Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"..can rip the top of your head and cram your brains into your neck with his blues guitar work." - Rolling Stone
"Welch takes the music somewhere special when he plays." - Down Beat
"an ass-kickiing, axe-picking bluesman with a wide range of mood and colour." - Mojo (UK)
"He's a phenomenal player." - Duke Robillard
"A genius of a different generation." - Blues Revue
Discography
Monster Mike Welch, These Blues are Mine
(Tone records, 1996)
Various Artists, Keep the Pressure On
(Kingpin Records, 1996)
Skavoovie and the Epitones, Riverboat/Beardman Ska
(Moon Records single, 1996)
Skavoovie and the Epitones, Ripe
(Moon Records, 1997)
Mike and the Mellotones, Mike and the Mellotones (featuring Monster Mike Welch)
(New Road Music, 1997)
Monster Mike Welch, Axe to Grind
(Tone Cool Records, 1997)
Mike Welch, Catch Me
(Tone Cool Records, 1998)
Shemekia Copeland, Turn the Heat Up
(Alligator Records, 1998)
Mark Hummel, Low Down to Uptown,
(Tone Cool Records, 1998)
The Repeat Offenders, The Best Defense
(EP, Self-released, 1999)
Various Artists, New Blues Blood
(K-Tel Records, 2000)
Brain Templeton, Home
(Stone Cold Records, 2000)
Tom Hambridge, Bladerdash
(Artemis Records, 2000)
Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, Sugar Ray and the Bluetones featuring Monster MIke Welch
(Severn Records, 2003)
Various Artists, The Story Of Tone-Cool, VOL. 1
(Tone Cool Records, 2003)
Johnny Winter, I'm a Bluesman
(Virgin/Pointblank, 2004)
Monster Mike Welch Band - Adding Insight to Injury
(95 North Records, 2004)
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
One of Boston's best-loved guitarists, Monster Mike Welch has been a fixture on the international blues scene for over twelve years. As leader of the Monster Mike Welch Band, Mike released three acclaimed CDs of original material on the Tone-Cool label (These Blues are Mine, Axe to Grind, and Catch me) and toured the United States and Europe. As a gutarist in Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, he was a major part ofa new CD release (Sugar Ray and the Bluetones Featuring Monster Mike Welch) in March 2003 on Severn Records. Now, with a new Monster MIke Welch Band CD (Adding Insight to Injury) in the shops, Mike is poised to take the music world by storm once again.
Mike started playing guitar at the age of eight, inspired by everything from the Beatles to Robert Johnson. He dedicated hinslef to the blues by the age of eleven, and quickly progressed from a regular at local blues jams to a respect member of Boston's professional blues community. By the ime he was fourteen, Mike had played with blues great like Junior Wells, James Cotton, Hubert Sumlin, and Johnny Copeland, as well as stars like the Blues Brothers Band with Dan Aykrod, who gave Mike his nickname, "Monster Mike."
In 1995, the Moster Mike Welch Band won the Boston Music Award for Oustanding Blues Act and paved the way for several sucessful international tours. In 1997, Mike released Axe to Grind, which solidified his place in the blues scene and firmly established Mike and george Lewis as one of blues' most Entertainment Tonight, a Current Affiar Extra, and countless local and music publications and television programs, After a year of touring to promote 1998's Catch Me, which added influences from British Invasion pop and Motown R&B to the band's rocking blues mix, Mike took a sabbatical from regular performing . The previously unheard-of introduction of free time into MIke's schedule led to his jioning Sugar Ray and the Bluestones in 2001, revitalinzing the band's deep blues with his distinctive guitar stylings, and touring the U.S., Canada, and Europe behind Sugar Ray Norcia's legendary voice and harmonica. 2003's Sugar Ray and the Bluestones Featuring Monster Mike Welch featured five Welch compositions as well as his stinging guitar, and hit #4 on the Living Blues chart fro two months in a row.
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