On opening day, Wednesday, March 24, which also has been designated as Seniors Day, Dave McKelvy’s Harmonica Trio will take the stage at 1pm and then again at 3pm, with a final set scheduled for 6pm. This will be the group’s ninth Pinal County Fair appearance.

McKelvy’s group has proven to be very popular with the senior crowd, due to their unique renditions of old standards like “How High the Moon” and “I Only Have Eyes For You,” along with light classical arrangements such as “Orpheus Overture” by Offenbach and Chopin’s “Minute Waltz.” However, this time around, the trio will be offering up some new arrangements of a couple of musical genres that will have some of the younger seniors tapping their toes and wiggling their hips.

“This year, we’ve introduced a medley of popular Elvis and Beatles’ tunes,” McKelvy said. “The Elvis medley came out of necessity, because we were booked to commemorate Elvis’ 69th birthday at the Hard Rock Café in January. So we figured that we needed to work up some of his hit songs, and we did, and it came off quite nicely. The audience loved it.”

“In February, there was the Beatles’ 40th anniversary of their appearance in America on the old 'Ed Sullivan Show,' so we put something together for that, and that worked out quite nicely too, so we’ve added some of those arrangements to our regular repertoire.”

The Los Angeles-based trio is comprised of McKelvy, who plays lead harmonica, and Danny Wilson and Michael Burton, who perform on the bass and rhythm harmonicas.