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Mickey McGee, a Phoenix drummer who worked with Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon after launching his career with local country-rockers Goose Creek Symphony, died of complications from COVID-19 on June 20.
He was 72.
Billy Cioffi, a local musician and longtime friend, recalls McGee sharing the story of how he got the Ronstadt gig that changed his life.
Goose Creek Symphony had played a show with Ronstadt, when her drummer dropped by their hotel room to share some music with McGee and guitarist Ed Black.
“Don Henley came down to his room in the hotel and played him an acetate of the first Eagles album,” Cioffi says. “And he told Ed, because they had gotten to know each other, ‘Hey listen, we’re leaving. The gig’s your if you want it.'”
How McGee found success in LA
At least that’s how Cioffi came to understand the story of McGee and Black ending up in Los Angeles, where they performed on several tracks on Ronstadt’s first gold record “Don’t Cry Now,” including “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” the Tucson native’s first Top 20 country hit.
That same year, 1973, he drummed on Browne’s recording of a song that Browne had co-written with Glenn Frey, the Eagles’ breakthrough single, “Take It Easy.”
In 1974, he drummed for Ronstadt when she was the opening act on Neil Young’s massive “Harvest” tour.
From there, McGee worked with Juice Newton, the Flying Burrito Brothers, JD Souther, Rick Nelson and Zevon. He even drummed on “Two Sides of the Moon,” a solo album by a legendary drummer, Keith Moon of the Who.
‘He was of the same age as the Alice Cooper guys’
McGee was born in New Orleans but grew up in Phoenix and graduated from Washington High School.
“He was of the same age and era as all the Alice Cooper guys and the groups that eventually became the Tubes,” Cioffi says. “He was on a track team that ran against Vince Furnier. So he grew up with that. They were all in high school rock ‘n’ roll bands.”
Goose Creek Symphony’s Bob “Willard” Henke met McGee in 1965 while playing in the Red White and Blues Band at the VIP, a Phoenix teen club, with two future members of the Tubes.
They struck up a friendship, and in 1968, McGee called to see if he had any interest in playing piano for a new band he’d just joined called Goose Creek Symphony.
Formed by Charlie Gearheart, a Kentucky transplant, Goose Creek Symphony signed to Capitol Records in 1970, appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” with Bobbie Gentry and shared the stage with Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers Band at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival.
They released three albums in three years on Capitol — “Established 1970,” “Welcome to Goose Creek” and “Words of Earnest.”
After playing on the first two albums, McGee and Black both quit the group when Goose Creek relocated to the South, where the bulk of their gigs were.
McGee returned to Goose Creek Symphony on more than one occasion through the years, including a session for a 1985 release called “Oso Special.”
Arizona music historian and DJ John Dixon credits Goose Creek Symphony and the Charlie Daniels Band as founders of the country-rock and bluegrass scene of the ’70s, inspiring bands across the country.
“Charlie Gearheart brought his Kentucky holler roots to the desert and nurtured his backwoods stories and characters for months at Audio Recorders with a group of like-minded musicians, including Mickey McGee,” Dixon says.
“Developing a Dead-like following from years of touring that continues to this day, Goose Creek is credited as the main influence on the new crop of bands popping up in Kentucky and elsewhere, including Tyler Childers, who always credits the band, and Gearheart, as his main influence.”
‘Everybody knew who he was and who he had played with’
McGee moved back to Phoenix in the early to mid-’80s.
“His mother was sick and he had to take care of her,” Cioffi says. “So he moved back to Phoenix. It’s my understanding that he was offered to be in Glen Campbell’s band but had to turn it down because his mother was ill.”
The first time Mike Breen saw McGee was on a tour with Ricky Nelson at the Windmill Dinner Theaterin Scottsdale.
“And then a couple years later, he came back to Phoenix and that’s when I met him,” Breen says.
They were both in bands that would play on the street at the old Rawhide location in North Scottsdale.
“Everybody knew who he was and who he had played with and that he had played on all these records,” Breen says. “So that’s how we got to know each other. And when I became a bandleader, I started hiring him.”
They ended up working together for more than 30 years.
‘It really was about the song with Mickey’
“He was a great drummer,” Breen says. “And he had his own style. He played loud and he could really rock it. But then, he could play all the country stuff as well. So he was just an-all around great drummer. A natural drummer.”
Cioffi, who worked as a session musician in LA for 32 years, met McGee when they ended up sharing the stage at a corporate gig in late 2002 in Phoenix, playing country music.
They played together, on and off, for 15 years.
When Cioffi was hired to serve as the musical director for a PBS show called “Songwriters’ Showcase at Tempe Center for the Arts,” he hired McGee as the drummer.
Cioffi also used McGee, his “go-to drummer,” on his own recordings.
“It really was about the song with Mickey,” Cioffi says.
“He was more about the song than crazy chops or anything like that. He was very much like a Russ Kunkel or a James Gadson, one of those guys. He was in the pocket. Which is the mark of a really good session player. He would listen to the song before he played it.”
‘He was there at the right time, at the right age’
It’s a common refrain when former bandmates talk about his drumming.
“Mickey, he was solid as a rock,” Henke says. “If you ever wanted a good timekeeper, he was the man. Played with great taste. Didn’t overplay. As far as wanting a great drummer in the band, Mickey would be my top choice.”
McGee would sometimes talk about those years in LA after moving back to Phoenix.
“He loved it,” Breen says. “He was there at the right time, at the right age, hanging out every night at the Troubadour when everybody was there. The Eagles. Jackson. Elton John. That was what he would do when he wasn’t working or on tour or in the studios, hang out at the Troubadour and pick up girls.”
He hadn’t done much drumming lately due to health issues.
“It really got tough on him in the last few years,” Cioffi says.
It’s Cioffi’s understanding that McGee learned he had COVID-19 around July 1.
“It really hit him hard,” Cioffi says. “When I last spoke to him, I think it was last Thursday, he told me they wanted to take him to the hospital and he didn’t want to go. But then he got so bad that he finally went. When I spoke to him, he was on oxygen.”
Cioffi says McGee did his part to social distance.
“Mickey was quite a hermit in the last couple years of his life,” he says.
“He wasn’t a ‘go out to the clubs’ kind of guy at all. Especially at his age. Like a lot of us old rock ‘n’ roll guys, we calm down toward the end of our lives.”
Breen says services will be held sometime next spring, either in person or via Zoom depending on the how things are going with COVID-19 at the time.
“He was sweet,” Breen says. “Really kind. Very humble. He loved to talk and tell stories. He was just an easy guy to hang out with. His main thing all his life was playing drums. Even just a month ago, he said, ‘Man, I wish we could do one more gig.'”
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.
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