| | | Mick
grew up surrounded by a kind of acoustic music, now we call it
Roots', that
awakened something within. In his small town, Mick would
watch the nation's
oldest banjo group play in the annual Memorial Day
parade and was eventually
asked to join. He says he dropped the
group's average age to 70. One thing
is certain- most of the music
played was written between the Civil War and
the end of Tin Pan Alley
in the 1940's. When Mick was still young, an uncle
moved an old player
piano into the Reed house, complete with the old player
scrolls. There
were recorders, trumpets, baritone ukuleles, and clarinets,
too. Then
came the guitar and Mick started to find a voice playing classic
tunes
from the '60s and hokey country tunes from the early days. The blues
came from street performers and vintage collections of the original
masters
while the real hillbilly element came from Folkways recordings
from Appalachia
and traditional fiddle music from the old country.
Meanwhile, songs from the
likes of Chet Baker, The Beatles, Frank
Sinatra, and The Mills Brothers filled
the air.
Poetry has
also been a big part of Mick's life since an early age.
Robert Frost, Yeats,
T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, and Catullus are all
influences as are Johnny Cash,
Robert Johnson, and Bob Dylan. Mick
does not consider himself religious but
he is well-read in the Bible,
and biblical imagery pops up along side imagery
from tall tales and
ancient myths.
Mick
draws from a wide range of life experiences in his writing and
performing:
he has had adventures across the country and around the
world, has rubbed
elbows with the glamorous, the infamous, the richest,
and some of the poorest.
He has had good luck and has had days,
months, and years when everything seemed
to go against him. He has
ridden Harleys and horses and has known the highest
love, and the
deepest feelings of loss. Drawing from a short and varied career
as a
hardhat, film producer, taxi driver, Wall Street broker, and fisherman,
Mick's favorite occupation to date has been Singer/Songwriter.
Mick
is currently working on his second album, 'Goodnight, Texas', due
out this
fall from ClawTown Music.
announcing
the release of the spring valley studs' first album, buy now | |
