Michael Stanley (March 25, 1948 – March 5, 2021) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, radio and television personality. As a solo artist and with the Michael Stanley Band (MSB), and Michael Stanley and the Resonators (MS&R) his brand of heartland rock was popular in Cleveland, Ohio, and around the American Midwest in the 1970s and 1980s.
Michael Stanley Gee graduated from Rocky River High School in 1966. He attended Hiram College on a baseball scholarship and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1970. While in college, Michael Stanley was in the band Silk (originally called the Tree Stumps) which released an album, Smooth As Raw Silk, on ABC Records in 1969.
A few years after his graduation, while working as a regional manager for a record store chain, Stanley released his first solo album, Michael Stanley, on Tumbleweed Records in 1973. The album was produced by Bill Szymczyk and featured contributions from Joe Walsh, Todd Rundgren, Rick Derringer, and Joe Vitale. Its first song, "Rosewood Bitters," would become a lifetime fixture in Stanley's shows and was later recorded by Walsh in 1985. Stanley's second solo album, Friends and Legends, released later in 1973 on MCA Records, was again produced by Szymczyk and included support from members of Barnstorm and Stephen Stills' Manassas, among others: Walsh, Vitale, Kenny Passarelli, Paul Harris, Joe Lala, Al Perkins, David Sanborn, Dan Fogelberg, and Richie Furay, with J. Geils contributing to the production.
The group reached the peak of their popularity nationally in 1981 when the single "He Can't Love You" from the album Heartland (written and sung by keyboardist Kevin Raleigh) made the Top 40 (#33 Billboard, #27 Cash Box) and "In the Heartland" from the album North Coast went to #6 on Billboard's Top Tracks chart. Their video for "He Can't Love You" was the 47th video ever played on MTV.
Stanley was the co-host of PM Magazine on WJW Channel 8 from 1987 to 1990 and its follow-up Cleveland Tonight until 1991. He also appeared on The Drew Carey Show, playing himself. In 1993 he appeared on the Howard Stern Radio Show during one of his Birthday Shows, and played Rosewood Bitters with Joe Walsh live. Following a short stint on Cleveland radio station WMMS, from 1990 until a few weeks before his death in 2021, Stanley was the afternoon drive disc jockey for classic rock radio station WNCX, in Cleveland.
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| The Resonators |
In addition to his broadcasting career, after the breakup of the Michael Stanley Band, Stanley continued to write songs, record, and perform with bands (often with some former members of MSB) including Michael Stanley and Friends, the Ghost Poets, the Resonators, and Midlife Chryslers. In 2019, he estimated that the Resonators played about 25 shows per year, many of them in Northeast Ohio but also "from the East Coast to Atlanta to St. Louis." He released about sixteen more albums on Razor & Tie or his own label, Line Level.
Stanley had a first heart attack in 1991, at age 43. In 2017, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Later that year he suffered a second heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. He died in his sleep on March 5, 2021, after suffering for seven months with lung cancer. He is buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, OH.
(Edited from Wikipedia)