Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Magic Dick interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 50

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Magic Dick joins me on episode 50.
Magic Dick created one of the all time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whammer Jammer. But his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that.
He started playing trumpet at age 9, and this instrument along with his love of jazz and rock and roll shaped his approach on harmonica.
He was a founder member of the J Geils Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years. Magic Dick was  an integral part of their sound with his harmonica work central to their output of Rhythm & Blues, Rock, Pop and Soul.
After the J Geils band split in 1985 he took a break from playing before coming back with some session playing and then forming the band Bluestime with J Geils. More recently he has performed in an acoustic duo with Shun Ng.

Links:

Magic Dick's website:
https://www.magicdick.com/

Email Magic Dick for lessons:
magicdick@magicdick.com

Line 6 HX Stomp pedal:
https://uk.line6.com/hx-stomp/


Videos:

Southern Crossing with band Full Circle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEayO6DUn74

Whammer Jammer with Shun Ng:
https://youtu.be/QRygCpiW7mY

So What on Chromatic with Shun Ng:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtM9UGfwLm0

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag with Shun Ng:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxAZ3YyjtPg


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Magic Dick joins you on episode 50. Magic Dick created one of the old-time classic harmonica instrumentals in Whamma Jamma, but his long career has produced so many more highlights than just that. He started playing trumpet at age nine, and this instrument, along with his love of jazz and rock and roll, shaped his approach on harmonica. He was a founder member of the Jay Giles Band, who had great commercial success for over 15 years. Magic Dick was an integral part of their sound, with his harmonica work central to the output of rhythm and blues, rock, pop and soul. After the Jay Giles band split in 1985, he took a break from playing before coming back with some session playing and then forming the band Blues Time with Jay Giles. Magic Dick also patented his Magic Harmonica, which is a forerunner to the various harmonicas now available in

SPEAKER_01:

different tunes. Hello, Magic Dick, and welcome to the podcast. Hey, thank you very much, Neil. Kind of delighted to be your dog in here right now.

SPEAKER_00:

I often like to ask people about their name. So you're called Magic Dick. So where did this name come from?

SPEAKER_01:

It's kind of in the tradition. I wanted to have my name be in the tradition of some of the Chicago blues heroes that I love so much. I just felt like I needed a more special name. That seemed to come up. Danny, the bass player in the band, he and I were hanging out just thinking about names that I might use. And I'd have to credit Danny with coming up with that one, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

So Magic Dick and licking stick as well so the licking stick is the harmonica is it

SPEAKER_01:

that's right that's a term that's been uh around in the u.s for many many decades calling licking stick and it does rhyme

SPEAKER_00:

yeah no cool i wasn't aware of that that was a that was a u.s term for uh the harmonica yeah great

SPEAKER_01:

in some circles

SPEAKER_00:

so yeah so talking about how you got into music i think your mother lived music didn't she sang in a choir and i think your brother played carinet so um you were surrounded in a young age with music

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i was it was very fortunate that way and fortunate that my My parents, they were very interested in having me play an instrument, and I told them I wanted to play the trumpet. I loved the trumpet, still do. And my brother, my older brother, played clarinet, and the two of us would sometimes play these duets. But then my brother stopped playing. He stopped playing the clarinet during his teenage years, and I kept up with the music.

SPEAKER_00:

So was trumpet your first instrument?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like a lot of the people in the U.S., you sort of joined a school band, and you were playing the trumpet in the school band from quite a young age, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

I did, but I wasn't that into the school band that much. I would say I was more of a loner. But I loved jazz, and that's really what I was focusing a lot of my listening on. jazz and rock and roll very early exposure to uh all the little richard records you know all those great tenor sax solos you know the soulfulness of little richard's singing so that was a deep early influence on me

SPEAKER_00:

yeah we'll get into how that's helped shape your music and your approach to the harmonica so so you played the trumpet i think you played some saxophone as well was that also quite a young age

SPEAKER_01:

later on later on i started to fool around with the saxophone by later on i mean much later on i didn't probably really fool around with the saxophone much in until mid-70s.

SPEAKER_00:

And when did the harmonica come into it?

SPEAKER_01:

I started on the harmonica when I was 21. And

SPEAKER_00:

what made you pick up the harmonica?

SPEAKER_01:

I heard some recordings by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, which really kind of moved me.

SPEAKER_00:

It's incredible the amount of people who say that Sonny Terry was the sort of first person they heard, you know, on the harmonica, and that's kind of what inspired them to play. He's definitely the number one in the people I talk to. There's a kind of first person they heard playing the harmonica.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, partly because his recordings were around in a There wasn't that much of other harmonica player stuff to hear way back then.

SPEAKER_00:

And was it one particular song, one album with Sonny Terry that grabbed you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there was. There was a 10-inch LP on Folkways called Harmonica and Vocal Solos, Sonny Terry.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, he done took my sweet little woman And left me standing here

SPEAKER_01:

That is what really inspired me, because everything that Sonny Terry was doing on that recording was just him, just his voice, just him on the harmonica, and his foot tapping, foot stomping. He had great rhythm. But his style was, you know, it wasn't too long after that exposure to Sonny Terry that I got into Sonny Boy Williamson and all the great Chicago blues harp players, which is a rather different style. And it was that different style from Chicago that I utilized a lot more in my approach with Jake Giles band. Although some of the stuff from Sonny Terry, including some of the high note things that I do, that kind of came from him too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you've got that great bend on the 10 blow, haven't you? Which is a real characteristic of your sound.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it is for better or worse.

SPEAKER_00:

Whilst we're on that, I think a lot of people do struggle to get that blow bend on the 10 blow. Any tips for that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you have to focus on it and practice it a lot. The main tip that I would give is it takes a lot more air pressure up there to do those bands than playing stuff lower down on the harp. You just kind of have to wind up for it and let it rip. It takes a considerably focused intensity in the lips, keeping the connection to the instrument up there. And there's a lot of movement inside the mouth with the tongue as far as changing the shape, changing the resonance of the mouth cavity and the throat cavity, the sinuses, the pharynx.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_00:

Going back a little bit again to your musical journey. So you say you didn't really pick up the harp till you were 21. So were you still playing the trumpet, you know, and sort of playing jazz stuff up until that age? Or, you know, when did you sort of, you were still very interested in musical for your teens, were you?

SPEAKER_01:

I was always really interested in music. And ever since third grade, I started on trumpet in third grade. Third grade was the beginning of so many things for me, because that's also when I realized that I was deeply interested in science and painting. I either wanted to be like a scientist or a painter, you know, some kind of artist. And in some respects, I wish I had stuck with that feeling. I got kind of diverted into the idea of becoming a physicist, which I'm still really interested in, and utilize a lot of those principles of acoustics, sound production. I don't mean production in the studio. I mean the production of sound, you know, instruments that create sound and how do they do it. Like horns, for example, you know, obey certain laws of acoustics. Harmonica is less so. Harmonica Harmonica is kind of more like a piano, you know, in the sense that every note has a string, a separate sound producing element. Most of the notes on the surface of the harp without getting into bending and all of that technique.

SPEAKER_00:

So have you looked into the, you know, the kind of physics of how reeds work and harmonica? Have you gone to that level?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, some. I don't want to give the impression that I'm expert in that because I'm not. But what I am totally aware of is how volumes of space about the size of what you can encompass in your hands or your mouth, that size and shape of a container, if you will, By changing those shapes, you can really affect the sound of the harp a great deal. That's what I'm really interested in. And that's something that one discovers, not so much theoretically, but by actually doing and experimenting with it.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I've heard you talk about how vocal training really helps with your harmonica playing and, you know, about shaping those sounds. So you've put a lot of thought into really getting the different sounds. Obviously, the harmonica is, you know, it's a very personal instrument, isn't it? Sounds, you know, everyone sounds different because vocally they sound different. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

definitely. And they talk different the whole basis of this vocal approach which i teach by the way i'm doing quite a bit of teaching these days they can reach me at magic dick at magic dick.com

SPEAKER_00:

yeah i'll put a i'll put your contact details on the front of the podcast page as well

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i really enjoy teaching i like it a lot

SPEAKER_00:

are you doing mostly online stuff or face-to-face as well

SPEAKER_01:

online privately

SPEAKER_00:

so going back again so when you started getting to harmonica was this you know you heard the harmonica you heard sunny terry you started then like you said getting into some of the chicago players Little Walter. I know you're a big fan of it. Who isn't?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It was this time, wasn't it? You started really exploring the harmonica plays and some depth in.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. As much as possible. I listened to everybody that I could. But I also rather quickly made some sort of preliminary decisions about who I really liked and who I was going to study the most. Little Walter and both Sonny Boy Williamson's were the primaries for me. And Junior Well's early stuff up through that period of time when he recorded that live album, It's My Life, Baby.

SPEAKER_02:

Somebody better come here right now. Look at him.

SPEAKER_01:

Walter Horton was another one that I liked, but I never liked Walter Horton as much as Little Walter. It was an advantage to me to focus. I'm always into this thing of focusing one's attention and effort on what's essential. That's why the vocal training that I got really helped me. Those were tremendous exercises in focus and attention and working on those aspects of things which could be worked on on a daily basis without being all that theoretical. And the thing about the singing is, and this part of my teaching with the harp, is that everything is really based on what you already really know how to do, like talking. There is so much in speech itself, the impulse to talk, the connection between the brain and the voice, and your intention to communicate. When you're in a performance mode, in a mode to project something, that's how we need to practice. And the thing that comes closest to that is just talking. Focus on how you work the air when you just speak.

SPEAKER_00:

So one of the main things I like to bring out the podcast and talking to all the great players I've been lucky to interview is, you know, what's made them successful in the harmonica world, you know, and how can some people can play the harmonica for 40 years and not get that great. And, you know, and other people like yourselves, you know, do great and have great successful careers. And I think what really comes through from looking into you is that you've really worked at it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I've really researched a lot of the aspects of it to the point of actually reading a good deal of a book called On the Sensations of Tone by Hermann Helmholtz, who is a famous German physicist. He is the guy who is credited mainly with understanding of the physiology of the ear and how music works with the ear. I became very interested in that. And in the process, I learned quite a bit about organ reeds, free reeds, like in the harmonica. Some of them were free reeds. Some of them are called beating reeds, where the reed actually beats against the reed plate. There were lots of pictures of reed profiles, which I was interested in at the time because of the problems that was happening with the manufacturer of the harps back in the 70s. So I learned a good deal of it and use that information today, but not like on a daily basis. basis or anything like that. What I do on a daily basis is focus on playing music and practicing the instrument.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you started playing seriously in the harmonica at age 21, not long after that, I think you were studying at Worcester Polytechnic in 1968, and this is when you met two of the members of the Jay Giles band, which you obviously went on and had a great success with through the 70s and the early 80s.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you'd only been playing the harmonica for a couple of years at this stage, did you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, about three and a half years, I think it was.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think you know, you decided then that music was the life for you, yeah, and you abandoned your studies and then gave yourself over to the music, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. There's nothing like diving in. That's the fun of it for me, and the new discoveries. I never stopped thinking about what the harp is capable of doing, both in terms of the tuning of the harp, you know, meaning the tone layout, you know, and I play a lot of chromatic harp now. That's really where a lot of my focus has gone.

SPEAKER_00:

So playing with the Jay Giles, rhythm, blues, rock and roll, so it wasn't a full-on blues band, but a certainly with blues elements in there and you know you you sort of helped add to that

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

But, you know, commercially successful, yeah. I mean, of the people I've spoken to on the podcast, lots of them have had great, successful careers, but there's not many like yourself who've had this sort of commercial success with a band like Jer Giles. Right. So, you know, so how was that, you know, playing in, you know, more of a commercially successful band than a sort of straight-ahead blues band or, you know, jazz or, you know, other sort of traditional genres of people who play the harmonica generally?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, for me, what it was like, it was very challenging because, first of all, you have to understand that all the rest of the guys in the Giles band. We were all harmonica freaks. We were all little Walter fans, Sonny Boy Williamson. We loved that stuff. So I had a tremendous amount of support there from everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

Did the others play the harmonica, or was that just you?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it was just me. Peter plays a little bit of harp. You know, we'd already seen what happens when, you know, when you call yourselves a blues band, you are unnecessarily limiting what people might expect of you. We dropped the title blues band from the early days of, before Peter came into the band, before Peter and Stephen Blatt on drums.

SPEAKER_00:

Just letting people know that Peter Wolfe was the main singer, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. But at first it was just me. You know, the Jay Giles Blues Band was me fronting this thing. But we dropped the name after a little while, a blues band. It was just too limiting. And we weren't just interested in blues. We loved rhythm and blues. We loved soul. We loved pop. We loved rock and roll. And I loved all of that, too.

SPEAKER_00:

What about the role of the harmonica in this type of music? Like you say, you're playing rhythm and blues, a bit of soul, jazzy stuff. Quite a lot of different styles, didn't you, within the set?

SPEAKER_01:

What I was digging about the whole thing was that it was allowing me to take on a role that was sort of bigger than just being a harmonica player. This allowed me to be the one who was creating this kind of a style where I took the elements of Chicago blues and injected it into this rock and roll and pop, R&B, soul. I was finding ways to utilize what I'd already studied with this music and make it work.

SPEAKER_00:

So how successful were the Jergals band?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we were pretty successful. We eventually became number one band in the land, but that was much later on with a hit single called Centerfold.

SPEAKER_00:

With a great harmonica riff.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Really central to the song, that riff,

SPEAKER_01:

isn't it? That's harmonica and organ together. If I remember correctly, it might be guitar, too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, cool. So the first album you had out was called The Jagals Band, yeah? And a song on there, which you're so well known for, was Homework.

UNKNOWN:

Homework.

SPEAKER_01:

That was a cover of a kind of a famous or what became a famous Otis Rush tune. The thing that's noteworthy from a harmonica perspective about homework is I played that tune on a honer harp called the Soloist, which is, at least that's what it was called in the US. And it's the same tuning as the slide chromatic, but without a slide.

SPEAKER_00:

You can get solo, what they call solo tuned harps now. Yeah. Which sounds like it's the same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's just the same setup as, That's the slide chromatic. So anyway, it turned out that, and homework is in D minor. So playing that particular harp in third position, if you will, meaning the draw one is the key of the, when you draw on the first hole, that's the key of the tune, D. And so it allows you to play a lot of that Chicago blues, little Walter kind of stuff, and to be able to bend the notes with a diatonic sound to the bends, rather than the way bends sound on a valve slide chromatic you know and then and also to be able to play rhythmically the the d minor chord to be able to play rhythm pattern on the d minor chord just seemed to work great i always enjoyed playing that

SPEAKER_00:

tune your next album uh your second album the morning after in 1971 so the first song i think is the first song on here was uh was whamma jamma so uh let's just get whamma jamma out the way i'm almost feel apologetic having to ask you again about whamma jamma but how do you feel about the song whamma jamma

SPEAKER_01:

i feel lucky to have it whamma jamma kind of came about because During the shows that we were doing, sometimes things would go wrong, technically. We needed something to keep the entertainment going, so to speak, you know, while a repair was made or something. So Peter would often call on me to play something Call me to the vocal mic. That was kind of the beginning of developing this idea of, hey, let's actually really do an instrumental. It became every show. I don't think I've ever done a show without doing Weimer Jammer.

SPEAKER_00:

So like you say, many ways, you know, to have such an iconic, you know, it's the one of the iconic harmonica songs, isn't it? So, you know, you know, great, fantastic thing to have on your belt, but also a bit of a curse. Yeah, you've always got to play, but it sounds like you're very grateful for that. But one thing you're very keen to get across when people hear the clips is, of course, you've done lots of other greats. So I know that,

SPEAKER_01:

again, listen to it. I know

SPEAKER_00:

that you kind of were inspired a little bit by Sonny Boy Williamson playing with the Yardbirds and the kind of rhythm in the first part of the song when you're playing solo.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

That's

SPEAKER_01:

right. That was really the inception for it. The fact that Sonny Boy could play that kind of rhythm, that's what I really like. So yeah, it did come from what Sonny Boy is doing on the beginning of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I understand you used to be played second last in the set and all the Jagals gigs.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. When it came time to do Whamma Jamma, it was pretty much at the end of the set, second to last tune. So I'd already done a whole lot of playing, beyond two hours probably at that point.

SPEAKER_00:

And also, and this is quite crazy antics, you guys were active on stage, you were jumping around and you had this big crazy hair as well. Yeah, this is real 70s stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I still can't believe it sometimes when I see photos of myself from then. It's like, how did I manage that hair,

SPEAKER_00:

man? So earlier on today, I played Wham-A-Jammer about five times in a row. I had a great time doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Which version?

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I was going to get onto. So the version, which is probably the more famous version, is the version from the 1972, the live Full House album, isn't it? That's the really famous version of the song,

SPEAKER_01:

isn't it? Yeah, I think it's a much better version. The studio version on The Morning After is much slower. The studio version on The Morning After was our first recording of Whammer Jammer. As is typical with a lot of bands, you know, the first recording that you make of something, especially if you haven't been playing it all that long, it tends to be a little more studied and slow. But after performing it for so many times live, the tempo got bumped up a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think J-Gals were a great live band. I think that's what your strength was in playing live, because you have quite a few live albums out, don't you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And of course, that live version is the one where Peter Wolfe does that fantastic introduction before you start playing. which just builds up the energy before you start.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. It is a fantastic introduction. Couldn't ask for a more happening introduction.

SPEAKER_00:

Did he use the same introduction all the time, or was it just that one, that gig?

SPEAKER_01:

He would do something like that every night, but it wasn't always the same thing. Peter was really good at improvising that jive. I think that the best thing about Where I'm a Jammer, from my perspective, is that as a composition, it has great momentum. It's like each new chorus that comes along, there's an inevitability about it. It just all really connects and it builds and it has this momentum. I think that's part of what people like about it. It's like a ride. Once you get on that ride, you're on that ride until the end. It's a difficult piece. To meet my standards, it is. I've heard lots of people try.

SPEAKER_00:

You've really got to be on your game with it, haven't you? That's for sure. I'm Have you ever fallen flat playing it or has it always come out good for you?

SPEAKER_01:

I've often gotten derailed or, you know, made a mistake. It's easy to forget the order of the verses. It's easy to get them mixed up. And so, like, if I mixed it up, that would mix up what Jay's call and response thing is with the, you know... Sometimes we didn't have that all together. And more often than not, it was my fault.

SPEAKER_00:

So you hear quite a lot of people say, oh, Little Walter probably never played the same solo twice. But with Whamma Jamma, did you always try to play it the same? Because it was a set instrumental, like you said, which kind of built up with that momentum. And so, you know, you wanted to play it the same each time rather than improvised parts of

SPEAKER_01:

it. Right. No, I definitely wanted to play it the same each time. Also, a big part of it was Whamma Jamma is probably never completely fulfilled. The technical aspects of playing that piece are so demanding to be able to keep the time steady through it, to put in all those stop times and to have it hold together. There were times I would vary certain things, but I would always try to keep it close to the main idea because this thing needed to be tight. You don't want to do stuff that's going to throw the band off.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that the Life Full House was your third album. So the fourth album, 1973, I think there's a song called Give It To Me, which had a lot of success in the U.S. charts. But at this stage, this is where you were starting to get real hits, yeah? Yeah. Even before that, the songs were successful, were they?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but Give It To Me was a highlight, I think, at that point.

SPEAKER_00:

And, of course, it's got harmonica, because not all the Jay Giles songs have got harmonica on them, but probably most of them do, don't they?

SPEAKER_01:

Correct.

SPEAKER_00:

Was there any discussion around which songs, you know, would have harmonica, or did it just sort of fall naturally into place?

SPEAKER_01:

It would sort of fall naturally into place. The thing about Give It To Me is that at that particular time, when we came out with Give It To Me, They wouldn't play it on the radio because of the lyric. Yet, at the same time, they were playing Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-Ling. so that's the kind of stuff sometimes that you contend with

SPEAKER_00:

but it still made it to the top of the charts despite they weren't playing it on the on the radio

SPEAKER_01:

well they were playing it on am radio am radio at that time was big

SPEAKER_00:

and were you having success around the world you know in other countries charts as well at this point on touring around in you know in all the different countries yeah

SPEAKER_01:

we were starting to at that point yeah i think we had also we'd been to europe maybe and and or uk and we'd been to japan

SPEAKER_00:

you know we live in the life of rock stars it's this sort of mid-70s period.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I don't know if I'd say we were living the life of rock stars. We were rock stars.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Whatever that means. I

SPEAKER_00:

think you were compared to the Rolling Stones at one point. How did you like that comparison?

SPEAKER_01:

I didn't mind it at all. I think some of that comparison comes from a sort of a wishful thinking. Now, there were certain similarities between Peter and Mick, you know, in terms of a certain degree of brashness and a lot of stage awareness. So in that sense, and some of the songs, some of the things we did were drawn from the same sources that the Stones drew from.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that blues sort of roots, yeah. Well, one thing for sure is you were a lot better harmonica player than Mick Jagger. So you can definitely claim that over them. So yeah, that's good. So an album you came out in 1977 probably has my favorite harmonica song from you, which is I'm Not Rough.

UNKNOWN:

I'm Not Rough.

SPEAKER_00:

based on a Louis Armstrong song. And again, your love of the trumpet.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. Yeah. When I heard that song, I thought, you know, I'm going to bring this to the band. I think this is something that the band could really do well. And I didn't have to twist anybody's arm to do it either. Peter was definitely game for it. He could see how good it would be. The main thing about that tune that struck me, both when I first heard Louis Armstrong's recording of it, was that it starts out as a country blues. You know, as it goes by, about the last third of it, it kind of transitions into an urban sound. That's what I felt we could do. really do you know like and jay could play slide guitar on it

SPEAKER_00:

no it's a great one it's mostly instrumental isn't although there are some vocals on it

SPEAKER_01:

yeah peter comes in with it

SPEAKER_00:

well i don't buy it i'm not rough and

SPEAKER_01:

i

SPEAKER_00:

don't buy it yeah a great song yeah great i really love that one and yeah the real sort of real jazzy elements to that and of course you're playing a standard tune diatonic on that yeah

SPEAKER_01:

i am yeah

SPEAKER_00:

so another really iconic song for jay giles was sanctuary Yeah, and again, a different sound for the harmonica. And again, you know, you're going to come up with these different sounds and, you know, these different sorts of songs.

SPEAKER_01:

I remember playing in Holland at the Paradiso doing Sanctuary. I'm not sure if that was before or after we recorded it. Could have been before.

SPEAKER_00:

We've touched on Centerfold earlier on. This was on your 1981 album. So was this the height of your fame, this Freeze Frame album in 1981?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'd say it was. Yeah. There's some intense stuff on there too.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then he did another really famous live album of yours. It was a Showtime album in 1982. But some great ones on this Showtime album. Again, another real favorite and another great song of yours is Stoop Down Baby. Oh, thanks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Stoop Down was... That was one that I did on the heels of... We were recording in New York City for an extended period of time at that time. I had quite a bit of free time to myself, and I was... I was watching Roy Eldridge, one of my trumpet idols. The trumpet lineage is from Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge to Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis. I loved all those guys. But Roy Eldridge, he was a big idol of mine at the time. And I got to see him perform night after night at this little bar called Jimmy Ryan's on 54th Street. I would go there every night and record him and then have conversations with him. Got to know him, and he was really great to me. And it was so incredible for me to be able to stand within 10 feet or less of my idol and study him closely while he's playing the trumpet, watching how he breathes. and correlating the sound with what you see. That was a big part of it for me in terms of forming my ideas about technique and teaching, teaching myself.

SPEAKER_00:

So Stoop Down Baby was based on one of his songs,

SPEAKER_01:

was it? No.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no.

SPEAKER_01:

It was based upon... See, Roy had this way of playing that he could make the trumpet sound like a blowtorch. And there are times when he would play fast and fiery, even then when he was like his late 60s, early 70s. He could still blow like that when he felt like it. So it was through the influence of seeing this night after night and also collecting and listening to his recordings for a long time before I ever met him. That's really what I had on my mind when it was time for me to go in the studio and play Stoop Down.

UNKNOWN:

Stoop Down

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting that, you know, two of my favorite songs are yours. I'm Not Rough and Stooped Down Baby were kind of inspired by a trumpet sound, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, that's because I have trumpet brain.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I've not given up on the trumpet,

SPEAKER_00:

by the way. You're still playing it then?

SPEAKER_01:

I still think about it damn near every day. I don't play it all the time. But, you know, my basic feeling is like, anytime I divert into something like that, that's actually time taken away from the harmonica. And there's a lot more work to be done on that, yeah. for me. I just try to be sane and economical about how I'm spending my time and energy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. So another song I've got to mention off the Showtime song, which me and my friends used to love, is Love Rap, which really showcases Peter Wolfe's fantastic vocal, which is basically just talking. It's just a vocal talking thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the repute of the beauty rap. Let down your long golden hair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

He ordered the largest pizza he can get. And he put on mushrooms. He put on onions. He put on pepperoni. He put on sausage. He put on hot chili. He put on broccoli. He put on peanut butter. He even put on tuna fish. But no anchovies.

SPEAKER_01:

Peter was really good at that stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, superb, yeah. I think having that amazing vocal, we'll get onto your vocals later, but having that amazing vocals makes such a difference, doesn't it? It does, yeah. Then in 84, the last Jay Giles Band album came out and then you split in 85. Yeah. And I think at that point, you know, this, you sort of took a bit of time out playing. You still did some recording, didn't you, with some of the people, but yeah, you took a bit of a break from the sort of 1985 for a few years.

SPEAKER_01:

I did. I definitely took quite a long break. Longer on in 87, I started to get into it some more.

SPEAKER_00:

So, yeah. So you, like you say, you took a break and, you know, you started getting back into playing then for a few years. You did, I've got a recording you play with the Full Circle Band playing Southern Crossings. So you did a few guest spots, did you, with bands during that time, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

That's right, yeah. Something with Debbie Harry, too.

SPEAKER_00:

Was it earlier than this that you came up with the magic harmonica? Because you did play it with Jay Giles, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01:

The first appearance of magic harps that I can recall on recording is on this tune. It was the last album that we did without Peter. The album was called You're Gettin' Even While I'm Gettin' Odd as a tag to one of those tunes on there. That's where I play a saxophone bebop-like thing. What I'm actually playing is a Charlie Parker composition called Blues for Alice. Bebop-a-dee And you can hear it fading out.

SPEAKER_00:

So what was the concept behind the Magic Carmonica? I think all the draw notes you could bend, couldn't you? Yes. And so you see quite a lot of innovations in this line now, like you've got Brendan Powered in the same sort of thing. Will Ward's got his, you know, he's got lots of bends on the higher notes and stuff. You know, it sounds like you were ahead of your time doing this

SPEAKER_01:

one. Oh, I think we were way ahead of our time on it. Plus we got a US patent on a large number of tunings all covered under one patent. That was a huge undertaking. Took a major amount of work an effort it was cool

SPEAKER_00:

so what's the idea that you would play then lots of different tunings well you know as for different songs is that what you were you know thinking behind having the different tunings

SPEAKER_01:

well the idea behind the different tunings was to take what we liked about the way a harp works like for example in chicago blues you know which is a combination of chord sounds and melody that work cool together and that's sort of like fit sort of a certain aspects of the genre that you want to play you know so like by having a different chords than than the standard arrangement by having different chords as the blow chord and different chords as the draw chord that would allow you to play different bags more easily and with greater with greater sonic groove like you get when you play the harp in chicago blues

SPEAKER_00:

do you still play any of these magic harmonicas now

SPEAKER_01:

i do when i choose to yeah the magic harps were fabricated by just using razor blades to retune the reeds on conventional Marine Band harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00:

So it was really about all the different tunings that was the big focus, was it?

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you reformed, you kind of reformed the Jay Giles Band by getting back together with Jay Giles. Was this in 92?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but this was really not a reformation of the Jay Giles Band by any means whatsoever. It was just myself and Jay, I was fronting the band. There was nobody else from the Jay Giles Band involved in any aspect of it. It was just me and Jay because we were always really tight.

SPEAKER_00:

So you were the singer then, as you say, at this stage. That's right. And then you took over the singing duties, yeah? I think you had two albums out, 94 you had Blues Time, and then in 96 you had Little Core Blues, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you had a couple of Little Walter songs on the Blues Time album. You've got the kind of Little Walter medley, Rollercoaster, Crazy Legs, I Got To Go. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so obviously showing your love of Little Walter with that one.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The second album, Little Car Blues, has got some good ones on as well, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I like Little Car Blues as an album. I like that one better. I think my singing is better on it, too, because I think by that point, I had been singing longer and with better focus. I just think it's better.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, obviously a lot of the great harmonica players sing. Yeah. So you, people feel that they're a bit of a bit part if they're not the singer and harmonica player. So you took on the singing for this, you know, I mean, you know, would you give some words of encouragement to people to, you know, to develop the singing so that they could do the same?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I encourage everybody who's interested in playing the harp to study singing if they can, even to invest in it. at least a starting degree, because it's so important to what you do with the breath. And breath control is behind everything with the harp. No breath control, no sound. The quality of your sound depends upon your breath control. And I mean like the real details of it, particularly the inception of your notes, the attack. There's so many aspects to it. If I'm not getting the result that I want, I take one step back and examine it vocally first. It's usually just a matter of like, explore what you're trying to sing by speaking it.

SPEAKER_00:

Does that mean you like to sing your solos or, you know, do you sing solos and then play them on harmonica? Do you do that sort of approach?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, when I practice, I practice singing arpeggios and certain basic things and I play them on the harp, sing them. But what really is behind it all is timing. You have to be able to count like a drummer. You have to be the drummer. I'm talking about when I'm practicing by myself. I practice these specific things because it makes a huge difference as to what comes out of the heart.

SPEAKER_00:

So does that mean, do you practice with a metronome to do that or do you use your own time too?

SPEAKER_01:

Sometimes I practice with a metronome, but not that much. No, it's like, you have to be the clock. You know, it's like one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. You got to be able to keep that going like that for two, three minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a great, great thing just to play by yourself. Yeah. Just solo without any backing tracks, you know, without any metronome. Right. And to do that, that's a good discipline, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I work on this to the point of it's now, it's second nature for me now to have this emphasis on timing and this thing about starting a sound. It's hard to do better than just normal speech. Like, Hey, what are you doing to my car? Hey. Then the reverse of that is like somebody sneaks up on you in a room. You're focused on something. You don't know they're there. They put their hand on your shoulder. You're probably going to go, because you're startled. So it's those two basic gut level things that we do that we've done since we were children. This stuff is built in. And that's really at your service as a player. And it's also kind of what you need to do as a singer. Now, with the singing thing, I go even further in that I use what's called the ribcage expansion technique, which is a fancy term for an operatic type of use of the breathing apparatus when you sing. And it makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00:

You've got big sound helping that, getting that big sound out of the harmonica as well.

SPEAKER_01:

You do, yeah. But just to get that big sound, all you really have to do is examine your talking, examine the way you talk, examine the way you talk, what you sound like when you're communicating, like we're communicating right now. So the brain kind of subconsciously controls the flow of the air. So it's the quality of what's in your mind. It's the quality of your sonic conception is what actually drives and determines the action that the airstream takes. You know, it's like your brain gives the command, and once you've practiced this stuff enough, it's like you get the result directly. It's not like you're thinking about this in a technical way, but you've prepared for it.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, just finishing off then about your recording career, you played with a legendary Rhythm& Blues review in the sort of early 2000s.

UNKNOWN:

guitar solo

SPEAKER_00:

later on in the 2016 you did an album with shun inc

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

called about time was and this was an acoustic duo yeah

SPEAKER_01:

that's right yeah shun uh yeah i'm really glad you you uh asked me about that because um that was the last project that that i did and then shouldn't had to make some changes shouldn't had to had to do some things and then this whole uh covid thing came along so i haven't seen shun in quite some time but i thought we were really on to some good stuff with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and there's some great stuff. And of course, you did a version of Whamma Jamma with me, of course. I heard you say you had a voice between Michael Jackson and James Brown. You do a version of Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, which is really great.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're playing those kind of James Brown kind of horn lines on the harmonica as well, which is nice, isn't it, to get those out?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the thing I love about working with Shun is that we took a minimalistic approach to what we were doing. We really believed less is more. That's why, you know, to do this thing with Shun's guitar sound, acoustic guitar with acoustic harp.

SPEAKER_00:

A complete contrast to what you were doing with Jay Gaugier, big stadium gigs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and yet, in many ways, you can do more with the sound in that context.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So, I'm interested in doing more of that.

SPEAKER_00:

He definitely gives you much more space to play. If you're in a bigger band, you know, the harmonica plays a certain part in the band, doesn't it? But in a duo, you know, you've got much more freedom, which is great.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and Shun's singing is just fantastic.

SPEAKER_03:

Papa's got a brand new bag.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

You've already mentioned that you like to teach. We'll put the link on. But one question I ask each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it depends on what I was practicing for. If it was for a gig, that would be a tough time because I get pretty nervous about all that. But if I'm just practicing without any commitments coming up, I think the thing to work on, quite frankly, is for most harp players, most harp players need music lessons. I'm talking about the fundamentals of music. and counting. And in terms of practice, I think it's a good idea to try to copy, to emulate as best you can those players that you feel are superior players. You know, go according to your taste. But you don't want to make that your everything. I just think that it's good to try to reproduce some of the great things that you hear. A lot of players don't try to do that. And I find that's not very attractive because they don't seem to have the vocabulary that the instrument kind of needs.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I'll move on to the last section now. So we'll talk about gears. First of all, your harmonicas of choice. I think you're a Marine Band player back in the 70s. They were the only harmonicas. And then you sort of, I think you moved on to the Golden Melodies. What are you playing these days?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I moved on to Golden Melodies because the manufacturer in the Marine Band at that time was just terrible. These days, you know, there's a lot of good harmonicas around these days. It's not like it was when I started. I still like Hohner the most. And I also play, I have a complete set of Lios I think that they're both really good. But Hohner, I've been playing longer. It's still my main harps. And I like the Marine Band series of Hohner's stuff, meaning the Marine Band, the Marine Band Deluxe, and the Crossover.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you own most harps. I think you've got a chord harp and a bass harp and things. You love the harmonic and have them all, do you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. The chord harp I particularly love, the 48 chord harp. It's about 19 inches long. It's a great instrument. One of the things I like about that instrument is the demands it makes on breath control to clearly enunciate rhythm. This, you know, hoo-dit, hoo-dit, hoo-dit, as a simple example. It all comes back to vocal enunciations to begin with.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, cool. And you mentioned earlier on that you're focusing a lot of your attention on the chromatic these days.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you're working on jazz on the chromatic, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Jazz. Well, actually what I really like to play, what I find of greatest benefit, whether it's on the chromatic or the diatonic, is I like playing ballads, standards. I also like working with this app called iReal Pro, which you can get for your device or for your computer. It's a fantastic tool. I highly recommend that or something like it for everybody because it gives you a never-tiring band to practice to. Damn near any song you want or you can edit your own and you can choose what instruments you want to have play it, what tempo, what key.

SPEAKER_00:

They didn't have anything like that when I was starting out, you know? No, it is incredible, yeah. So yeah, so great. So you're working a lot on the chromatic. What chromatic do you like to play? I have a bunch of favorites.

SPEAKER_01:

Some of the best ones was the series of the Toots models that Hohner put out, Toots Thielman 12-hole chromatics. They were like a Hohner 270, but heavily chrome-plated, including the reed plates. And there were two versions. There's the melatonin and the hard bopper. I like them both. And so I've done a bunch of playing on them. More recently, I got a hold of the Hohner Super 64 Performance, which is a slide chromatic. I believe it's their most current model.

SPEAKER_00:

You play a lot of the 16-hole, do you? I find you can navigate that one okay compared to the 12-hole.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, but I've been doing that for a long, long time. When I first bought my harps, you know, way back in the 60s, Probably by 1970, 71, I bought everything that Hohner had. So I had 12-hole chromatics, 10-hole chromatics, 16-hole chromatics, CBH models, all of that. I just, I really, really enjoyed the chromatic. I also like that there's a 12-hole 270, which is a low C 270. A

SPEAKER_00:

tenor, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the tenor. Yeah, I like that too. But I also like, I have a full set of the Meister Class harps. People are surprised that I even mention those. But the thing that I have found is that if you're not too quick in your evaluation of a particular model, you know, you have to give it time. You have to adjust to it. and blow it properly. Then you'll find that there are several models that might really satisfy you and that to bring out what's best in them, you have to like spend time on. I also like to say that the diatonic harp is jealous of the chromatic and the chromatic is jealous of the diatonic.

SPEAKER_00:

Both got their own strengths for sure, haven't they?

SPEAKER_01:

They do.

SPEAKER_00:

Clearly you play different tunings, yeah? Because you had the Magic Harmonica where you looked at different tunings. So is different tuning still something you play these days?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I have a few favorites of The thing about magic harps that my biggest contribution to the magic harp thing was those models that are fully chromatic by virtue of the layout. So that's what I like to play the most because I'm interested in playing a chromatic instrument. So most of what I play, if it's a magic harp, will be a chromatic one. And there are several models that are chromatic.

SPEAKER_00:

But most of your stuff with the Jay Giles band is played on a standard tune, Richter, diatonic, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the Giles band stuff is on standard What

SPEAKER_00:

about overblows? Do you use many of those?

SPEAKER_01:

No. I can do some of them, and once in a while in a blues context, I might throw one in. But I'm not real fond of the approach of where you play a diatonic harp completely chromatically by the use of overblows and or overdraws. I would rather do it either on a magic harp, you know, that was more appropriate for the particular tune, or use the slide chromatic, which is basically the approach that I would take these days. I'm really into the slide chromatic as a horn. It is a horn to me.

SPEAKER_00:

So what about your embouchure? I think you use a bit of both of tongue blocking and pursing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I use both. I think when I first started out, I was using lip pursing for a rather brief period of time. Then I really got into tongue blocking. And then after a long, long period of time, or actually not that long a period, I fairly quickly developed this thing of using both because there were articulate tongue articulations that I was using that really needed, I felt that needed lip pursing to pull them off right.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you play your top end stuff lip pursed?

SPEAKER_01:

No. Not if they're bands. I do know of a young gentleman though who I met at a gig about four years ago. Very young kid. Great, great kid. who showed me, he was playing those high bent notes. He was playing Lee Oscar harps and he was playing them tongue blocked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool. So what about amplifiers and mics? And maybe again, talking back in your days playing with the J-Gals and big stages and what sort of gear were you using then?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the best setup that I had from my perspective, probably not from the perspective of everybody else who had to hear it, but the best setup The best thing was I had these monitors that were being driven by two Fender Twin Reverb amps. I had these amps in a special, the amps themselves, the chassis of the amps, the amp itself, two of them were mounted in a specially made metal cabinet-like, not a cabinet, but an open structure. So I could get at the controls of these two twins easily. Each one of them was driving a speaker cabinet that contained four Electro-Voice SRO speakers. They were suspended from the lighting truss, aimed down at me. So it was a beam of sound coming from each of these large speaker cabinets, aimed right down at me. And we were a pretty loud band. Not loud compared to some, but we were pretty loud. So in order for me to be able to play in that environment, I needed the harp to be really loud and massive. And fortunately, the way this was set up, those speakers were opened back, if I remember correctly. So the They had more directionality to the sound, you know, coming from them. So it was a pretty controlled beam. So I had this area that I could stand on stage and still move around it where I could hear the harp really great. And so that rig was basically those two Twin Reavers, but those were driven by a Fisher, that's the brand, an old Fisher monophonic hi-fi preamplifier, a tube preamp. It had several 12AX7s. tubes in it. It's not necessarily that I was using a whole heck of a lot of gain in front of the twin reverbs, but I was using some. I didn't want the sound to get too thin. I wanted it to have some edge. And that was how I got the edge, was using this... monophonic hi-fi tube preamps.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's the Fender Twins with the sound going out the front and the monitors were kind of just going at you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think the sound to drive the front, the sound that went to the PA was probably picked off a direct box. I think that's how we did it. And that worked well, too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And what about nowadays? Do you have any particular preference for amps or microphones? No.

SPEAKER_01:

Although I still experiment with some of that stuff. Were I to get into it today, I would probably, first of all, explore using a Line 6 HX Stomp. Do you know what I'm referring to? It's a pedal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've seen Line 6s before. I don't know if it's that one. I did have a Line 6 pedal at one point. I don't know if it was that one, but it's quite a while ago now.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the HX Stomp, this version that I have, which is a year and a half or two years old at this point, I haven't had a chance to use it live yet, but I've experimented with it a bunch here. It's this fantastic thing that allows you to play, like you could bring that to the gig and that's your rig. That's all you need. is your mic into this pedal, and you've got lots of EQ and effects and everything built in. Whatever you need, whatever you want, and you can hook it up any way you want. It's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00:

Lots of different sounds. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people liking that option now. And they're sounding better and better, these sort of multi-effects pedals these days, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. But the other thing about all that is, as I was doing the duo stuff with Shun, I wasn't that interested in all that. What I wanted was a good, clean, acoustic sound that I could really work with. So, you know, I focused on the technique of doing that, which was basically using an SM58, a Shure SM58, in a handheld way or on a mic stand, but not cupped tightly like Chicago style, unless I chose to. And that was rare that I would do that with the stuff with Shun. I was going for a real open, clear acoustic sound that I could use hand wah-wah on if I chose to and do effective stuff with that. But basically the thing of refining the mic technique compared to what you would do with a static mic or a green bullet. These days, I would say I'm really not into equipment. What would make me be more into equipment is the situation where suddenly, okay, now I got to make some decisions about what am I going to perform through live? How am I going to do it? What do I want to do? I like to be free and unencumbered, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So final question now, you know, what about any future plans you have? You know, you come out of the pandemic, what are you working on these days?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'm working on a new project. There's not much I could say about it at this point other than I want to continue working in a minimum minimal group context, you know, like a duo or a trio. In the duo thing, I have some ideas. I might go even more bold than before, more stripped down. I like having it be like voice, harp, and some other instrument.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a nice combination.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hopefully it is. I

SPEAKER_00:

look forward to that. So thanks so much for joining me today on episode 50, Magic Deck.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, thank you very much, Neil. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's episode 50 in the can. Wanted a big name for this milestone episode and they don't come much bigger than Magic Dick. Really fascinating to hear just how much thought he has put into producing the sound he makes from his harmonica and his whole approach to music. Thanks a lot for taking the time, man. Also, a shout out to Ben Carruthers, who made a generous donation to the podcast. Really grateful in helping me cover the cost of the podcast, Ben. If anyone else would like to make a volunteer donation, then you can find the link to do so on the podcast page. Any amount is more than welcome. And now, just to finish off episode 50, let's hear Magic Dick play us out one more time with the classic Wama Jama. Wama Jama