Prairie Blues

 

"Huriwtz's Prairie Blues come across as natural as breathing"

    - John Conquest -3rd Coast Music                                                      

 "Mike Hurwitz writes song like Larry Mahan rode broncs"

     - Dave Stamey

 

" a seemingly effortless delivery that goes down like a smooth, perfectly aged shot of fine scotch whiskey " 

         -Sing Out!

 

"Mike Hurwitz's voice and stories have been in the grain of the American West for a long time. Listen to his tunes and you'll be there too" 

   - Greg Keeler - Big Sky Journal

 

"Hurwitz's dusky baritone resonates with the sounds of mountains he's pondered, horses he's wrangled and land he's travelled. He's the real deal."

     - Meredith Oaks

 

"Michael Hurwitz grew up with a guitar in one hand and reins in the other. Along the road he's howled with coyotes and picked with the greats, and has become the best of both - wild and untamed."

    - American Cowboy Magazine

 

Take a big helping of traditional cowboy music, stir in a little country honky-tonk and western swing, some southern blues and rockabilly, a bit of Louisiana Cajun, a taste of the high lonesome , add a pinch of  Norteno Accordion, and a spoonful of Hawaiian slack-key guitar and you’re getting close to the tasty gumbo of styles you’ll hear in the music of Mike Hurwitz. 

Mike grew up in the ranch country of Wyoming, surrounded by the rich culturual and musical diversity of the area. Mexican vaqueros, Shoshone and Arapaho ranchhands, Basque sheepherders, Norwegian and Swedish loggers, Scotch-Irish cattlemen, miners and railroaders and the traditions of the deep South of his Mississippi Mother. 

 

Michael plays his vintage Gibsons, Martins and Nationals with notable skill and innovation in a number of classic guitar styles: From bluesy Delta slide and Piedmont fingerstyle, to country Travis picking and flat picking, Hawaiian slack key and some Mexican sounding things on the Bandurria. He uses alternate tunings and chord voicings not commonly heard in traditional music. He plays a twangy Telecaster like the Bakersfield country pickers , jazzy Western Swing, Memphis rockabilly, and electric blues straight out of Chicago.  

In his original songs. Mike can be lowdown and lonesome or funny and irreverent, but always the stories come through as well crafted, honest, and interesting. "Hurwitz is a superior writer with a sure eye for the foolish and the tragic in the New-Old west and he recounts it all in a wise weathered baritone" -- Jerome Clark -Rambles.net    

 Mike's long time band “the Aimless Drifters” share his unique vision of country-blues and cowboy music. There’s pedal steel, piano, accordion, mandolin, fiddle, harp, bass and drums. As Sing Out! stated “ Hurwitz sings in a warm , friendly baritone voice and plays guitar in a fluid finger picking style. His backup band are a very tasteful lot and are anything but aimless or drifting as they play wonderfully in traditional blues, folk , country and western swing styles.”   

oil painting by Scott Powers