John Popper (born March 29, 1967) is an American musician and songwriter.
He is most famous for his role as frontman of rock band Blues Traveler performing harmonica, guitar and vocals. He is widely considered a harmonica virtuoso, and is listed by harmonica manufacturer Hohner as a "Featured Artist", an accolade reserved for only the best and most successful harmonica players.
John Popper was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His father was a Hungarian immigrant who escaped Budapest in the 1950s. Through him, Popper is related to David Popper, a nineteenth-century European cellist.
Popper was raised in Connecticut, where he attended Davenport Ridge School and Stamford Catholic High School, now Trinity Catholic High School, New York, and New Jersey. He took lessons on the piano, the cello, and the guitar, but none of those instruments appealed to him and he hated being forced to practice.
He originally wanted to become a comedian, finding he could use humor to make friends and avoid bullies, but when he and a friend performed a routine as The Blues Brothers, he found that he enjoyed musical performance. From there, he took up the harmonica. Popper played trumpet in his high school jazz band, and convinced the teacher to let him play harmonica instead, after an in-class solo on the song "She Blinded Me With Science".
He formed several garage bands with friends in Princeton, New Jersey, one of which evolved into Blues Traveler in 1987. After graduating high school, the group's members all moved to New York City, where Popper enrolled in The New School for Social Research. Popper attended for three years but devoted himself to the band full-time once they signed a record contract in 1990.
Popper is a founding member of Blues Traveler, serving as the band's front man with lead vocals and harmonica. For some songs, he forgoes the harmonica in favor of guitar. In addition, Popper has played the tin whistle on some recordings.
A prolific songwriter, he has composed the majority of the lyrics and music of Blues Traveler's songs.
The band grew a following with its extensive touring, sometimes with over 300 dates a year, and gained a reputation in the jam band scene of the 1990s. Blues Traveler crossed over into mainstream pop/rock radio success with their 1994 album four, which garnered the group extensive media exposure. The Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1996 was awarded to "Run-around", a song which Popper composed.
In 1990, Popper began to perform occasional solo concerts in addition to touring with Blues Traveler. Several songs which originated as Popper's solo pieces have become part of Blues Traveler's repertoire, and vice versa.
Bolstered by Blues Traveler's mainstream success, Popper released a solo album, Zygote, in 1999 and toured in support of it with his own John Popper Band. The backing band consisted of Dave Ares, Crugie Riccio, and Rob Clores of Cycomotogoat, with drummer Carter Beauford of Dave Matthews Band. The album's release came less than three months after his heart surgery, and only days after the death of Bobby Sheehan, Popper's band mate and best friend. The subsequent tour was canceled midway due to poor ticket sales, and Popper instead took the time to focus on his health.
Popper has co-written songs with Trey Anastasio, Warren Haynes, Chris Barron and Johnny Lang. He also frequently appears as a guest performer with musicians both famous and obscure, from a diverse variety of genres. He has performed with, among others, jam bands Spin Doctors, Dave Matthews Band and Phish; bluesmen Eric Clapton and B.B. King; singer-songwriters Jason Mraz and John Mayer; saxophonist Karl Denson;San Francisco's Culann's Hounds, heavy metal band Metallica; and even with the Hungarian Ambassador to the United States, András Simonyi. He sat in with The Smashing Pumpkins on the second day of their acoustic 1997 Bridge School Benefit appearance, contributing harmonica for their song "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans"; Popper's solo garnered major applause from the audience.
In 1992, Popper conceived the HORDE Festival as a venue to gain exposure for up-and-coming independent musicians. It ran until 1998.
Popper was a part of a one-time studio band brought together in 1997 by New York drummer/songwriter Solomon Deniro. Other players included Trey Gunn, Bernie Worrell, Marc Ribot and Vernon Reid. The group's only recordings were released as the album Gimme Gimme under the name The Devotees. The same recording was re-released by Deniro in 2001 with the title Solomon.
Popper took over in 1998 as front man of jam-band supergroup Frogwings, which released the live album Croakin' at Toad's. Frogwings was mainly active until 2000.
Recently, Popper formed a rock/jazz/hip-hop fusion group The John Popper Project with DJ Logic, which released an album in 2006 and performs occasionally. He also performs on the album Global Noize by Jason Miles and DJ Logic (2008).
Popper had a speaking guest role in an episode of the sitcom Roseanne as a musician similar to himself. He has also had a cameo role as a bowling tournament MC in Kingpin and an appearance in Howard Stern's Private Parts. Popper's first major role was in 2000 in Just for the Time Being, an independent film starring Eva Herzigova. Popper reunited with John Goodman when he made a cameo appearance in the film "Blues Brothers 2000", in which Goodman starred.
Popper has provided narration for art projects produced by his friends, including Das Clown, an award-winning short film in slideshow style that was screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Popper served as host of the third annual Jammy awards in 2002.
He has been a recurring guest on Howard Stern's and Bill Maher's shows and sits in with The CBS Orchestra on The Late Show with David Letterman on occasion.
Since the success of Blues Traveler, Popper has lived in various locations, including Pennsylvania and New Orleans. He currently resides near Seattle, Washington.
In October 1992 Popper was involved in a traffic accident on a motorcycle while traveling to a studio to record for Blues Traveler's third album. The accident put him in a wheelchair for several months, but Popper continued touring with the band despite the difficulties it created.
In 1999, he suffered a near-heart attack brought on by years of compulsive overeating. (He had been diagnosed with diabetes a few years earlier.) Doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center performed an emergency angioplasty which saved Popper's life: he had 95% arterial blockage. Popper later underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost a significant amount of weight.
Popper has a tattoo across his chest that says, "I WILL BE BRAVE", written backwards. He also occasionally wears glasses.
Has never been married. He used to date former NFL Pro Bowl running back Mark Van Eeghen's daughter Amber Eeghen..
Popper is an avid collector of weaponry, including firearms, swords, and a working $10,000 American Civil War cannon. He cites a fascination with their aesthetic of being "life-savingly efficient" machines. Popper is a supporter of Second Amendment rights, and appeared on an MTV-sponsored roundtable discussion on gun control which included panelists from the Law Enforcement Alliance of America and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He carries weapons in any state where it is allowed, even wearing them onstage. On his Daily Show appearance, he stated that he decided to move away from New Jersey because of the state's tight gun laws. He said that his Bucks County, Pennsylvania property had 32 acres on which he built a private gun range.
Popper is a member of the Libertarian Party, and has previously expressed support for the Republican Party. He endorsed George W. Bush in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Popper (with and without Blues Traveler) has played at conventions, fundraisers and ceremonies for both Republican and Democratic politicians. He has stated that politics do not influence his choice of performance setting.
Popper has said, "I was a bleeding-heart liberal, until I got a job" and describes himself as "a libertarian who is a Republican when pushed." Popper summed up his political position by saying "I believe in freedom for markets and freedom for individuals, so I guess that makes me a libertarian."
Popper has toured with the USO, both with Blues Traveler and solo. His most recent tour was in the Middle East, performing with the Band of the Air Force Reserve and Jamie O'Neal at various military camps.
He has appeared with Rock the Vote and recorded "The Preamble" for the Schoolhouse Rocks the Vote! album.
Popper was raised Catholic--and for a time attended Stamford Catholic High School in Connecticut; however, he does not actively practice in his adult life. He has described himself as "a recovering Catholic". The song "Trina Magna" was written as an exploration of his religious views.
John Popper's mug shot from his 2003 arrest
In 2003, Popper was arrested for possession of marijuana.
Popper was also arrested on March 6, 2007 near Ritzville, Washington by the Washington State Patrol. He was the passenger in his own vehicle, which was stopped for speeding, and was found to be in the possession of a small amount of marijuana and weapons. Popper was released the same night. The vehicle had a stash of hidden compartments which contained four rifles, nine handguns, a switchblade knife, a Taser, a set of brass knuckles, and night vision goggles. Officers also recovered a small amount of marijuana and a marijuana pipe. The vehicle was temporarily seized.
No charges were filed for the weapons, as they were all registered and securely locked away, and Popper was licensed to carry them, with the exception of the brass knuckles and switchblade knife which Popper agreed to surrender. A deal was reached that allowed the marijuana charge to be dropped if Popper remained free of further drug infractions for one year and attended eight hours of drug counseling. Popper and the driver had been driving back to Washington from Austin, Texas, and Popper likes to visit gun ranges during long trips.
John Popper has expressed a preference for the Hohner Special 20 brand blues harp, calling them "the Porsche of harmonicas".
Popper uses Shure microphones and Mesa Boogie amplifiers, a setup nearly identical to what Blues Traveler guitarist Chan Kinchla uses himself; Popper noted in an interview that "I just asked Chan what he used." He also uses D'Addario strings.
Popper has developed some equipment innovations to accommodate his use of harmonica during onstage performance: Because diatonic harmonicas are tuned to one particular key, he has fashioned belts (worn as suspenders) with enough pockets to hold an entire set of harmonicas in 12 different keys, plus extras. This allowed Popper to change keys during a performance quickly without looking; he often exchanges harmonicas multiple times within one song. After his weight loss, it no longer fit Popper, so he gave it up in 2002. He now carries harmonicas in a small black attache case.
Popper has also rigged a special microphone with switches that change the audio effect of the harmonica as it is played through an amplifier. This is similar to a guitar effects pedal.
He has also fashioned a number of floppy-brimmed hats with flattened harmonica plates on the band, which he almost always wears during appearances with Blues Traveler.
Solo
Zygote (1999)
with Blues Traveler
See Blues Traveler discography
with The Devotees
Gimme Gimme (1997)
with Frogwings
Croakin' at Toad's (1999)
with The John Popper Project
The John Popper Project with DJ Logic (2006)
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Popper"
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