Some More About Stuff

Mike Lawson is lifelong musician, but also a journalist, editor, author and publisher of music technology training and education publications for musicians and educators. He published over 200 titles for MixBooks, artistpro, Thomson Learning/Cengage, Thomas Nelson, Hal Leonard, and Alfred Music. artistpro”s catalog was sold to Thomson in 2004. His acquisitions include best-selling works by Quincy Jones, Ken Scott, Bobby Owsinski, and the ears behind Steely Dan, Roger Nichols. He is co-author of multiple tech titles, wrote “Teach Yourself GarageBand” and compiled/edited “The Roger Nichols Recording Method.”

He served six years on the board of directors for the Technical Excellence and Creativity Awards (TEC Foundation/TEC Awards) until it was folded into the NAMM Foundation.

Over his 20 plus years as a voting member, he served seven years on the board of governors for San Francisco’s chapter of The Recording Academy, holding various chapter offices, and served as a Trustee for the Grammy Awards, on the NARAS Finance Committee, and until 2009, on the Grammy Awards and Nominations Committee.

With a strong commitment to music education, he is also the executive director of 501-c3 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME), a roll he took on after serving their advisory board since 1997. Since 2014, he has served as publisher and editor-in-chief of School Band & Orchestra and Choral Director magazines. He is associate editor of Musical Merchandise Review and JazzEd magazine. In June 2021, he acquired all four of the magazines, launched a new one (Modern Band Journal) and relaunched his publishing business, artistpro.

Lawson lives outside of Nashville, TN with what some have called an “excessive amount of guitars.” He has three adult children, Zach, Kelly, and Isaac, and married Shannon Kebschull on March 30, 2019. An active songwriter and musician, he performed over 40 shows a year on his own and in tribute to Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia at clubs/festivals with Hooteroll?” up until COVID-19 changed the world. As of April, 2021, Mike is performing again both “with Friends” and with “Hooteroll?”.

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