.....and AM radio from the backseat of the family car. After hearing all that great 60’s AM radio, I was hooked! But after years of music lessons, vocal scholarships, choir tours to California and Scandinavia, and a four-year music therapy program at Eastern Michigan University, I ended up with an unrelated college degree...twice! My focus returned briefly the summer my TV was stolen and, with nothing else to do, I wrote my first cluster of songs on guitar. I let life get in the way again until 1996 when I started playing at open mics. My music is "angry, morbid, plucky and sometimes silly" ("someone's got to write these") with carefully crafted lyrics and emotional vocals crossing many musical styles, like blues, country, alternative rock and folk. Vocally I’ve been compared to Melanie, Bonnie Raitt and Carol Hester. My CD, "Set Me Free" 2002, is a 6 song compilation of all the styles I currently write in: a songwriter sampler, as it were.
My open mic-ing began at Songwriter's Open Mic at Oz's Music which was filmed and edited into regular weekly local cable TV shows shown in Ann Arbor, Traverse City and the Grand Rapids area from 1996 to the present.
Other Open Mic venues: The Drowsy Parrot, The Lighthouse, The Tap Room (where I jammed with many of the folks on my CD, and the site of my CD release party, July 2002), Xhedos Café, The Coffee Bean.
Open Mic Hostings: Mr. Mugs Coffee and Cue (the third Fridays), Dreamland Theater (every Tuesday), Oz’s Music (the first Wednesdays, changed to the second Tuesdays).
Other southeastern Michigan and Northern Ohio performances: The 1998 Ann Arbor Art Fair, The Third Friday in Wyandotte Summer Series, The John D. Lamb Cavern Club Songwriter Event, Mr. Mugs Coffee and Cue, The Toledo Club (singer of Spanish songs with Victor Y Victor of Detroit), The All Star Lounge (as the duo: “Mickey and Laura”). North American Indian Association New Year’s Eve 2002 and 2003. Crazy Wisdom Tea Room 2006. Bombadill's Neighborhood Coffee House 2006 and 2007. Foggy Bottom Coffee House 2007.
I’m proud of my role as producer of Women Songwriters' Showcase at the Gypsy Cafe in July 1999, which featured six Michigan women songwriters.
I am available for evening songwriter performances, noon hour and happy hour performances of original and cover songs, vocal and recording work, and as an artist's coach. I often perform with luthier and fellow songwriter, Mickey Richard, who accompanies me on acoustic and electric guitar.
To Contact:
Laura MacKimmie
Hippie Spirit Records
P.O. Box 980329
Ypsilanti, MI 48198
734-572-0141