BIOGRAPHY
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Michael Blake is an alter ego of sorts. I’m reminded if I’m not taking note that I must listen to and follow ‘his’ mission. A true friend, a true daemon.
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I have since early teens dabbled in composing bits of music, songs and poetry and one or two songs on my albums ‘White Rose‘ and ‘Out of the Blue’ were first sketched out when in my twenties.
Around 2009/2010, I had a surge of musical creativity which has persisted and has resulted in a ‘warehouse‘ full of songs/music in various stages of development. Some of these embryonic pieces have emerged as recordings, others hopefully will do so. I set out to record them for my own benefit and for the first time since my twenties decided to sing the songs myself with the help of backing singers where appropriate.
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I’m not a natural singer but through my compositions I have found a voice. As I mention on the sleeve of ‘White Rose’ all this has come very late in the day! I have wrestled with the idea of performing my music in public yet that adventure has been stifled by a series of health issues which have placed me in a strange twilight world. On the one hand I need to keep working on producing the songs/music/poetry which is an ‘out there’ act but on the other hand I have become more reclusive and anonymous. Illness can do that but there are other reasons. This strange paradox has led me to keep myself out of things as much as possible and project through the music, songs and poetry. I’m not that important once it is out there.
Musical influences.
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They are many and varied:- classical, jazz, rock, pop, folk, country, soul, fusion, electronic, ethnic and so on.
I’m trying to think back to when I was first aware of music in my life. Probably Burl Ives or an early version of ‘This Old House’. My parents had Jazz and Big Band records around the house. Bassie, Ellington, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, all come to mind. My mother played romantic ballads on the piano. My grandmother fortissimo music hall, ragtime stuff. My father had a clarinet and dabbled. My own musical development came after Elvis. I picked up somehow on the Everly Brothers and one of my first 45rpm’s was a track called ‘How can I meet her.’- Not one of their best but the ‘B’ side!! - ‘That’s old Fashioned’ was stellar. What was it about ‘B’ sides back then? Small Faces ‘All or Nothing ‘ had ‘Understanding’ on the ‘B’ side !! Two great tracks for the price of one.
"We just covered the hits from the Beatles, Stones, Spencer Davis, The Small Faces ...."
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From the Everly Brothers onto the Shadows fairly quickly. Cliff never appealed though we all went to see his films. Preferred Billy Fury and then the Beatles came along. ‘Love me do’ went below the radar but ‘Please Please Me‘ was the start for multitudes of us youngsters. Soon after its release I got a guitar and took a few lessons. On piano I taught myself a few tunes, the first being ‘Sha la la la le‘ by the Small Faces. By the age of 14/15 I was playing in a local group, first called ‘The Likes Of Them’ though we were nothing like Van Morrison’s outfit. We just covered the hits from the Beatles, Stones, Spencer Davis, The Small Faces, Beach Boys, Kinks and many others. For some reason we changed our name to ‘Split Image’ which was appropriate as musically we were pulling apart. I wanted to do some Dylan songs and write our own stuff but I was alone in that ambition. We soon split up and somewhat traumatised by this adventure I concentrated on academic work and going to university.
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"Joni Mitchell talks about those artists she paced herself by, namely Dylan and Cohen. If I have to mention any it will be those two giants ..."
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Music came thick and fast with all the Soul labels, Underground, Guitar Heroes and Singer/ Songwriters. Joni Mitchell talks about those artists she paced herself by, namely Dylan and Cohen. If I have to mention any it will be those two giants joined by Tom Waits and Joni herself. They are all wordsmiths as well as musicians and what I write about is as important as the musical context I create so those four are peerless mentors. That is not to diminish the influence of other singer/songwriters, groups and composers but those four I consistently have conversations with. Nick Drake joins in now and again!
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I dabbled in bands from time to time as the years passed. The longest serving was a group called ‘Swift Kick’ from the mid ‘80’s to mid ‘90’s. We got together socially with the music for a long time before we started doing gigs around South East and South West London. Gigging, somehow led to friction and we split. The band was notable for our singer/bassist Arthur Kelly who was George Harrison’s great friend at school. The Kelly family are mentioned in the Beatles early history.
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After the demise of Swift Kick, I didn’t gig again and as was my want allowed the music to drift until events in 2009/2010 took over as I have mentioned earlier.
A lot of my poems I fused into a published collection ’Rough Passage’
A lot of my poems I fused into a published collection ’Rough Passage’ (2008) under a family name ‘Michael Brokensha’. The book is featured in a section on this website and I must at some stage put together another collection as there are more poems to put out there.
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I delve more into my interests and happenings in the blog but for the moment thank you for visiting this site and being curious or interested in my music or writings.