Michael Oosten

Michael Oosten began his music journey like the majority of Sixties kids experimenting in various rock and roll and cover rings during senior high school and throughout university. Because keeping a music group jointly was such effort and because Oosten, at age 21 or 22 in 1969 and 1970, got begun writing tracks that veered from pop-song copies, not forgetting the relative convenience and insufficient responsibility necessary for hauling around an individual electric guitar, he began taking into consideration a single folk music profession. Having a Martin acoustic guitar at hand, Oosten became popular, playing his tunes in coffeehouses and night clubs in the united states. By the finish of 1973 and the start of 1974, he was prepared to record an LP. Oosten resolved on five tunes and curved up several friends to complete his folk/rock and roll/psych audio with numerous instrumentation: some piano from Madison, Wisconsin citizen and friend Tom Hennick on “Hey Boy,” vocals from Jan Reek on “Backyard,” and bass from Al Byla–later a violinist for Piper Street String Band–on “SUNSHINEY DAY.” Accurate to Oosten’s character, the recording was sunlit and filled with whimsical elegance, and it shown his–the whole period’s, really–itinerant viewpoint of life at that time, from the aged high school structure “Wayfaring Boy” and his times in Illinois and Wisconsin, where in fact the album was documented, to “Starving Equine Montana,” an homage to 1 of Oosten’s preferred places, Glacier Country wide Park. University or college of Wisconsin artwork teacher George Cramer developed airbrushed artwork to elegance the album’s sleeve, and Oosten and friend Lester D’ore– the previous editor of Chicago countercultural paper Seed and developer from the Yippie flag–holed up at D’ore’s Wisconsin commune plantation, Karma, to silkscreen each LP coat individually yourself. Obviously and in the individualistic character from the album’s genesis, advertising and promotion for the eponymous recording was limited by Oosten traveling to r / c in surrounding towns to hand-deliver copies to DJs. “Wayfaring Boy” received a substantial amount of airplay in Madison as the album all together obtained solid play on Midwestern university campuses, and Columbia information expressed desire for Oosten’s music. Following a single ending up in the label, though, it had been determined that this album will be as well difficult to advertise. Oosten continuing playing over the says at coffeehouses and celebrations, but Michael Oosten ended up being his single contribution towards the hippie musical picture.