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“Mighty” Mike Schermer

Michael Howard Schermer (born August 20, 1966), better known as “Mighty” Mike Schermer, is an American blues, R&B and rock music guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has released seven albums during his 30-year career and has also been a side man for other artists. Schermer has toured with swamp-boogie piano artist Marcia Ball for the last nine years and was the former guitarist of Elvin Bishop.

Life and career

Schermer was born in Long Island, N.Y., the son of Lenore Tauber, a critical care nurse and Robert Schermer, who attended Cornell and MIT and became a nuclear physicist in Los Alamos, N.M., where Mike lived from eight to 18 years of age. While he began learning and playing music since he was 10, Schermer said his life was transformed when he saw Albert Collins in 1984.

“Albert hit that first note,” says Schermer, “and it was like a door slammed behind me and another one opened up in front. That was the sound and soul and feeling I’d been looking for in music up to that point.” Schermer soon bought a Telecaster guitar to emulate his new hero.

Mighty Mike moved to Santa Cruz, Calif. that year to attend UC Santa Cruz (’89 graduate, American History) and soon began his professional music career, eventually forming the band, The Soul Drivers, which established a popular residency at Moe’s Alley. They backed such blues legends as Jimmy Rogers, Snooky Pryor, Luther Tucker and Willie Dixon.

Angela Strehli, the Texas blues vocalist who had relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, heard Schermer and The Soul Drivers and started using them as her touring band in 1998. Schermer eventually became Strehli’s musical director and was an important part of her recordings Deja Blue, Live From Rancho Nicasio, and Blue Highway. He released his own debut record, First Set, in 2000.

Soon, Schermer became the sideman for such headliners as Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur, Howard Tate, Charlie Musselwhite, Sista Monica, Billy Boy Arnold, Earl King, Pinetop Perkins, Willie Big Eyes Smith and Hubert Sumlin.

In 2006, Schermer was hired by Elvin Bishop and appeared on Bishop’s albums Booty Bumpin’ (live) as well as The Blues Rolls On, a Blues Award nominated album which placed him side by side in the studio with such legends as BB King, James Cotton, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Kim Wilson, and George Thorogood. In 2007 Schermer released his second solo album Next Set, landing him on the map as a songwriter primarily off the success of the award winning single “My Big Sister’s Radio” which held #1 spot on XM/Sirius Bluesville for over 5 months, was voted Carolina Beach Music Song of the Year and was covered by Tommy Castro on his 2008 Blues Music Awards winning Painkiller album. In 2009 Schermer relocated to Austin, Texas to join Marcia Ball’s touring band. He has contributed songwriting and played lead guitar on her last three Alligator Records albums, Roadside Attractions (2011), The Tattooed Lady & The Alligator Man (2014) and Shine Bright (2018).

Schermer released his fifth album, Be Somebody, in 2013. In 2016, his sixth album, Blues In Good Hands, garnered a Blues Music Awards nomination for Best New Artist—a category subsequently changed to Emerging Artist in part because of him. In a Downbeat readers’ poll, the CD was voted “Top 100 Albums of 2016.” It also received a four-star rating from Downbeat. 2016. That same year saw the creation of The Guitarsonists, a blues guitar supergroup that features Schermer and Bay Area bluesmen Chris Cain and Daniel Castro.

In 2019 Schermer released Bad Tattoo, which quickly rose to #2 on Roots Music Report for Contemporary Blues Albums. Critic Mark Thompson of Blues Blast magazine endorsed it by saying “If there is any justice in this world, this release will capture the attention of the wider blues community, giving Mighty Mike a level of attention and praise commensurate with his talents.”

Schermer has performed in all 50 U.S. states and 23 countries around the world. His discography lists over 25 album appearances with some of the blues' greatest performers, but his last four solo albums have established him as one of the top songwriters in the genre.

Discography

•	First Set (2000) •	Next Set (2005) •	Right Hand Man, Volume 1 (2007) •	Live Set (2008) •	Be Somebody (2013) •	Blues In Good Hands (2016) •	Bad Tattoo (2019)

References

www.mighty-mike.com http://www.bluesblastmagazine.com/mighty-mike-schermer-bad-tattoo-album-review/ https://music.apple.com/us/album/bad-tattoo/1449504780 https://www.makingascene.org/mighty-mike-schermer-bad-tattoo/ https://www.vizztone.com/2015/10/02/vizztone-proudly-welcomes-mighty-mike-schermer-keeping-the-blues-in-good-hands/

“Mighty” Mike Schermer

Background Information

Birth name			Michael Howard Schermer

Born					August 20, 1966 Long Island, NY, United States Residence				Austin, Texas

Genres				Blues, R&B, Soul, Rock

Occupation			Musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter

Instruments			Vocals, guitar (Telecaster)

Years Active			1984-present

Labels				Finedog/VizzTone Records