Grammy winner PJ Curtis: Michael is a terrific talent... a fine poet with a great "lived-in" voice. I love it. Great story songs. "Dancing in the Boneyard," "Country Girl" (great atmosphere here), "Nightbird's Waltz" and "Rockabilly Saturday Night" are the standouts. And [Let's Pretend We're Strangers] must be the first tuba solo I've ever heard that made me stand in amazement! ...a truly superb work.
Radio Ranger, KOPN 89.5 FM, Columbia, MO: I was on board with "Love Boat to Reno" from the moment I heard the first track. "Dancin' in the Bone Yard" is a mesmerizing song with cinematic lyric images and great clarinet hooks baited with a vaporous ghostly violin... From the first tuba note and swing clarinet sounds on the title track, it's obvious you're not on an ordinary journey with Michael's mystic ship on a sea of imagination. By the time the boat docks, you're glad you have been along for the ride.
Don Charles, Dsquared: McGarrah's songs function like an emotional spyglass, peering about the room and soaking in the significant details. He is an iconoclast in the Tom Waits tradition - often the point of departure is so skewed that you feel he's taken you to the wrong place (Love Boat to Reno?). Then the poet does his magic and you realize he had you right where he wanted all along. And he can write a love song that will make you ache for it.
Victory Music Magazine: McGarrah is a story teller. His tenor/baritone voice is compelling and convincing as he weaves his Americana tales.
David Cowling, AmericanaUK...possessed of a voice that can tell a story in many different forms from the Tom Wait’s lite of ‘Dancin’ in the Boneyard’ to folk, country and spoken word, he’ll turn his pipes to any gentle genre. Sometimes he makes a connection with the material: ‘Nightbirds Waltz (How Are You Sleeping Tonight)’ has a cargo of emotion whereas the title track is all about seersucker suited dandyism - he likes to play roles. He’s the narrator on ‘Rockabilly Saturday Night’ and on ‘Iowa’ he shows that he can write ‘the dust has blown her years away, stole the color from her eyes’, this tale of disappointment soundtracked by violin and viola stealing the show. McGarrah is a stylist using generic patterns to tell his stories - there’s humour and emotion packed in with the role-playing.
One of 12 finalists in the 2008 Wildflower Arts and Music Festival Performing Songwriter Competition . Richardson, Texas
Finalist in the 2008 South Florida Folk Festival Singer-Songwriter Competition. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Finalist in the 2007 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Kerrville, Texas
Finalist in the 2007 Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest at the 2007 Sisters Folk Festival. Sisters, Oregon
First Place, American Songwriter Magazine July/August 2005 lyric competition with his song "Iowa."
Selected performer, Cape May Singer-Songwriter 2009 Cape May, NJ
Recent placement on the Indie Artists Alliance Songwriters and Storytellers CD Volume 2 Compilation CD with Dancin In The Boneyard.
Thanks to KBCS 91.3 Bellevue, WA. WRKF 89.3 Baton Rouge, LA. KOPN 89.5 Columbia, MO. Whole Wheat Radio
CLICK ON THE HAPPY COUPLE TO PURCHASE LOVE BOAT TO RENO:
