About this event
Starts at 7.30pm
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. Tearing into his five string or his battered guitar, West takes the listener for an entertaining ride from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, through the Kansas prairie, then across the Atlantic to the mining villages of rural Wales, where he now lives. It’s quite a story. West cut his teeth as a banjo-slinging troubadour in the clubs of the 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 roadhouses in Alabama, rock clubs in Illinois and shearing sheds in Wales.
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. He recently released two collaborative albums with Canadian songwriter, Nick Broster, under the name “Broster & West”, and also a solo EP produced by British folk-punk artist, Frank Turner, “A Day in Mersea”
West also has built an international reputation as a record producer, recording over four hundred albums for americana, folk and country artists. He currently runs Our Lady Studio in a remote chapel in North Wales.
