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Sometime in early January of 1964, Kathy McAdam screamed
up the stairs to her little brother, “Michael, hurry up they’re
on the radio!” At first listen, even to the ears of a little kid,
Michael knew that this was not like most of the so-called rock
‘n roll that plagued the airwaves in the early sixties. It felt
like years until he and his sister got their first glimpse of
The Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan Show just a few weeks later.
McAdam still calls it “maybe the defining moment of my life.”
He immediately withdrew to his bedroom with Kathy’s guitar (she
had wanted to become the Joan Baez of Richmond, Virginia) and
she never got her hands on it again.
 Within
a few months McAdam, his cousin Johnny O’Brien, and several
other Beatlemaniac kids in the neighborhood put together what
would be the first in a string of garage bands that would play
the latest hits by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other
British Invasion bands. By junior high school his first working
band, Emotions, was formed with friends Mark Corvino, Kurt Williamson,
and Bobby Armstrong. The band continued working through high
school, adding vocalist Jimmy Morgan and playing high school
dances, bars, and fraternity parties around Virginia college
campuses. They even won the Virginia “Battle of the Bands” in
1969. “Maybe the defining moment of my life,” says McAdam. In
1970, because there was an established R&B group called
The Emotions, the band changed their name to Brelo Magruder.
“It was a stupid name based on silly inside jokes, but it was
a good band,” McAdam explains. After high school, the guys in
the band went their separate ways, all continuing to play music.
After
a brief stay in the Virginia Commonwealth University department
of music, McAdam bummed around Cocoa Beach, Florida and Chapel
Hill, North Carolina for a while, but he wound up back in Richmond.
He hooked up with an R&B group called Natural Black, which
became “Natural Black and Company” when McAdam and Charlie Kilpatrick,
the other white kid, joined the band. After about a six-month
stint with NB&C, McAdam and old pal Jimmy Morgan moved to
Nagshead, North Carolina and began performing as “The Wrong
Brothers.” The duo saw a summer that was “a ton of fun but not
the most musically fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.” McAdam
and Morgan moved back to Richmond to put something together
with a rhythm section consisting of old friends and bandmates.
What they came up with became known as The
Good Humor Band.
 The
Good Humor Band quickly became one of the most popular
bands in town, and after some initial personnel changes, one
of the most infamous bands in the mid-Atlantic region (see more
at www.goodhumorband.com).
The GHB enjoyed a reputation for first-rate musicianship, having
a repertoire of hundreds of songs, and yes, a penchant for somewhat
wild behavior. During his GHB tenure, McAdam also appeared on
recordings with popular regional artists such as Steve Bassett
and Robbin Thompson.
The
GHB continued to play an exhausting schedule on the East Coast
bar circuit for eight years. After recording a very respectable
album in 1982, the band still failed to garner any major label
interest. The GHB split up in January of 1983, but all was not
lost. Most of the former bandmates eventually went on to become
sidemen and session players for some of the biggest names in
the industry. To this day, the band does an annual reunion show
in Richmond.
 After
the split of the GHB in 1983, McAdam and band cohorts Gregg
Wetzel and Drake Leonard became hired guns in a country cover
band which played at a Richmond lounge. “Not a defining moment...”
deadpanned McAdam, “but it sure didn’t hurt my country chops.”
After a year and a half of the lounge gig, McAdam split for
Greensboro, NC to join the popular Brice Street Band. He had
toured and recorded with Brice St. for over a year when a phone
call came from GHB alumnus Bucky Baxter. A new artist named
Steve Earle was finishing an album called Guitar Town
and needed a guitarist. McAdam replied, “You’re in Nashville
and you can’t find a damn guitar player?” Bucky assured McAdam
that he was the perfect guy for the gig. After a little coaxing,
McAdam pulled up stakes and moved to Nashville to become a “Duke.”
The
next three and a half years found McAdam constantly touring
the U.S., Canada, and Europe with Steve Earle and the
Dukes. He recorded his first major label album, Exit 0, with
Steve as well as numerous singles and a movie soundtrack. Countless
videos and television appearances followed. A phone call from
another GHB alumnus, Bruce Bouton, landed a gig with Foster
and Lloyd, one of the other hip, yet unsigned, young country
acts of the era. What little time McAdam had off from Steve
was spent touring with Foster and Lloyd. The constant touring
went on until 1990 when more studio work started to trickle
in, eliminating the need to always be on the road. Tours and
sessions with artists like Matraca Berg, B.J. Thomas, Deana
Carter, Lee Roy Parnell, and Mary Chapin Carpenter kept McAdam
busy through 1990 and 1991.
 By
1992 Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd had gone their separate ways,
becoming solo artists. McAdam accepted an offer from Radney
to be his bandleader/guitarist/right hand man. Despite a number
of tempting offers from other artists including the Mavericks,
Marty Stuart, and Travis Tritt , Mike stuck with Radney, touring
and recording for the next three years while doing session work
in Nashville and Muscle Shoals on the side. By 1995, Mike and
partner Jack Irwin completed construction on their own recording
studio, Silvertone Recording Service. While Radney was taking
a two-year hiatus from touring and recording, McAdam kept himself
busy working with Jim Lauderdale, Greg Trooper, Charlie Major,
Jeff Black, Jack Ingram, Sawyer Brown, Flaco Jimenez, Matraca
Berg, Charlie Robison, Bruce Robison, and numerous other indie
album projects.
In
the late 1990s, McAdam began work on his own solo album
which was to become A
Million Miles, while doing sessions and one-offs with
artists like Amy Rigby, Southside Johnny, Chris Knight, Pat
McLaughlin, Deana Carter, Kevin Welch, Bill Lloyd, Lee Roy Parnell,
and others.
 This
brings us to the current decade in which McAdam continues
to produce and play guitar for numerous artists, including Radney,
while still playing occasional gigs with Steve and many other
artists. McAdam’s self-produced solo effort, A
Million Miles, was completed at Silvertone in October
of 2002. The album contains eleven songs, ten of them originals,
with vocal performances that may surprise those who have only
heard McAdam’s guitar work in the past. The songs are insightful
and the production is stellar. A Million Miles was released
in December on his own Permanent Records label. “Maybe the defining
moment...” he chuckles. Perhaps a defining moment, but probably
not the last in this long, still promising career.
--
Glenn Eastmann, December 2002
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