Maybe magic is just in his blood, but Jim Michael has good claim to it. His family has been in North America since at least the 1600s, and he's directly descended from John Proctor, the first man hanged as a witch in Salem.
As the executive director of Technology Services and interim director of Client Services, Michael seems to be completely free of any connections to the arcane black arts, but the magic of music still runs in his blood. And he has gotten in trouble for it. While giving an impromptu performance for passersby, Michael remembers being run off by the police for accepting voluntary donations for his music in Southern California in the early '70s.
"I can't remember a time when music wasn't part of my life," he said. "One of my earliest memories is of my mother singing the old song 'Tell Me Why' from the front seat of the car as I drifted off to sleep in the back seat at the age of about four or five."
Growing up, he wanted to be a folk singer or rock star. He wrote his first song as a boy in about 1969 when he was learning to play the guitar.
"Some of my greatest influences were Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Donovan and James Taylor," he said.
“I've written and sung my own songs along with folk, Irish and popular songs ever since," he said. "My main instrument is the guitar. I'm also competent with the ukulele, banjo and mandolin, and play at the flute, clarinet and piano. You don't want to hear me play the fiddle... yet!"
His first gig was with a band put together to play '50s rock 'n' roll at a neighborhood party, and he's played in rock, folk, Irish, and barn dance bands since about 1972.
"My interest in Irish music was originally inspired by my Irish heritage, and my interest in old-timey barn dance music goes back to listening to the Grand Old Opry on an AM radio under my pillow as a boy in the Midwest," he said.
He met local Irish and folk musicians in Fresno in the '80s and has been playing with them in various bands and at sessions ever since. He plays at Groggs pub in Clovis at an Irish session on the last Wednesday of each month. He has volunteered at Yosemite, playing for barn dances in Wawona, with the Wawona Philharmonic and for the Yosemite Environmental Living Program students in the spring with the three-piece Wawona Chamber Orchestra.
Michael attended UC Davis with the initial intent of getting a degree in enology and becoming a winemaker, and ultimately graduated with a B.S. in psychology and aspirations to get his Ph.D., but ended up in a career in IT as a computer operator for Fresno County. He was hired at Fresno State in 1989 to help as the University migrated from Cyber systems to a new IBM machine.
He thoroughly enjoys the students and the people he works with.
"Best of all is looking at our students and knowing why I am here and that our work makes a difference," he said. "I am looking at people who might help cure cancer, help save our planet, bring new creative expressions to life and help us understand one another better.”
Michael, who will retire at the end of May, looks forward to writing a lot more music, and maybe building guitars and other musical instruments. Other hobbies include woodworking and spending time in the wilderness, especially national parks in the U.S. and Canada. He loves traveling with friends and brewing.
"I also have aspirations to do more writing when I retire – non-fiction, poetry and maybe even fiction."
He's currently writing a blog called Last 100 Mondays that he started in May of 2015.
Michael and his wife Susan live near North Fork. They have two sons, C.J., 26, and John, 23.
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