About Mick Overman
Bluesy folk & roll with jazz
Mick Overman is a West Coast legend. He's a poet and master musician. His music is best described as "Bluesy Folk & Roll with Jazz Attitude" and his guitar playing and singing as "Berklee College of Caveman." He has long been regarded as one of the West Coast's most prolific and hardest working artists, with as many as 379 performances in one year. He's an "Iron Man of the Road."
Mick was born in Ohio, the son of a rocket scientist who followed the aerospace boom to California when Mick was two years old. His earliest musical influences were listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Chet Atkins, The Kingston Trio, and Cannonball Adderly. His first published work was an early 1960s haiku entitled "Fireflies" in the Fullerton Daily News Tribune.
Overman abandoned guitar lessons in fourth grade for Little League baseball after learning "These Boots Are Made for Walkin" and began studying drums at age 13. He resumed studying the guitar around age 14 and became interested in songwriting. He became the youngest city commissioner in his hometown at age 17 when he was appointed by the Fullerton City Council to serve as youth delegate to the Human Relations Commission.
After completing high school in three years to get a head start on dropping out of college, Mick studied music privately with his friend Martin Headman, who had graduated from Boston's Berklee College of Music on the Dean's List with a degree in composing and arranging. Overman lived and performed in Missoula, Montana and Ashland, Oregon before returning to California in 1981 to form the first version of Mick Overman & The Maniacs.
Overman moved to Santa Cruz County, California in the Spring of 1986 with Jeanie Golino, and their daughter Corina was born the following September. They settled in La Selva Beach in early 1987.
Mick lived in a yellow house with a white fence "between the ghetto and the farm" near Freedom, California, which was the location of "The Cave" from 1990 until 2004. There, he formed Max Records and released Empty City in 1994 and Lucky. in 1996 and the all-acoustic Mileage in 1998.
After performing and touring nonstop for 12 years, Overman chose to detach from the business of the music business at the turn of the 21st century for his artistic, spiritual and physical health. One of the many positive results of this sabbatical was the writing and recording of his fourth CD, Authentic, which was released in early 2002 and received national radio airplay. He also studied and trained at the Berkeley Psychic Institute during this period.
Mick moved to Portland, Oregon early 2004. There, he wrote the songs he contributed to his fifth CD, Mick Overman & The Maniacs-Good Thing Happen, in 2004 and 2005. Much of this work was done in "The New Cave" which is located in the basement of his Portland home.
Good Thing Happen was produced, recorded and mixed with the help of his band Mick Overman & The Maniacs and five-time Grammy nominee Cookie Marenco at her OTR Studios in Belmont, California and released nationally in February 2006.
Mick's all-acoustic and sixth release, Mister Double Happiness-also produced by Cookie Marenco at OTR, followed in 2008, featuring 'cellist and founding member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, Mark Summer, keyboardist Henry Salvia on accordion, David Hayes on acoustic bass, Patrick O'Connor on mandolin, guitar & banjo, and Peter Booras on drums.
Overman continues to live primarily in Portland, OR, with a part time residence in Santa Cruz County, CA, performing in the Pacific Northwest, the West Coast, and beyond.
Every Little Light, his newest and 7th full length release on Max Records, again produced and engineered by Cookie Marenco, contains 9 new Mick Overman songs, and a cover of John Sebastian & The Lovin' Spoonful's, "Do You Believe in Magic?" Basic tracks (lead vocals, acoustic guitars, acoustic upright and electric basses, and drums) were recorded live in the studio.
Every Little Light features Mick on vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, & percussion, Tom Nunes on acoustic upright & electric bass and vocals, Bryan "Brain" Mantia (Tom Waits, Guns 'N Roses, Les Claypool & Primus) on drums & percussion, Henry Salvia on accordion, organ & piano, Patrick O'Connor on mandolin, electric guitar & percussion, Dana Leong on trombone & cello, and Peter Booras on additional drums.
Every Little Light is available now, as a limited edition, 100% analog, audiophile quality 180 gram virgin vinyl LP, and also as a digitally mastered CD, all copies signed and numbered.
Radio and press copies of Every Little Light, as well as all of Overman's previous releases, are available upon request.
- Website:
- http://www.mickoverman.com/
