Wandering Father, Forgotten Son

Wandering Father, Forgotten Son is a tribute to the somewhat fraught relationship between singer-songwriter Silas Lowe and his father, Roy Michaels. In the late 1960s and early 70s Michaels enjoyed middling success with Cat Mother & The All Night Newsboys, best known for a Top 40 single, ‘Good Old Rock ’n’ Roll’, released in 1969. Among Michaels’ friends were Steven Stills and Jimi Hendrix – the latter produced Cat Mother's first album, The Street Giveth… and the Street Taketh Away. Following the band's dissolution in 1977, Michaels split (in the parlance of the day) to Thailand, leaving behind Lowe and his mother.

Decades later, Michaels was reunited with his son when he returned to the US for cancer treatment. He died in 2008, leaving a musical legacy that inspired Lowe's affecting collection of 12 songs, six of his own and six by his father. Lowe's unmistakable high, lonesome vocals predominate the proceedings, which range in subject matter from an aberrant murder (‘Burning Bride’) to a critique of America's haywire healthcare system (‘Poor People's Doctor’), all the while evoking the sardonic troubadour style of folksters such as John Hartford and John Prine.