WHEN: Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Outsiders Art & Collectibles, 718 Iredell St., Durham
ADMISSION: Free. The exhibit will be on view through September.
ALSO: Two local bands, The Wigg Report, and Mel Melton & the Wicked Mojos. For more information, call (919) 451-3231.
By Cliff Bellamy
cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744
DURHAM -- Listeners who were around "back in the day" -- say, from the late 1960s to about the mid-1970s -- can probably recall their favorite bands who performed soul, funk and rhythm and blues. While The Isley Brothers, The Temptations and The Meters are familiar names, listeners probably are not familiar with The Outsiders, Joseph War, or their creator Mingering Mike.
From 1968 to 1977, Mike, born in Washington, D.C., in 1950, created more than 50 albums, produced and recorded several artists, including himself. He also recorded some songs on reel-to-reel tape with his cousin whom he called Big D, and his siblings. Most of Mike's creations, however, were on cardboard and paper -- for fictional artists. During this nine-year period, he created covers and sleeves (to scale) for 12- and 7-inch records, as well as vinyl facsimiles, with labels. Mike also included song titles, names of record companies, liner notes, and lyrics with his creations.
Some of Mike's work is part of the new exhibit that opens today at The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, "The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl." An exhibit of his work also goes on view Thursday at Outsiders Art & Collectibles. Visitors will get to meet Mike at a reception to be held from 5 to 9 p.m. At Outsiders gallery, visitors can order 13 museum quality prints (from Hemphill Fine Arts) or purchase a poster of a image of one of the albums.
In phone interview from his home in D.C., Mike, 59, said he listened to a lot of the soul music of the 1960s, but he cited two important influences -- James Brown and Marvin Gaye. He admired Brown for the sheer expressiveness of his music and performance. "He added a personality to it that seemed like other artists didn't do," Mike said. Brown would "express himself with groans and grunts," and listeners who picked up his records might say, "This is great. It's like nothing you've ever heard before."
A sister of his knew Gaye when he lived in D.C., and family members recall him singing and harmonizing on the streets. "I admired that he came from D.C. and made a name for himself."
Yet another inspiration was film. He and his cousin Big D once did an album titled "The Dark Side of Regan" inspired by the character in the film "The Exorcist." One of the songs was "Hell to the Golden Cross." "With the movies, if a picture really got to me, then I would try my crack at imagining if I was able to do a soundtrack or a particular song or mood from a movie," Mike said.
Mingering Mike's artwork might have been lost to history had not Washington-area record collectors Dori Hadar and Frank Beylotte found it in a flea market in 2003. Hadar was struck by "so many fantastic album titles and song titles," he said during a phone interview. "I just had to find out why someone would have made them, really what lies behind these fake records."
Hadar tracked down Mike, and has published a biography of Mike, titled "Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar." Hadar will be at Thursday's reception, and copies of his book will be available.
Pamela Gutlon, founder and owner of Outsiders Art, first heard of Mike during a visit to Washington. Harry Dixon, a D.C. disc jockey, told her about Mike, and introduced her to Hadar, and George Hemphill, whose gallery is making some of the artwork available at the Thursday event. Gutlon read Hadar's book "from front to back without stopping. ... I was completely fascinated by him," she said.
She and Hadar were both struck by the musical world and persona that Mike created. "The world that he created is what is amazing to me, with the liner notes attributed to famous people," Gutlon said. "For him it was the closest that he was going to get to being this Motown artist he wanted to be." Mike "created a very layered fantasy in which there were other characters with their own personalities," Hadar said. "It's such an incredibly prolific body of work. ... It's a glimpse inside someone's dream."
In addition to his artwork, Mike said he had accumulated thousands of songs, some in the form of lyrics written on legal pads. He has not ruled out that other pieces of his work might be surviving somewhere. He has exhibited his work at several shows recently (including in 2007 in Winston-Salem at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art). Someone from Connecticut found a 45 rpm jacket that looked like his work, and mailed it back to him.
He said he has been gratified by the attention his work has received, but particularly to the memories that his albums evoke. At the Winston-Salem exhibit, a woman told him, " 'This reminds me of the 70s and the fun.' That's it right there. You made a connection," he said.
"People look at the exhibit and smile," he said. "It's something that connects with them."
