MUSICIAN OF THE MONTH, MASSES OF MUSIC TRIVIA

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Our Thoughts Go Out To Michael Been's Family
And May He Rest In Peace

Michael Been
April 15th 1950 ~ August 19th 2010
American guitarist and vocalist for the Santa Cruz-based ’80s cult band, the Call, Michael Been, died from a heart attack suffered while he was at Belgium’s Pukkelpop Festival. The father of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club frontman Robert Been, he was only 60 years old.

Born in Oklahoma, Michael Been started his musical journey as a member of Chicago band Aorta, then, between 1969 and 1971, he was a member of Lovecraft, the successor band to the psychedelic rock group H.P. Lovecraft. After which, by 1980 in Northern California he had formed the rock band The Call with Tom Ferrier on guitar, bassist Greg Freeman and drummer Scott Musick. They first started getting national attention with “The Walls Came Down”, a track from their second album, Modern Romans. But it was their third album, Reconciled, with its ominous rocker “I Still Believe”, that really allowed the band to begin establishing a presence on FM and AOR play lists. By this point, keyboardist Jim Goodwin had joined, giving the band its classic lineup. By the time the group made Reconciled, they had become favorites of critics, fans and, perhaps most significantly, music celebs like Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson of the Band. Their popularity also heightened when U2‘s Bono sang backup vocals on Red Moon. Subsequent albums and a switch to MCA Records failed to inject any further momentum in the career of the Call. Michael had also appeared in a number of films, including the Martin Scorsese directed epic, The Last Temptation Of Christ, where he played the Apostle John and he launched a solo career, debuting with the album 'On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', released in 1994. The Call “Perhaps the most underrated band ever” as they and many fans agree on, split up for good in 2000. Al Gore used "Let The Day Begin" as his campaign song in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election and Tom Vilsack used it as his song during his brief 2008 U.S. Presidential Election campaign. Michael had more recently been heavily involved with his son's band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, among other things, touring with them as their sound engineer. R.I.P.
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