Mike Whellans

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Born in the Scottish Borders, Mike Whellans began his musical life in the late 1950s playing his father's drum kit. By age 14 he was playing in local dance bands before turning professional in 1969.

In the early 1970s, he teamed up with Aly Bain, the brilliant and renowned traditional fiddler from the Shetland Islands, and for four years toured the UK, Europe, USA, and Canada, showing off his ability for playing amazingly clean and crisp flat-pick guitar behind Aly's fiddle. He was also a founder member of the Irish/Scottish line-up of The Boys of the Lough (with Aly Bain, Cathal McConnell & Temple Records founder Robin Morton), but he was always drawn towards the blues and he left the band after a year to forge his own musical path.

In the 1980's and 1990's, Mike lived in Denmark and toured all over Scandinavia, Germany and the Low Countries, as well as working back home in the UK touring solo and turning out with the legendary skiffle group 'The Vindscreen Vipers' (Tich Frier, Bill Nolan, Malky McCormack and the late Danny Kyle), and the Block Bros Blues Band from Edinburgh.

Now based in Scotland again, Mike is widely recognised as one of the masters of the rare & specialised one-man blues band form; following in the footsteps of Doctor Isaiah Ross, Jesse Fuller and Whellans’great British forerunner, Tony ‘Duster’ Bennett.