Mike Hutchison has held nearly every job music has to offer: youth music minister, professional musician, retail music store manager and owner, teacher, bandleader. His band, Blind Dog Mike & the Howlers, is a Baldwin County staple, and for decades his shop, Baldwin County Instrument Exchange, was where local musicians went to buy, repair, and talk shop. He has done most of it, remarkably, without his sight.
Hutchison was born into a musical family and credits the church as the catalyst for his early love of music. Guitar came first, harmonica soon after, and mandolin joined during college. His style grew out of the singer-songwriters of the era, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Croce, CSN&Y, and the Eagles, and today he can play almost anything with strings or reeds.
The Store Years
In 1979, Hutchison was hired to manage Music Alley, an instrument shop in Birmingham, an interesting time to be in the business as synthesizers advanced and MIDI programming arrived. In 1988 he moved to Baldwin County, built his home on Bailey’s Creek, and signed on as manager of M&S Music.
His songwriting and steady local performances drew an offer of a publishing deal from a Nashville firm. He turned it down, because the deal would have meant leaving Baldwin County, and that was never on the table.
In 1993, Hutchison was declared legally blind and left store management. Within a short time he had built an addition onto his home and opened Baldwin County Instrument Exchange, selling and repairing instruments and offering lessons. He ran it for more than two decades before retiring and closing the shop in 2016, converting the space into room for family and guests.
Blind Dog Mike & the Howlers
Digital recording technology gave Hutchison a new chapter. With a digital recorder, he self-produced the 2005 album “Blind Dog Mike & the Howlers,” which he still sells for $5 at shows. Songs like “Southern Pines” capture his laid-back style, and the album’s title has followed him ever since as his stage name.
His songwriting approach is deceptively simple: observe, interpret, entertain. “I was sitting on the dock on Bailey’s Creek one night with a riff in my head,” he says of one song’s origin. “I had been struggling with the lyrics, but when I realized that the night was perfect and I was at peace, the words just flowed.”
The band performs in a couple of configurations: as a trio or larger, Blind Dog Mike & the Howlers; as a duo, Blind Dog Mike + Guest. He prefers dinner venues, Felix’s, Hope Farm, Bill-E’s, and private parties, for practical and personal reasons: families fill the rooms, he’s home early, and he can sample the kitchen’s work after the show. He is, he notes, a family man and a granddad now.
What’s Next
A new recording project is underway with a twist: rather than guitar leads, the album features flute, tenor saxophone, and clarinet, chosen, he says, “for feel.” One track, “‘Til the Sun Goes Down,” pairs a bossa-nova beat with beach music. He is working to get his catalog onto streaming services like Spotify and embraces new technology both for recording and live performance.
Life on Bailey’s Creek
A visit to Hutchison’s home reveals the range of his energies. One room holds an elaborate, entirely handmade model train layout of remarkable detail. He volunteers with several local causes, keeps land in the mountains, and, in one of Baldwin County’s most beloved rituals, fires the cannon at the Grand Hotel every afternoon at 4 p.m. as part of the resort’s Grandeur, Grit, and Glory presentation for guests.
Asked to sum up his life, he reaches for two images: “There’s nothing like throwing a cast net over a school of mullet and feeling the rope tap, tap, tap when you’re pulling it in, and there’s nothing like writing and performing a new song and seeing the listener’s reaction.”
Few musicians anywhere can claim both. On the Gulf Coast, Blind Dog Mike can.