Mike Williamson has been around just long enough to remember hearing the original Beatles' records on the small-town café table-side jukeboxes at age 2, and counts this among his earliest musical memories. He grew up with music in his ears, from the folk singing and guitar playing of his mother Emma Lou to the psychedelic rock coming over the radio in his youth. Before he was out of high school he was in his first band, playing gigs wherever they were allowed, be they at dances at the school for the deaf or the local mental institution. After short experiments in music departments of three separate universities, Mike decided to earn his education in the real world of the working musician. There he has paid his dues for the last twenty-odd years, playing electric blues mostly, but also anywhere else he was needed: Big band and Dixieland jazz, bluegrass, honky-tonk country, rock and roll, orchestras, German oompah, even backing up Red Skelton for awhile. Through all his experiences, however, Mike's vote for his most surreal moment onstage goes to Big Smith's jam on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" with David Allen Coe and former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks. He is the veteran musician of Big Smith, and the one with the closest ties to the honest-to-God generations of Ozarks hillsmen that preceded him. Although most identified with the upright bass, he brings his multi-instrumentalist talents to the harmonica, tin-whistle, mountain dulcimer, Sousaphone, trombone, pocket trumpet, and the very hillbilly mouth bow. Mike and wife Susan watch proudly as son Adam displays the promise of following in his father's musical footsteps.
Mike Williamson has been around just long enough to remember hearing the original Beatles' records on the small-town café table-side jukeboxes at age 2, and counts this among his earliest musical memories. He grew up with music in his ears, from the folk singing and guitar playing of his mother Emma Lou to the psychedelic rock coming over the radio in his youth. Before he was out of high school he was in his first band, playing gigs wherever they were allowed, be they at dances at the school for the deaf or the local mental institution. After short experiments in music departments of three separate universities, Mike decided to earn his education in the real world of the working musician. There he has paid his dues for the last twenty-odd years, playing electric blues mostly, but also anywhere else he was needed: Big band and Dixieland jazz, bluegrass, honky-tonk country, rock and roll, orchestras, German oompah, even backing up Red Skelton for awhile. Through all his experiences, however, Mike's vote for his most surreal moment onstage goes to Big Smith's jam on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" with David Allen Coe and former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks. He is the veteran musician of Big Smith, and the one with the closest ties to the honest-to-God generations of Ozarks hillsmen that preceded him. Although most identified with the upright bass, he brings his multi-instrumentalist talents to the harmonica, tin-whistle, mountain dulcimer, Sousaphone, trombone, pocket trumpet, and the very hillbilly mouth bow. Mike and wife Susan watch proudly as son Adam displays the promise of following in his father's musical footsteps.
