logo
livingroom

decorative bar

biographies


corner Last update of this page: September 19th 2004 corner
Michelle Shocked
(February 24, 1962 - living) U.S.A.

Michelle Shocked

Musician

separator

Born Karen Michelle Johnston in Dallas, Texas, daughter of "Dollar" Bill Johnston, a carpenter by trade, following her parents divorce Michelle lives with her converted-Mormon mother and career-Army stepfather. She spends her early childhood travelling around army bases from Maryland to Massachusetts, to West Germany.

At age 14, her stepfather retires to the East Texas town of Gilmer, and Michelle graduates from Gilmer High School. At age 16 she leaves her home in Gilmer to live with her musically inclined father in Dallas. He encourages her musical talent by convincing her to buy a second-hand guitar and taking her to local blues and country music festivals.

Living in Austin, where she begins honing her songwriting skills, in 1982 she graduates from the University of Texas, Austin with a Bachelor's Degree. The year after she leaves Texas and for the next couple of years moves between San Francisco and New York living on the edge of homelessness and squatting in abandoned buildings. In San Francisco she becomes involved with local hardcore bands and the squatters' movement.

Michelle continues her travelling and political involvement and is arrested during a fair-housing protest at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco (see image) and then again in a protest against a defense contractor. Whilst in San Francisco, Michelle is picked up by the police and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. After about three days of treatment she telephones her father who takes her back to Dallas.

About three months later, after returning to her homeless lifestyle, her friends in Austin call her mother who, alarmed over Michelle's wild lifestyle, has her admitted to the psychiatric ward at Dallas' Baylor Hospital where she is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. She is released when her mother's insurance coverage runs out after a month. Michelle goes to live in New York City.

Disillusioned with the political scene in her own country, in 1985 she travels to Europe where she lives in Amsterdam for a time. While on her way to Rome she is raped in Comiso, Italy and then spends some time in an Italian women's separatist commune.

Shortly after her return to Texas and, while volunteering at the Kerrville Folk Festival, producer Pete Lawrence of the UK indie label Cooking Vinyl, was impressed by her performance and recorded her on a Sony Walkman. The recordings are released as The Texas Campfire Tapes on Cooking Vinyl Records and become a surprise hit in England.

Michelle moves from Manhattan, New York to London, living in a houseboat on the Thames. Polygram offers Michelle a $130,000 advance on a second album, but she only accepts $50,000. Michelle's second album, Short Sharp Shocked, is released. It receives a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording.

In 1989, Michelle releases Captain Swing. The third album surprises her fans with it's bluesy '40s-style big-band swing flavour. She moves to Los Angeles, where she meets her future husband, Bart Bull, for the first time. On The Greener Side is nominated for Best Female Video at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards.

In 1992, Michelle moves from South Central Los Angeles to a houseboat on the beach. The fourth album, Arkansas Traveler, is released. She marries Bart Bull in Los Angeles. Enlisting sports attorney, Leigh Steinberg she commences legal action against Mercury Records to get out of her contract, citing the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and a California labor law that sets a seven-year term limit on personal services contracts as reasons the contract should be nullified.

Michelle takes up playing the electric guitar, and embarks on a solo tour, selling her new independently recorded, Kind Hearted Woman album. She then moves from her Los Angeles houseboat to New Orleans. An independent release, Artists Make Lousy Slaves, was sold at the shows and via mail order.

Michelle is released from her contract after an out of court agreement is struck with Mercury Records, and signs to a new record label, Private Music. The Kind Hearted Woman album is re-recorded and released on the Private Music label. The Mercury Poise anthology album is released as part of the settlement with Mercury Records.

In 1998, another independent album, Good News, is released and sold only at shows and via mail order. It takes it's inspiration from gospel and New Orleans jazz. Michelle returns to Los Angeles to live, dividing her time between there and New Orleans.

Michelle and Fiachna O'Braonain write thirty songs in thirty days for a new millennium show at The Bottom Line in New York City. These songs together with some from the Good News album become the basis for her Dub Natural (2001) and Deep Natural (2002) albums.

Michelle and husband, Bart Bull separate in 2003. Michelle is one of 23 women arrested outside the White House at an anti-war protest organised by the group CodePink Women For Peace.

The Texas Campfire Tapes album is re-released on Michelle's Mighty Sound label as Texas Campfire Takes comprising two CDs: one a 'cleaned-up' version of the original 12-track release and the other containing the complete recording made at the 1986 Kerrville Folk Festival.

separator

Click on the letter S to go back to the list of names

corner © Matt & Andrej Koymasky, 1997 - 2008 corner