;when he was a kid, dividing his time between Jersey and his dad's cotton and tobacco farm down south. In the city, he'd hear heavy rock like Jimi. Powers recalls "this skinny beanpole kid, standing in front of the mirror using a broom for a guitar."
Down south, it was gospel and country. And the former bit him hard, in a sense. "I've been through so much, working to get here. Lost my leg to diabetes, had plenty of hard times. But God is awesome and you overcome the world when you get closer to him and walk with him," he says in that heavy New York accent.
"He makes me and my music what it is. I can remember being at grammar school and I was always by myself. I always hung by myself because me and myself get along good. And I remember this vision or thing -- I don't know how to describe it really -- but i just knew that I wanted to be like Christ. Not like God. But like Christ."
He figures "man messed religion up," and though his faith is central to his character, Powers is to wilting lily: "If God is God and religion is supposed to represent God, then why to all these religions hate it each other?" he queries.
"I believe this: That God gave us three things, the desire for sex, the desire for survival and the desire to seem him and that's all I know. Ever time I try to seek him I'm blessed, and from my blessing I try to help someone else." His follow-up disc, Prodigal Son, tapped those same eclectic and electric influences, fusing
elements of Hendrixian valour with subtle Spanish tuning approaches, and all the while accompanied by Powers' extraordinary vocal drive, raspy and soulful, packed with conviction. Amazingly, however, he says the disc was largely written off-the-cuff.
"I've always been one of those guys where it just comes out, and if I can't get it down in the first two takes, then forget it, you know? It's gotta come from that place within, and if you're busy trying to make it into something else, then it won't come our right," says Powers.
He theorizes his disdain for a mechanical approach to songwriting
and producing always keeps his material fresh, which increasingly these days also makes it relevant. Despite a decade of downloading and the rise of independent distribution, the record industry still hasn't figured that out, he says.
"If record companies would just let the artists be the aritsts and just do the record the way the want then promote it for them, it'll get into the hands of the right people, the right audience. Instead, they try to make everything appeal to everyone and 90% of it fails.
"It's crazy. It's so simple and yet they make it so hard by trying to control the process," says Powers. "If you let artists be artists and they find themselves, it works out. That's sort of what happened to me."
The haunting sound he injects into many of his original tunes comes, by the way, from his first great music influence: the Santo and Johnny Instrumental dirge Sleepwalk.
It hit him like a gut punch, and Powers has been recalling that feeling ever since. Funny, that a guy could be so happy creating new musical expressions from a sound so sad.
But that's the kid in Michael Powers, hanging back stage with Guitar Shorty and Pinetop Perkins, amazed that his patience has paid off.
"I'm so happy and blessed," he says. "This, for me, is like being in the Beatles. It's my dream. And as far as I'm concerned I'm still in front of the mirror with that broom."
MICHAEL
