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With 15 years of US touring and 5 CDs under his belt, (and a couple rare cassettes), Michael McNevin is a regular at clubs and music festivals. He's been billed in halls and stadiums with the likes of Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens, Donovan, Iris Dement, Greg Brown, Christine Lavin, Rosanne Cash, Robert Earl Keen, Kelly Willis, Dar Williams, Adrian Bellew, Laura Nyro, U. Utah Phillips, and 100s of others on the songwriter circuit. He is a winner of the Kerrville New-folk award, a 5-time winner of the West Coast Songwriters Association "Song Of The Year" award, nominated "Artist Of The Year by the National Academy Of Songwriters, and was chosen by Performing Songwriter Magazine as a Top 12 "DIY Artist Of The Year". He also won the Napa Valley new-folk competition, the Columbia River new-folk competition, and placed 3rd at both the Telluride and Rocky Mountain Folks Fest troubadour competitions.
Highlighting a seasoned voice, innovative guitar works, Michael's songs read like short stories, full of humor, heart, and a keen eye for Americana. Gig to gig, he drives the blue roads, rigging a desk where the passenger seat used to be. His tour journals are published semi-regularly as magazine segments titled "Napkin Literature - Stories From The Road". He writes it all down; from being caught in a Nashville tornado, to chasing down a robber in Carbondale, Illinois. He chronicles the people and towns of his travels, and also the Huck Finn childhood he had growing up in the rail town of Niles, California. "Two Feet Ahead Of The Train" reenacts a close call he had on a train trestle over the Alameda Creek when he was ten years old, "Bagger" describes his days working at the town grocery store, "John's Cocoons" details the spring ritual of his eldest brother hatching a shoe box full of giant Polyphemus Moths all over the house, and "The Pride Of Niles-Centerville Little League" depicts his days booting infield grounders for the Niles Electric Braves. (That song is now part of the official baseball song collection at the National Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, NY).
Michael picked up his Dads guitar at age 14, playing anything his older neighborhood friends would teach him - folk and folk-rock, Dylan, Neil Young, Simon & Garfunkle, to the pop & hard rock of Zeppelin and Boston. At 16 he bought a used Gibson SG and a black face Fender Deluxe. He formed a garage band in highschool as a lead guitarist playing UFO, Aerosmith, Rush, Montrose. At 18 he was given an Alvarez acoustic for his birthday. He started writing songs during a three year stint at a local state college, while also studying classical guitar, short fiction, and theater. He dropped out of college, worked odd jobs, and started playing pubs around the San Francisco Bay Area as an acoustic solo act. At 22 he moved to New York where he cut his troubadour teeth playing the subways and streets of Greenwich Village. He also played the Monday open mic nights there at the legendary Gerdes Folk City night club (it was here that Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty heard Michael play; they were researching their roles in the movie "Ishtar" as failed songwriters). Of the six months he spent around NYC, the most defining experience was a night he spent in the slammer for jumping over a subway turnstile. This would become a song titled "Jersey Jail", off his debut CD "Secondhand Story". Both Jersey Jail and the title cut (about an abandoned letter he found in a blue travel bag at a thrift store) won him "Song Of The Year" honors from the West Coast Songwriters Association in 1991 and 1992. Those songs took him to Texas where he won the Kerrville New-Folk Competition, and that started his full time touring as an indie singer-songwriter.
As a sidebar to his music, Michael is also a renowned Etch A Sketch artist. Not kidding. He illustrates his songs on that little red toy. Mastered it as a kid, then picked it up again for fun on a tour in 1996. Delicate drawings he did for audiences during a five week road trip through the South and Midwest landed him in an art gallery in Nebraska and a TV special on FOX in Dallas. By the time he got home, his art and music had merged into the idea for an illustrated CD. The art and music of Sketch have since been featured on CBS, NBC, and ABC, and numerous other magazine and news media. The Ohio Art Company, maker of the toy, sponsors drawing workshops for him at music festivals and schools. His still exhibits occasionally as a songwriter/etch-a-sketcher in art galleries, and he's been commissioned for drawings as well, carefully preserving and delivering drawings to various parts of the country, praying they don't turn the drawings upside down in the airports.
"I don't know what's best about this CD - Michael McNevin's music or his Etch A Sketch drawings that accompany each song. McNevin is a singer-songwriter of the highest order."
-Acoustic Guitar Magazine
"The talent of Michael McNevin lies in his ability to extract juicy bits of life from his surroundings and let a tale unravel from each one."
-Performing Songwriter Magazine
"McNevin has moved to the forefront of the New-folk movement. Captivating stories told with heart against a backdrop of clean, optimistic guitar."
-Brian Turhorst, KVMR Nevada City, CA
"Michael McNevin has been kicking around from coast to coast for years now, a maven who delights his audiences with story-songs and patter... Here are sketches of people, places, and events..."
-Sing Out! Magazine
"Secondhand Story is an evocative peek at a strangers life"
- Chicago Tribune
"Heard you on the KFOG acoustic Sunday morning show. Bagging groceries and an Etch-A-Sketch. Two of my historical accomplishments--dig the tunes."
-Tony Bennett
Visit Music, Etch A Sketch art, and Napkins at: www.michaelmcnevin.com
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