North Laurel’s Grammy-Nominated Multitalented Musician
Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.
The well-known Spanish saying literally means “tell me with whom you walk, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
There is no better way to begin to describe the talent and career of North Laurel resident Raul Midón. Midón is a gifted musician whose phenomenal talent has led to performances on stage, in recording studios, or on popular television talk shows, both solo and with jazz, R&B, or pop music legends.
His back-to-back Grammy-nominated albums Bad Ass and Blind in 2017 and If You Really Want in 2018, were recorded in his home studio, right here in North Laurel. The highly regarded singer, songwriter, music producer, and multi-instrumentalist’s career has connected him to not only top music industry legends, but to a growing multi-generational audience, including Jason Mraz fans.
He is currently on tour promoting his 13th album Lost & Found, which dropped in April. Midón performed in Switzerland and has shows lined up for the next six to twelve months. In addition to working on his current album, Midón was a guest on The Jennifer Hudson Show in December and performed at the Kennedy Center for the tribute to Joni Mitchell with the National Symphony Orchestra called “Love: A Joni Mitchell Songbook.”
Growing Up
Born in New Mexico in 1966 to his Argentine father, who was a dancer and performer, and Black mother, an artist from New York City, his early childhood was unique. A twin, he was born premature but was blinded as a newborn due to an incubator issue, for which the musician harbors no ill will.
He observed that he was gifted with musical talent and noted that “being blind was a way for me to excel at something that the blindness wasn’t as much of a hindrance [to].” He joked, “You know, I’m not going to beat anybody at basketball.” He continued, “and so [music] was something that I could do that made me feel valuable.”
His mother died when he was four years old. Shortly after, his father gave him a guitar and started him in lessons with classical and flamenco guitar teachers. He attended boarding schools for the blind and then for students who wanted to attend college. He eventually ended up at the University of Miami, graduating from the prestigious Jazz Studio program in 1991.
A Latin Music Start in Miami
Following graduation, Midón was working with people that he had gone to school with, in what he described as, “a pretty active scene in Miami at the time.” He was performing background vocals and playing guitar for Latin artists as part “of a group that did hundreds and hundreds of albums. It was a great job, compared to playing in a bar.”
His first big break was an invitation to join Shakira’s touring band. It came about because of a friend who knew Midón and his wife, Kathleen, and who worked with Shakira, who was signed with Emilio Estefan. The friend recommended Midón when there was an opening in the band.
Midón noted that they toured all over Latin America, had appearances on Saturday Night Live, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and The Jay Leno Show, among others.
He recalled that the challenges of travel as a blind musician without an assistant led to quite a bit of stress. It also led to his first brush with fame. According to Midón, Shakira was not yet as famous in the United States as she was in Latin America, and touring with her “was glamorous in the sense that you’re on these big buses and you’re playing the stadiums and you’re playing to 30,000 screaming fans.”
During the year or so that he spent traveling with Shakira’s band, he said “I was playing guitar, often times ending shows in a duet with her, I was singing background, and I was doing percussion in the band.” Midón also continued to work on his own material.
“I wanted to start doing my own thing on a higher level. We decided that we wanted to move to New York—to leave Miami.” Midón was very well-regarded in Latin music circles but moving to New York allowed him to focus on his original music almost exclusively. The move was possible thanks to Midón’s first publishing deal—a “development deal” that required him to participate in showcases for record companies. He left Shakira’s tour due to scheduling conflicts.
Music and Opportunity in New York City
Midón hired a manager upon arrival in New York. The first gig she got for him was at a dive bar four nights a week. He worked from midnight to 4:00 am during the breaks of another band and word began to spread about him. It was suggested he get a gig at Joe’s Pub, named after Joseph Papp, who produced Hair and A Chorus Line, among other theater productions. It was the place to play for new talent.
“I was working at Joe’s Pub, which is the Public Theater in New York. One of the producers of a show called The Movie Music of Spike Lee said, ‘how would you like to play at Carnegie Hall?’” Midón replied, “Yeah, sometime, I would like to.” The producer said, “How about next month?” Midón observed, “This is the kind of stuff that happens when you live in New York.”
“He got me [on] as a guest on this show called The Movie Music of Spike Lee,” where Midón was, as he put it, “the no name of the show at that point.”
According to Midón, it was the first version of the movie musical Spike Lee had done. There was an orchestra playing music over film clips of Spike Lee’s movies and special guests were singing the tunes from the movie, such as Cassandra Wilson, Bruce Hornsby, and Angie Stone.
Midón recalled, “everybody was rustling their program, silent. And it got a little tedious. Then I come out and start doing the [vocal] trumpet acapella.” The audience was mesmerized and wondering who is this guy? Midón’s vocal trumpet was embraced, and in future shows, the audience was treated to the two trading trumpet solos. After the show, Lee asked Midón for his card and The New York Times wrote a review saying “Raul Midón stole the show.” Midón credits that Carnegie Hall performance and the review as part of the big break he got in New York. But it was only the beginning.
Unquestionably, the biggest break in Midón’s growing career was being signed by legendary, and highly acclaimed music producer Arif Mardin. As Midón told it, “Arif had outgrown Atlantic Records and retired to join Blue Note [Records].” At Blue Note he took on a new artist named Norah Jones.
Both Jones and Mardin won multiple Grammy Awards with his production of her first album. Following that success with Jones, Mardin discovered and signed Midón to Blue Note, where he produced his albums State of Mind in 2005 and, with his son, Joe, A World within a World in 2007.
Mardin’s family-style management approach meant that Midón was included in a number of gigs with top talent. For example, he played on Queen Latifa’s Dana Owens album and was invited to go on several promotional events, like The Today Show.
In the fast moving and interconnected music-verse, Midón was invited to work with Herbie Hancock. Midón’s agent at the time, who secured the Hancock gig, was also the agent for Jason Mraz. Midón had also worked with Mraz, which contributed to how he became known to a younger audience.
Hancock was collaborating with a number of artists to create an album he called Possibilities. It also became a documentary. For this project, Midón was asked to sing and play guitar for Hancock’s arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s hit song “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” He participated from a New York studio, while Hancock and musician Greg Phillinganes were in a studio in Los Angeles. A look into Midón’s recording session can be seen in Hancock’s documentary and the full track heard on the album Possibilities.
Lovely Friendship
The industry veteran recalled a professional encounter that led to a friendship and an unexpected collaboration. “I got to know Bill Withers. I met him at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood when I played there. I ended up having this friendship with him, we would call and talk on the phone. Whenever I was in LA, I would go to his house. I mean, it was really [special]. At one point, he called me up and said, I want to write with you, which he didn’t write with anybody.”
Withers, who had retired, told Midón that he wanted to write with him in Spanish. “Mi Amigo Cubano” was the result of that collaboration.
From New York City to Laurel, Maryland
In a business that is based largely on big breaks and successive successes, Midón has flourished. However, according to Midón, “[t]he thing about the music business is that we have done so much, and yet you never feel like you’re completely settled. It’s kind of this never-ending treadmill, really.”
Midón and his wife had been in New York for seven years. They were living in what they described as a beautiful midtown Manhattan apartment near the United Nations when the desire to be homeowners struck. Home ownership seemed to be a sign of success in the music business. It was that lure of home ownership coupled with Laurel’s favorable location—with three airports and a train to allow Midón to get to New York—that brought them to their home in North Laurel.
Despite their initial uncertainty about the move, the suburban lifestyle seems to appeal to Midón. He is thrilled to have his own recording studio. He writes every day and can play and record his music any time he pleases. “I was always fascinated with recording. One of the great benefits of having moved here is that I learned how to record, how to engineer, how to make my own records, and I have the space to do it.”
Being a homeowner also affords Midón the opportunity to enjoy his hobby as an amateur ham radio operator. He said that he has “a big old tower in my yard.” In an interview for the National Association for Amateur Radio’s QST Magazine, Midón, call sign AE3RM, was said to combine his passions for music and ham radio by including Morse code in some of his songs, including “Sitting in the Middle” and “Peace on Earth.”
Reflections
Reflecting on the dizzying number of gigs and venues, Midón cites Carnegie Hall as a favorite and personally impactful venue for his career “because it was early [in my career] and I went there from working in these tiny bars.”
“I loved working at the Kennedy Center recently with a tribute to Joni Mitchell with the National Symphony. That was an amazing [project, working with] Renée Fleming, Lalah Hathaway, and Vince Mendoza. The National Symphony is amazing. I’ve worked with a lot of musicians. That’s an amazing orchestra that people should [hear].”
He noted that the Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis always stands out with him because, “it’s just a really, really good sounding room.”
He also loved playing at Merriweather Post Pavilion. He played there for several Capital Jazz Fests and the George Benson and Al Jarreau concert, while he was still living in New York City.
As for whether he prefers playing solo or with a band, Midón loves to play solo because, he noted, “it allows me to do what I do differently from anybody else in the world as far as, the way I play guitar and playing bongos and guitar at the same time.” But he also observed that “I love collaborating, I love playing in a band with good musicians, too.”
Midón will be playing with a band at his upcoming gig at Creative Alliance in Baltimore on August 17 at 8:00 pm. For ticket information and to catch Midón live on his Lost and Found Tour, visit raulmidon.com/live.
Angie Latham Kozlowski is a staff writer and member of the Board of Directors for the Laurel History Boys. In addition to her investigative reporting, her articles frequently spotlight Howard County.
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