Grateful Mike on Sunday’s Between Two and Seven PM

Good afternoon, I'm Grateful Mike. Thought I'd put up a blog to introduce myself. I'm here at the 106.3 Cowboy Country studios each Sunday afternoon from two until seven hanging out and playing some great country music.

The rest of the week you'll hear me on our sister station, 101.9 KING FM at KINGFM.com, across the hall.

Although I'm mostly a rock and roll fan, my country roots run deep. Growing up, my parents listened to classic country like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson and I think it absorbed into my system. I was born in Midwest, Wyoming just north of Casper and we moved to Cheyenne before I started school so I attended Pioneer Park Elementary, McCormick Junior High and graduated from Cheyenne Central High School.

Why am I Grateful? I'm a fan of the Grateful Dead, a Deadhead, having seen them more than 30 times at various venues across the country. One of my favorite things about their concerts is each one was different, in three consecutive nights you'd never hear the same song. Along with their original songs, the Grateful Dead would mix in a lot of covers. They played a lot of Bob Dylan tunes, "Big River" by Johnny Cash, Marty Robbin's "El Paso," Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" and even Johnny Horton's "Big Iron on his hip" among others.

The Grateful Dead's lead guitarist Jerry Garcia also played a lot of bluegrass on the banjo. He was a member of Old and in the Way along with Peter Rowan, David Grisman, John Kahn and fiddler Vasser Clements.

Some of my favorite current country artists include Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Little Big Town and the Zac Brown Band.

Thanks for listening on Sunday afternoon's two until seven.