Magic Dick/Pierre Beauregard

["Steven D. Levine" <drsoul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I saw Bluestime last night at a club in northern Virginia. Magic Dick's 
harp playing was great as usual, but I was very disappointed by his 
vocals. He really shouldn't be fronting that band - he should take voice 
lessons or hire a professional singer. His singing almost ruined the 
show for me. 

Magic and Geils played a lot of the songs on their cd, and a lot of other 
classic blues by Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (he did some GREAT 
SBW II solos - almost note for note like on the recordings - straight 
through the PA), Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters and others. He played with a 
Blues Blaster mic through a blcakface Twin. (as far as I can tell - the 
club where I saw them is a dinner club and the stage is pretty hard to 
see unles you make dinner reservations and sit at a table near it)

There were a lot of harp players in the audience, including Marc Wenner 
(who got a kick out me showing him the favorable review of the latest 
Nighthawks album in AHN) and Doug Jay. Pierre Beauregard was there and I 
finally got to met him. Pierre is a local harp legend, and he and Magic 
Dick have a patent on their harmonica tunings/designs. (I'm pretty sure 
their "Magic" harps have been discussed on this list) Pierre is also the 
founder of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra.

Most of my fellow harp players in the DC area know Pierre, and I had 
heard a lot about him but never actually met him. His cousin Brett (I 
forget his last name) is a fine local harp player and he introduced me to 
him. I had told Brett earlier that I had a copy of Pierre's patent. He 
told this to Pierre when he introduced me to him. Pierrre said, "Whoa, I 
HAVE to talk to you!" We had a long (but not long enough!) talk about 
what he and Magic have been doing with harmonicas and some of the tunings 
they have created. He is a very interesting, energetic person who loves 
to talk about harmonicas. I could try to give some details, but I was 
mostly trying to understand what he was talking about without diagrams! 
He told me that he and Magic Dick have been studying music theory for 
years, and applying it to harmonica structure/tuning. He told me that 
theory is just mathematics and understanding the relationships bewteen 
notes. 

He couldn't tell me who is going to manufacture the Magic harps - I guess 
there will be a press announcement or an article in HIP or some other 
publication. He seems very enthusiastic about the future of his harps - 
he said that they were designing tunings for everything from the ten hole 
diatonic to the chord harmonica! I'll try to post some of the details I 
can remember about the tunings and ideas they had in a future post. I 
asked him if I can interview him and he said that he would be happy to do 
an interview in the future. If or when I interview him I'll post it to 
the list.

  -Steve