Michael Troy will play the North Star Music Cafe, Friday, May 2, at 8:00 PM

Profile by Bob McKillop

Michael Troy owns a mother lode of life experience from which to mine great material for his songs.  He was born and raised in the working class, hard scrabble town of Fall River.  He has held down a bunch of working class jobs, including carpenter, mill worker, and fisherman.  He is a cancer survivor, has raised a passel of daughters to womanhood, and kept his marriage intact (these three accomplishments alone make him a hero in my eyes!)  All of this life experience informs his music, makes it ring true to our ears, and marks him as songwriter of authentic folk themes.

His first album was 1998’s “Whispers in The Wind”, and it broke him onto the New England folk circuit.  These songs won him many accolades, including the 2007 New England Songwriting Contest, the 2006 Wildflower Folk Festival Songwriters Contest, and the 2005 South Florida Songwriters Contest, to name a few. 

“Whispers in The Wind” included songs like “Talk Radio”, a song in which an old man reminisces about his life and his family, and considers his present situation with resignation and acceptance.

“Away, they fly away,

Like robins in the fall when the grass has gone to hay

We stay behind, in God we trust

And they'll return in spring if they haven't turned to dust”

Another song from this first album is “Four Boats Down”, a musical account of a two-week period when four fishing boats from the Massachusetts southern coast were lost to storms.  This is terrific songwriting; it is sensitive to the plight of the men, and acknowledges their need to go to sea, while laying out in detail the perils of a life in the fishing trade.  We can feel Michael’s closeness to these men and this trade.

“Four boats down, ten lives lost

In the course of thirteen days

More than ends meeting ends

Are riding on those waves.

Fortune seekers, bottom reapers

Love slaves of the sea

The widow maker, father taker,

Can steal your breath away.”

His second disc, in 2004, was “Romancing the Moon”, and on it, Michael displays significant growth as a songwriter.  The title track documents the lives and times and places of a Fall River that has passed into history.  The mills and factories, the shop workers, the freight trains, that make the city hum, are now silent, and Michael’s not sure that we got a bargain in what has replaced them.

“From the Watuppa Pond, where the water spills

Into the Quequechan River, down a granite hill

Under the Cotton Kings, from the stone cutters hands

‘Rose the four hundred mills, on promised land.

Now the river's been buried, and the mills shut down

And the people got poor, and the rich left town

In the local bars the story's still told

Of how the looms in the mills, turned cotton to gold.”

Michael’ not all gloom and nostalgia, though, and he proves it in the upbeat, inspirational song “Dream Chaser”.  This song feels like Michael’s celebration of his success in embracing his dream of songwriting and performing, and making it a reality.

“When things are unfamiliar, and illusion shadows fact.

When the chilly winds of cheap talk keep crawling up your back.

And your thoughts are standing naked and you feel inclined to hide

Take the good view in off the mountainside

And you'll catch a dream If you catch the wind

Got to take some chances every now and then.

I'm a good dream chaser I've caught a few.

I'm gonna catch me a dream

Gonna share it with you.”

 

As a performer, Michael is hard to match.  His guitar playing is fearless and complex, whether beating out a rhythm in his strumming, or picking a delicate melody out of the stings with the intelligence he carries around in the tips of his fingers.  Michael’s vocals are strong, deep, rough around the edges, and melodic; they match the subject matter in his songs perfectly.

Michael is working a new CD, and he hopes to release it later this year.  I have heard three demo songs off this album, and they are mint quality Michael Troy songs, down to the last bridge and verse.  Profiles of rough necks and strong women, and stories about the hard times and triumphs of the simple people who populate his world. 

Come out to the North Star Music Café on Friday, May 2, at 8:00 PM, and catch Michael’s show (Steven Bacon opens!)  You’re sure to hear these old favorites and these newer songs as an additional bonus.  Michael is at the top of my list for folk singer/songwriters.  I love his work, and I believe you will too.

Michael's website is at www.folkmichaeltroy.com

You can purchase Michaels CDs at

CD Freedom at

:http://www.cdfreedom.com/artists/michaeltroy/

or at CD Baby at:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/michaeltroy1