Bluesman sets sights on record

For a bluesman, "Bad" Brad Wheeler certainly is upbeat.

If he isn't playing gigs on his harmonica, or performing with Dan Weldon as part of the Legendary Porch Pounders, or building the steel guitars he sells on the side, or spreading the word on his "Roots and Blues" KRCL radio show, or publishing his online "Blues News" newsletter, or teaching fourth-graders in his "Blues in the Schools" traveling program, he's telling anyone who will listen about his latest, greatest dream: to conduct the largest harmonica band in the history of the world.

He got the brainstorm/vision about a year and a half ago when he was thinking about the blues, which Brad does 24/7, and, as he puts it:

"I saw myself putting out a notice for the Harmonica Army, and then I saw us all gather together in some place and we all pull out our harmonicas and all play 'When the Saints Come Marching In.' People are looking around at each other, playing harmonica and smiling, thinking this is the craziest, coolest thing I've ever done in my life."

Initially, Brad kept his dream to himself — "even I thought it was a little weird," he says — but then one day he divulged it to his 98-year-old grandmother and she said, "That's not a dream, Brad, that's a calling."

So he went public.

"How do you say no to your grandmother?" he pleads.

And how do you say no to Bad Brad Wheeler, a 21st century blend of Professor Harold Hill and Jack Black in "School of Rock?" A man about as unlikable as ice cream.

This is what he's asking: show up this Saturday at Lindquist Field, the baseball park on Lincoln Avenue in Ogden, and join his Harmonica Army. You can either bring your own harmonica (key of "A" please), or, if you're one of the first 2,500 at the park (registration begins at 10 a.m.), he'll give you one free of charge (Salt Lake attorney Wes Felix is donating the harmonicas).

"The world's biggest harmonica lesson" will be held between noon and 2 and the official playing of "When the Saints" will be at 3:05 p.m.

Brad needs an army of 1,801 to break the existing record in the Guinness Book of World Records for "world's largest harmonica ensemble."

Since he's taught more than 10,000 northern Utah fourth-graders how to play the harmonica in "Blues in the Schools" the past four years, that alone makes him more than a little optimistic about his chances of making it into the record books.

"If everyone of those kids shows up and brings one friend, we'll have like 20,000," he says.