Today we’d like to introduce you to Michele Buzbee.
Hi Michele, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I’m originally from Houston. I started studying music from the renaissance era in choir at the age of twelve. I always wanted to be a professional musician but had no support from family or school. I spent most of my late teens and twenties in and out of low-wage jobs and cheap apartments, looking for a way to make a living and being told that music wasn’t a way to do that. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and those high-energy low-pay jobs never lasted very long before I would fall into exhaustion and lose my job and have to look for another one. I auditioned for and sang with a local early music ensemble in Houston for a few years, which had performed at the renaissance festival nearby before I joined. The members of the group didn’t want to perform a full festival schedule anymore, so I convinced a couple of friends to join me in forming a second singing group to share the schedule with our larger group. It didn’t pan out, but the smaller group I founded performed for two years at the festival before the last remaining other member left the country for a job. I obtained a job managing a sales booth a few years later and ended up travelling to other festivals to work for that company. Working only on weekends, I lasted a few years before the exhaustion took me off the road, and I settled down in a faraway place to spend most of my thirties in and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices. All that time, I still wanted to make music, but couldn’t find other musicians who were skilled enough at the same kind of music and also available to travel full-time. Eventually, in desperation, I decided to perform solo and started applying to various festivals. For the first year, it was a challenge to even get a response from anyone who hires stage acts. Finally, I got booked at a small festival in Oklahoma, and I went and did my best singing and storytelling to some small but appreciative audiences as Ermagerd the Bard, solo act. I booked a few more small festivals and kept trying for more shows, still not breaking even yet. The toll on my health from driving long distances and having to set up camp when I arrived or sleep on friends’ couches or spare beds was really getting to me, and I started to feel like I wasn’t going to make it. Then three years after my grandmother, who’d raised me had passed away, her estate finally cleared probate, and I inherited just enough money to buy a converted school bus to live in. I made an epic trip to pick up my new house and drive it from Oregon down through California and across to central Texas just in time to start at a new-to-me well-known festival. Three weeks into my big break, Covid forced us to shut down, and all the other gigs and jobs I’d lined up for the rest of the year also cancelled. I spent the shutdown living in my new bus on a friend’s land, buying groceries with donations from friends, and not knowing what to do. I sang for a Viking wedding in the winter that was featured in a magazine for unusual weddings and booked a few more gigs not knowing if it would be possible to perform them. The next spring the festivals started opening up with altered dates due to ongoing health regulations, and trying to make a yearly schedule was not happening; I had to take it a few months at a time and take some last-minute shows at lower rates than I would have charged the previous year. At one festival, we were restricted to 15-minute long shows to try to keep the crowds from sitting together too long, and it was there that I developed my “Choose Your Own Bardventure” format. I would explain to the audience what the word bard means and that I have a vast repertoire of old songs in many languages and storytelling about historical and legendary topics. Choose a mood, choose a topic, choose a language, make a request. The audience picks what I’m going to do, and if there are multiple requests, I make them vote on which comes next. It’s a very interactive show that way, and it lets me off the hook for deciding what to perform when I have so many choices and so little time. Since 2021 I’ve travelled around the country doing my show at various festivals and singing at the occasional bar or wedding while living in my bus. The bus allows me to stop and rest in my own home in between festivals and while on long drives, it saves me staying in hotels, and it lets me avoid things that would trigger my allergies if I stayed in friends’ houses. At the festivals, I work two days a week and can usually keep that up for a few months at a time before I need a break to avoid a fatigue crash. So now at long last, in my forties, I’m a professional performing musician. I have been writing my own songs for a few years, and I sprinkle my original works into my collection of tunes and tales from long ago times, according to the whims of each show’s audience. This spring, I toured twelve cities in April and May under my own name, performing original songs as a musical guest of the live Old Gods of Appalachia podcast show, and my dreams are finally starting to come to pass. I returned in between those tour dates to perform my solo show as Ermagerd the Bard for guests of the Scarborough Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie, which was open through Memorial Day. I’m on my way to other states next, and hopefully, I’ll return to my home state of Texas at the end of the year to do it all again.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh no, it has not been smooth or easy. I have struggled with poverty, not having health care access and years of trying to find other musicians to form a band or group with. I have had to lean on family and friends a lot for survival. Once I gave up trying to be in a group and decided to make my own way as a solo act, I’ve had to struggle with technology that I don’t understand since I could not afford to own my own computer or equipment most of my life, so I’d never learned to make and edit recordings. I still do not have the skills to make a website or edit videos or audio, though I’ve been trying to learn. I’m good at writing songs and performing music, but the industry requires a certain amount of IT that I can’t do, so I’ve been turned away from some gigs and festivals because I don’t have videos and a robust internet presence.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I perform a history-themed solo stage act under the stage name Ermagerd the Bard. I have collected hundreds of songs in over a dozen languages, most from the renaissance and medieval eras, and I write original songs about historic events and people. I specialize in interpreting the sort of music that average people might think of as dusty and boring and making the lyrics, the languages, and the old jokes and puns accessible to modern audiences so they laugh along just like a person of the time might have done. My show is custom crafted each time and never the same twice, so I’m known for being a very interactive and versatile performer, with some shows being more like an intimate conversation between friends and some being a big raucous singalong. I’m so happy when people come back to see my show multiple times, and I’m really proud whenever I get requests for my original songs and when people know the words to songs I wrote and sing along with me. There are a lot of acts at renaissance festivals who perform historical music, but I also translate the words and explain the old naughty references. There are a lot of storytellers. There are a lot of excellent musicians playing multiple instruments and beautiful songs and a lot of shows where the audience can sing along and clap along and dance along. I am one of the few acts that does all of that, and all of it without a script or a setlist, purely going by whatever the audience wants next. I’m really proud of being able to do any of those things on the fly and create a different show each time.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
My work is in a strange specialized niche of the entertainment industry, with its own unique challenges, so I’m not sure how much of what I know would be applicable in general. That being said, to me it makes sense to find people who do the very specific thing you want to do and approach them with appreciation for their work. Ask for consent to have a conversation about the details of how to get into the work you’re looking for. And if you’re looking for friendly advice, ask among your friends first and see if they can introduce you to someone who knows the things you want to know. I set about just telling everyone I know, including posting on social media, that I was looking to get into festivals as a stage act and looking to be connected with folks who could help me find the right people to talk to. From the beginning of my solo career, I’ve made new contacts among my performing peers at every show, and it’s been my friends and fans who’ve helped me get my foot in the door and put my name forward. Those personal connections have made all the difference for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://donna8966.wixsite.com/ermagerdthebard?fbclid=IwAR3yQQu7aZ9TFXTme3Wcdl_6kzkpyXtFXtO_AsJsmd-_0vipxBvwNT5Cxr8
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ermagerdthebard/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100027305606557
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/ermagerdbard
Image Credits
Kathleen Duncan Johnson
Michele Buzbee
