Michael van Merwyk
By Johnny Petersen
Michael van Merwyk, born 1969 in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany, is a guitar player, singer and songwriter who has made a name in the lap steel genre. He masters the Dobro as well as the Weissenborn and other stringed instruments in the genre. In his own songs he tells little stories from his own life and doing that he doesn’t constrict himself to any fixed formula like “Delta Blues”, “Chicago Blues” and the like. van Merwyk still lives in and operates from the city where he was born. He’s just moved two blocks away.
He began playing the guitar at age 15. With his own words, “My older brother had an electric guitar so I sneaked into his room when he was not at home and tried to sound like Joe Strummer, Tony Iommi or Fast Eddie to impress the girls in my hometown. Well, it worked out well, the girls liked it so I kept playing.”
When asked about his inspirations he gives a very poetic answer, “My inspiration has always been the road of life and the stories you run across while walking on it.” It is these small stories van Merwyk is recapturing in his lyrics. He is a true storyteller and so differs from so many of his contemporaries. He is self-taught on the guitar but has taken influences from local musicians like Gerry Spooner and Roger Clarke-Johnson. Over the years he has toured with a lot of musicians who naturally has evolved his playing. He mentions names like Big Daddy Wilson, Louisiana Red and Lazy Lester, just to mention a few of the most famous. He also mentions a whole list of other names of inspiration, too many to be listed here. He is always curious of new music, no matter what style, among others The Black Pumas who currently are rising in fame.
van Merwyk performs and entertains at large festivals throughout Europe and also at smaller clubs, either as an acoustic solo artist, together in different acoustic duos with either blues harp player and singer Gerd Gorke, the piano giant Christian Dozzler or with Louisiana Blues poet Larry Garner. He also plays with his band ”The Jookbox Zoo” and for local gigs he still keeps his school-day-friend-band The Snooks running.
Michael van Merwyk developed his talent when he was a young hungry guitar player in a band, playing at a local venue called the Roadhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, either doing the warming up before the more famous artists or by backing them up. There he played with and learned from a number of famous blues artists such as Jimmy Rodgers, Joe Louis Walker, Jimmy Johnson, which adds to the list above.
Van Merwyk was fortunate to grow up in Rheda-Wiedenbrück as there was a Jazz- and Blues-club with international acts. So he was able to change the German Schlager on the mainstream radio to the music of Howlin Wolf, Sonny boy Williamson II, Raahasan Roland Kirk, etc. The city also had local town-parties with blues, boogie-woogie and jazz. But as so many other young men he began with playing more popular music like the Clash, Judas Priest, Motörhead and stuff like that. The change came when a friend told him to listen to a radio show called “Blues At Night”. The first song he heard was Howlin’ Wolf with “Smokestack Lightning” which hit him just like lightning. He was hooked.
In his early twenties his first child was on its way, so he decided to get a proper job in order to support his new family. He became a graphic designer and raised 5 children, only playing local gigs for the next twenty years. He started booking bands for the “Roadhouse” and among a whole bunch of famous names he became a close friend with Larry Garner from Baton Rouge. Friends in the last 20 years van Merwyk use to play in Garners band when touring in Europe. They also occasionally tours as a duo and recorded a CD together, “Up-close and Personal”. In 2009 van Merwyk began touring full time again because Big Daddy Wilson, after van Merwyk had been backing him at a festival, gave him the opportunity to go on the road as part of his acoustic trio. His kids, now grown, he took the opportunity. They toured all over Europe, went to Memphis, cowrote some songs and van Merwyk played on his “Thumb A Ride” album. van Merwyk has released 13 albums so far as well as appeared on 3 more, the latest one, “Blue River Rising” to be released in October this year.
Between gigs van Merwyk is still doing graphic designs like newspaper layouts, CD covers and posters for a number of International artist like Duke Robillard, Big Daddy Wilson, Mike Zito, Omar & The Howlers, Sue Foley, Jon Cleary, Terry Evans and for other artists on RUF Records as well. On top of it all he’s won a bunch of awards as singer and guitar player and even placed 2nd at the IBC in Memphis.
van Merwyk is longing to get back out on the road again after the Covid-19 lockdowns. Misses sitting close to the audience, solo as well as a duo and with his band.