Growing up in the Gold Rush country of Northern California
provided Michelle with lots of early inspiration for songs. A childhood spent on a ranch meant raising animals, assisting her veterinarian dad with surgeries, and taking care of cows and horses. And also necessitated learning to drive the truck at age ten.
Being surrounded by oak trees, sagebrush, and the American River was inspiration for filling notebooks with poetry from an early age.
Michelle's family had moved to this area from Los Altos, on the Peninsula south of San Francisco, when Michelle and her sister and brother were young. Michelle and her sister left the ballet and piano lessons in Los Altos to suddenly find themselves sitting at little desks in a tiny wooden schoolhouse on Deer Valley Road up in the foothills.
In the little rural towns in the area, there were colorful characters seemingly held over from an earlier century. The people and unique surroundings felt like a time warp: families with lots of children lived in the old Pony Express hotels, and aging prospectors walked along the back roads, and in fact there were folks whose grandparents had come across country in covered wagons in the 1800s to look for gold. It was an amazing place to grow up in.
Michelle studied piano continuously, and later started combining her poetry with music and writing songs.
After getting her degree, she was bitten by the bug to be on stage, and escaped to New York City, Maine, and Connecticut, where she studied classical and jazz piano, dance, and theatre arts, and appeared in summer stock theatre. She also worked as Assistant to the Director on Off-Broadway plays in New York City.
Returning to California, Michelle moved to San Francisco and began playing keyboards and singing in numerous bands, playing R&B, rock, and alternative rock in every club imaginable. While many of the bands played cover songs, some of them did original material and this was when Michelle began writing songs.
Upon moving to Los Angeles, Michelle continued to write, and she teamed up with longtime friend singer Debbie Hennessey, playing keyboards with her band and performing all over Los Angeles. Together they wrote "Any Way I Can," which Debbie sings on her first album, Rustic Heart, and Michelle's song, "First Song," appears on Debbie's second album Good As Gone, with Debbie lending her soulful voice to that song.
Michelle has further developed her songwriting skills through Harriet Schock's ongoing songwriting group. Harriet, a gold and platinum songwriter and recording artist, has been a great source of inspiration and knowledge in the craft of songwriting, and Michelle has also written a song with her.
Additionally, Michelle's songs appear on other albums and in a film. Her song "With a Grain of Sugar" appears on the album Beautiful, produced by Joan Enguita on Red Coyote Records. Proceeds from this album go toward raising funds to benefit women's shelters. The album features several artists, some of whom currently perform as the group called Women on the Move, and they sing "With a Grain of Sugar" as part of their repertoire at shows. Michelle is happy to be included in this worthy project.
Another song, a lullaby originally written for her friends' young son, was chosen to be included on the soundtrack of a recent independent film.
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