Press & Reviews

An Interview with Mick by Marty Gunther
Published in Blues Blast Magazine 12/24/23

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Angels come in all forms, and in the world of blues, you don’t have to look any farther than Mick Kolassa to see one in the flesh.

Known as “Michissippi Mick” to his fans because of his Michigan roots and his three-decade presence in Mississippi or as Uncle Mick to his many friends, Kolassa’s a former member of the board of the Blues Foundation who definitely looks the part of a bluesman.

He’s an easily approachable, heavily bearded and warm man, but Kolassa’s far more than that. A former college professor with a PhD in marketing, he also spent years in the pharmaceutical industry and has been a mover and shaker in several other non-profit organizations, too.

One of the busiest recording artists on the planet since his “retirement” a decade ago, Mick performs in what he calls “free-range blues” – a hybrid style that incorporates everything from acoustic to electric, from Delta to Chicago, from country to rock and reggae, too. And he exhibits generosity beyond compare.

“I was born in the town of Three Rivers just south of Kalamazoo,” says Mick, who’s been based out of Memphis for a few years but is planning to relocate back home sometime in the year ahead. “But I grew up in (the neighboring small town) Sturgis, which was recently named the most redneck town in Michigan, and it’s earned it. You see more Confederate flags there than I’ve ever seen in Mississippi.

“Dad listened to big bands, and my mom listened to classical and older sister to popular music. So I grew up around all that. People ask me: ‘What’s your favorite song?’ I don’t have one because it’s so situational.

“But I do have some favorite pieces of music…Beethoven’s ‘Ninth Symphony’ and Gershwin’s ‘Rapsody in Blue’ — played by an American orchestra because I’ve never heard a European orchestra that can get it right. The third is Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ done live with Gene Krupa playing drums. Those three pieces are filled with so-o-o much emotion.”

Mick fell in love with the blues at age 14 – “and I got here through Hank Williams,” he says. “Hank learned to sing and play guitar from an old black bluesman (Rufus ‘Tee-Tot’ Payne) in Georgiana, Ala., which is what a lot of country people did at the time.

“I’d seen Your Cheatin’ Heart — the biopic starring George Hamilton as Williams — on TV, probably Saturday Night at the Movies when they had that. I said to myself: ‘I really like some of those songs…they’re cool!’ So I went to the appliance store stereo department to buy Hank Williams’ Greatest Hits. And sitting right next to it in the rack was Robert Johnson’s King of the Delta Blues Singers.

“I had a couple of extra bucks, and said to myself: ‘This is interesting…’ and I bought it.

“I wore that damned record out, but still have my second copy. I literally wore the track off the ‘Travelin’ Riverside Blues.’ That song just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, and I just needed to dig deeper. I was listening to Robert Johnson before I ever heard of Eric Clapton, and I bought John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers because there was a Robert Johnson song on it and for no other reason.

“But I was also very fortunate because — being there in the Upper Midwest on a humid summer night, I could pick up WLAC in Nashville and listen to John R. spinning all the best blues and rhythm-‘n’-blues…the real deal…Muddy Waters, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, a little bit of Sam Cooke and saying to myself: ‘You know, I really like this music.’

“Like everybody else at the time, I got into folk and rock, too,” Kolassa admits. “I started out playing the drums, but I picked up guitar because it was easier to carry around. And it was much easier to pick up chicks as a guitar player. And I was singing, so it just made sense to do it.

“But the first songs I ever did in public were blues. I was playing drums with some guys who played some blues, and that’s just always been the way I went.”

Little did he realize it at the time, but in 1969, Mick was one of the most fortunate blues lovers the world ever. At age 17, he got to attend the first-ever Ann Arbor Blues Festival, which featured a lineup beyond compare, a three-day event that was as significant as Woodstock, which was held two weeks later.

Muddy, Wolf, B.B., Freddie and Albert King were all present. And Junior Wells, Jimmy Dawkins, Luther Allison, Otis Rush, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, J.B. Hutto, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Joe Williams, Clifton Chenier, Sippie Wallace, Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, Big Mama Thornton, James Cotton, Big Mojo Elem, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, T-Bone Walker and Magic Sam also performed, too.

“And it was the very first blues festival for Bonnie Raitt and Shaun Murphy,” Mick notes.

“By the time I heard Led Zeppelin sometime later, I was so into Muddy that I thought they were raping his music, and I didn’t like what they were doing. A lot of guys my age got into the blues because of Cream, Zeppelin and the Allmans, and they define blues that way, and that’s fine. But I can’t.

“And I didn’t like the Allman Brothers’ whitewashed version of ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ either ‘cause I’d already heard the real deal.”

The cultural appropriation of the music has always been both contentious and controversial, Kolassa says, and it’s come in different forms within the black community, too.

“I’ll never forget this…I was stationed in Germany in 1972,” he says, “and I was in my barracks. I was listening to Muddy. I had it cranked up loud because I just loved it, and there was this violent beating on my door. I open it and there were about 11 black guys from the unit downstairs, demanding: ‘Turn that fucking slave music off right now!’

“And I understand it because they associated it with the bad times. It’s interesting…you get down to Mississippi and it’s always been the music of home. But in the North, it was something entirely different.

“But I stuck with it. And I saw Muddy three more times when I was in Germany – and Wolf, Johnny Winter and so many other folks.”

Kolassa performed regularly when he was in uniform. He wed another G.I., Molli, who was thrilled that he was a musician. But when he tried making a living back home by playing solo and acoustic, he quickly realized there was no future in it for him — or his new family – by gigging at the local Holiday Inns and playing a circuit that also included a young rising star, John Hiatt, who’d just signed with a major label.

“But John did okay,” Mick jokes.

The decision led to Kolassa enrolling at Eastern Washington University in Pullman, his wife’s hometown, where he earned both a bachelor’s and an MBA degree. He subsequently relocated back to the Wolverine State in 1980, agreeing to teach a few classes at a local college, and something he continued to do after the Upjohn Company – now a part of Pfizer but then the first mass marketer of cortisone and inventor of Xanax, Halcion, Motrin and Rogaine – offered him a position that led to a long, successful career in the pharmaceutical industry. He took the job on the same day the world lost John Lennon.

“I also started hanging out with a bunch of avid fishermen,” he says, “and joined up with Trout Unlimited. They were all musicians, and we started playing together – everything from jazz to bluegrass – on fishing outings – at the same time I was listening to blues. That brought me back into playing.

“We eventually cut an album of original fishing songs called Trout Tunes and Other Fishing Madness, which still gets some radio airplay today. After Earth Day, I’ll still get a notice that someone played my songs, ‘Save the Water’ – the first reggae song I ever wrote — or ‘You Can Have It If You Want It.’”

Kolassa eventually left Upjohn to teach fulltime at Nazareth College, a small school in Kalamazoo, where he was “the professor of M.” If it started with ‘m,’ he taught it – marketing, management, micro-economics, money, banking and credit, and, of course, a course in the blues. A former all-girls school that was only master’s degree-granting Michigan institution without an athletic program, it eventually bankrupted itself into non-existence after the new president started one.

“I could see that coming,” Mick remembers, “and I just started consulting and teaching part-time at a couple of places. I also started working on a doctorate, and got recruited by Sandoz Pharmaceutics – the Swiss-German conglomerate that invented LSD and Screaming Yellow Zonkers, making the ‘60s possible. They wanted me to start an economy policy department for them at their offices in New Jersey.”

Never someone who thought of himself as a “corporate guy,” Kolassa was doing “okay,” he says, but he left Sandoz to work as a consultant and lecturer – partially, he says, because, as a Midwesterner, he found it impossible to adjust to an East Coast lifestyle.

Soon after, he landed in Oxford, Miss., when Mickey Smith, a senior member of the University of Mississippi’s School of Pharmacy and a specialist in pharmaceutical marketing, invited him down to speak and then offered him a teaching post along with the simultaneous opportunity to pursue his PhD at his campus.

“I immediately went home and said to my wife – who made me promise to never live in a state without mountains – ‘honey, this is what I want to do… I want to take an $80,000 cut in pay and move to Mississippi and right on the edge of the Delta,’” he recalls. “And she said: ‘If that’s what you want to do, that’s what we’ll do.’

“We go down there, and all of a sudden, we’re surrounded by the blues. We get invited to a party and the band’s Bill Perry’s Howlin’ Madd and the Relaxations. Bill and I eventually became really good friends, but I was in awe – and it was so-o-o much fun.

“And Dick Waterman (who was one of three young men who ‘rediscovered’ Son House before booking the Newport festivals in the ‘60s and eventually managing Bonnie Raitt, Junior Wells and several of the first-generation blues stars) moved to Oxford the same year I did, and we eventually became friends. The magic of sitting in Dick’s dining room and looking through a couple of hundred thousand photos that he’s taken is just amazing.

“It’s just stunning what he witnessed, but also been a big part of.”

As he immersed himself in the local blues scene, Mick started playing out on occasion while working diligently behind the scenes in his chosen field. He eventually devised the formula that pharmaceutical companies use to determine the pricing of new products – a value-based strategy in which they charge more for drugs that keep folks working, functioning properly and out of the hospital – a lofty, virtuous idea that, he admits, the industry eventually began to abuse.

He found himself so busy consulting and more that he founded a consulting firm, Medical Marketing Economics, with former students and left his fulltime position at Old Miss to teach a few courses. And in his spare time, he also wrote the book The Strategic Pricing of Pharmaceuticals.

He turned his back on the pharmaceutical industry entirely more than a decade ago when he became disgusted by the corporate greed that many of the firms exhibited when using his business model.

Mick has devoted himself almost exclusively to the blues since a chance meeting with guitarist Jeff Jensen at the Bluesberry Café in Clarksdale during the Juke Joint Festival in the early 2010s. “Jeff was playing with Brandon Santini at the time,” he remembers. “And my brother-in-law, Ted Todd, and I were putting a show together in Spokane, where he lived, and thought they’d be a great addition to the show.”

A Keeping the Blues Alive honoree, Ted passed away in Mick’s house in 2015, but not before becoming a blues legend in the Pacific Northwest for his work in radio, as an event producer and more. A regular visitor to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge, he was responsible for getting Kolassa to serve as a judge at the festivities and later as a Blues Foundation board member, too.

Once on the board, Kolassa used his economics know-how to conduct impact studies to show that the foundation deserved more local funding because of all the money the IBCs and Blues Music Awards were bringing to the city. It was something he’d done in the Bahamas and Belize before for the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, another non-profit that promotes stewardship of fisheries.

He was also instrumental along with Teeny Tucker in the restoration of the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Miss. A place that’s housed blues legends since the ‘40s, it previously served as a hospital and is the location where Bessie Smith, the empress of the blues, took her last breath in the ‘30s. Without the tireless efforts of Mick and Teeny, who started a GoFundMe campaign and penned a song about the building, the National Parks Service would have never provided the major grant that it did to finish the project.

Mick sat in with Jeff and Brandon for a couple of tunes that day after also being invited up by an earlier act. From that point onward, Jensen regularly welcomed Kolassa to the stage every time he was in the audience.

“Eventually, I started doing some of my original songs – tunes that told a story, not simply a disjointed rhymes and cliches,” he says, “and Jeff said: ‘Mick, you need to cut an album of this stuff.’ He was the one who got me back into performing.

“And before I knew it, there I was. When I started the company, I told my grad-student partners: ‘Your job is to see that I retire comfortably.’ And I think they’ve done a pretty good job. It eventually got to the point where I said: ‘I don’t want to do that anymore. This is what I want to do.’”

His concept for free-range blues came about, he says, because he grew weary of being asked what flavor of the music he played.

“Most artists have a style,” he notes, “Doug Deming, who plays jump, has a style that’s very distinct, and Victor Wainwright’s style is distinctive, too. They’ve got a sound that really works for them. Other people identify themselves as Chicago, Memphis or Delta bluesmen. Well, I play all of it. I finally said; ‘I’m gonna call it ‘free-range blues’ ‘cause that’s what I do.

“I actually copyrighted it, but it’s really something that isn’t new. If you sit down and listen to Mississippi John Hurt and Son House – two contemporaries that were a planet apart in terms of their stylings — they were doing it. So were Skip James and Josh White. They all did something different, and it’s all blues.

“I’m a child of rock-‘n’-roll and I like a lot of electric blues – as long as you let it be blues. I’ve got a song on my latest album entitled ‘Sugar in My Grits.’ That comes from a conversation I had with my friend Redd Velvet, who said: ‘All these white boys come down here to the South and learn about real blues and what it’s all about, and the first thing they do in the mornin’ is get up and put sugar on their grits.’

“It’s a wonderful metaphor of trying to put metal into blues. I wrote that song, and the bridge is ‘Muddy never played a 20-minute solo, and Wolf didn’t own a pedal board. Willie Dixon told stories with every one of his songs, but do lyrics even matter anymore?’

“Frankly, I listen to a lot of the new stuff, and I think people are just finding words that rhyme to fill in between the guitar solos. It’s fine if that’s what you enjoy. But all of a sudden, you’re playing rock, you’re not playing blues. I generally associate with musicians who feel the same way. That’s why Bob Corritore didn’t have to think twice about playing on that song.

“Don’t get me wrong, though. I love rock, but it just isn’t blues. And I’ll throw some rock into my shows if that’s what the people want. I can and do love country, too. I love it all.”

Kolassa debuted free-range blues on record in 2014 with the well-received CD Michissippi Mick. All of his 13 subsequent releases have achieved success in both airplay and on the charts, and all but one have been produced by Jensen with a core group of Memphis-based musicians, Grammy winners and other heavyweights included.

And he’s donated all of the gross proceeds of the Blues Foundation and two of its charities, the HART Fund, which benefits artists in need, and Generation Blues, an outreach program that supports young artists and brings new players and fans to the music.

“I think I did two or three albums when I was still with my company,” Kolassa notes. “I was recording, putting bands together, performing and touring. In 2016, I started my own label, Endless Blues Records, which was a spin-off from a company that my brother-in-law and I had started.

“I said: ‘You know what…I’ve made all these albums and made all these mistakes. Now I understand how to do things. Time to help some friends out.’ So I reached out to Eric Hughes, Tullie Brae and In Layman Terms to record. I was working with the Pinetop Perkins Foundation and met these kids and they blew me away. I’m Uncle Mick to them, and they’re now dear friends. From the beginning, the idea of the label was just to help independent artists.”

That roster also includes Tennessee Redemption, Dexter Allen, Chris Gill and the late Kern Pratt, too.

“Unfortunately for me, though, I started the label just in time for COVID and streaming. So things aren’t as easy as they used to be. I do okay with streaming, and I’m working right now to put together a video to help artists know what they need to do.

“Here’s a little thing that most artists – people who write and perform their own songs and not playing just in their local bar — are totally unaware of…both ASCAP and BMI have programs that – if you’re performing your own music – you can get paid for it.

“I don’t know about ASCAP, but BMI will give you about $2.50 every time you sing one of your own songs at one of your gigs. If you’re doing four or five gigs a week and 20 of your own songs each night, that’s $250 a week you could be getting if you just bothered to submit your own playlist.

“It’s called BMI Live, and it’s real easy to do. ASCAP’s, I believe, is called ASCAP on Stage. And make sure you belong to Songtrust and Sound Exchange, too.”

Just recently, Mick says, one his songs, “Running to You” off the For the Feral Heart album, was picked up by SiriusXM and got played two or three times a day for ten weeks straight, earning him between $28 and $30 for each spin, depending on the size of the audience – something that wouldn’t have occurred without his association with Sound Exchange. It’s money that BMI would never have collected because BMI doesn’t monitor those types of plays. A relationship with Songtrust provides coverage for the same type of spins overseas.

“You have to be associated with all four organizations to insure you’re getting the right amount of money,” he insists. “I’m working with folks who are working now to help musicians understand this…you’re making money, but the money can’t find you. I was just lucky enough to pay attention – whereas a lot of folks don’t.

“Even some of the best business-oriented people in blues miss some of these things because they’re not aware of them because the whole music industry was designed for the major labels to make money and take advantage of the artist. All of the labels know this stuff, but most independent artists – and the people that manage them — don’t.

“And I’ve got to thank Michael Freeman, the Grammy-winning producer, who had me fill out an application with Sound Exchange because, all of a sudden, I started making a lot more money because I’d had songs that played on Sirius before but had no way to collect it.

“I want to help folks out, and that’s an important message to impart.”

When we spoke, Mick was already planning out his 15th and 16th albums. “I think I’m going to call 15 Free-Range Blues because they’re going to be four distinct parts to in,” Mick says. “One’s going to be acoustic, another classic blues and Southern soul-blues and some jazz-oriented blues with four different bands in four different sessions.

“And I also want to do another album of duets. I did the album Double Standards a few years ago. It still gets a lot of play, and it was so-o-o much fun doing it with my friends. I think I’ll call it ‘Another Round of Doubles,’ and I’ve already got some folks lined up for it.”

For the better part of 50 years, Kolassa says, he’s been immersed in the blues, and there’s one thing he stresses that everyone should never forget: the true origin of the music.

“It certainly comes from the African-American experience,” he exclaims. “There’s no way around that. You know there’s the button that says ‘No black, no white, no blues’ — I cross out some of it so it says no black, no blues. It’s 95 percent African-American. It’s important for everybody to understand that. And it also has five percent international roots.

“You know the Scotch-Irish who came here and helped create bluegrass? Well their indentured-servant cousins were picking cotton alongside the black slaves and introduced Celtic music – which is based around the 1-4-5 structure that we have in the blues — to them. There’s nothing like that now in Africa.

“We have guitars in the blues because of the migrant workers from Mexico who came to the Delta. Previously, the blues was played on banjos and fiddles. Robert Johnson played tunes in open-G, Spanish tuning because that’s what mariachi’s played in. And slide guitar technique came from the Hawaiian music when bluesmen heard it on the radio in the ‘20s and ‘30s. And so forth and so on.

“It’s a wonderful gumbo that’s been brought together through the African-American experience. They made magic music, something that’s the root of all music popular in the Western world today. It’s stunning, wonderful and underappreciated. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix didn’t invent the blues.

“If I have a final thing to say, if you’re going to sing ‘Crossroads’ and you’re gonna add the verse from ‘Travelin’ Riverside Blues’ that Clapton threw in there – about ‘goin’ to Rosedale, take my rider by my side’ — I want white people to understand that we’re not ‘gonna buy a house by the river side,’ we’re gonna barrelhouse because Robert Johnson never thought once in his life about buying a house.

“Understanding that experience and the culture that gave birth to the music is critical to really understand the blues.”

~Marty Gunther, Blues Music Magazine

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Living Blues

Memphis-based guitarist “Michissippi Mick” Kolassa calls his brand of music “free range blues.” It’s his way of getting across the idea that he doesn’t confine his style to any one corner or subgenre of the form. He performs and records in a variety of styles, from electric blues rock to jump blues/swing to acoustic
Delta/Piedmont blues. The prolific Kolassa has explored myriad musical pathways on a string of more than a dozen albums, plus six digital-only releases, all released in the last decade.

Kolassa’s latest offering is Wooden Music. By design it’s a completely acoustic set of songs, with a decidedly spare arrangement aesthetic. Kolassa sings and plays his guitar, adding percussion and (on one cut) kazoo. He’s joined by a skilled and sympathetic core group of musicians—lead guitarist and session producer Jeff Jensen, upright bassist Carl Caspersen, Rick Steff on piano and accordion, and Tom Lonardo on drums. A variety of friends and guest artists add their distinctive talents on select tracks; among the notable names are Tas Cru (guitar on Memphis Wood) and Bob Corritore (harmonica on Sugar in Your Grits).

Educated by the Blues is a story song set against a loping, jaunty backing. Kolassa name-checks some of the artists whose work has inspired him. Eric Hughes, one of three harmonica players on the album, turns in a
bright, if too-brief, solo. Guest player Doug MacLeod’s slide guitar shines mid-song. Kolassa adopts a huskier vocal timbre for You Gotta Pay the Price; that tone fits the tune’s theme and highlights Kolassa’s vocal range. Steff’s subtle accordion work adds a contemplative feel to the arrangement.

Kolassa packs a lot of lyrics into Sugar in Your Grits; the song’s title is a metaphor for adding unnecessary ingredients to music. “You might think that you like the blues,” Kolassa sings. “But tell me: is that what you’re playing?” Corritore’s harp work is a highlight.

The sole cover tune on Wooden Music is a reading of Guy Clark’s Baby Took a Limo to Memphis. Libby Rae Watson helps out on vocals as Kolassa bends Clark’s song into a shuffling, country blues shape. Thanks in large part to Lonardo’s approach to drumming on the track, If I Told You presents a kind of acoustic rock feel; in that regard it’s quite successful. The emotion-laden Hurt People takes things in a more serious direction.

Wooden Music’s title track features sweet accordion backing and lovely acoustic picking from Cru, all in support of Kolassa’s narrative, storytelling lyric. Steff’s agile piano forms the musical core of the bouncy If Life Was Fair. Country blues come to the fore on Over My Shoulder. The autobiographical One Hit Wonder finds Kolassa comparing present-day life with his rowdier early days; though the tune is infused with nostalgia, he makes it clear that he’s happy with life in its current form.

And that wry, up-tempo character follows through for the album’s closer, Gas Station Sushi. A clip-clop percussion foundation moves the song along, and while the kazoo chorus is a bit silly, in this context it works. Overall, Wooden Music blows along at quick pace; working within a specific category of the blues, Kolassa demonstrates the variety that can be found within it. ~ Bill Kopp, Living Blues (Issue #286 • Vol 54, #5)

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Blues Blast Magazine

Mick Kolassa has released another album whose proceeds are split between the HART Fund and Generation Blues, two  very important programs run respectively to help musicians with medical costs and to fund projects to get youths involved with music. While this is an acoustic album, it does not lack energy, vitality and a big sound. Produced by Jeff Jensen, who also principally plays guitar and adds his slide and some percussion, Kolassa has brought in some great musicians as his band and guests.

Kolassa plays the guitar, fronts the band, does percussion and plays kazoo, Carl Casperson is on upright bass and Tom Lonardo is on drums. On piano and accordion is Rick Steff. There are also eight guests who are noted below in the review. One song is a Guy Clark tune and the rest were penned by Kolassa.

In “Educated By The Blues” Kolassa tells us a story of how he traded off college for the blues to get an education. A steady diet of blues replaced college classes to make Mick what he is today. Muddy, Wolf and all the rest of the blues stars gave him the education he needed. Eric Hughes adds harp on this cut to good effect and Doug MacLeod plays some nice slide here and on the next cut. Next is “You Gotta Pay The Price,” a blues about the strife of working men and women compared to the rich. “Sugar In Your Grits” is a story about how tradition matters. You don’t need all the modern tricks of the trade to be a good bluesman, you need to play it like the masters did and not make believe what you are playing is the blues; keep the sugar out of your grits. Bob Corritore delights the listener with his harmonica prowess.

Guy Clark’s “Baby Took A Limo To Memphis” features Libby Rae Watson sharing the vocals with Kolassa as they sing about how his woman travelled to Memphis in style. Hughes again gives us some good harp to enjoy; to note, he is the only musician other than Mick to have appeared on all his albums. “If I Told You” follows, a cut about how Kolassa can’t tell his woman that he loves her because he can’t find the right words. Beale Street’s Vince Johnson adds some tasty harp here. “Hurt People” features Reba Russell and Susan Marshall backing Mick. Emotive piano and the vocals help make this one special.

We get some cool accordion here on ‘Memphis Wood,” a song about lost love and the consolation one can get in the music made with Memphis Wood. Tas Cru adds his guitar to the mix and does a great job in support. “If Life Was Fair” is a bouncy tune with some well-done piano and guitar to drive the cut along smoothly and tastefully. The story here is that while life might not be fair one has to stay on the path and good things will come to those who work hard.

“Over My Shoulder” gives us the recommendation not to look back and live for the future in this upbeat tune. Even the finger picking is happy sounding. Up next is “One Hit Wonder,” a story about how he partied back in the day but can’t handle the stuff he did smoking all day. Now he’s an old, light weight in his quest for a buzz and partying. As the title says, he’s just a “One Hit Wonder.” The sqwueeze box makes another slick appearance here. Kolassa concludes with “Gas Station Sushi” and compares his girl to sushi from a gas station. It sounds like a good idea but isn’t close to being as good as it first appears. The kazoo gets a solo in this short, light and fun cut.

Kolassa is prolific in his song writing and recording.  I love the stuff he writes, especially those songs where he adds humor or a little tongue in cheekiness. He’s assembled a great cast of characters, has a nice selection of music he presents and the musicianship abounds throughout. Jensen’s guitar work is solid as a rock and the guests on harp add great depth to the cuts. The piano and accordion are well done and the songs are filled with emotion. If you hanker for some nicely done acoustic blues, then look no further. ~ Steve Jones, Blues Blast Magazine

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Jazz Weekly

If for no other reason, you gotta get this latest album by back porch blueser Mick Kolassa simply to memorize the lyrics to “Gas Station Sushi”, with classic kiss off lyrics such as the word images of “You remind me of gas station sushi; you sure seemed like a good idea”. The rest of the album is filled with avuncular yarns, mostly originals, as Kolassa sings and plays guitar, percussion and kazoo with a core team of Jeff Jensen/g-slg-perc, Carl Casperson/b, Tom Lonardo/dr Rick Steff/p-acc and a variety of guests. Eric Hughs blows a mean harmonica on the easy shuffling “ Educated By The Blues” while Staff’s accordion gives a bohemian atmosphere to “Memphis Wood” and his saloon takes you to the local saloon on ”If Life Was Fair”. There’s a relaxed folk feel to the strummed “One Hit Wonder” and “Hurt People” while Kolassa picks and grins out “Sugar In Your Grits”. Well spun musical yarns. ~ George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

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ABS Magazine

Mick Kolassa is an American singer, guitarist, composer and producer. He was born in 1952 in Michigan, but lived for more than thirty years in Mississippi, hence his nickame “Mississipi Mick”. Today, it is located in Memphis. It is not very well known in Europe, despite its implications in the field of blues. He is a member of the board of directors of the Blues Foundation. In 2014, he released his first album when he was over 60 years old and in 2018 he created his own label, Endless Blues. He now released “Wooden Music”, his fourteenth album. While in his previous productions he toured all the blues styles, from Delta to Chicago, solo or electrically formed, the eleven pieces of this new disc are acoustic. For Kolassa, the aim of this album is to demonstrate that musicians using only acoustic instruments can compete with any power group. The result is no appeal, it is difficult to realize that all the pieces are acoustic. So here’s an excellent and original blues record that is the work of an extraordinary American; indeed, Kolassa is also involved in public life by being a virulent anti-Trump and organizing concerts in favor of Ukrainians. ~ Robert Moutet, ABS Magazine

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The Rock Doctor ****

Another beautiful blues excursion here from Mick Kolassa. Wooden Music is the kind of record you’d expect, given the title, yet Kolassa and his cohorts have crafted an album as big an full as an electric blues disc.  Being acoustic doesn’t have to mean ‘sparse’- not that there’s anything wrong with that! Taking this path also dictated a sort of cool creativity, resulting in a warm and thoroughly engaging listen.

Instead of slowing down at this point Mick Kolassa has become more prolific, releasing 4 albums last year alone including a Christmas record. Wooden Music refers to the sound, and there’s a relaxed swing to these numbers overall that’s real inviting.  The disc is 11 songs, 10 originals plus a cover of Guy Clark’s Baby Took A Limo To Memphis.  If you’re into Mick’s stuff (I have 11 of his cd’s) you’ll notice some of the musicians involved here have been involved in several of his previous discs.  Guests you might recognize include Tas Cru on guitar (Memphis Wood), Bob Corritore on harp (Sugar in Your Grits) and Doug MacLeod on guitar and slide guitar (Educated By the Blues, You Gotta Pay The Price).  Harmonic player Eric Hughes is the only musician involved who’s played on every one of Mick’s records- except Mick, of course!  These cats obviously know each other well as there’s the sort of comfort in playing music with each other that only comes from experience.

For Wooden Music Kolassa is joined again by Jeff Jensen as principal guitarist and producer.  The rhythm section is Carl Casperson and Tom Lonardo who also powered last year’s They Call Me Uncle Mick.   In creating this album Mick was intent on crafting the songs not just playing them, and that effort is readily apparent as you listen.  With the superb musicianship and production here the word I would use to sum up Wooden Music is ‘jaunty’.  Mick Kolassa makes good records, but this is the best thing he’s done in quite some time. ~ By John Kereiff Features – Music Reviews & Get Off My Lawn!

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Blues Bytes

The ever-prolific Mick Kolassa returns with Wooden Music (Endless Blues Records), his 14th album in ten years (plus six digital-only releases). The most impressive thing about Kolassa’s growing catalog is that it remains remarkably consistent and original in content, both lyrically and musically. Part of this has to be due to his supporting musicians, many of whom have played on nearly all of his recordings — guitarist Jeff Jensen, keyboardist Rick Steff, and harmonica ace Eric Hughes, along with upright bassist Carl Casperson and drummer Tom Lonardo.

The rest of the contributors on this disc are a most impressive crew as well — harmonica players Bob Corritore and Vince Johnson, guitarists Doug MacLeod and Tas Cru, and vocalist Libby Rae Watson, with background vocalists Reba Russell and Susan Marshall. The premise behind Wooden Music was to craft songs from scratch in an acoustic setting to allow for more creativity. The result of their efforts is a big, full sound that rivals the usual electric blues album, and Kolassa has brought ten excellent songs to the proceedings (plus one cover).

“Educated By The Blues” opens the album, as Kolassa sings and plays kazoo and basically tells his story of how he came to play the blues and the many artists who influenced him along the way, wtih Hughes on harmonica and MacLeod on slide guitar. MacLeod also guests on the “life lesson” tune “You Gotta Pay The Price,” and Corritore plays harp on “Sugar In Your Grits,” a light-hearted jab at those who venture too far from the traditions of the blues (and grits).

Guy Clark’s “Baby Took A Limo To Memphis” teams Kolassa with Ms. Watson on vocals and she adds plenty of sass and attitude to the tune, and “If I Told You” is blues with a country feel and features harmonica from Johnson.

The wistful “Hurt People” leans toward country/soul, compliments of Steff’s piano and the background vocals of Russell and Marshall. Steff plays accordion and Cru guests on guitar for “Memphis Wood,” an easy-going song about turning to music to get through the hard times. The rollicking “If Life Was Fair” is a song that everyone can relate to, whether they’re blues fans or not.

On “Over My Shoulder” Kolassa encourages us to focus on what’s ahead instead of what’s already happened, but the hilarious “One Hit Wonder” looks at the past and how things do change and how we slow down over time.The country-flavored closer, “Gas Station Sushi,” also hilarious, looks at a hook-up that shouldn’t have been.

Wooden Music is another winner for Mick Kolassa, with lots of great, entertaining songs and excellent musicianship. As with all of Kolassa’s releases, 100% of the net proceeds go to the Blues Foundation, split between the HART Fund and Generation Blues. Even more reason to check out this fine album, and all of his others. ~ Graham Clarke, Blues Bytes

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The Rocking Magpie

Blues Rocker Goes Acoustic With All of His Heart

I know Mick Kolassa is a Blues Rocker of the finest hue; so was intrigued when I saw the CD cover and subsequently glimpsed at the Press Release …. Kolassa Goes Acoustic!

I doubt this will have his loyal fans screaming “Judas!” any time soon; as it’s a logical direction for any Bluesman to take in one form or another.

As he’d hoped during the concept for this album, Kolassa was right in thinking a bunch of great musicians playing acoustic instruments can still kick up a ruckus to rival any electric band … and that happens right from the off, with the sizzling Educated By The Blues, which is first and foremost a cool song; but the piano, slide guitar, harmonica, upright bass and more combine to create a fabulous song to get the house party started.

I think you’d have to own incredibly sensitive ears to realise that these songs are 100% acoustic; such is the quality of the playing and production here.

While taking a traditional format to create these songs; these songs manage to straddle the Classic and Contemporary styles of The Blues with ease; with and Over My Shoulder being prime examples of songs that sound decades old, but were written and recorded for this project.

There’s only one cover song here; and it’s never been a Blues song in my memory; but Kolassa takes Guy Clark’s words and melody on Baby Took a Limo To Memphis, added the vocals of Libby Rae Watson, and makes them sound like something Big Bill Broonzy might have sung, back in the day.

As a ‘non-musician’ I never fail to be impressed when songwriters find new ways to write and sing about L.O.V.E in all it’s ways; and here Mick Kolassa made me sit back in wonderment the first couple of times I heard If Life Was Fair and If I Told You because they use the normal Blues formula and take it into a whole new rarefied direction.

One Hit Wonder sounds like a really personal song to Mick; but his words will resonate with many people who hear it, and isn’t about what the title suggests it might be.

While I love this album from start to finish, there are a couple of tracks that have not just ‘touched my heart’ but really, really impressed me.

Sugar in Your Grits is as romantic a piece of Bluesy Americana as you can imagine, and features some syrupy sweet harmonica too.

But, Memphis Wood is a beautiful and melancholic tale, that sounds as if The Band are in residence behind him …. and Kolassa’s voice never sounder finer …. making this my Favourite Song.

There are songs here that will affect you in a million different ways; and these days there’s very little room on radio for songs like these these days, so it’s a case of buying the album to hear it … and if you do I guarantee you will cherish it forever.

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Blues in the South

Mick Kolassa pops up fairly frequently in these pages with a string of consistently fine albums from his base in Memphis. Here’s another, made, as Mick puts it on the sleeve, “with love, soul and wooden instruments”. It does support Mick’s contention that an acoustic album can sound as big and full as an electric one.

Mick’s voice is easily identifiable once heard, and he has long been a passionate advocate for the blues – listen to the lyrics of ‘Sugar In Your Grits’ for his take on the current blues scene, and ‘Educated By The Blues’ for some of his own influences and what he has taken from them. He strays into Americana at times too, as on ‘Memphis Wood’ or ‘One Hit Wonder’, both with fine accordion by pianist Rick Steff. ‘Gas Station Sushi’ is a nicely whimsical-sounding closer, with a ragtime feel and good-humoured if pointed lyrics.

Long-time associate Jeff Jensen is also present on guitar, as usual, but Mick has also drafted in some guests who share a similar stance to his own – people like harmonica ace Bob Corritore, guitarist Doug McLeod, singer songwriter Tas Cru and singer Libby Rae Watson. Taken altogether, it makes for a rather tasty album all round. ~ Norman Darwen

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ZicaZic

TRANSLATION: A key figure on the blues scene in Memphis and more broadly in the South of the United States, Mick Kolassa is a generous and committed artist who puts his elegant guitar playing and his rocky voice at the service of many works, not the least of which are those of the Blues Foundation to which he donates all the profits from his albums to finance the health expenses of artists and the training efforts of young bluesmen in the making. Prolific musician delivering several albums each year, Mick Kolassa strives this time to offer us an exclusively acoustic work, determined to remember that the term is not a synonym of soft and boring and that it is possible to make a blues groove in a very beautiful way without using and abusing the assets of the fairy electricity. Accompanied by his faithful accomplice Jeff Jensen on guitars and production and his shocking rhythm section with Carl Capserson on double bass and Tom Lonardo on drums, joined by Eric Hughes, Bob Corritore and Vince Johnson on harmonicas, Rick Steff on piano and accordion, Doug MacLeod and Tas Cru on guitars, Libby Rae Watson on vocals or Reba Russell and Susan Marshall on backing vocals, the bluesman splits this time from ten compositions that flit from folk blues to Cajun and zydeco but also an interesting rereading of “Baby Took A Limo To Memphis”, a title by Guy Clark recorded for the first time in 1995. There are some beautiful boogies and other shuffles but what seduces above all in “Wooden Music”, it is this ability that Mick Kolassa has to offer colorings that take us to music full of originality where we occasionally find a touch of jazz or a touch of Americana. From the excellent “Educated By The Blues” to the no less deductive “Gas Station Sushi”, these are pieces full of mischief, good words and elegant rhymes but also with a touch of melancholy that Mick Kolassa and others deliver to us, titles like “Sugar In Your Grits”, “If I Told You”, “Memphis Wood” or “Over My Shoulder” which manage, as always, to make everyone agree! From the great Mick Kolassa, as always… MORE >>

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Michael Doherty’s Music Log

Mick Kolassa released three great albums in the second half of 2022. And here we are in June of 2023, and only now getting his first disc of the year. What happened? What slowed him down? Well, nothing happened, nothing slowed him down. In January, he released TrouTunes And Other Fishing Madness, an album of songs about fishing, but it was released only digitally. And since then, he has put out three compilations of his work – Slow Blues Essentials, Americana Essentials, and Endless Blues Essentials – all of which were also released only digitally. So Wooden Music is actually his second album of new material in 2023, and fifth overall release this year. And there is another compilation coming out soon, I hear. So there. This guy is a creative force, with seemingly endless energy and song ideas. Wooden Music features mostly original compositions, with just one cover. Joining Mick Kolassa on these tracks are Jeff Jensen on guitar, slide guitar and percussion; Carl Casperson on upright bass; Tom Lonardo on drums; and Rick Steff on piano and accordion. There are also several guests on various tracks. MORE >>

 

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