If you like the plastic harps I'd try out a Hohner Special 20. I've found both Lee Oskars and Big Rivers to be less air tight. David Barrett is an excellent harmonica instructor (maybe the best) and has a great site:
www.bluesharmonica.com and has authored a slew of great harmonica instruction books. Adam Gussow (from the duo Satin & Adam) is another great instructor who has an active forum at:
http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/blues_harp_forum.html or you can check out his main site at:
www.modernbluesharmonica.com He also has hundreds (I think) of free lessons on YouTube:
What harp keys should I buy? (From Adam Gussow's site)
I talk about this in my book, Journeyman's Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner's Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York. It depends in part on who you're going to be playing with. If you're jamming along with blues records, you'll probably be able to get by with harps in the keys of A, C, D, and F. Those will enable you to play cross harp in the keys of E, G, A, and C. Many classic blues harmonica cuts are recorded in those keys.
The next three keys you get should be G, B-flat, and E-flat. G is the lowest standard harp; except for Dennis Gruenling, almost no harp players record on the low F, low E-flat, and low D harps. B-flat and E-flat show up with some frequency in the harp repertoire?Sonny Terry, Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, and Mark Wenner use them?and they?re particularly important if you?re going to be jamming with horn players, since horn players love the keys of F and B-flat. B-flat harps play cross in F; E-flat harps play cross in B-flat.)
Once you?ve accumulated G, A, B-flat, C, D, E-flat, and F, you?re ready to rumble. What about the remaining harps?
A-flat: rarely used. Stevie Wonder plays the solo on ?Boogie On Reggae Woman? on an A-flat harp, blowing the high notes in first position.
B: I?ve only come across two cuts in this key harp: Big Walter plays ?Tighten Up on It? with Johnny Young on a B harp, and Sonny Terry plays ?Poor Boy? on an obscure recording with Brownie McGhee
D-flat: A favorite harp of mine for a particular song, ?Gone to Main Street,? but I?ll be damned if I know anybody else who uses it--except for Nat Riddles, blowing harp with Larry Johnson on an impossible-to-find album on the Spivey Records label entitled Basin Free.
E: This harp shows up from time to time. Sugar Blue plays ?Miss You? with the Stones on an E, if I?m not wrong, and ?Midnight Rambler? also uses it. James Cotton uses an E-harp on 100% Cotton.
F-sharp: Very rare. Mickey Raphael plays his solo in Willie Nelson?s ?Georgia on My Mind? on an F-sharp harp.
The only other key you might consider is a high G harp. In amplified contexts, a low G has trouble cutting through, but a high G is right out front.
