When he picked up the guitar at 13, Michael learned the old cowboy songs his Dad sang, and the southern country blues from his Mississippi Mother, incorporating them and other styles into the musical gumbo he calls Prairie Blues.

Mike has rambled the country, playing his music, for over three decades.He’s picked with the famous and the unknown, in the spotlight and in the moonlight, worked as a cowboy, broncobuster, dude-wrangler, hunting guide, carpenter, and surveyor, written a saddlebag full of great songs, and released several critically acclaimed albums of country blues and cowboy music. His performances are a compelling mix of stories and humor from a life well spent, combined with outstanding musicianship and song-writing, and a warm relaxed singing style.

Dubbed a "modern mythological surrealist," Reece fairly bristles at the label, yet acknowledges that "you have to have a classification and I seem to have been lumped in with the surrealists."

Reece's parodies inject humor into subjects traditionally considered oh-so-serious and that has made him a hero of environmentalists and others who appreciate the complexities of the human role in our natural world.

"I would never categorize myself as an environmental artist, but when the paint dries I often find that the work is relevant to environmental issues....I sort of dabble in modern mythology by juxtaposing the old myths of the West with the new things that are going on. It's part of an ancient tradition--that of adding levity to gravity."