John Lurie Excels at Music, Watercolors and Wisdom on HBO’s ‘Painting With John’

When John Lurie was in his mid-teens, his sister gave his older brother a harmonica for his birthday. That, combined with the acquisition of a Little Walter record, had the two brothers obsessed with both the idea of the instrument and making music together. Lurie, who today stars in the HBO television show Painting With John, which debuts its second season on Friday (February 18), practiced on the harmonica obsessively. In high school, he and his brother started a band called Crud in which he played and sang. Not long after, he jammed with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Canned Heat with John Lee Hooker. Thus, a career in the arts was born.