7:30 pm $18. Center for Well-Being, Lemont. 

Michael has been among the winners of the prestigious “New Folk” competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and his involvement with the seminal Fast Folk Musical Magazine in New York City has led to his song “Long Black Wall” being included on a Smithsonian Folkways CD celebrating twenty years of Fast Folk.

Borrowing from blues, rock, country and R&B, Michael displays his first-rate lyrical sense and impressive musicianship. A keen student of the good and ghastly in American life, Michael weaves themes like a novelist, evoking our shortcomings and dreams without yielding to cynicism or sentimentality. Often praised as a “songwriter’s songwriter” who composes in styles influenced by the wealth of American music, he has been characterized as an artist who performs his “extraordinary songs with the uncommon ability to deliver them to an audience with power and grace”.

"Stronger than new rope… especially recommended to fans of Gorka, Greg Brown, Dave Alvin or any other real smart people who make real good music." – Icon, Iowa City