Quick Take
For 25 years, Mighty Mike Schermer was a mainstay on Santa Cruz stages. He moved away in 2009, but is coming back Aug. 22 with a new show and a new sound, sliding over from electric blues to vintage country.
You may think you know Mighty Mike Schermer.
Certainly, if you were a local live music fan back in the 1990s and 2000s, you probably saw him perform countless times. At the apex of blues mania in Santa Cruz, Schermer was the inescapable presence on the local scene. A Santa Cruz mainstay for 25 years, he is still a star in the nostalgia reels of countless local music fans.
But even though the guy who returns to his old stomping grounds on Aug. 22 might look like the familiar old Mighty Mike, his sound says something else.
This Mighty Mike has gone honky tonk.
Once known for his blistering blues guitar, Schermer comes to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center next week, alongside collaborators Kid and Lisa Andersen, showcasing a new album titled “The Legend of Michael Ray Pickens and his Old Man Country Band.”
The new album’s cold open features Schermer wailing, “I’ve denied my country roots too long.” And, from there, it blossoms into a full-on vintage country record.
A few years ago, when he was living in Austin, Texas, Schermer and a few musician buddies were record-shopping. “I remember a bass player giving me this George Jones record, saying, ‘Man, you need to listen to this.’ And I was like, ‘My dad listened to country when I was growing up. It’s not really my thing,'” Schermer said. “And he goes, ‘Nah, man. This guy is just like Muddy Waters.’ I didn’t really get it at the time. But now, I get it.”
It might seem a giant leap from blues to country, but in Austin, where Schermer lived and worked for more than 10 years, and in Santa Cruz, where the legendary radio station KPIG (107.5 FM) has been blurring those lines for decades, it’s merely a step into a different style.
Schermer, 57, grew up in New Mexico, but migrated to California right out of high school, first attending UC Santa Cruz in the mid-1980s. Santa Cruz at that time was a playground for a young musician looking to soak up influences. He saw such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Smith, Max Roach and Betty Carter. But it was on campus at UCSC as an aspiring guitarist that he had his “aha!” moment, a concert performance by the great bluesman Albert Collins, the “Master of the Telecaster.”
“It was like a door opened up in front of me and everything else just shut behind me,” he said of that Collins show.
Collins, who died in 1993, became an inspiration on stage and off. “He was so approachable,” said Schermer. “You could just go right on the tour bus and talk to him.” Santa Cruz, with its many clubs and stages featuring touring, regional and local musicians, enchanted the young guitarist. And he soon stepped into the current, playing on stages himself, most famously with his longtime collaborator, vocalist Andy Santana, in the band Soul Drivers. The band played regularly on stages around town. When Moe’s Alley opened in the early ’90s, its mission was to be a blues club, and Schermer and the Soul Drivers fit the bill nicely.
After more than two decades of living locally, Schermer jumped at a chance to join blues pianist Marcia Ball’s band, which meant a move to Austin, in 2009. A decade later, when the pandemic hit, Schermer moved again, this time settling in Reno, Nevada, where he lives today.
He comes to Santa Cruz next week showcasing a new album. His bandmates for the gig, Kid and Lisa Andersen, are also each celebrating new albums, all of them on the Little Village label. Kid Andersen is a native of Norway, and a former guitar prodigy, now a multi-instrumentalist and studio engineer, who will be debuting his new album, “Spirits.”
Kid’s wife, Lisa, is also a vocalist of towering talent who grew up in Santa Cruz as Lisa Leuschner. Locals might remember her appearance on “American Idol” way back in 2004. She returns to her hometown with a new album, titled “Soul.”
Joining Schermer and the Andersens is Santa Cruz steel guitar master Charlie Joe Wallace.
“It’s going to be a good mix of blues, country, soul and rock ’n’ roll,” said Schermer.
Mighty Mike Schermer performs live with Kid Andersen and Lisa Andersen on Aug. 22 at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. Showtime is 7 p.m.
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