New harps by Pierre Beauregard and Magic Dick

[GREENWAY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I talked today with Rusty Zinn, Kim Wilson's guitar player, who told me
that about a week ago he and Kim appeared on a CNBC show live and played
a duet and that Kim played one of the new harp models designed by
Pierre Beauregard and Magic Dick, the Blues Band.

I guess this marks the television debut of these new harps. Most of you
have probably already heard that Jerry Portnoy has been using two of
Pierre's models onstage with Eric Clapton (not on this most recent blues-
only tour, but a few months earlier when Jerry was working in Clapton's
mainstream band--Jerry used Beauregard harps on "Layla" and "Tears in
Heaven."

The interesting thing about this is how the traditional blues players haved
taken to these harps. You can't get more traditional than Jerry Portnoy.
Pierre slipped me a Blues Band a couple of months ago, and I can see why 
Kim and Jerry have become intrigued by it. Like all of Pierre's harps, they
are modified Marine Bands, so us blues guys can keep the sound we've grown
to count on, but they open up new musical windows that all diatonic players
can take advantage of. 

The schism in the harp world between the diatonic players and the chromatic
players used to always bug me--it still does, actually--but lately I've sensed
another schism, one between the New Wave diatonic players and the traditional
blues players, that's even lamer. The Howard Levy disciples tend to write off
the blues harpists as unimaginative imitators. I'm hopeful that these new
harps will help dispel this notion, as the best of the blues boys like Kim
and Jerry begin to combine their mastery of tone with these new models to
come up with a whole new slant on the blues. And the overblow wizards will
no doubt also find equally interesting music in them.

Pierre tells me that he is planning on demonstrating his new models at this
year's SPAH convention. Another good reason to make it.

--Kim Field