classic acoustic slide blues technique

10 MP3 Songs
BLUES: Acoustic Blues, BLUES: Blues Vocals



Details:
Felony Blues Band
Michael Alton Wyrick's Bio

My life has been a real challenge although I never thought it was and I never thought I would be able to produce a blues CD. Although my life had a lot of blues in it because of things I did to myself thinking they were all right.

I was first introduced to music at the age of five when I heard my father in his four man quartet sing gospel music in the little Baptist Church down by the Rio Grande River south of Harlingen in the Rio Grande Valley. In 1956, at the age of five, my father taught me boogie woogie on the piano. I believe that's when I was first inspired by music. I spent the next five years learning the basics of piano through traditional teaching. At the age of ten, I started playing the guitar inspired by the early and middle sixties music. As my teenage and sixties lifestyle developed, I was introduced to music because of situations that would truly lead me to the blues over the next twenty years. In 1972, I was inspired by Johnny Winters and other blues musicians, to learn to play the slide. I would use metal toilet paper roll holders on my little finger to practice slide technique.

After three times of working for the state of Texas and finally cleaning my act up, I arrived back in Harlingen, Texas in July of 2002 with no money and not knowing where the next dollar was coming from. I had worked in construction at one time and owned a construction company but I was older now and the construction industry was not a realistic choice. One of my choices was to teach guitar because I had some experience at it. With this in mind, I a borrowed a guitar and the rest is history. I now own The Guitar School, also Piano Instruction.

During this time, a friend of mine suggested that I call Chris Maley, program producer at KMBH KHID public radio, because he is the person responsible for developing and supporting the blues movement in South Texas. So, he heard me play slide acoustic blues with my harmonica around my neck. Then my first CD, Three Strikes, was developed over the next year with my bass friend, Steve Owens aka Loose Reed. A year after that, Powered By Blues CD was produced with additional vocalists and a harmonica player added to the band.

Three Strikes and Powered By Blues were my inspiration for writing and developing the third CD, Come Get It While It's Hot. Basically, this CD is an autobiography of my life up to now. Many of the songs are about four different girlfriends in my life in the last four years. Track 10, My Mind & Me, sums up my life situation to date and speaks of the "special woman" I'm with now.

For each CD sold, one dollar will be donated to support programs inspired by Bill W.