Michael Stanley 1948 - 2021: An Appreciation

courtesy Belkin Mgt –

When the Michael Stanley Band took the stage – from their early record-setting mid-70s stands at the original Agora Ballroom or 10-night final run at the rotating stage Front Row Theater, not to mention the record-setting four-night SRO appearances at Blossom Music Center or the two nights at Richfield Coliseum that sold out faster than led Zeppelin – there was an urgency forged by the city of Cleveland’s zeitgeist. No matter how tough things got, MSB created music that swept sometimes tens of thousands of locals up in its expansive view of life in “Our Town.”

Michael Stanley, the afternoon voice of local AOR station WNCX, who also had regional success as a solo artist, with his band the Resonators and the all-cover Midlife Chryslers, died Friday after a seven-month bout with lung cancer. He was 72.

Beyond the surging blue collar anthems that raged against the system, the heart wide-open ballads where love was often falling apart and the life embracing heartland rock, he embodied the dreams of every young person trapped in the flyover. But where many lament their fate, Stanley championed Northern Ohio life, lacing his songs with local references and reasons to believe in how great it was to be alive.

Janet Macoska –

With Stagepass, known for its cover’s lacquered cherry lips and plunging decolletage, he considered the brutal truths of the record business with an incisiveness that could remove kidneys. “Midwest Midnight” built to a propulsive climax – hissing about being “taken to task by some critic who asked, ‘Do you write the words, or lyrics first?” – like some sort of seething exorcism, while the slow burning “Lets Get The Show On The Road,” sometimes covered by Widespread Panic, boiled the tedium and frustration of being trapped in a fate you didn’t sign with caustic annihilation.

When news of his illness broke on the radio station’s social media, Cleveland “kids” across the nation fired up their records and leaned hard into their glory days. A spasm of grief punctuated by classics that fell through the cracks most places.

Ironically, Stanley was still rocking as hard as ever. One year ago, they staged Stagepass at the Akron Civic; the tickets were gone in under an hour. His yearly back-to-back weekend engagements at Akron’s Tangiers were impossible to get tickets for. Resonators shows at Nautica Stage and the Tower City Amphitheater would attract a few thousand each summer, as the chants of “Strike It Up! Strike It Up” from the set closing “Strike Up The Band” would float down the Cuyahoga River with a sense of never being so free.

Michael Stanley had been the doppelganger for everyone’s crazy dreams. He understood how it felt to be thwarted in your attempts, and that bristle was electric; 40 years later, you could watch the years fall off people in their ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and older, true believers returned to their youngest, wildest selves as they surrendered to a music that defined who they were when everything was possible.

Janet Macoska –

Starting with 2001’s The Ground, his solo albums also dug into the human condition of the flyover with the same gravitas as Springsteen, Petty and Seger. Recognizing the contour between dignity and disappointment, he created compelling music that spoke to those same fans who’d cheered “My Town,” “Take Your Time,” “One Good Reason,” “In The Heartland” and the losing the girl and knowing it “Lover” with its iconic plea “God bless the man who put the white lines on the highway.”

Reckoning the stakes of a world strained at the seams, he embodied the fury of not giving in with the hellbent “Factory Man,” reality-tracing “Drinking In The Driveway,” lacerating challenge “In For A Dollar” and carpe diem momentum “It’s All About Tonight.” But mostly the dignity piece was what was strong. The terse “Just Another Night In America” swerved across a stark track, slicing into how people cope with dreams that shrink out from underneath and still manage to rail against the status quo.

“Just Another Night in America,” he reveled in that dusky midrange, “Make it through another day, trying not to fade away…” As Tom Dobeck’s drums thumped clean, hard, “America” doesn’t white wash how the American dream leaves people behind, but honors the way they refuse to cave in.

Sarah Sharp –

He also remained the man who exuded a certain kind of straight-up, raw-boned lust. If Stagepass ignited the boys, Stanley himself served as a fantasy scratching pole for women of all ages. Whether it was the drop’n’merge “Curves of Brathenahl,” the looking for it “Somebody Might” and the stripper blues “Backin’ Up Sally G,” or the deeply romantic “From A Train,” the sigh-inducing “Faith Accompli” and the seductive intimacy of “My Side of the Moment,” he moved through the gears of eroticism, desire and love with a deep-voiced strength that retained his status as “that guy.”

Beyond the obvious, though, was his ability to write songs later in his career that not only said “I see you,” but “I feel you.” There was a strong will for reflection, to connect and reveal for his listeners the deeper states of their humanity. The pensive “Home Tonight” apprises life lived and believing you gave the best there was to offer, while the lean “I Am You” turns the cards of the world around him over, weighing the mistakes and offering the need to transcend for the larger good.

For many people, seeing the notices on People.com, Newsday, Associated Press and Variety, where his obituary was the third most trafficked story for an entire day, it is a question of “Who is this guy?” For casual music lovers, he’s a footnote, marking the days when regional rock not only mattered, it spun off Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, J. Geils and Marshall Tucker.

But for anyone raised on rock radio, or raised in Northern Ohio, Michael Stanley is their youth, their heart, their innocence – and that unselfconscious passion burns white hot and runs through you like lightning any time you reach back and remember.