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| Artist: |
Mike Livingston
With his birthday on Halloween and being born in Salem, MA, it’s not surprising that Mike Livingston’s life turned out the way that it did. Hearing his mother and father harmonizing in the front seat of the car during long road trips, and singing popular songs of the day with his sister, Mike was actually training for what was to come later on in his life. “I have distinct memories of my father giving Louise and I different parts to sing. Then, to my amazement, the components would all come together far richer in tone than any of the individual parts sung alone.”
Unbeknownst to his family, Mike was set on a journey that continues on to this very day. Mike cannot listen to a piece of music – EVER – without picking it apart and hearing how the instruments and voices join up to make a newer, richer, more glorious entirety.
It was at the age of 5 or 6 that Mike Livingston first saw "The Music Man" starring Robert Preston. This movie spoke to the young lad and showed him his calling. As Mike jokingly tells audiences, “I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to swindle people out of their money at every turn. Every time I open my mouth to sing… well… there you go…”.
Mike first discovered his passion for songwriting and studio production while on a trip to Montreal with his mother. “I remember it like it was yesterday. We were on an exit ramp and this song came on the radio. It was like NOTHING I’d ever heard before! It was just so… DIFFERENT!!” That song was Telephone Line by the Electric Light Orchestra. Mike convinced his mom to immediately go to a store so he could buy that record. He ended up purchasing E.L.O.’s Eldorado. Mike spent the entire length of the Canada visit listening to that album on his uncle’s new fangled hi-fi system (with headphones). Looking on the back cover, he noticed it said “Written and PRODUCED by Jeff Lynne”. Now - Mike not only wanted to write different sounding songs, but he wanted to learn studio production as well. Jeff Lynne became one of Livingston’s heros!!
In his teen years Mike fell in with a crafty bunch of musical hooligans who decided to call their new band “Chapeau”. “These guys knew how to get things done! We were very much like musical guerrillas. I thank God for them because they took my songwriting abilities seriously, which gave me the confidence to grow.”
In his twenties, Mike went on to work with various Country, General Business, and Top 40 bands. However 1982 would be the year that he would find his onstage persona. “I was out one evening with my girlfriend and we stopped off at a little bar in a Holiday Inn in Nashua, NH. This bar was a mock up of an Irish pub called Killarney’s. We were sitting there and a guy named Ike Mattie got up on stage and just DESTROYED THE PLACE!! All he needed was his voice, his guitar, and his quick wit. WOW!!” Mike and Ike quickly became friends and at times friendly rivals. “I got to know all of the rest of the performers there. I would volunteer to play backing guitar for them and soon learned their timing and ways of handling an audience.” Mike took this knowledge and combined it with his orchestral/rock background to become a sort of rock/pub musician hybrid.
“I was also very lucky in that I got to see stage artists like Neil Diamond, Freddie Mercury (Queen), and believe it or not, Steve Martin doing their thing in person. They weren’t as obsessive about getting the notes right as they were in getting an emotion across to an audience. That’s all music is. The communication of an emotion through melody, rhythm, lyrics, whatever! If it doesn’t make you feel something, it’s a waste of time!!”
Mike continues performing and recording to this day. His highly acclaimed CD “Tales Of Love And Worry” still sells on iTunes.
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