In 2017, my cover band Maggie Speaks started a new program called Celebrity Sit-In. It has been an incredible addition for corporate events, charity galas and fundraisers, high end weddings and music festivals. Celebrity singers from world famous bands join Maggie Speaks on stage to perform their top 4 – 6 hits. I have been fortunate enough to do this over 30 times in the past few years. Each time, I seem to learn something different from each of our guests, a little nugget that I can take back with me to continually refine Maggie Speaks live performance.
It was January of 2018 in Scottsdale, AZ we had a corporate event at a venue called West World for a tech industry conference. We had constructed a bill with five celebrities, which included one of my favorite vocalists, Mickey Thomas from Starship. Mickey was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1949 and got his first big break in 1974 when he joined the Elvin Bishop Group as a background vocalist. Within a year, he had stepped out front to lead the band. In 1975, “Fooled Around and Fell In Love” reached #3 on the charts. It cemented Mickey as a voice to be reckoned with in rock and roll.
In 1979, Mickey joined Jefferson Starship and recorded some of rocks biggest anthems with “Jane” and “Find Your Way Back”. In the eighties, the members of Jefferson Starship had some internal legal disputes. The band splintered when original member Paul Kantner sued over rights to the name. A settlement was reached and Mickey and Grace Slick wound up moving forward as Starship. In the mid-eighties, behind Mickey’s soaring tenor, Starship ran off a string of three #1 hits with “Sara”, “We Built This City” and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from the movie Mannequin.
Today. Mickey continues touring with Starship, covering the full gamut of material from their beginnings as Jefferson Airplane, through the Jefferson Starship days and onto the MTV generation Starship era. At age 70, Mickey still has the distinguished tenor voice and still performs all of his songs in the original keys.
It always amazed me that Mickey could sing so high, so consistently night after night. As a vocalist for Maggie Speaks, I had to know his secret. We have now performed with Mickey three times. After walking off stage singing background for him on “Fooled Around and Fell In Love”, I finally felt confident enough to approach him and ask, “Mickey, night after night, how do you sing so high, so consistently for so many years with virtually no drop-off?”. He took the time to give a very thoughtful and helpful answer. He said, “I always try and stay within myself and trust my muscle memory. I never sing too loud and I never sing too hard, so in essence I just take really good care of my instrument. Many singers strain so that they can hear themselves better to try and verify that they are in tune. I have been doing this long enough that I just trust that what is coming out of my throat is consistent with the last night. Why would it be any different?” I found this advice extremely helpful and have tried my best to adopt it for my performances. We can’t wait to grace the stage with Mickey again. He is a true gentlemen and an even more gifted performer.