Notes
Michael Humphrey BIOGRAPHY Michael was born in Burbank, California. The son of Philip and Natalie Humphrey, Michael is the second of six children, with four brothers and one sister. The heritage on his father's side is Welsh, Irish, English and American Indian while his mother's side is Russian. Michael sometimes jokingly refers to himself as "World War III." The story of Michael begins with an upbringing of entertaining. His father, Phil Humphrey, was half of the legendary rockabilly group "The Fendermen" who yodeled himself a hit record in 1960 with a Jimmy Rodgers/George Vaughn song "Mule Skinner Blues." His mother, Natalie, was a go-go dancer and still performed while pregnant with Michael. At around the age of six, Michael's parents left the entertainment business and moved to Ontario, Canada. Michael spent the next 11 years growing up in Canada and ended up living on the outskirts of Vancouver, B.C. in various other towns. Michael always loved to entertain and would often organize the other siblings and friends to do skits or plays for the family and neighbors. One of Michael's favorite things to do was perform lip-synch concerts, construct all the instruments out of Lego and use Lite-Bright as the stage lights. Michael's influences at that time were Chicago, Peter Frampton, ELO, Gary Wright and Simon and Garfunkel. Michael's father's guitar would always be around and Michael picked it up and taught himself to play. Michael wrote his first song at the age of 12, called "The Old Hut and The Blackbird." Michael loved the applause that the audience gave him and was bitten by the entertainment bug. He continued to write music and would weave acting into his life as well. Growing up with other siblings so close in age spawned the spirit of competition. In high school, Michael recalls watching his younger brother David perform in a play. Realizing he could do that as well, Michael signed up to take the acting class and quickly found himself excelling, taking starring role after starring role. Michael wound up acting in community theatre and upon his senior year, auditioned for acceptance into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Michael was accepted and left for his home state of California, the summer of his 18th birthday. Things did not go well upon his arrival. With no scholarship funds, no parental financial aid and student loans unavailable because he didn't reside in California the entire prior year, Michael had to leave the AADA after only a few weeks of attendance. Devastated, he soon ran out of money and found himself homeless in Los Angeles for 8 months before getting enough money to return to Canada. Over the next few years, Michael tried to find himself traveling up and down the West Coast. Michael soon found himself in the role of worker, got married and lost himself in a nine-to-five job with a beer chaser. Michael continued to dream about music and acting. In 1997, Michael found himself in Seattle for the birth of grunge. Michael was attending the Art Institute of Seattle and taking classes to learn about the Music and Video Business. It was at that time that he hosted a television show called "Seattle Rocks." Michael interviewed many other celebrities from Michael Stipe of R.E.M. to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. This confirmed that Michael wanted to be an entertainer of that caliber and he started making records. Most of his recordings were poorly produced and ended up going no where. After a few years of attempting to make it, Michael found himself divorced and living alone in Santa Barbara, California as a successful Realtor. After many years of not speaking to the rest of his family, Michael's father called him up. Phil was in bad shape and addicted to painkillers. Michael took an interest in re-kindling his relationship with his dad. In early 2005, Michael flew with his father, back to Green Bay to re-unite him with his band and watch him accept a mid-west Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame award. Seeing his fa