Heard a song entitled “Why I Do These Foolish Things” by the Magicians (Villa Records, 1964), a local Bay Area band, which strongly brought back the same exotic attraction I experienced when listening to the Miracles “Who’s Loving You” (the B-side of “Shop Around”) back in high school (or was it 8th grade).

I listened intently and enthralled so many times to Smokey’s delivery on that little 45 that his intricate melodic improvisations are still tattooed on my heart. That song lived in a place beyond the boundaries of my typical musical taste: I found it oddly mesmerizing, and strangely beautiful. Almost dangerous, certainly seductive. Like it wasn’t supposed to work, and yet it did.

The Magicians lead singer rode the same raw energy and transported me to a long forgotten place where one can feel attraction to a thing not entirely conceivable. Foreign yet hauntingly familiar. A structure that teeters on the edge of competence, yet against the odds stretches well above the clouds…

Makes me wonder what else they recorded.