Born to Play the Blues

By Roger Stolle

Not yet 50 years old, Pontotoc’s Terry “Harmonica” Bean has the sound of an old-school blues veteran—for a good reason. “I’ve always loved the blues,” according to Bean. “And I been around it all my life.”

Growing up in an impoverished family with 23 brothers and sisters, Bean had to find his own way, and his way was the blues. Even as a child, he showed interest in playing it—an interest that led to early jams at juke joints while his father gambled. Not surprisingly, his father also played guitar and sang. “My daddy used to play with B.B. King, but he had to stay at home and couldn’t go on the road,” says Bean.

Through the years, Bean picked up pointers from both his father and other older blues musicians he accompanied, including such Delta icons as T-Model Ford, Asie Payton, Booba Barnes, Big George Brock and Willie Foster. Of them, Ford was the first professional musician to take Bean under his wing. “I played with T-Model for three years before I broke off from under him,” says Bean. “Most of the time it was real good. But you had to be on your toes [where the female fans were concerned] or you could take a licking that ole T-Model was supposed to get!”

These days, Bean holds down a day job with a North Mississippi furniture manufacturing company in addition to playing the blues at night and on weekends, but his career was originally supposed to go in a different direction. “I was going to be drafted by the Major Leagues as a pitcher,” says Bean. He pitched with both hands at around 95 miles per hour, but in 1980, he wrecked his motorcycle, sidelining his baseball career. He recovered only to get the blues again. “That happened twice,” recalls Bean, shaking his head. “I had that accident in ‘80, and then about four years later, the Cincinnati Reds called me to a camp in Greenville [Mississippi] they was having. I was headed down there and a guy was on the wrong side of the road. We was fixing to hit head on. I flipped four times. That’s when I started doing this seriously—playing the blues.”

In the past couple of years, Bean’s blues has taken him coast-to-coast and even overseas to countries like England and Italy. Closer to home, Bean regularly performs at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale. He’s also a regular at the area’s Juke Joint Festival and Sunflower River Blues Festival. “I just like to play,” explains Bean. “I can’t let it go. I don’t want to let blues die. I’m just going to do this and just see how far it will go.”

Bean can be booked for parties and events at (662) 489-6858.