How 'bout the harmonica

https://www.loc.gov/item/afcreed000213/

The URL above is a recording of the country song "Fishers hornpipe" (on hamonica) by Mike Marshall and Chris Thile. As seen in the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck writes,"A harmonica is easy to carry...you can do anything with a harmonica: thin reedy single tone, or chords, or melody with rhythm chords. You can mold the music with curved hands, making it wail and cry like bagpipes, making it full and round like an organ, making it as sharp and bitter as the reed pipes of the hills" (Steinbeck 328). The versatility and cost efficiency of the harmonica made it possible for people like the poor migrant workers in the Grapes of Wrath to enjoy sweet melodic tones. In author Thomas Kit's essay Popular music and society, he states, "These very accessible instruments gave expression to a people marginalized by race, economics, geography, and education, and the music they developed became, arguably, the 20th century’s most influential form" (Kits 2). Some contemporary harmonica players that emerged from the old-time music/ bluegrass scene are Sonny Terry, Big Walter Horton, and Jimmy Reed. These men adapted their own style of music with the harmonica by perfecting the old-time sound of Appalachian folk music.