Doc Eason performed at John Denver’s Tower Bar for 27 years and has been performing for 48. His memoir Cocktails & Doc Tales recounts his career as one of the most influential bar magicians in history. These comments by Doc Eason came from a conversation with Noah Levine.
Black coffee, please.
We had just finished a five-day motorcycle trip across Nevada and Utah, eventually ending in Colorado, and so we were having a celebratory dinner. Everything was looking good, and there was a little table tent that said, ‘Bar Magic with Bob Sheets.’ Another bartender said, ‘Yeah, he’ll be here any minute.’ And then, a couple minutes later, from around the corner comes this guy with shoulder-length hair, spiffy blue jeans, a nice leather vest—not my picture of what a magician would look like. He stepped up in front of the group I was with and asked me, ‘What would you like?’ I said, ‘I’d like to have a Heineken.’ He said, ‘No problem. Hold on a minute.’ So he writes Heineken on a notepad, wipes it down under the speed gun, and slaps it on a bottle of Coors and says, ‘Here’s your Heineken.’