Mike Stout is an American labor supporter, social activist and rock guitar player and protest singer, who lives in Pittsburgh, United States. He is also known as the "World's Grievance Man."

Music and activism

Stout was born in Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, and began his musical career in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1968 playing his protest songs at Cafe Wha?

Cafe Wha?

Cafe Wha? is a club in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City that has been home to various musicians and comedians. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan...

, The Bitter End

The Bitter End

The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...

, and The Gaslight Cafe

The Gaslight Cafe

The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...

 coffee house where Bob Dylan also played.

In 1977 Stout became a steelworker at Homestead Works, where he was elected the union's head grievance man

Grievance

A grievance is a wrong or hardship suffered, which is the grounds of a complaint.-History and politics:A grievance may arise from injustice or tyranny, and be cause for rebellion or revolution....

. He used his music to rally his co-workers at union meetings, where "they fought to win more than $10 million in lost wages, severance pay, pensions

Pension

In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...

, and unemployment benefits

Unemployment benefit

Unemployment benefits are payments made by the state or other authorized bodies to unemployed people. Benefits may be based on a compulsory para-governmental insurance system...

 for 3,000 displaced works... with thousands of families losing unemployment benefits and facing foreclosure

Foreclosure

Foreclosure is the legal process by which a mortgage lender , or other lien holder, obtains a termination of a mortgage borrower 's equitable right of redemption, either by court order or by operation of law...

." Stout organized a benefit concert

Benefit concert

A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...

 that drew attention from CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, the AP

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

, UPI and the international press to raise funds, which later lead to the formation of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food bank

Food bank

A food bank or foodbank is a non-profit, charitable organization that distributes mostly donated food to a wide variety of agencies that in turn feed the hungry. The largest sources of food are for-profit growers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers who in the normal course of business have...

.

After the mill closings, Stout started writing songs again. He has recorded nine CDs in the last ten years and performed across the United States and Europe with "the message of human solidarity and peace." A Duquesne University

Duquesne University

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of...

 professor took one of his CDs to the People to People book store in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and his songs. People to People, impressed with his message, began stocking his CDs and sponsored his four concert tours in Germany and Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. Stout claims to have sold "thousands of CDs" in 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...

.

Influence

Mike Stout describes himself as "a socially-conscious singer song-writer and community leader" who "leads crusades against local and global economic injustice, rallying people with his music, and he organizes them to take action." He tells "his stories from the heart about people who are affected by unemployment, or social injustice

Social injustice

Social injustice is a concept relating to the claimed unfairness or injustice of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens and other incidental inequalities...

 or war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

." He states his tunes and lyrics are influenced by artists like Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...

, Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

, and Neil Young

Neil Young

Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...

, whom he calls "musical heroes".

John Hayes of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette wrote:

"In the Woody Guthrie tradition, his songs reflect contemporary issues without resorting to journalism. They're more like partisan op-ed columns that grab political opponents by the throat and don't let go."

Organizations and causes Stout Supports

Stout supports various organizations and causes including, Depleted Uranium Watch, Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, Thomas Merton Center

Thomas Merton Center (Pittsburgh)

Thomas Merton Center, a Pittsburgh peace and social justice center, is an organization concerned with issues such as social justice, poverty, workers' rights, racial discrimination, ecology and peace. It serves as an organizing center for most of the city's left-leaning and liberal social movement...

. He is a founding board member of the Just Harvest and Steel Valley Authority organizations which "aid displaced workers and the poor."

Family

Stout's brother Gary was killed on the job when he fell 25 feet to his death, at a plant called Meadville Redi-Mix. Mike Stout claimed they sent him "to clean and shovel gravel in his final hour, all alone at the top of a concrete tower. On a dangerous loft without being tied off, with no safety equipment or warning signs up." Yet the company claimed "they didn’t send him up there. They weren’t to blame." In March 2009, Stout wrote a song about the case, titled "My Brother Did Not Die in Vain."

External links

• MySpace Page
• http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08325/929275-388.stm
• http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07354/842958-42.stm
• http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04079/287884-42.stm
• http://www.pointofpittsburgh.com/CDshop.html
• http://www.mikestoutmusic.com/reviews.html