Macuras ‘my favorite’

By Jamie Norton

Daryl Magill has been lighting up the pagoda at Veterans Memorial Park for years. And every year, there was Mary Macura and her sister, Helen, front and center, clapping and singing along with him every step of the way. The Macuras were such stalwarts on his visits to the park every year that he even named Mary his “queen.”

Until, suddenly, his queen’s throne was empty.

About six or seven years ago, the Macuras’ absence from his popular shows was apparent. They were slowing down and Mary, now in her 90s and unable to get around easily without assistance, just couldn’t get to the park anymore.

And Helen wasn’t going to leave her sister behind.

“There was no way we could get (Mary) to the park,” Helen said, citing that Mary, now 99, was wheelchair-bound and had difficulty getting out of the house.

So, Magill started coming to them.

“Mary was my queen; she came every year and sat in the front seat,” Magill said. “After a few years (when) I realized she was there, I would bring some flowers to her, and then when she couldn’t make it, I said, ‘Well, I will come to her house and come to visit her.’”

Now, a few hours before he puts on his colorful costumes and performs before a few hundred, he warms up his pipes performing before just a few. He always makes sure to pay a visit to his queen and serenades Mary and Helen with his sweet sounds, as he did last Thursday.

“I like Granville; it’s a wonderful place, and the Macura sisters are here,” said Magill, who grew up in and around Bayersville, Woodstock and Kingston. “What better reason to come to Granville?”

It’s that personal touch – as well as his undeniable talent and the engaging shows he puts on – that makes him such a big draw when he comes to Granville.

“They really do an outstanding job of entertaining,” Helen said of Magill and the bands with which he’s been associated over the years – the Big Smoothies, the Pneumatic Horns and his current band, the Cagney’s. “He’s good, he’s funny, he’s talented, his personality is outstanding.”

Macura pointed out that his charisma spans generations. Before he visited Helen and Mary Thursday, Magill spent an hour performing at the Indian River Nursing Home. Then, at his concert, he had kids singing for him and lining up in a conga line.

“You ought to see the way the kids love him,” Helen said. “It’s not so much my generation, but really, it’s all these kids, the way they get attached to him.”

“They (the kids) literally follow me wherever I go,” Magill said. “If I’m going to the (truck they use as a dressing room), I look behind me, there’s 20, 30 kids following. (I have to say), ‘Okay, kids, where’s your folks? I’ll be right back!’”

And their “folks” are never bored, either. Some of those kids’ parents were up on their feet dancing along to his catchy cover songs, some performed by Magill’s Tina Turner alter-ego.

“The show, whatever we do, is not so much about me, it’s about people in the audience,” Magill said. “It’s amazing when people get involved and they kind of take over the show. That’s kind of the genesis of what we do is more of audience interaction than me just standing there and singing a song.”

That interaction has won him lifetime fans in the Macura sisters. And he returns the love, ten-fold, even keeping in touch with them throughout his travels via postcard and letter.

“They’re my fans,” Magill said. “My favorite fans.”