Jon Gindick  was born in 1948 in Hollywood, California. A early memory is listening again and again to harmonica great Larry Adler playing “Rhapsody in Blue” on the family Packard Bell consol.

In 1954, the Gindicks moved 200 miles north to the town of Visalia in the San Joaquin Valley. Although always motivated by art, it was here Jon got his taste of hard work. He worked in the fields, the plums, the peaches, packing house lines, drove forklifts, loaded box cars (and hitched a few as well.)

 In the 60’s, Jon got his first guitar and blues harps and fell in love with “The Beatles,” “Rolling Stones,” “Paul Butterfield Blues Band” and Bob Dylan. Jon attended UC Berkeley, which had a vibrant music scene in Sproul Plaza, in the center of campus. He played harmonica and guitar with many musicians, going from group to group on the music-studded campus.

Graduating from Berkeley in 1970, Jon worked in packing houses and wrote short stories and novels. His hero was John Steinbeck, but in fiction, he couldn’t get close. Playing harp and guitar and writing songs constantly, he started teaching harmonica. In the mid 70’ s he wrote and self published his first harmonica instruction book and tape cassette. He packaged them with a Hohner harmonica and sold the kit for $13.95 in “Rolling Stone” Classifieds. He sold thousands from his living room. Jon became a well-known figure to harp players of his generation.

In 1984, Jon wrote his best-seller ​Country and Blues Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless book and cassette which eventually sold over a million copies. Jon created several harmonica instruction products and sold them in his mail order business. Cowboy harmonica, gospel harmonica, patriotic harmonica--all sounding bluesy in the way Jon taught and played.

Jon’s books and cds were distributed into Cracker Barrel Restaurants, toy stores, mail order catalogs, sold on Home Shopping Network and Jon’s own 800 number cable tv ad. He made a harmonica instruction video with BB King which was distributed by Hohner. These infectiously enthusiastic and funny do-it-yourself products made him one of the most popular and listened-to harmonica players of the era. Part of the fun was the songs he wrote and sang for his students to jam with.

 In 2001, Jon created Blues Harmonica Jam Camp, a harmonica/seminar/ workshop which focused on fundamentals of blues harp and jamming. Now the people Jon’s books had touched were able to spend several days with him learning harmonica skills. To this day, Gindick has put on 67 multi-day harmonica learning events with two more planned for 2020.

In 2010, he met with multi-instrumentalist and producer Ralph Carter, and started honing his material for Carter’s recording studio. In 2010 and 2016, he released his highly regarded Cd of 10-original songs “When We Die, We All Come Back as Music” which was produced and accompanied by Carter. 

Now, in 2019, Jon has released a second Cd, “Love At The All Night Cafe,” a collection of 12 original songs again accompanied and produced by Ralph Carter and a musical team of Pete Gallagher, Franck Goldwasser. Like everything Jon has done, this offering is potent and innovative, creating its own category of blues. Jon lives in Ventura, California.

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