It is hard to believe that El Paso has lost a pair of radio legends in the last two months. Big Al Jones passed away on December 10th and four weeks later, Magic Mike Ramsey was gone. Both of them went peacefully in their sleep and they each gave many great years to KLAQ as larger than life voices on the FM dial.

When I first heard the news that Magic Mike had passed away, lots of great memories from my early days with The Q came back to me. However, one thing that bothered me was that there was no audio record of Magic's days at KLAQ. He first came to the station in April, 1979 and he was given the nickname "Magic" by former KLAQ on-air personality Arin Michaels. During his 24 years on the air, Mike met some of the most influential people in rock radio and had some of the best stories about partying with the legends. However, YouTube did not launch until two years after Magic left radio for good and nobody ever posted any of his old airchecks on the internet.

Jackie Ramsey started to clean out her house and she found boxes and boxes of her husband's old recordings. Most of them were on reel, an archaic form of audio preservation in today's digital age. One of her most recent discoveries was Magic's last known KLAQ interview from May of 2003 with the Red Rocker himself, Sammy Hagar. Their conversation was promoting the upcoming Balloonfest, which featured Hagar as the headliner. Once I was able to play it and digitize the audio, the next step was obvious. The interview would be uploaded to the KLAQ YouTube Channel, along with a great picture of the two with the late great Who bassist John Entwistle and a pair of legendary record reps, Ronnie Raphael and Bubba Wayne McManners. Jackie had the picture from Hagar's 53rd birthday celebration in 2000 and Magic actually referenced it to Sammy prior to their on-air conversation.

Enjoy the interview, which has not been heard in nearly 15 years. There are hours of old airchecks, commercial demos, and other interviews that Ramsey saved during his radio career. Over the next few weeks, I will be working on other audio projects that will soon be shared online. Although he is no longer with us, Magic Mike's legacy at KLAQ will live on forever.

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