Quirky conversations, odd jobs, narrow escapes, Michael McNevin's songs read like short stories. Skillful guitar work and nuanced vocals underscore the characters and places he inhabits: a busking clown on a Michigan lake, a shade tree mechanic in the Barstow desert, a scarecrow in love with a seabird, a day in the life of a grocery store bagger. Surprises and landscapes of everyday life bring the listener inside the story. Many are rooted in the Sierra Nevada, others from his travels, and more from the train town of Niles, where Mike grew up with his three older brothers.
Over the last 30 years, Michael has been a solo troubadour around the US and parts of Europe, often playing local haunts and fests as McNevin & The Spokes. In his early career, Michael cut his teeth in SF east bay bars, mixing in a six-month stint busking streets and subways in Greenwich Village. He’s shared stages with Johnny Cash & The Carter Family, Donovan, Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens, Christine Lavin, Utah Phillips, Robert Earl Keen, Iris Dement, Rosanne Cash, Greg Brown, and many others on the songwriter circuit.
McNevin is a winner of the Kerrville New-Folk Award, 8-Time winner of "Song Of The Year" for West Coast Songwriters, Performing Songwriter magazine’s Top-12 DIY “Artist Of The Year”, and 3rd Place finisher at both the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest & Telluride Music Festival's Troubadour Competitions.
He’s also an Etch A Sketch artist of some renown, delighting audiences with depictions of his songs on the little red toy. Stacks of his original drawings from the ‘90s are stored, in tact, in his basement waiting for an earthquake. Michael’s main guitar is a '59 Sears Danelectro, picked mostly like an acoustic. For lead and slow slide back-up work, he uses a Duracell "C" battery, to help keep audience expectations low.
