Mike Blakely Singer-Songwriter & Novelist

As a singer/songwriter, Mike Blakely has released 13 albums, performed all over the U.S. and has made 16 tours to Europe. His songs have been recorded by Alan Jackson, Gary P. Nunn, Red Steagall, Flaco Jimenez and Raul Malo, Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros, john Arthur martinez, Randy Brown, Geronimo Trevino III and Johnny Rodriguez, Johnny Bush, Jon Chandler, Bill Barwick and others.

As an author, he has published 20 books with major New York City publishers. He won the Spur Award for Best Western Novel awarded by Western Writers of America. Mike is currently working on the sequel to A SINISTER SPLENDOR, which was released in February 2018.

Mike Blakely’s latest musical album, THE OUTSIDE CIRCLE (released June 2018), was nominated for Album of the Year through the Academy of Western Artists (2019). The title cut, “The Outside Circle,” (co-written with Damon Rogers) won a Spur Award for “Song of the Year” (2019) from Western Writers of America and was named “Pure Cowboy Song of the Year” by the International Western Music Association in 2020. Another of Blakely’s songs from the same album, “The Ballad of Josiah Wilbarger,” was a finalist for WWA’s “Song of the Year” Spur Award in 2019. Separately, the album was nominated for four awards through the International Western Music Association in 2019.

THE OUTSIDE CIRCLE, features ten songs about the wild west and cowboy life, past and present. It was released in June 2018 and was co-produced by Walt Wilkins and Ron Flynt (of Jumping Dog Studio in Austin, TX.) Find it (and past albums) on CD Baby for download or buy a physical copy directly from Mike here.

A native Texan, Mike served in the U.S. Air Force in Albuquerque, N.M., and later earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He released his first novel 1988 and his first CD in 1995. One of his co-written tunes landed on a Grammy Award-winning album by Flaco Jimenez in 1995. Another was played on the orbiting International Space Station in 2007.

Mike is now a three-time winner of Western Writers of America’s Spur Award – once for best western novel of the year, and twice for best western song of the year. Mike spent many years touring with his dancehall band, but now plays more shows as a solo artist, or in a duo or trio configuration at listening rooms, house concerts, festivals, and private parties. His career as a novelist leads to many non-traditional concerts at book stores, libraries, writers conferences, and book clubs.

Mike lives in Fredericksburg, TX, with his wife, Annie, and their many animals.