Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Bluesman Bill Magee turns 70
“You gotta have a passion for it. That’s got to be number one. Number two? You got to be willing to pay your dues by practicing day and night.” We meet up for lunch, Bill Magee, a mutual friend named Lane Rider, and I. Over corned beef and chicken soup, I get a blues lesson from the gravel-voiced guitarist and bandleader. “The first six months, everybody’s gonna tell you to shut up and stop making that noise, that you ain’t never gonna ever make no music. But you gotta not listen to that.” What you have to listen to, he says, are other blues musicians. “Influences. What’ll happen is you’re gonna pick up some of their sounds, but you’re gonna start to make some of your own sounds, too.”
Magee, who will turn 70 soon, claims to be a veteran of such classic bands as James Brown’s Famous Flames. Part of the Bill Magee experience are the apocryphal tales he spins about gigs with royalty: BB King, Muddy, Jimi Hendrix, and so on. But his own guitar chops cannot be disputed.
Magee says he practices for hours a day.“I watch football. That game’s gonna last four hours. I have my guitar in my hand the whole time. I can watch television and practice at the same time.”
To this day, Magee refuses to make a pre-show set list. “I learned that way back. When you make a set list, you’re pre-judging your audience. How you gonna be at home and know your audience?”
What does Bill Magee disdain in a fellow blues traveler? “Someone playin’ a whole lot of notes,” he says. “BB [King] could hit but one note and make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Bill Magee: 70th birthday party celebration, Humphreys Backstage, Thursday, March 28, 7 p.m. 619-224-3577
Here's something you might be interested in.
Bluesman Bill Magee turns 70
Bluesman Bill Magee turns 70
“You gotta have a passion for it. That’s got to be number one. Number two? You got to be willing to pay your dues by practicing day and night.” We meet up for lunch, Bill Magee, a mutual friend named Lane Rider, and I. Over corned beef and chicken soup, I get a blues lesson from the gravel-voiced guitarist and bandleader. “The first six months, everybody’s gonna tell you to shut up and stop making that noise, that you ain’t never gonna ever make no music. But you gotta not listen to that.” What you have to listen to, he says, are other blues musicians. “Influences. What’ll happen is you’re gonna pick up some of their sounds, but you’re gonna start to make some of your own sounds, too.”
Magee, who will turn 70 soon, claims to be a veteran of such classic bands as James Brown’s Famous Flames. Part of the Bill Magee experience are the apocryphal tales he spins about gigs with royalty: BB King, Muddy, Jimi Hendrix, and so on. But his own guitar chops cannot be disputed.
Magee says he practices for hours a day.“I watch football. That game’s gonna last four hours. I have my guitar in my hand the whole time. I can watch television and practice at the same time.”
To this day, Magee refuses to make a pre-show set list. “I learned that way back. When you make a set list, you’re pre-judging your audience. How you gonna be at home and know your audience?”
What does Bill Magee disdain in a fellow blues traveler? “Someone playin’ a whole lot of notes,” he says. “BB [King] could hit but one note and make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Bill Magee: 70th birthday party celebration, Humphreys Backstage, Thursday, March 28, 7 p.m. 619-224-3577
Comments