Harmonica sensation Magic Dick is best known for his years with the J. Geils Band. And while his high-profile presence on the band’s critically-acclaimed (and sometimes Platinum-selling) albums helped catapult him to well-deserved fame, that’s just part of his story.
Richard “Magic Dick” Salwitz’s lifelong love for (and immersion in) the blues has yielded some of his best work. Magic Dick comes to Moe’s Alley on Feb.22 as part of Mark Hummel’s Allstar Harmonica Blowout.
Although Magic Dick is one of the most prominent and celebrated exponents of the harmonica (or the blues harp, if you prefer), it wasn’t his first instrument. Or at least not exactly. “When I was three years old, I was very sick with the flu,” he recalls. “My mother thought, ‘Maybe if we give him a harmonica, that’ll cheer him.’”
Young Dick was so excited that he began jumping up and down on his bed as if it were a trampoline. He had been bitten by the musical bug. “But I didn’t get back to the harmonica until I was 21,” he admits with a chuckle.
Magic Dick’s true introduction to playing music would come just a few years later.
“I started with trumpet at nine years old,” he says, noting that his parents were supportive of all of his musical endeavors. Growing up in Connecticut, the trumpet was his first musical love. “That came from my love of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis,” he says. “Their approaches, their trumpet sound, inspired me.”
He studied the instrument for many years, focusing on the attack of the sound. “And that attack,” he explains, “is what I try to bring to the harp.” Further inspired by blues harmonica greats like Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, James Cotton and Junior Wells, as a young man Magic Dick developed his own style as a follow-on from the power they brought to the blues.
Astute listeners often remark on the “vocal” quality of the blues harp, and Magic Dick agrees with that observation. “It’s in between a saxophone and a trumpet in terms of its sonic aspects,” he says. “The sound of it is very much like the human voice.”
Attending college in the mid 1960s, Dick met guitarist John “J.” Geils and bassist Danny Klein. Becoming fast friends, the three launched the J. Geils Band in 1965. Initially an acoustic trio, the band soon expanded and went electric, eventually adding drummer Stephen Jo Bladd, keyboardist Seth Justman and singer Peter Wolf. A hard-touring act, the band built a following opening for headliners like The Allman Brothers Band, B.B. King and Johnny Winter, landing a record deal in 1969.
A critics’ favorite, the J. Geils Band’s brand of blues- and R&B-flavored rock scored with live audiences as well. Among the band’s 14 albums of new material, their live sets – especially 1972’s Live Full House with its incendiary blues harp showcase “Whammer Jammer” – are often cited as their very best.
The band reached its commercial peak with an MTV-era breakthrough, 1981’s Freeze-Frame. Combining the band’s bluesy foundation with a keyboard-focused new wave character, J. Geils Band stormed the charts with a No. 1 album and three Top 40 singles: the title track, “Angel in Blue”, and the No. 1 hit “Centerfold.”
Though he’s a bluesman through and through, Magic Dick had no problem – then or now – with his band’s turn toward a more radio-ready style.
“A working, touring band needs to have growth,” he explains. “If you don’t grow, you stagnate. And if you stagnate, you won’t be commercially successful.” And without commercial success, the bills don’t get paid. But Magic Dick says that the band never compromised its musical values. “We were interested in growth,” he says, “but consistent with our tastes.”
The J. Geils Band went inactive after 1985, with occasional reunions in the years to come. Magic Dick and Geils teamed up again in 1992 with Bluestime, a band that celebrated jump blues, swing and jazz; the group toured extensively and released a pair of well-received albums. Geils died in 2017.
For the last several years – offhand he can’t even recall just how many – Magic Dick has been a featured member of Mark Hummel’s Allstar Harmonica Blowout. “For maybe 30 years now Mark has been doing these Blowouts in the form of a revue,” he says. Backed by a core band, a succession of harmonica stars take their turn blowing in the spotlight. This year’s lineup features Hummel and Magic Dick along with Steve Freund, Anson Funderburgh, Rodrigo Mantovani, RJ Mischo, Curtis Salgado and Wes Starr. The Blowout tours to a dozen West Coast locales in February.
With all the accolades he’s received, it stands to reason that Magic Dick’s work with the J. Geils Band should be recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The group has been nominated multiple times, but never selected. “Given the caliber of our live performances, I found it a bit frustrating,” he admits. “But I have seen tons of comments from fans saying that we’re deserving and long overdue.”
Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowout is at Moe’s Alley Sunday,
Feb. 22, 4pm $45.76
