Mike Lawson & Friends

Who is this Mike Lawson?

This Mike Lawson (they are legion) has recorded and/or performed with former members of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna, The Tubes, Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, Tower of Power, Jerry Garcia Band, and artists including Vassar Clements, Dennis Robbins, Bobby Cochran, Dianne Davidson, Will Kimbrough, and more.

His 1998 album, Vol 1. Ticket to Fly (Sumertone Records) featured performances by mentor Merl Saunders, Jorma Kaukonen, Bob Welch, Joe Louis Walker, Dennis Robbins and other friends. His performing, recording and production career was delayed in the late 90s after Lawson dove headfirst into understanding and managing the needs of his daughter, Kelly, diagnosed on the autism spectrum around the time “Ticket to Fly” released, This limited his ability to tour and perform to mainly regional shows around the San Francisco Bay Area, with occasional appearances in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles and other cities, but kept him off the road, and largely out of releasing more albums.

He continued songwriting, while launching a book, video, and music industry periodical publishing company focused on audio production and music business, which allowed him to stay close to home and be a dad. During that time, he was writing and recording dozens of demos for new songs, while frequently performing with and/or opening for the late Merl Saunders in Northern California. His songs were used in the independent Two Rats Film production “Goodbye GuyGuy” in 2002 in San Francisco.

After a long break, he released two singles in 2019, the first to commemorate the 20th anniversary recording of his cover of the Beatles” “Why Don”t We Do It in the Road?,” featuring Vince Welnick, recorded in San Francisco in 1999, and “Mystery Train,” featuring Vassar Clements on fiddle, recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio B in 1998. In what he calls his “tabula rasa moment,” these songs and his collection of songwriting demos from the previous decades were released on Mike Lawson & Friends Vol 2. – Some Songs in the Key of Poe,” and Vol 3. – Outtakes and Oddities, each released in 2019. These “in the raw” demos show his writing process for what would have been selections for new album projects had life’s cards been dealt differently.

With his daughter now an adult, Mike began performing again around the country and in multiple shows in Germany, in 2015. In 2020, Mike Lawson released six singles of covers he loves, as Side A/B “digital 45s” on April 10, 15, 20. His next “& Friends”album, “Evidence Concerning Apparitions” was released May 1, 2020. Two dozen additional musicians contributed from around the world.

Since releasing “Evidence,” Mike released new singles including “Your Life or My Money” about the attitudes and politicization of a global pandemic by skeptics, anti-vaxxers, and well, some just plain selfish people.

On June 6, 2020 he teamed up again with Michael Cleveland and released the classic Rev. Gary Davis song, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” to express his losses of friends and family, and the massive deaths facing the world from the virus.

At the end of 2020, shut-in from COVID-19 disruptions, he continued to write and record. “More Wonders of the Visible World” releases January 1st, 2021.