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Artist
Michael Merenda
9+ albums
about
Michael Merenda grew up in the small University town of Durham, NH. He spent his youth playing drums and guitar in several Northeastern rock/punk/reggae outfits before heading to NYC after graduating with a creative writing degree from Bowdoin College in Maine. In New York Mike found himself at home at the Lower East Side’s Sidewalk Cafe, home of the burgeoning “anti-folk” scene. It was while living in New York that Mike met fiddler/singer Ruth Ungar who instantly began harmonizing to Merenda’s unique, poetic, outspoken songs and introduced the young songwriter to traditional folk music. After a year spent performing together in New York the two left the high rents of the city for Western Massachusetts where Mike recorded his first album, TRAPPED IN THE VALLEY. Produced by Jose Ayerve (Spouse), “Trapped” unmistakably documents Merenda’s free-form style of writing and propensity towards sonic experimentation interlocking with the more traditional sounds and rhythms he had recently began exploring. Under Ungar’s influence, Mike picked up old-time banjo and began working at the Fretted Instrument Workshop in Amherst, MA. At Fretted Mike was introduced to Tao Rodriguez-Seeger (Grandson of banjo-virtuoso, Pete Seeger) and, before he knew it, Mike was touring the US and Canada with Rodriguez-Seeger and Ungar under the name The Mammals. Traditional music, which started out as a fascinating dichotomy to the modern, folk-ish songs Merenda had been intuitively writing, became a mai
