Will Luckey, a gifted musician and longtime Islander, died at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital on August 17 after succumbing to a rare and aggressive form of cancer. He was 68.

Will was perhaps best known on the Island as a piano, guitar and voice teacher for students of all ages, but he had a particular gift for bringing out music in young people.

The son of Marine Corps Gen. Robert and Cary Walker Luckey, he took great pride in his ancestry. His grandfather, Meriwether L. Walker, was governor of the Panama Canal Zone in 1924. His great-grandfather, Asa B. Carey, at one time served as an assistant to Kit Carson on the Western frontier, and later bought the Mill House on Vineyard Haven Harbor, which was sold to Lillian Hellman in the 1940s.

Will moved to the Vineyard in 1963 and attended the West Tisbury and Vineyard Haven schools before finishing high school at Westminster School in Connecticut.

He showed an early aptitude for music, and played at local Vineyard venues like the Mooncusser Coffee House and the Chilmark Community Center while he was in his teens.

Following high school, in 1971 he attended Colorado College, but gave up school to help form a band, Magic Music, which developed an enthusiastic following with University of Colorado students in Boulder. The band, which lived in school buses up in the canyons of Colorado, was asked to open for and tour with Cat Stevens, but was fired after playing the first set, told they were “too good.”

For Will and Magic Music, what followed was several years of touring and near brushes with national fame. In 1976, Magic Music disbanded and Will eventually made his way back to the Vineyard. On the Island he continued to perform, playing with Alex Taylor’s band the Luckey Strikes, among others, and working as a roofer to make ends meet. In 1991, he fell off a ladder and smashed both his elbows, his left wrist and all his ribs. He thought he would never play guitar again, and decided to pursue a degree in music from Berklee College of Music, specializing in piano. The decision would launch his career in teaching and add some stability to his life with his wife Diane (Cub) Luckey and their young son Ben.

The Magic Music days would remain a distant memory were it not for Lee Aronsohn, an old University of Colorado student who remembered the band, wanted to track them down, and had the wherewithal to film the whole process. Co-creator of Two and a Half Men, Mr. Aronsohn produced a documentary of the band, its music and their amazing journey called Forty Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie. It is available at major online outlets.

His wife and children recalled Will’s fun-loving nature, willingness to give of himself and ability to make people happy.

Music was his life and the sea was his release, they said, and he was at his happiest when out in his boat fishing for stripers off West Chop, or clamming in Tashmoo.

He taught his children to fish and clam and skip rocks. He also loved to cook and eat well, and cut and stack firewood. He was a father figure to many of his children’s friends; following his death many of them came over to stack wood in his memory.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sister, Laura Luckey; three children, Ben, Anna, and Carey; his daughter in law and two grandchildren.

A party will be held to commemorate his life on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Tisbury Waterworks in Vineyard Haven. Magic Music will be there to play. Guests are invited to bring finger food to share — carry in, carry out, please.

A scholarship has been set up in Will’s name at the regional high school. Checks payable to the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School can be sent to M.V. Public Schools, c/o Marylee Schroeder, 4 Pine St., Vineyard Haven, MA 02568. Please include “Will Luckey Memorial Scholarship Fund” in the memo line of the check.