Profile - MLive.com

Entertainment
SEction Editor:
Brian Wheeler 768-4928
[email protected]
SUNday
January 3, 2010
D7
JACKSON CITIZEN PATRIOT
Profile — Magician Kevin James
His success is no
President Barack
Obama reacts
to performers
during a
Halloween
reception
in the East
Room of the
White House.
Kevin James
performed at
the event.
illusion
Official White House
Photo by Pete Souza
“Most
cutting-in-half
illusions are
done inside
some kind of
box. This is
done right out in
the open.”
Kevin James, a Jonesville
High School graduate, making
his mark with magic
By Bill Chapin
I
[email protected] — 768-4971
f you want to meet the president of the United
States, you could try winning a major award,
becoming a war hero or simply crashing a state
dinner.
Or you could always cut a man in half on national
television. That was the trick for magician Kevin
James, a 1980 Jonesville High School graduate.
James (not to be confused with the
actor and comedian of the same
name) performed a routine on
“America’s Got Talent” in 2007.
Dressed as a surgeon, he sliced
an assistant in two with a
chain saw. The man’s legs
continued to move and he
raised his torso off the
table with his hands
before James reassembled him.
“Most cutting-inhalf illusions are
done
inside
some kind of
box,”
James
said. “This is
done right
out in the
open.”
James
was eliminated on the
TV show after
three appearances, but videos of “The Operation” went viral
on the Internet. Ever
since then it’s been
nothing but command
performances for the
Prince of Bahrain, the royal
family of Monaco and even
President Barack Obama.
James said performing at a
White House Halloween celebration for the first family and 250 of
their guests is unquestionably the
highlight of his 25-year career as a professional magician.
His mother was excited for him,
too.
“To have a command performance
out of all the magicians in the United
States, that was pretty cool,” said Mary
Lou Bradford, who runs the Lilac Ridge
Bed & Breakfast in Scipio Township north
of Jonesville.
James spoke with Obama before the performance, but he didn’t get an opportunity to hear the
president’s reaction afterward.
“There was a guy sitting next to him who said
at one moment he turned to the people around
him and said, ‘Are you believing what I’m seeing?’”
James said.
Kevin James is his stage name. He was born Kevin
Lowery in France, where his father was stationed as
an Air Force helicopter pilot.
He spent most of his childhood in Jonesville and
said the family’s Halloween displays were an early
— Magician Kevin
James
Online
Kevin James’ official Web
site: www.kjmagic.com
Video of “America’s Got
Talent” performance: tinyurl.
com/kjmagic
See Magician, on D8
Plugged In
2009 offered some musical treats; here are my 10 favorite
Now that I’m all done
examining the music of the
past decade, it’s time to focus on 2009. While it won’t
be terribly missed by anyone
I know, it did offer some
pretty tasty musical treats,
five of which already have
been featured in the Albums
of the Aughts series.
I thought a short rundown
of my favorite 10 albums
of 2009 would be in order.
Notice I said “my favorite,”
not “the best.” I swear, just
because your favorite album doesn’t appear below
doesn’t mean I think these 10
are somehow superior. Unless your favorite was that
Daughtry album, in which
case I guarantee these are
better. I kid!
10. “Wolfgang Amadeus
Bill Chapin
[email protected] — 768-4971
Entertainment writer
Phoenix,” Phoenix
The French pop-rock
band has been around since
1999, and until this year it
was one of those groups
that you kept hearing music
geeks talk about but never
actually heard. The irresistible singles “Lisztomania”
and “1901” changed all that.
If you didn’t see Phoenix
perform on “Saturday Night
Live” or all the major latenight talk shows, you undoubtedly heard “1901” in
that Cadillac commercial.
9. “Wilco (The Album),”
Wilco
They named it what? And
they put a camel on the
cover? What sort of goofballs had Chicago’s most
innovative and respected
band gotten itself all hopped
up on this time? But once
Jeff Tweedy is done singing
about how “Wilco will love
you, baby,” the album starts
to seem like a logical step. It
doesn’t abandon the peaceful,
easy Americana that defined
“Sky Blue Sky,” but it also returns to some of the twitchy
experimentalism of “A Ghost
is Born.” It’s the first Wilco
album that doesn’t seem like
a dramatic shift in direction
and instead just feels like a
Wilco album. Huh, the title
makes sense after all.
8. “The Hazards of Love,”
The Decemberists
Ever since the 2004 EP
“The Tain,” Portland, Ore.’s
The Decemberists have been
gravitating away from amusing acoustic-pop ditties and
toward dark, prog-rock epics
rooted in folklore. The tide
reached its high point with
this concept album, which
tells the tale of a young girl
impregnated by the shapeshifting adopted son of a
forest queen, who is then
abducted by a rascal and escapes when the ghosts of his
murdered children return to
torment him — all set to music that treads the common
ground between ’60s British
folk-rock and heavy metal.
Only The Decemberists
could pull off something this
audacious.
7. “Upper Air,” Bowerbirds
For all you alt-folk enthusiasts holding out for rustic,
acoustic arrangements and
gorgeous harmonies, it
didn’t get any better in 2009
than this sophomore album.
Rooted in Phil Moore’s
guitar and Beth Tacular’s
accordion, the songs sound
charmingly homemade —
which isn’t all that surprising
given that the couple spends
most of their time living in
an eco-friendly cabin they
built in the woods outside
Raleigh, N.C.
6. “Fortress Round My
Heart,” Ida Maria
From my Albums of the
Aughts entry:
“Starting with the can’t-betopped opening single, ‘Oh
My God,’ Ida Maria’s voice
demands attention. It is raw,
raspy and powerful, earning
those comparisons to Janis
Joplin and Chrissie Hynde.
Her singing would conjure
up images of booze- and
cigarette-fueled partying and
morning-after regret even
if her lyrics didn’t address
those things directly.”
5. “Veckatimest,” Grizzly
Bear
From my Albums of the
Aughts entry:
See MY, on D8