Michael Garvin

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A local thumbpicker got me interested in travis-style guitar at age 14, a few years later I placed 4th in the Merle Travis National Thumbpicking Guitar Contest at age 17. Then I started playing fiddle instead, but I never gave up playing guitar pretty much everyday. I have met some great pickers' of this style including Thom Bresh, Buster B. Jones, Eddie Pennington, Pat Kirtley, Robin Kessinger, Eddie Adcock and even Keb Mo, but have also seen a few other influential artists perform live such as Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, Jim Hurst and many great flatpickers like Tony Rice, Bryon Sutton, Kenny Smith, David Grier, Etc... I pretty much just play straight Travis-style here and wanted to show everyone how long I've been into thumbpicking.
Here is a quote from one of my first performances:
"...There's a very old guitar picker in that young body. He has a ragtime style, never misses a beat and definitely impressed the audience."
-Huntington West Virginia's "Graffiti" Newsletter August 2000
"...I just saw your Cannonball Rag video and man what a fine job you did on it. Your developing one of the best Merle Thumbs I've heard in a long time. Take care and keep laying that thumb in there."
-Eddie Pennington