I play straight style harmonica. Real basic stuff. And I do it pretty OK. But I have always had the fascination of the sound of Cross Harped stuff. Blues in the manner of Paul Butterfield and back up like John Sebastian. I never hear a pure melody being played in a cross harp style.
I can only surmise this is because the scale becomes even more limited when played Cross Harp.(True???) I have looked at some harmonica books. One by Tony Glover and one published by Mel Bay. Glover's book is not for the beginner and tends to be just "Too Hip". Mel Bay's is better for the beginner but not in-depth enough to help much ( for me anyway)with the Cross Harp thing.
For me cross harp is all about the sound. Now I know some of the sound that I hear is in the Green Bullet Microphone. (This is because of a hearing loss I have that distorts all the sound I hear.) The question is how do you get the smooth growl that defines a bluesical harmonica riff?