Blind Michael Havelin - Suburban Bluesperson

The Legendary Blind Michael Havelin

Suburban Bluesperson

"I don't steal no chickens!"

Country blues in the traditions of Son House, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Johnny Shines, Pink Anderson, Shirley Griffith, Mance Lipscomb, Leadbelly, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and other greats.

Table of Contents
Great Blues Quotes
A Short History of Blind Michael
Tunage played & sung by Blind Michael

Great Blues Quotes

"Don't a man feel worried..." - Blind Willie McTell

"Things that I usta would do, I don't do no more." - Reverend Gary Davis

"It's in him, and it's got to come out." - John Lee Hooker's dad about his son's music making.

"You gotta watch it... all the time." - Lightnin' Hopkins

"All my old boys are gone." - Son House reminiscing

"Come on in my kitchen..." - Robert Johnson

"I never had the blues; the blues always had me." - Brownie McGhee

"The blues ain't nothin' but a botheration on your mind." - Memphis Slim

"Death don't have no mercy..." - Traditional

"You got to get more mud up between your toes." - June Zimmer

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A Short History of Blind Michael

Michael (as he was known in his formative years), grew up in Yonkers, New York, in the heart of the Hudson River Delta. In his late teens, he discovered the Prestige Bluesville album series which featured blues greats such as the Reverend Gary Davis, Sidney Maiden and K.C. Douglas, and Arhoolie records with people like Mance Lipscomb. It was a magical turning point. He found a musical base and started trying to play "the blues." This was tough for a middle class white kid.

In his early 20s, Michael became a ne'er-do-well rock musician based in Albany, New York. After four years of frustration in the music business and the loss of a magical guitar and one of his primary musical partners, Michael quit musicianin' and went off to photography school in Rochester, New York. "The music was the best it had ever been, but the dream had died."

It was in Rochester that Michael met Son House, the legendary Mississippi bluesman who was a seminal influence on many famous blues figures, people like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. "We were gathering material for a documentary film on Son, but it never quite got made." Nonetheless, Michael spent many hours with the old bluesman. "He loved my little National, and I'd play harp along with him and watch his hands. He didn't know it, but he taught me lots about what it meant to play blues."

Son had some theories about music, about making a song your own and putting your whole self into a tune, and his influence on Michael was immediate and powerful. It was during this period that "Blind Michael" was born. "The younger blacks didn't care about the old music, but I did. I decided to carry on the tradition as best I could, and took a stage name that fit the music. And besides... I'd been blind a few times in my life."

It's now more than 30 years later, and Michael has been through several different careers. "I've hung on to my Gibson SJ and the old National through the years, and recently acquired a 1966 Gibson ES-330-TD to replace the one that was stolen from me 34 years ago. I'm starting to play out again too, and having a ball doing it. I'm woodshedding and studying hard, getting it back together. My hands remember, and there are tunes that I'm figuring out which vexed me before. I'm on a whole new plateau."

Blind Michael's perspective on his place in blues is unique: "I'm now old enough to be a bluesperson (P.C., eh?). I've been loved by losers and I've been a fool for them too. Money's run through my hands and I've seen friends and family members die. My dues are paid. And now I'm rediscovering myself again musically. This is cool!"

Blind Michael is back!

Tunage played & sung by Blind Michael

Highway 61 Blues

Every Day in the Week

Death Call Blues

Kind-Hearted Woman

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Email to Blind Michael Havelin