Back in 2007, when reviewing the CD ‘Chase The Sunset’, I described trumpeter Bill McGee as a special kind of guy with a biography just waiting to be written. More of that in a moment but for now the hot news is that after a nine-year absence Bill is back with the appropriately titled ‘Still Bill’. Many of the eleven choice tracks are a reflection on his early life as a young trumpet player and the time he spent learning songs such as ‘Watermelon Man’ and ‘Cantaloupe Island’. Consequently it is no surprise that the latest single from the album is ‘Cantaloupe and Watermelon’, Bill’s tribute to Herbie Hancock and a well crafted ‘mash-up’ of these two classic tunes.
Read on for more about Bill McGee.
Bill’s story starts in the late1950’s with a group of young African Americans who, despite all the odds, believed they could be anything they wanted to be. Their evolution was synonymous with that of black music over the last fifty plus years and in the case of Bill (who at one time was musical director for Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King and has recorded with the likes of McFadden and Whitehead, The O’Jays, The Stylistics and Leon Huff) was that much more remarkable because for twenty years he gave up the music industry in order to teach in the public school system. In fact Bill McGee has now retired from his post as school administrator with Richmond, VA Public Schools but, for a man with nine grand children and who has survived prostate cancer, ‘Still Bill’ is a clear indication that here is a guy with a lot of living still to do.