Culture Club Harmonica II – Karma Chameleon [..with tab]

In Culture Club Harmonica part 1, we studied Judd Lander’s harp playing on the band’s top 10 hit, Church Of The Poison Mind. Their follow up single, Karma Chameleon, went flying to the top of the charts worldwide, where it stayed for several weeks. To this day it remains a classic of 1980’s pop. Culture Cluband Boy George had well and truly arrived.

To recap for a moment, Judd Lander is purported to have taken lessons from Sonny Boy II during his formative playing days in Liverpool. He subsequently relocated to London where he found studio session work and launched Charisma Records. His playing is not complex, relying as it does on cross harp blues sequences, but it is highly polished and instantly recognisable. Full of natural tone and excellent phrasing, Judd Lander gives his harp licks real ‘voice’ without resorting to digital trickery or overdriven tubes.

Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dreams

On Karma Chameleon Lander uses exactly the same style of harp as Church Of The Poison Mind, but this time the harp enjoys greater presence throughout the song. The harp parts comprise that signature Karma Chameleon intro riff, two chorus fills, a lead break after the ‘middle 8′, a third chorus fill and a final chorus outro fill. You’ll need an Eb major harp to play in Bb major cross harp. As you work through the tab below, be aware that Lander likes to ’scoop’ into certain notes for effect. In our tab, an italicised note linked to a regular note indicates a scoop.

Let’s start with that signature introduction. It’s a dandy. Lander adds sustained throat vibrato on the final note:

1D 2B 2D

3D’…3D 3D’ 2D

4D’..4D 4D’ 4B

3D’..3D 2D 2D

2D”..2D……..

The first chorus looks and sounds like this:

1D 2B 2D

3D’..3D 3D’..3D 3D’..3D

3D’..3D..3D’..2D….

This pattern is repeated to complete the first chorus contribution.

For the second chorus, Lander adds a couple of extra fills. He starts with the same few notes and then ascends the scale like this:

1D 2B 2D

3D’..3D..4D 5B 6B

He then adds the following lick:

4D’..4D..5D

4D’..4D..4D’ 3D..2D

A further bluesy fill completes the second chorus contribution :

3D’..3D………3D’..3D……

The lead break starts low down in draw 1. Lander uses a Sonny Boy II style wah-wah on the first note, a bent draw 1 into a straight draw 1.

1D’..1D………1D’..1D…………1D’

The second part of the break looks and sounds like this:

2D 3D’..3D 4D 4D’..4D

3D’..3D 3D’..3D 3D’..2D……

You then catch a hint of harp behind the vocal just after the break. The lick is:

1D..1D 2B..2D 3D..3D’

The fills in the third chorus starts with this bluesy sequence. Big pull from the throat:

3D’..3D…….3D’…..2D…..2D”..1D

4D’..4D 4D’..4D 4D’..4D.. 4D’..3D..2D

A gentle fill lower down the harp can be heard amidst the vocals that follow, but we won’t worry about this as it is hard to detect :

1D 2D 2D’..2D………..

The song production is then scaled down to vocal harmonies with a military style snare drum backing, before relaunching into the final chorus, where the first fill is a repeat from the initial chorus above:

1D 2B 2D

3D’..3D 3D’..3D 3D’..3D

3D’..3D..3D’..2D….

Then a simple repeated note:

4D’..4D 4D’..4D 4D’..4D 4D’..4D

Followed by an adapted Landeresque phrase:

1D 2B 2D

3D’..3D..4D

3D’..3D……..3D’..2D

An elongated 3 draw bend:

3D’..3D 3D’..3D…….3D’…….3D”

A lick adapted from the intro phrase as the song fades:

1D 2B 2D

3D’..3D…….3D’..2D

And the song fades. And there you have it! There’s a loving in your eyes all the way. Here’s the video on Youtube, and before you ask, no that’s not Judd Lander on harp. And I don’t believe Boy George really plays harp either! Red, gold and green. Red, gold and gree-ee-ee-een.

The Harp Surgery has had a number of enquiries regarding the harp riffs used in Culture Club’s hits and who was responsible for them. The culprit was Judd Lander, a harp player from Liverpool who managed to ingratiate himself with Sonny Boy II before moving to London as a session musician and co-founding theCharisma record label. You can find more about Judd in our Harp Trivia pages and on his website.

Instead let’s consider what followed. During their early performances Bow Wow Wow were joined on stage by a second singer, the androgynous Lieutenant Lush. When Lush’s talent started eclipsing Lwin’s however, he (for it was a he, contrary to media speculation) was asked to move on by the management. Lush promptly founded his own band, Culture Club, and re-named himself Boy George. The rest of the story is probably more familiar. Unperturbed by the failure of their debut album and two singles, Culture Club released a second album, Colour By Numbers. Their next single, Church Of The Poison Mind, hit the top 10.

Church Of The Poison Mind features only three short snippets of harmonica, but the impact is immense. Lander covers 16 bars during the intro, another 16 bar break midway and the fading few bars at the end of the song. The signature intro riff is more or less repeated for the break, while the outro is free-form. We’re using an F major harp for cross harping in C major. Learn to work ‘inside’ your harp, make musical statements and give it ‘voice’. As you work through the tab below, be aware that Lander likes to ’scoop’ into certain notes for effect. In our tab, an italicised note linked to a regular note indicates a scoop.