Regarding Mac. I don't know if he is still with us, but I do know he was in 2020. I had reached out in early Jamuary 2020 to his brother, Marshall McDonald, to see what was going on (Marshall is a professional jazz sax player out of New York, although he said gigs were very hard to come by.. My initial exchange with him went as follows:

Quote
Me (01/07/2020): Greetings! My name is John Ford and you don't know me from Adam. I am a longtime participant in the PGMusic Band-in-a-Box online forum for which your brother Clark (who went by the moniker "Mac" many years ago), just kind of disappeared. There have been folks (including myself) worried about him for many years now. I've tried calling the number at which I previously spoke with him, but it just rings . I remember him posting about his brother Marshall and your accomplishments, so I am reaching out on your web site. While I never met him in person, I spoke with him on the phone several times and we had multiple interchanges about music on the forum and on the phone. Myself, and others, would just like to know he's alright, still playing keyboards and trumpet (hopefully), and doing what he loves. He was a treasure of knowledge on the forum, and we have long been concerned about him. I remember he went through a bout of some health issues. I look forward to hearing from you.

Marshall (01/07/2020): Thanks for reaching out, I remember well his work at BIAB and i still use the program to practice although I have not updated in some time! Music is a challenging career. To say the least and has gotten even worse. Yes Actually, he did go through some very serious health issues, maybe we will tell you about them but he is still with us and his brilliant mind, maybe getting older, is still brilliant. Since he sometimes remains private I will forward your email onto him and I hope he reaches out to you. Let me know how it goes.

Me (01/08/2020 - my birthday, hey!): Thank you for your response, Marshall. Mac may be gone from the BIAB forum, but not forgotten. I am so glad he is still with us. His knowledge of things musical and electronic and, well most things, have been helpful to me (and many others). I remember he provided me some great feedback on a song I posted that I took to heart. I do hope I hear from him. There are folks that still miss his wit and insight.

Marshall (01/17/2020): Did you hear from him?

Me (01/17/2020): Unfortunately, not yet. Thank you so much for the follow up. But I'm an optimist. I will tell you there are lots of folks with fond memories of him and would love to hear from him, even just to drop in and say "Hi".And this isn't just an online thing. In the past several years, a lot of folks on the forum have actually met and socialized in person, all around the love for music. I keep my hopes alive.

Me (01/23/2020): Have not heard from your brother, yet, but just glad he's still kicking and hopefully doing what he loves.

Marshall (01/23/2020): He sticks to himself a lot these days. He got your message.

After that, we shared emails back and forth about life, music, and BIAB over the next several months. I never did hear from Mac, he last logged in to the forum on 04/08/14 at 09:50 AM.


John

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