mike craver

Our apologies to all of you, Mike included, for the lateness of this interview, but we've been off the road for various reasons for a while, and are only now catching up. I think Mike's worth the wait - John]

John: Let's try these, see where they lead?
I'm following up on a couple of comments by Tommy Thompson (in the interview in The Folk Life, years ago). He said your parents were into English music hall, Ivor Novello, kind of music. Could you elaborate?

Mike: My dad had a book called the Blue Book of Songs. That's where I found Keep The Home Fires. My folks were not into Music Hall stuff. They both played instruments, mother piano, father violin and piano, but they liked semi classicl and classical and church music. My dad played "violin" -- never fiddle! They didn't like country music.

John: So was piano your first instrument?

Mike: Yep. I started playing before I went to elementary school. Just messing around on the upper keys while my sister practised. She was quite good and got a music scholarship to college. My dad taught music in his spare time, so did my mom. I remember them having recitals for some of their students in our home.

John: What were you doing when you ran across The Red Clay Ramblers?

Mike: I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After I graduated I just stayed in town and knocked around. I knew who Tommy and Jim and Bill were, but I ddin't know them personally yet. There was the Cats Cradle, in Chapel Hill, music club that opened a year or so after I graduated from college. I would go hear musicians there. I'd get familiar with their sets and their songs. When you are 21 your brain is like a tape recorder, it remembers everything and seems to be able to recall everything. I had a good musical memory. I'd go to hear Tommy and Jim at another bar, and then I'd go hear them as a trio with Bill. I really liked hearing them. They sang harmony, which attracted me alot. I also liked their song choices. They were good musicians and had a stage presence too. One time I went to a
party where Jim Watson was playing. There was a piano there and I started playing along. I think he was impressed that I knew alot of the stuff he'd been doing.

I got in a community theatre production of Merry Wives of Windsor. John Haber the director had set it in the Wild West. and wanted some saloon type piano. He knew I played, so he asked me to join the production. It was very very informal, but I got to jam and play the the Ramblers, then a trio. Pretty soon they asked me to join up with them.

John: Where did you come in, on the recording history of "The Blurs"? (Bill Hicks' term?)

Mike: I had just joined the group when they were putting the final touches on their first record. It was on Folkways and was called The Red Clay Ramblers with Fiddlin' Al McCanless. I only played on one tune: "I Got The Whiskey" -- but it was great to be on that record. My first. I thought I'd hit the bigtime. I remember going to hear the Bluegrass Experience one nighty and Snuffy Smith the bass player said "we'd like to recognize in the audience Mr. Mike Craver, Folkways Recording Artist." I remember being really proud and really embarrassed at the same time.

A year or so later we started recording Stolen Love, and finished it up about the time we went to New York to do Diamond Studs. I was every song of Stolen Love and also got to record Keep the Home Fires Burning - my first solo number. That was very satisfying. I loved recording. It was kinda nerve wracking but exciting.

John: How did that repertoire you brought to them get into the mix that wound up on record?

Mike: I always had the feeling that Tommy and Jim and Bill had good ears for music. THe fact that what I was doing wasn't exactly old time didn't matter. I was a decent enough player and they had eclectic tastes and I think they saw value in adding a piano player, or someone who could do other types of material besides old time.

John: What was your favorite among that great line-up of records from The RedClay Ramblers?

Mike: I liked "Chuckin' the Frizz" (the live lp) -- and the Carter Family album ("Meeting in the Air") - Meeting in the Air has the purest feel to me of all the records we made.

John: What was the first of the solo projects that Tommy predicted you would carry off on your own?

Mike: Oh, I don't know, probably makeing a solo record. I'd talked about it for a long time and had ambitions to do it. I took it real seriously, probably too seriously, so when Bruce Kaplan at Flying Fish gave me the chance, I went all out, for what that's worth. I went up to Chicago in the middle of winter, and stayed for a month. There were huge blizzards and I remember traipsing through the snow to Acme Studios and working late into the night. I was so self- conscious and uptight in the studio that I could barely squeak at times. I had loaded alot on myself, in terms of ideals and self expectations, etc. for this project. But somehow the engineer (Mike Rasfeld) got me to relax enough to get through it. It was probably too esoteric a project though, in hindsight. I'm proud of it but it's not something that's very accessible and 'mainstream' to say the least.

John: Would you call your work since the Red Clay Rambllers more theatre,
more solo performance - which?

Mike: Theatre -- that's how I've made my living for the last twenty years. I tried the solo thing a couple of times but I just couldn't sustain it. Didn't have the motivation or ego for it. What little I did was very intense and gratifying in a way, but lonely. Much more fun to play with people. I admire solo musicians but don't think I could ever successfully be one myself. I mean in a working sense, going on the road, etc. Recording is another matter. I love doing that, and could happily record by myself till the cows come home. I don't know if that's ultimately good or bad... I mean in the sense of other people's input and influence. But I know that certain kinds of things can only be created in peace and solitude.

John: What's your favorite work that you've done since then?

Mike: Mark Hardwick and I wrote a musical called RADIO GALS. I think I loved doing that more than anything else. It was a labor of love, during a very difficult time, but I felt like I had poured more of my imagination into that than anything else up to that point in my life. I made two solo cds after Radio Gals -- "Wagoner's Lad" and another called "Shining Down". I am very proud of those efforts too... same reason, being able to make a personal statement and also put as much of my soul as I could into them. I'm really proud of these three things.

John: If somebody came to see your work in the theatre, what would they see?

Mike: I've been involved with comic, good time efforts. Nothing very dark or dramatic...

John: Thanks for your time, Mike - let's hope your website
forwards this one!