There is a particular kind of musician who turns up at a public library on a Saturday afternoon with a box of harmonicas and a willingness to hand them out to strangers. Bob Pace is that kind of musician, and on October 10, 2026, from 2 to 3 p.m., he will be at the West Des Moines Public Library at 4000 Mills Civic Parkway to prove it.
The event is billed simply: a program for ages 8 and up where attendees can hear some blues and then learn to play the harmonica themselves. It is free, it is drop-in, and it asks nothing of participants except a willingness to make a little noise in a building that normally enforces quiet.
What makes the hour unusual is the man doing the teaching. Pace is a member of both the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame and the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame — a double honor that few Iowa musicians can claim. He was inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame in 2012, recognized by the Central Iowa Blues Society for a career that by then had already spanned more than four decades.
Pace's story starts, as so many guitar stories do, with The Ed Sullivan Show. He picked up his first guitar at 10 and got serious about it at 14, after watching The Beatles and the screaming girls in the audience. As he has told it, the girls sealed the deal: he had to play guitar. His mother fed him the gospel and blues of Mahalia Jackson and Billie Holiday; his father opened the door to Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. He absorbed all of it and then went looking for the guitar players — all the Kings, Roy Buchanan, Mike Bloomfield, Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton.
For nearly two decades, Pace led the Tuesday night house band at Blues on Grand, the Des Moines club that became one of the region's most beloved rooms for the music. Chip Eagle of Blues Revue once wrote, "Bob Pace is my favorite guitarist in the world, at least tonight while I'm sitting here at the bar in Blues On Grand, one of my favorite Blues clubs, watching Bob tear it up." Over the years he opened for Jimmie Vaughan, Johnny Winter, John Mayall, Tab Benoit, Tower of Power and Delbert McClinton, and jammed with Junior Wells, Coco Montoya, Kenny Neal, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Sonny Rhodes, among others.
When Blues on Grand became the Gas Lamp in 2011, Pace followed, becoming a fixture at the venue in the Butler Building on Grand Avenue. He played there regularly for years, including Friday nights with Bob Pace & the Dangerous Band. The Gas Lamp closed its doors for the last time on July 9, 2023, a casualty of redevelopment in the area — a loss that local musicians described as a blow to a scene that had relied on the room as a training ground for newer acts. Pace was there for the final nights, his band's energy filling the room on the penultimate evening as couples danced.
Pace's recorded work includes Bob Pace Live at Blues on Grand and the solo CD Bare Bones, along with tracks contributed to blues compilations on Bob Dorr's Hot Fudge label and two tunes for the Blues for Baghdad CD. He has also played harmonica on the J.C. Anderson Band's album — which is to say the instrument he'll be teaching at the library is not a novelty for him but part of his working toolkit. He is a two-time winner of the solo/duo Iowa Blues Challenge. Over the years he has especially enjoyed playing with The Pace Band, which featured his sons Tony on drums and Nick on bass.
The library program fits a pattern for Pace, who has long combined performing with teaching. The event listing notes that the library is glad to have him, given his busy schedule around the Des Moines area. For an hour, the usual library hush will give way to something else: a room full of beginners — kids and adults alike, since the program is open to ages 8 and up — learning to bend their first notes on an instrument that costs very little and travels in a pocket.
The harmonica has always been the most democratic instrument in American music. It is cheap, it is small, and it rewards enthusiasm more than formal training. It is the instrument that made its way from front porches to Chicago clubs to the hands of blues players who could not afford a guitar. That a two-time hall of famer is willing to spend an afternoon handing out the basics is a small, generous thing — and a rare chance to learn from someone who has spent more than half a century on Iowa stages.
The program runs Saturday, October 10, 2026, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the West Des Moines Public Library, 4000 Mills Civic Parkway. It is free and open to ages 8 and up.