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MP3 Mike Schikora - What's Old is New Again
12 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Country Blues, COUNTRY: Modern Country
Details:
"If you can live without the necessities, you can afford the luxuries!"
This is the motto Colorado cowboy, singer/songwriter Mike Schikora has been living by for years.
This rustic Rocky Mountain horseman has come a long way since his arrival in Nashville twenty years ago. He was signed as a staff writer with a small publishing company where he received a lot of attention performing his original music, but still got passed by all the major record labels. However, that did not dampen his inspiration. It made him stronger and more driven! So when churning out songs for the music mill began to lose its charm, Mike took the advice from someone he highly respected, Don Potter, a seminal component who helped create The Judds sound. “Don recognized something original in me but said my songs were sounding ‘too Nashville’ and time off Music Row would help me get back to my originality.” This was a difficult choice to make, but after 7 years, he opted out of his writing deal, started his own publishing company and moved to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Once in the mountains, Mike was instantly re-inspired. He soon realized songs came to him naturally. “I found when I didn’t try to write, songs appeared in my head from out of nowhere, mostly while I’m driving down the canyon in my truck with one hand on the wheel and the other writing down the lyrics,” said this rough, gritty cowboy.
Mike grew up in a small logging town (population 3500) in Libby, Montana. After his parents divorced when he was a mere 2 years old, his mother moved him and his older brother Don to a rural town in northern California, Mad River, with a population of 835. They lived in a large empty ranch with an abandoned chicken coop built over the small stream that ran through it, a run-down rodeo arena and cow chutes. “This was such a fun world for me –perfect for a small kid with a wild imagination,” says Mike.
After a few years of rural living in California, they moved back to Montana. It was there Mike made his first connection to music in the 6th grade after hearing someone play the theme to Bonanza and Orange Blossom Special on the violin. “I was hooked! The sound on that violin woke something up in me. I went home that day, and told, not asked, my Mom that I needed $20 for violin lessons. Coming from a Mom raising two boys alone, I did not realize how much money that was to us, but she handed it over without hesitation,” said Mike. A year later, a choir teacher heard him singing along wile practicing the violin and the next day, he was singing in the choir. Not long after his parents reconciled and remarried, Mike began honing his craft by performing as the lead singer in a band playing weekend honky-tonks. “Being underage teenagers, playing in bars and watching our folks dancing and supporting us was great.” After graduating, Mike was determined to continue playing but needed to earn money to put himself through college, so he spent the summer working three restaurant jobs while playing the bars and bowling alleys.
After selling his ’64 Chevy Impala and applying for college loan grants, he attended Eastern Washington University, graduating with a BA in Radio TV production and a minor in voice. While in college, he met one of the most influential people in his life, his music professor, Dr. Ralph ‘Doc’ Manzo. This Italian coach took Mike’s unique, high tenor voice and developed him into a full blown ‘contra-tenor’ studying opera and jazz.
Mike’s most memorable performance was when he performed “Little Girl Blue” with a 16 member accapella ensemble behind him his freshmen year. “When I finished, the place was dead silent. What was only seconds felt like an eternity. I looked at the audience and almost fell over backwards to the rush of the immediate standing ovation. This was one of the most bewildering,
scariest experiences of my life,” said this classic country man. Afterwards, he was showered with
notes, congratulation signs and invites to parties! The ‘hick’ from a small logging town in Montana officially arrived!
Mike’s country style is captured in his current album, What’s Old Is New Again. After cutting his teeth on an eclectic list of musical influences from Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, Chet Atkins, to The Judds and Billie Holiday, his songs showcase his organic, emotive voice. The debut CD marries country rhythm and blues in “She’s Got A Mind Of Her Own,” to a straight country sound in “Colorado Cowboy,” to an acoustic blues feel showcasing amazing fiddle work in “Poor Lonely Me,” and the anthem tribute to his hometown in "Montana Skies."
When he is not working in his Half Arabian Sport horse breeding business, training new born foals, working in the pasture, mending fences, or even riding his horse over the Continental Divide, he enjoys playing his guitar. “I was determined to teach myself how to play. I used to practice the
country songs that were featured in the Sunday Tennessean newspaper.”
“I love the ranch and cowboy lifestyle – everything about it – there’s not a better way to live on Earth as far as I’m concerned. When asked as a little kid what I wanted to do when I grew up, I told folks I would be a famous singer and have horses on my own ranch.” This Colorado cowboy is well on his way to achieving his dream.
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