Performer Name: Mike West
Show Name: Mike West Band
Show Description
West’s shows are full of stories. An engaging entertainer and an accomplished picker, West leads the audience through hurricanes, floods, love, life and family, while all the time ripping into a five string banjo, guitar or mandolin. He is often backed by the rare talents of Sadie Capps (upright bass), Joe Trudgeon (electric guitar) and Julian West(drums). Together they are The Mike West Band, playing an all-original but irresistible blend of Country, Bluegrass and Rock’n’Roll
No special lighting requirements
Mike West picks a mean banjo and tells stories too strange not to be true. Playing an original but irresistible blend of Hillbilly Country, Bluegrass and Rock’n’Roll, he sings songs of love, life, natural disasters and the road.
West cut his teeth as a banjo-slinging troubadour in the clubs of New Orleans, before setting out on a twenty year touring career with Alt-Country duo, Truckstop Honeymoon. Recently returning to touring under his own name, West has played festival stages from Sydney to Berlin, as well as roadhouses and clubs from Alabama to Ceredigion. He now lives in Mid Wales and runs Our Lady Studios, producing numerous Welsh artists including Aeron Pughe and Cerys Hafana.
In acknowledgement of his music, Mike West has received the Big Easy Entertainment Award from the City of New Orleans, several Best of the Beat awards from Off Beat Magazine, and a Phoenix Award for lifetime contribution to the Arts from the City of Lawrence Kansas.