet (Kim Wilson) type of sound.” He is encouraged by younger players like Jason Ricci who seem inclined to take more risks.

Jon loves being part a part of the St. Louis harp community and wants the world to know how good it is. He says it “is nothing like other competitive bigger cities” describing it “as a big circle of people that all get along, everyone doing their own thing with impunity, while sharing and learning from each other.”

Look for Jon playing around town, like at the Venice Café on Tuesday nights.