| Adam Gussow | |
| Genre: | Blues |
| Years Active: | 1986–present |
| Past Member Of: | Satan and Adam |
Adam Gussow is an American blues harmonica player and author, best known as a member of Satan and Adam.
Gussow was raised in the downstate New York hamlet of Congers, New York and educated at Princeton University and Columbia University. He credits his music career to the mentorship of two older African-American performers: Nat Riddles, a New York harmonica player who had worked with Odetta and Larry Johnson; and guitarist Sterling Magee.
From 1986 to 1998, Gussow played harmonica in the New York-based duo Satan and Adam, alongside Sterling Magee. They released five alums: Harlem Blues (1991), Mother Mojo (1993), Living on the River (1996), Word on the Street (2008), and Back in the Game (2011).[1] [2] A brief extract of Magee and Gussow performing on 125th Street was included in U2's Rattle and Hum documentary. In 1996, Living Blues called Gussow "the first white blues musician to be so prominently spotlighted in the magazine's 26-year history."
In August 2010, Gussow released his first solo album, Kick and Stomp, which features him as a one-man band, playing harmonica and percussion.[3] From 2010 to 2012 Gussow co-organized and produced Hill Country Harmonica, a teaching-intensive event at Foxfire Ranch in Waterford, Mississippi, with an evening concert component.[4]
Gussow is the author of an autobiography, Mister Satan's Apprentice, as well as Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (2002); Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner's Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York (2007); Busker's Holiday (2015), a novel about the summer busking season in Europe; and Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition (2017), which won the Living Blues readers' poll as the "Best Blues Book of 2017".[5]
Gussow's YouTube channel features more than 500 videos and tutorials teaching on playing blues harmonica.
A feature-length documentary about Gussow's decades-long partnership with Magee, entitled Satan & Adam, directed by V. Scott Balcerek premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018.[6]
Gussow's currently plays with Sir Rod & the Blues Doctors, a trio featuring Magee's nephew, Roderick "Sir Rod" Patterson on vocals, Gussow on harmonica and percussion, and Alan Gross on guitar.[7]