K&K's Artist of the Month: Mike Kavanaugh
February 2004
Michael
C. (Charles) Kavanaugh was born in 1953 and was raised in the small town
of North Easton, Massachusetts - about 45 miles south of Boston.
It wasn't until around 1980 that Mike pursued guitar playing. "I was going through a terrible divorce and happened to be listening to a couple of phenomenal acoustic guitarists, Reverend Gary Davis and Bruce Cockburn. I just loved the drive of their acoustic fingerstyle playing and the spiritual side of their music was also reaching inside, soothing some of the wounds I had. It was then that I decided to do two things: read the Bible and learn to play the guitar. It seems that when I started pursuing the spiritual side of life that the musical abilities just started to fall into place as well." Mike started off in public music performances a very short time later - in the early 1980's. His guitar playing involved mostly playing gospel music in churches throughout eastern New England.
Mike supplemented his self-taught guitar style with fingerstyle lessons from Patty Larkin at the Guitar Workshop in Boston. Later, he headed back close to home in Brockton, MA where he hooked up with Eric Vance who was leading a wild power trio called Bates Motel. "Bates Motel was a fun band that did a lot of strange B-side covers (Doors, Richard Thompson, Billy Idol, U2) - it left a lot of room for Eric to rip on the guitar and that he did. A couple years earlier Eric had ended up in the top five in the annual Best Guitarist in Boston contest. He had really developed his playing. We ended up changing the direction of the band substantially, adding many of my original tunes, adding me on lead vocals & rhythm guitar and changing the name of the band to Illustrated Man."
After accepting a new daytime job, leaving the band, and moving away, Mike felt "shut down musically and emotionally for almost five years." In 1996, Mike finally dragged out the guitars and started playing again at the encouragement of the pastor of a church he attended and his new wife, Barbara. In December of 1997, he played two tunes that stretched out into nine tunes at an Open Mic at the newly opened Idyll Hour Coffeehouse. That turned into a 2-year gig regularly performing twice per month at the Idyll Hour: one night of solo material & one night hosting the Open Mic. In 1998, Mike also conceived the Soundstage at Jackson Summerfest which offered free live music at the festival by local musicians.
Kavanaugh, with the help of the Idyll Hour staff, coordinated the live performances as well as played his solo stuff at Summerfest 1998 and 1999 in downtown Jackson. Thrown in the middle of it were additional performances with friends Greg Hurley, Teresa Hurley & Todd Phipps of Renoir as well as members of the Oasis of Love Full Gospel Church Band joining him on stage.
At the end of 1999 Mike also played at the short lived Daily Grind Coffee House in downtown Jackson. With both the Idyll Hour and Daily Grind Coffeehouses closing down, The Mike Kavanaugh Project, with Washington DC area bass player Ed Childress, performed in local clubs and taverns including Maerlyn's, Ted's Firehouse Pub, Aggie's and the Greystone as well as the occasional local radio & television appearance.
Mike continues to play in public and private, performing both as a solo act and with local musician friends backing him. He also worked with Spring Arbor University, acting as Music Chairperson for their presentation of the Jackson Summerfest Soundstages in 2001 and 2002. Continuing Mike's desire to promote the arts in the local community, Mike has formed a not-for-profit organization called Soundstages to aid in community development through the performing arts.
Mike plays fingerstyle and flatpick acoustic and resonator guitars using a variety of instruments and guitar tunings including Standard, Open E, Open G, Drop D, and a tuning he calls 'Open Double E' (E B E E B E).
Mike uses K&K's Pure Western and says: "I play solo acoustic guitar and it needs to be perfect. K&K makes the best so I use them. It's that simple."