User:MartyFartFast/sandbox

= Mic McCreadie =

Michael McCreadie (or Mic as he prefers to known) was born in Glasgow in 1947 to Irish parents. His fascination with folk song and music began around the mid fifties when his Irish relatives visited Glasgow and he was exposed to the culture of Irish traditional songs and stories during the family parties and get-togethers. His Uncle Sam was an exceptionally gifted singer and Mic soon learned a quite a number of songs from him. Frequent trips to Belfast on holidays fed and nurtured his growing passion.

His interest grew and developed during the folk boom of the 60s and whilst working in various parts of the UK and in mixing with American, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand forces around the world with the RAF he gathered songs from many different cultures. His abiding passion however were the songs of the Scots and Irish tradition, especially ballads.

He worked around the UK as an aircraft engineer before accepting a post at RAF St. Mawgan in 1972. He began to visit Rose Folk Cottage and became an ‘itinerant’ singer then graduated to Resident Singer. When he lost his job at the air base he was ‘adopted’ by Jill & John Battensby a couple of the co-founders of the Folk Cottage at Rose. He moved in with them at Perranwell Station and lived there with the family for a number of years. His weekly appearances at Rose meant mingling with the name acts who toured the National circuit and they encouraged Mic to get out and tour himself. About this time he was also one of the resident singers at Pipers Folk Club with Brenda Wootton and John the Fish and as his popularity grew he was soon invited to be a resident at most other Cornish clubs from Padstow to Penzance. Touring in 1973-74 he appeared in folk clubs from Fort William to Kent and around this time Mic began to experiment with arranging music and songs, in particular using modal tunings and unusual chord formations to enhance and empathise with the emotion of the story. Taking standard folk songs and tweaking and bending them into more compelling and interesting, he claims, textural creations. He began writing his own songs and teaching guitar at night school in Further Education classes in Helston school during quieter times. In ‘75 or so he joined with Sue Bushnell and John Visik to form Creeping Jane, a light acoustic/electric folk rock trio and in this group he learned to play some more instruments taking on playing bass, mandolin and banjo. After around a year he left the group to return to solo performing.

In the late 70s to the early 80s he was touring the UK and in Europe as a Folk singer with a side line in humorous stories and gags. He was invited to guest at most of the major Cornish Festivals and formed a relaxed, loose and very informal collaboration with Larry Law. They appeared together at many Festivals and at Cambridge Folk Festival. By now a qualified Nurse and married things inevitably slowed down and as the folk scene diminished he found less outlets for his folk music and more demand for him as a pub and club entertainer. He branched off into rock groups with a sympathetic attitude to folk rock and other similar genres. He also decided to develop his interest in Audio recording and this culminated in a move to Camborne where he opened a recording studio in his home. His first Folk Recording was commissioned by Willy Schwenken of Onsabruck and subsequently ‘I Know My Love’ was recorded at MacTrax, Mic’s own studio. Contractual problems in Germany however meant the LP was not released there and eventually was shelved. During the recording of this album Mic further developed his skills to include bouzouki and electronic keyboard which gave him access to a huge range of sampled ethnic instruments.

The folk scene by now was a shadow of its former self, Larry’s work had taken him to live in Plymouth and so he was not as readily available as before plus he had joined with Chris Maskell, Pete Condor and Fiddler Jennings as Slip Knot, a bluegrass and contemporary music group.

Mic moved into the pub circuit and remained a somewhat reluctant and frustrated solo performer until a very satisfactory and very popular musical collaboration with guitar wizard Keith Hills settled him down again. Their individual styles combined well and their repertoire comprised of traditional and contemporary folk and blues. Two recordings were released from this duo; ‘Live’ – at Ludgvan’ and ‘Live’ – at the Old Inn’. Side two of this album being Mic with Larry Law and Fiddler Jennings. Mic and Keith parted company quoting the time honoured ‘musical differences’ and he was back solo again.

Still hankering to perform his own arrangements of folk songs it was a logical step to take the studio tapes and compile backing tracks so that he had a ‘band’ consisting of himself on stage! This band also always played things the way Mic wanted them too, was cheaper than a four-piece so more pubs could afford him and since this was his main source of income – it was no bad thing! It was sadly however looked on with disdain by some other performers who saw it as ‘cheating’ in some way. Mic couldn't see how, what’s the difference between two men playing an instrument each and one man playing two instruments? Perhaps there was just a touch of envy from the other performers?

In 1986 following the birth of his daughter Emma, Mic decided to retire from nursing and become a professional entertainer, by now the backing track idea had become widespread so it required little work to incorporate jazz, old standards and pop tunes into his repertoire and now today he’s kept very busy in cabaret, pubs and clubs as Mic McCreadie, the Compleat Entertainer.

Mic is very anxious however to let it be known that he’s never lost his passion or love for folk music. He is very keen to be involved with all acoustic music projects, folk music and jam sessions when time and energy permit. He is sporadically invited to perform in folk music venues and accepts these engagements with relish where he performs mostly acoustically. The trend toward Irish theme pubs brought a huge increase in his ethnic repertoire and since these types of pubs are so loud and busy he made a point of recording acoustically voiced backing tracks, playing all the instruments himself to enhance and augment this work.

‘I Know My Love’ was eventually released after it was re-assigned to Mic’s own Production Company - Whole-In-One Productions.

Albums in chronological order:

A new folk album is planned and is currently in production but a release date is not available at the moment.

Legend

 * Still available @ £6.00 including p&p.