This Week’s Tent Show Radio: Michael Perry and The Long Beds

Check out Mike (Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Threads) hosting Tent Show Radio. This week’s episode features our own Michael Perry and his band, The Long Beds.

During intermission Michael Perry shares a humorous or heartfelt (or both) story drawn from his beloved books and offbeat life experiences.

Michael Perry ‘s original songs are a direct reflection of his life experiences. Raised in rural Wisconsin by farmers, preachers, and tough country women, his songs reflect “certain wisdoms” available only from whistlers, frauds, and sinners. Ranging from straight-up twang to churchly harmonies and populated by characters drawn straight from rural and small-town America, they launch from places like the overpass outside Perry’s beloved hometown of New Auburn, Wisconsin (population currently 562), a gospel service in a granary, and the kitchen floor of a woman about to drop a world of hurt on her drunken husband.

Raised in a church so austere that hymns were sung with no choir, no accompaniment, and no church (the congregation met in a farmhouse and sat on straight-backed wooden chairs,) Perry and his brother learned to sit side-by-side and work out harmonies on the fly. Those Sunday mornings instilled in Perry a love of singing “clear and pure” that can be heard throughout all of his recordings.

Perry began writing music in the early 1990s as a way to break up all-night typing sessions when he was struggling to survive on prose. Eventually, a musician friend invited him to play a coffee shop gig. Since then, Michael has released 4 albums, several singles, and toured – backed by a collection of renowned musicians who have performed on numerous stages throughout the world (including The Tonight Show, Austin City Limits, and Eaux Claires festival) and worked with a host of artists, including Bon Iver, S. Carey, The Staves, Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, Field Report, The Tallest Man on Earth, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and many more.

Every Long Beds show is built on roughneck ballads and freight train rockers interspersed with hilarious off-the-cuff tales from Mike’s diverse experience as a Wisconsin farm kid turned cowboy turned nurse turned best-selling author.

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Stream it here along with other Tent Show Radio episodes.

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