About

Michael Troy was born and raised in the rough-and-tumble mill town of Fall River, Mass. In many ways, his life reflects the lives of the hard-working common folk who populate this part of New England. Having spent parts of his own life as a mill worker, fisherman, laborer and carpenter, and most of his adult years as a husband and father, Michael has traveled many paths, and the experience and wisdom he’s gleaned along the way echoes through his music.

A magical storyteller with a gift for melody, a deep rich voice, excellent finger-pickin’ skills and the ability to compose outstanding stanzas of substance, Michael’s plaintive ballads speak of the hills and mills of Fall River and of childhood dreams not quite forgotten in the adult quest to make an honest living. But Michael is honest when he says he’s playing for himself, for the sheer joy of creating music to call his own. “I have no plan,” he says. “I’m not trying to write in any style or sound like someone else. I write from gut feeling. I let the emotion drive the music, not the music drive the emotions.”

Michael has won many awards for his music, including most recently the Boston Folk Festival Songwriter’s Contest and the Founders Title Folk and Bluegrass Festival Songwriter’s Contest in 2004, the South Florida Folk Festival Songwriter’s Contest in 2005, and Michael was the winner of the 2006 Wildflower Folk Festival Songwriter’s Contest.

Quotes

“Michael Troy’s songs tell the stories of people we recognize instantly. Mined from wisdom and experience hard-won, his language and poetry reveal true meaning sifted from raw fact, and, like our best songwriters, he leads us to revelations about ourselves. This is a songwriter who bears repeated listening.” Geoff Bartley

“Michael inhabits his songs, not in an analytical sense, but rather as a form of universal connection and communion with the human spirit.” From Southcoast Tribune