Founder
Matthias Hohner
1833–1902 · Trossingen, Württemberg
The clockmaker who put a harmonica in every bluesman's pocket
In 1857 he sat at his kitchen table in Trossingen and soldered together six harmonicas. Ten years later he was exporting over a million a year.
Matthias Hohner was a clockmaker by trade. He bought a harmonica from a neighbour, took it apart, figured out how it worked, and started making his own. He wasn't the first harmonica maker in Germany, but he was the one who understood export — especially to the United States.
Marine Band arrived in 1896 and remains the most-played blues harp in the world. When Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Big Walter Horton and Junior Wells picked up an instrument, they picked up a Marine Band. German craftsmen built the sound of Chicago. It's a story few outside the blues world ever consider.
Anecdotes & moments
- Trossingen, Hohner's home town, still has a harmonica and accordion museum and college. Part of the town still lives off the instrument.
- President Lincoln is said to have played harmonica — Hohner sent him one, and he reportedly replied that it was 'the only reasonable luxury a man can give himself'.