Guitarist, Mitch Watkins was born and raised in, McAllen, Texas. A musical kid by nature, he took piano lessons at an early age and sang in his school choir. (Believe it or not, his voice was later to grant him a scholarship to T.C.U.). One day, he dropped in on his school basketball game. He wasn’t there to watch the game, he was there to catch the surf band playing Ventures tunes at the half time show. The dye was cast.
He got his first guitar at the age of 12, a Stella steel stringed acoustic with rusty strings so high off the fretboard that his fingers would bleed when he’d practice, but that didn’t stop him. By the time he graduated to his first electric guitar, he was already a gigging musician, never knowing that his passion would take him to The Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall and so many other grand performance spaces.
Like every young aspiring guitarist in the ‘60s, Mitch was inspired after hearing the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as well as the guitar “gods” of the time, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.
Mitch’s musical canvas got a whole lot bigger when jazz-fusion crashed on the scene with artists like John McLaughin, Return To Forever, Miles Davis and especially, Weather Report. His foray into fusion naturally made him curious about more “old school” jazz, causing Mitch to steep himself in the work of guitar greats such as, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Jim Hall and Lenny Breau, a practice that continues to the present day.
Mitch is self-taught on guitar. While he was studying composition at the University of Texas, there was no guitar program of any type. His composition teacher, Glen Daum, would show him some chord changes on the piano on Monday and Mitch would come back on Tuesday, having mastered them on guitar; a feat his Professor said ,“…was impossible!”. In one of life’s full-circle moments, Mitch was very proud, years later, to be named the first ever jazz guitar instructor at U.T. Austin.
As a student at U.T. he met other like-minded musicians, who then formed one of Austin’s premiere jazz bands, Passenger. It was that very band that was hired by Leonard Cohen to play his 1979 tour (Mitch was to have 3 more tours with Mr. Cohen, including his final tour).
As a jazz guitarist, Mitch has worked with Bennie Wallace, Barbara Dennerlein, Dennis Chambers, Bob Berg, Jack Walrath and classical/jazz pianist, Friedrich Gulda. Other musical ventures include working with Lyle Lovett, K.T. Oslin, Jerry Jeff Walker, Abra Moore, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo, and more.
MItch’s Treasured Memories:
“I remember being mesmerized on stage (at age 27) at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with Leonard Cohen, looking out at a sea of lighter flames in the audience. However, the memories that mean the most to me are the transcendent moments on the bandstand, in which the wordless nods across the stage say, "tonight, the magic happened.”
Other Facts:
Mitch has 6 CDS to his name featuring mostly original music and is also known as a fine record producer: Abra Moore, Tina Lear, Bob Meyer, Jerry Jeff Walker.
He just released a CD with jazz vocalist Dianne Donovan. They are The AltoRays. The CD is Back To The Light, a fusion jazz/experimental/groove album or “Cosmic Chill Jazz."