Magic Dick, the legendary harmonica player for Boston’s renowned J. Geils Band has recently teamed up with the guitar and vocal sensation, Shun Ng, to create one of the most dynamic musical acts to come out of Boston in a long time. After last year’s well-received debut, they return to The Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Saturday April 16 at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $20. For information and reservations call 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
Last year’s performance by Magic Dick and Shun Ng at The Mainstay thrilled the audience and earned them an enthusiastic standing ovation. Their music is a soulful blues that rocks out and yet is thoughtful, emotional and it is performed by virtuosos on their respective instruments.
Since 1969, Magic Dick has toured the world playing and blowing away clubs and stadiums with the J. Geils Band. He explains the formation of the duo: “From the moment I first heard Shun Ng’s CD “Funky Thumb Stuff” I knew that a manifest musical collaboration was about to happen. Shun’s sound simply made me feel very alive and induced in me a synchronous alignment of musical DNA as if it was his intention as well as mine all along. I helped it along by asking his manager, Ralph Jaccodine, to introduce us at his office. A long and enlightening conversation happened on that day of our first meeting and now we are a duo and I couldn’t be more delighted.”
Shun Ng was born in Chicago, raised in Singapore and is now based out of Boston. At 24, he is already an international star, a soulful, world-class guitarist, vocalist, and electric performer who, in a short period of time, has caught the attention of the top players in the music world including the Grammy winning producer, Quincy Jones who said: “When you see Shun Ng, you won’t believe your eyes nor your ears – he belies all stereotypes, all premonitions. I was simply blown away by both his soul and his science – his creativity and his uniqueness is astounding.”
“In this collaboration with Magic Dick,” Shun says, “we wanted to make music in a way that no one had quite done before while remaining grounded in our roots. Magic Dick brings a powerhouse attack with ferocious precision and a killer groove to this duo. I have great respect for him, he has seemingly done it all, but is still constantly trying to push the boundaries of music and chase the best in himself, a true artist. To be working with a true Boston legend is a real privilege.”
Magic Dick played trumpet when he was young, and has his own hybrid approach to making music. “The sonic thing I’m after is a horn-type sound,” he says. “I’m not an accomplished sax or trumpet player — I have dabbled in both of them — but conceptually, the sound I’m after is halfway between a trumpet and sax.”
While Magic Dick has toured with blues harmonica greats like James Cotton, and also performed with rockers from Patty Smith and Debbie Harry to The Del Fuegos he has never played in a duo, or with a fingerstyle guitarist, and his partnership with Ng has been a unique experience.
“Typically, in a band, my role is punctuation phrases, complementary phrases to a vocal as part of an arrangement,” he says. “But in a duo, there’s so much more I’m responsible for, and nothing to hide behind.”
He has been performing with Ng for about two years now, and working on their sound even longer. “We’re both interested in being in the moment, but to get to that point takes rehearsal,” he says.
And in spite of the difference in their ages they share many of the same influences. Shun Ng says, “We both have a spirit to innovate, but we come from similar musical roots. At our show we do a wide range of blues, funk, soul, classic jazz. “We do some Miles Davis — we do that in our way, in this minimalistic format.”
Ng handles the vocals, channeling the spirits of Michael Jackson and James Brown and plays an extraordinarily expressive, percussive guitar. Magic Dick plays harmonica like the innovative legend he is.
Born in 1945 in New London, Connecticut, Magic Dick arrived in post-war America to the Atomic Bomb, World Peace, Bebop and Rhythm & Blues. While in his sophomore year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts he met J. Geils and Danny Klein and became a founding member of the J. Geils Blues Band in 1968. By 1969, the band had moved to Boston and joined forces with Peter Wolf, Stephen Jo Bladd and Seth Justman.
In 1970s, the J. Geils Band recorded their first of nine albums for Atlantic Records and toured incessantly, filling clubs and stadiums and jamming with many of the blues greats including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Junior Wells and James Cotton. They developed a reputation for ‘getting crazy’ blowing audiences away with their high-energy rhythm & blues and rock & roll. Magic Dick’s innovative harmonica playing was a strong distinguishing sound for the band. Kurt Loder in Rolling Stone Magazine called Magic Dick, “the most innovative harmonica player of his generation.”
Subsequent to The J. Geils Band, Magic Dick performed as a guest artist harmonica soloist for Patty Smith, Debbie Harry, Full Circle, The Del Fuegos and Ryuici Sakamota, among others. In 1992, Magic Dick and J. Geils formed the band Bluestime. In recent years he has toured with a reconstituted J. Geils Band without J Geils.
Shun Ng was born in Chicago, Illinois and was raised in Singapore where he struggled with the educational system. He turned to gymnastics and competed nationally at the age of 10 but gave that up at age 14 after discovering the guitar. As a dyslexic, letters and numbers didn’t make much sense but music did and he devoted himself to the study of the blues.
After attaining his associate’s degree in Music & Audio Technology, he served his mandatory National Service in the Singapore Armed Forces where he spent two years working as an arranger and band guitarist for a combo band. As his style developed, he caught the attention of guitar-making genius Jeffery Yong who endorsed him as an artist and hand-built him a signature guitar.
In January 2012, Shun Ng released his debut album “Funky Thumb Stuff” which garnered him national recognition in Singapore and beyond. Also that year, he was accepted to Berklee College of Music and awarded a scholarship but he soon attracted the attention of the well-known Boston-based manager Ralph Jaccodine and after two semesters, he left Berklee to sign with Ralph Jaccodine Management.
Ng was nominated for “International Artist of The Year” for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Boston Music Awards. He is also passionate about social justice and serves as the Director of Music at The Amber Initiative, a non-profit organization that deals with issues of social injustice around the world and works closely with the Next Step Organization’s program, SongStudio, whose mission is to empower young people with life-threatening illnesses to envision positive futures, develop strong coping skills, and share their experiences through music.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street.
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