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Roy Michaels

Bass, Vocals, Guitar 1967-1973+

About


Roy was born on February 25, 1942 in Springfield, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school in 1961, he spent time in NYC playing longneck banjo with pickers like Charlie Chin, Peter Thorkelson, and Stephen Stills.

Back in Springfield Roy formed The Bay Singers with local friends, who soon relocated to Greenwich Village. In 1964, along with Richie Furay, Stephen Stills, they became the core of The Au Go Go Singers, who released their only album, They Call Us The Au Go Go Singers, for Roulette Records in 1965 before calling it quits. 

Later that year, The Bay Singers became The Company with addition of Stephen Stills and undertook a tour of coffeehouses in Eastern Canada. It was on that tour that Stills first met Neil Young at a gig in Ft. William; their fate was sealed. 

After his experience with The Company, Michaels relocated to Toronto, where he played with Amos Garrett in The Dirty Shames, eventually recruiting new friend Bob Smith to play drums. The duo wrote a pair of 45s for the Shames with one of them, Walk Away, being covered by The Pozo Seco Singers as Gotta Come Up With Something. Perhaps simultaneously, they moved on to Charlie Brown’s Generation where they composed another 45 single, Trash/Fast Retreatin’ Woman.   

By June of 1967, Bob and Roy were fed up with their musical situations and, being inspired by a trip west to the Monterey Pop Festival, resolved to form their own band. By July of that year a nascent group of musicians were rehearsing in the Bowery and starting to play local gigs. The group eventually became Cat Mother and the All- Night Newsboys, who recorded four albums for Polydor Records between 1968 and 1973. 

Following Cat Mother, Michaels switched from bass to electric guitar and played in local outfits like the Greenwood Sidemen and The Gonzo Bandits before starting his own band, Horse Badorties, with most of the musicians he’d been playing with for years already.  

In the mid-1990s Michaels relocated to the Pattaya area of Thailand, where he adopted the name Loy Bones, ran a bar and completed some recordings with Carabao, a popular Thai folk-rock band. 

With Bob Schmidt (a.k.a. Doppler Bob), Michaels formed Loy Bones The Band, which played in Austin, Texas and area in 2006 and 2007, until Michaels became too sick to play. The duo released one independent album, Stories From Joe’s

Michaels died of cancer in Houston, Texas on September 23, 2008, having returned to the United States for treatment.