INO RECORDS SIGNS SINGER MIKE FARRIS BRINGING A NEW ORLEANS SOUND TO THE ROSTER
04/04/2007
INO RECORDS SIGNS SINGER MIKE FARRIS BRINGING A NEW ORLEANS SOUND TO THE ROSTER
NASHVILLE, TN…April 4, 2007…Traditional spirituals, turn-of-the-century New Orleans Gospel, and a slice of influence from Johnny Cash describes the musical portrait from INO Records’ newly signed artist Mike Farris, whose musical background stems from founding the Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies to touring with the likes of Blues Traveler, Sheryl Crow and the Allman Brothers Band. Farris’ INO debut, Salvation in Lights, is set to release June 26th.
Salvation in Lights is a traveling tent-revival of an album, working its way up the banks of the Mississippi River from New Orleans through Memphis and onto points north. Recorded at the same Nashville house-studio where White Stripes/Raconteurs leader Jack White recorded Loretta Lynn’s award-winning Van Lear Rose album, Farris’ sophomore solo effort uses the musical language of spirituals, timeless stories of struggle, some of which are centuries-old slave spirituals, and soul to tell a uniquely redemptive story.
“When I’m playing music, it’s like prayer to me,” Farris says. “I’m closer to God than I ever am, outside of my prayer. That’s the best way I can portray what I’m feeling in my heart.”
Farris recorded Salvation in Lights with a band that included Johnny Cash’s longtime bassist Dave Roe, singer Ann McCrary — daughter of the Fairfield Four’s founder, the Rev. Sam McCrary and a host of top shelf Nashville musicians. Farris plants his own roots deep, down to traditional songs like “Oh Mary Don’t You Weep” and “Can’t No Grave Hold My Body Down.” “A Change Is Gonna Come” and “I’ll Take You There” come from a soul movement that identified with struggle and the ongoing search for transcendence and peace to songs that are turn-of-the-century New Orleans Gospel.
“When I was growing up, we had five records in my family – and three of them were by Johnny Cash,” Farris says. “I didn’t realize how much that stuff was engrained in my being.”
Perhaps nothing, though, reflects Farris’ own journey so perfectly as “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” Written by Thomas A. Dorsey, a writer and performer of bawdy blues tunes who later became the “Father of Gospel Music,” the song’s plea to “guide my feet to the light,” is one that Farris has made his own.
Nearly dead from an accidental overdose of pills and alcohol before he turned 21, Farris made a desperate cry out to God, and God responded. That began a 15-year journey to get back to God. Farris continued to write, and he formed a band, the Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies. The band had some success, signing to Atlantic Records and having a Top 10 rock-radio hit, but, deep inside himself, Farris knew that the bars and clubs the band often played were the last places somebody with his struggles needed to be. The addictions returned with a vengeance, throughout the Cheetah Wheelies’ existence and beyond, even as Farris fronted Double Trouble, the rhythm section of the late guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn.
In the winter of 2004, Farris found himself at the end of his rope, standing graveside, at a relative’s funeral. “ I realized how tired I’d become from running all those years, and I just wanted to go back home. Just like the prodigal so,” Farris says. “I’d had enough of it all and decided I was not going to be that man ever again.”
With the help of his family and church, Farris became sober, and soon after he began writing in order to heal again. He quickly realized the new songs he was writing dovetailed nicely with those old familiar songs that had been with him all along.
“If not for the grace of God I would surely be dead or wishing I were dead,” Farris continues. “My life is a testament that God has an unique and special place for everyone. God will use people no matter how tattered and torn. Just surrender to His love and trust in His grace.”