I took
piano lessons at age 6 for a year. Didn't like it.
I wanted to play the trumpet in high school
band since it was the loudest instrument, but my parents said, “Why
don't you play something nice, like the clarinet?”, so I
did.
As a junior, I started playing tenor sax in my
first rock n' roll band
since it was the loudest woodwind instrument.
After months of practice, we finally got our first gig at a battle of
the bands
in the high school gym.
Wherever I went after that, I was always in a
band. I took up guitar in college
in 1963. I borrowed a friend’s guitar, which only had five strings. It
never occurred to me to buy another one. Anyway, the guitar immediately
became an
addiction. I’d play four or five hours a day instead of doing homework,
so of
course I flunked out.
I enlisted in the Air Force. I was usually in some
sort of part-time band, including a rock n' soul band that played at
the Airman's Club in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam.
Discharged in Victorville, California
in 1968, I stayed around there, pumped gas and got my Associate's
degree in music.
Rock had
been around only since 1955, and all of us musicians knew all the
songs, so
anyone could get together and play gigs without any rehearsal.
For example, at 7:00 on a Thursday night, some guy
named Ron
Millspaugh called me up and said he heard I was a pretty good guitar
player. I said that I was putting together a band to play at the Map
Room in Apple Valley. He said that he had the gig at the Map Room,
and if I wanted to play there it would have to be with him.
I met Ron at the Map room at quarter to nine. We
sat
down on the loading dock, wrote down a song list for the first set, and
went in
at 9:00 and started playing. We worked together for most of the next 13
years, touring the country with our
band "Freeway".
In 1983, I finally quit the music biz, and sort of
drifted into engineering. In 1988 I
moved to Nevada, and around 1990 I started writing songs, about 25 so
far including: jazz, rock,
country, show tunes, ballads, novelty songs, blues and reggae. And, for
the past few
years, have played with an acoustic rock trio in the Reno area.
Now I’m performing
my own emotionally energetic and upbeat songs, accompanying myself on
electric
guitar and piano. So stay tuned. My website--mikehealymusic.com--will
keep you up to date on appearances and new music.
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CD Released May 2006:
Mike Healy's Under the Influence
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