Juke

At the end of a recording session backing Muddy Waters, 22-year-old harmonica prodigy Little Walter decided to cut an instrumental track of his own. Cupping a cheap microphone directly to his harmonica and plugging it into a guitar amplifier, he pushed the tubes to distortion. The resulting track, 'Juke,' sounded like a roaring, alien saxophone. It hit number one on the Billboard R&B chart, making it the first time a heavily amplified harmonica took the lead on a hit record. Walter's accidental studio experiment transformed the harmonica from a gentle folk instrument into the snarling brass section of Chicago blues.