Mike Craver is an American composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and lyricist

Lyricist

A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...

. He was born in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

.

Biography

Mike Craver graduated from the University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina

Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...

. He was also, for 12 years, a member of the band, Red Clay Ramblers

Red Clay Ramblers

The Red Clay Ramblers are a North Carolina-based band founded in Durham, North Carolina, performing continuously since their formation in 1972. The original members include Tommy Thompson , Bill Hicks and Jim Watson...

. He has appeared in Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

's "A Lie of the Mind

A Lie of the Mind

A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike...

". He has toured, with the Ramblers, all over the US, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. He, later on, became a theatre composer and composed several off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 musicals such as Oil City Symphony

Oil City Symphony

Oil City Symphony is a musical with a book by Mike Craver, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, and Mary Murfitt and songs by various composers. It is a recreation of a recital by four middle-aged amateur musicians who have reunited in the auditorium of the Ohio high school they attended in the 1960s to pay...

(1986), Smoke on the Mountain (1990) and Radio Gals (1995). He has also composed different solo pieces for voice.

In 2002, Craver released his latest solo album, Shining Down. This album features songs he composed. One of the most interesting song on that CD, is "Watson, Come Here I want you". This humoristic song is based on the first words transmitted thru the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

 to Thomas A. Watson

Thomas A. Watson

Thomas Augustus Watson was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876. He is best known because his name was one of the first words spoken over the telephone. "Mr. Watson - Come here - I want to see you." were the first words Bell said using the new...

.

External links

• Official Website
• Mike Craver at the Internet Off Broadway Database
  Lortel Archives
  The Lortel Archives, or the Internet Off-Broadway Database is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway.The archives are named in honor of actress and theatrical producer Lucille Lortel.-See also:...
  
  
• Radio Gals