At 15, Ann got Michael his first indie record deal. She gave him a guitar, showed him the first three chords, and taught him how to write songs. When Michael turned 13, he was discovered by Ann McNair, a singer with both Gospel and Nashville roots.
“This guy owned a bar, and he said, ‘I know you’re going on 12, but if you bring a legal guardian and you want to sing a karaoke set here … we can’t pay you anything, but you can put a tip jar down’.” Michael accepted and wound up performing there for the next several years. One of the guests heard him and made him an offer. There, Michael grew up listening to the country artists his grandmother favored: classics like Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, George Jones and Ray Price.
Unable to afford the cost of raising Michael and his sister, his parents gave them over to his grandparents to raise them when he was 5. Looking back, all I owned were a few hand-me-down toys, but it didn’t bother me at the time.” The funny thing is, I thought I had everything in the world. I remember if you looked straight through the hole in my bedroom floor, you could see the ground underneath. We lived in a little camper that had holes in the floor. “My dad was not making any money,” Michael explains, “so my mother cleaned churches to try to pay the bills. From age five, he grew up in Waveland, a small Gulf town in Mississippi that sits between New Orleans and Biloxi. Michael comes by his rootsy bonafides the authentic way, as a true son of the South. The album joined several previous self-releases by Michael, which are all available on, iTunes, Amazon and. 30+ Grammy Albums nominee Kenny Aronoff played drums, with the legendary Waddy Wachtel on guitar. The album featured some legendary talent, including Ann Wilson (Heart), Ian McLagan (Faces, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Mayer), Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello, Cracker) and Greg Leisz (Avenged Sevenfold, The Eagles). It’s the way I’ve always been since I was a teenager, wearing hats and singing the music that I love to sing.” In the spring of 2011, Michael debuted his first major label release, the self-titled Michael Grimm. Working with Grammy-award winning producer Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Elton John, B.B.King), Michael released an album that had his fans purchasing it in droves. With his soulful voice and earthy, Southern manner, Michael Grimm charmed millions of viewers as a contestant on Season Five of NBC’s popular “America’s Got Talent.” Parlaying his substantial singer-songwriter appeal into a first-place finish, Michael took home the $1 million prize and headlined the first-ever national “America’s Got Talent Tour.” Following that, he toured with the legendary Stevie Nicks and Heart, playing to arenas of 20,000.
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