It has been my good fortune to collaborate with many talented musicians during my career and I have built many long lasting friendships. My dream and passion is to write and perform beautiful music for the rest of my life, and to share the journey and success with my friends.

 

After performing with numerous bands over the years and the frustrating break-up of my last one, after just falling short of making the Billboard Top 40, I embarked on a solo career with the mentorship and guidance of Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee Mel Shaw.

 

I had dreamt of working with Mel for decades after hearing about his genius from my vocal coach, Van Louis who, coincidentally was the original lead vocalist of The Stampeders. Mel expressed an interest in working with me, at a very painful period in my life, as I was parting ways with a co-writer whom I had considered to be my best friend for over 40 years. I felt very lonely at that time, and an urgency to start getting my music out there fast. However, I had focused my entire career on developing my vocal abilities instead of learning to play an instrument, and I rely on talented musicians to collaborate with. I reached out to another good friend, Gil Tougas, who agreed to let me record and release one of his songs "Lady" as my debut. The song was produced by my friend Emre Cords, and received a modest amount of airplay on Canadian commercial radio.

 

I followed that release up, with a cover of a classic Canadian hit I had wanted to record and perform for decades "Oh My Lady", by Kim Berly of The Stampeders. Many years earlier, I had actually cut my, long, long hair to go work on the oil rigs in Siberia, Russia, in order to earn enough money to record that song and produce a music video. This was finally my chance to do that. Once again, with the assistance of Emre Cords and Mel Shaw we released my version of this song, which received significantly more radio airplay than my debut. The song received significantly more radio airplay than my debut.

 

Since 2017, was Canada's 150th Anniversary as a nation, I felt honored to be given an opportunity to record one of our national songs "Something To Sing About", by the legendary Oscar Brand, to celebrate the occasion. The song had been the theme for Canada's pavilion at Expo 67. Numerous stars got their starts on Oscars radio/television shows, and I desperately wanted to impress him. I was saddened to learn of his passing just as my version of his song was being finalized. Oscar's widow Karen, later gave my version of his anthem a glowing endorsement, which helped make it my biggest success to date. That was an absolutely beautiful gesture, which I am extremely grateful for. Thank you Karen!

 

Finally, I am about to release an original song which was co-written and co-produced with my buddy Emre Cords, called "Peace of Mind". The song is about my concern for the future of humanity, and for the future of my son. Emre played a lot on this production, as he does in all of my releases, but the song also includes awesome performances by incredibly gifted musicians such as Steve Legault, Keith Floen, and Shane Gaalaas. I can't wait to share this, and hope you enjoy it. This will be released very soon.

 

Cheers, Michael