Michael Messer was born in Middlesex in 1956. Throughout his childhood and teens he played rock music with his two brothers and in various local bands. In his early twenties, Messer spent time in Nashville where he had the chance to meet and hear some of the ‘greats’ of country music performing in their home environment.

These included Roy Acuff, Hank Snow and Johnny Cash. Back home in England in the  late seventies, Messer was mastering the art of Mississippi delta blues slide  guitar, buying his first National steel guitar in 1979. He began playing blues gigs, both as a solo artist and in various local bands in the early eighties. In 1983 he met Ed Genis and they began playing music together, a partnership that has lasted for the past two decades. During that year, Messer started gigging regularly with British blues singer, Mike Cooper, and through him he got known on the folk and blues circuit. In 1984, Cooper asked him to play slide guitar on The Continuous Preaching Blues, an album he was recording with Ian Anderson.

Messer seems to have studied every nuance of slide playing; from the Delta and Hawaiian styles, jazz and world beat, Chicago Blues, and more, weaving each influence into his playing. The American magazine, ‘Spirit’ listed Michael as one of the greatest slide guitarists ever alongside Duane Allman and Ry Cooder.

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