GROW BIGGER EARS #13: The "Audio Autopsy" Prestidigitation Playlist💥EXCLUSIVE ACAPELLA EDITION!✨Songs About Magic✨

💥WE'VE MADE THE INSTRUMENTS DISAPPEAR! We've conjured up some Alakazam and Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo to produce, out of thin air, ACAPELLA tuneage about Magic! Now, don't YOU disappear!💥

Our “Audio Autopsy” (with mini-deep dives into songs and artists) Acapella Prestidigitation Playlist is neither a ranking nor a top sales chart of any sort. We’re just having fun with songs and Playlisting! So glad you appeared!

1. The Coats, “Magic,” 2014

Formed at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1987, The Coats warmly cover Pilot’s immaculate power pop staple, “Magic,” a Top 5 hit in America for the Scottish band in 1974. David Paton and Billy Lyall wrote this tightly-wound ditty.

The Coats are: Bass singer, Kerry Dahlen, baritone Doug Wisness, and Jamie Dieveney and Keith Michael Anderson as first and second tenors, respectively.

As BestClassicBands.com said of the song: “‘Magic’ has levels of familiarity embedded into its signature melody and its engaging, uplifting vocal. Within a few seconds—if you’re old enough—your mind will place it smack dab in the mid-’70s.”

Paton, along with Pilot, is also known for his work in the original lineup of The Alan Parsons Project (1975-1985), and for working with eclectic acts like Kate Bush, Camel and Elton John. ‘Twas Parsons, in fact, who produced Pilot’s “Magic.” Paton was a guitar player in an early iteration of Scotland’s Bay City Rollers (1968-1970).

Lyall came with quite a good solo album, Solo Casting (released in the UK, but not in the States), in 1976, shortly after leaving Pilot. He also spent time with the Parsons Project, and was even an early member, himself (1969-71, keyboards), of the Bay City Rollers.

Pilot in their 1975 heyday, clockwise from left: Ian Bairnson, Stuart Tosh, David Paton, Billy Lyall📸Michael Putland/Getty Images

2. Ginger & Tonic, “Magic,” 2011

This “Magic,” performed here by Australians Ginger & Tonic (who formed in 2010), is the Olivia Newton-John smash that got to #1 in the U.S. for all of August 1980, but stalled at #32 in the UK. Written and produced by John Farrar, “Magic” was the lead single from the Xanadu film soundtrack album.

John Lennon named “Magic” and ELO’s “All Over the World” (also from the soundtrack) as two recent songs he liked in a Newsweek interview in September 1980, shortly before his death three months later.

Ginger & Tonic is Jane Patterson (top left, above), the group’s founder and musical director, Laura Burzacott (a wine and donuts afficionado, lower left), Rebecca Moore (upper right), who has a background in musical theatre, and Stephanie John (center), who’s passionate about Greyhounds—the canine, not the bus line—and hopes to one day adopt some beautiful ex-racing dogs.

3. VoicePlay feat. Jose Rosario, Jr., “Magic Dance,” 2021

From the 1986 musical fantasy film, Labyrinth, which starred David Bowie as Jareth, comes his featured song from the movie, “Magic Dance,” performed by VoicePlay, featuring Jose Rosario, Jr. from 2021.

Orlando, FL, is VoicePlay’s hometown; they appeared on the fourth season of NBC-TV’s The Sing-Off in 2013.

More Magic? Try the ten-tune Cover Songs Edition of the Prestidigitation Playlist! It appears here:

GROW BIGGER EARS #13: The "Audio Autopsy" Prestidigitation Playlist💥POOF!✨Cover Songs About Magic✨

4. Toxic Audio, “Abracadabra/You Can Do Magic,” 2000

Toxic Audio (known as “Vox Audio” outside their home Orlando area) is a five-piece singing group from Florida. They began with appearances at the Orlando International Fringe Festival in the late 1990s. Here, they tackle and subdue the Steve Miller Band’s 1982 hit, “Abracadabra” and America’s “You Can Do Magic.”

Miller’s “Abracadabra” became a worldwide hit, charting in ten countries and topping the charts in six. In the U.S., it was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks, becoming the band's third #1 in the U.S. along with 1973’s “The Joker” and “Rock’n Me” in 1976.

“You Can Do Magic,” as performed by America (above) in 1982, was written and produced by Russ Ballard (below), who was lead singer and guitarist for Argent (1969 through 1974). America’s recording made it to #8 in the U.S., and #59 in the UK.

Frequent appearances at the Jazz Club in Pleasure Island at Walt Disney World Resort have increased Toxic Audio’s fame beyond Florida. They’ve released several CDs and performed live, including an off-Broadway run in 2004, and have toured Europe and Japan.

Toxic Audio is popular for their dynamic and humorous performances, which often include audience participation. They are also adept at improv, emphasizing that all of the music and sound effects created in their performances are done entirely with their voices; no outside instruments are used. Toxic Audio are:

• Michelle Mailhot-Valines, soprano. Her specialty is scat singing.

• Shalisa James, alto. Her specialty is in knowing the exact lyrics to a vast number of songs.

• Paul Sperrazza, tenor. He does beatboxing and is known as the “human beat box” who imitates percussion.

• Jeremy James, baritone. He is skilled at rapping.

• René Ruiz, bass, the founder and original director of the group.

5. The Flying Pickets, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” 1998

Sting’s arresting “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” was rounded up by The Police in 1981, and was ultimately sentenced to the top of the UK charts, while hitting #3 in the US in November of ‘81.

As Sting would tell The Independent in 1993: “This was first recorded as a demo [in late 1976], with the piano figure, in a studio in Montreal. I had written the song long before the Police were successful, but it seemed a bit soft for the band at first. But, the demo was really great. It sounded like a #1 song to me.

“I took it to the band, who were reticent, still thinking it was soft. I was saying, ‘But listen, it's a hit.’ We tried to do it from scratch as The Police, but it didn’t have the same energy as the demo. After a degree of hair-pulling and torturing on my part, I got the band to play over the top of my demo.”

The Flying Pickets is a British vocal group which had a #1 hit in late 1983 on the UK singles chart with their cover of British synth-pop duo, Yaz’s “Only You.”

Originally a sextet, they were founded by Brian Hibbard in 1982 from a group of actors who had been active with him in John McGrath's 7:84 theatre group, a fringe theatre organization who had sung acapella in their production of the 1981 play One Big Blow. The group chose the name “The Flying Pickets” as band members had played a part in the UK miners’ strikes of 1972 and 1974.

6. Sixth Wave, “Strange Magic,” 2004

Jeff Lynne’s “Strange Magic” is given the Sixth Wave treatment here. A New York sextet who now calls L.A. home, the group recorded this ELO song in 2004. Lynne’s orchestral rockers had a #14 U.S. hit with this one in 1976.