Mike Connell (musician)

Michael "Mike" Collier Connell is the lead band member of The Connells, an American band from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Mike and his identical twin, John, were born on March 15, 1959. In 1984, Mike Connell formed the band that bears the surname of himself and his younger brother David, born on May 27, 1961.

The Connell brothers moved around in their early years, as their father was in medical school and getting a degree in cancer research at Duke University. Mike was born in Georgia, and David was born in the Raleigh area, while their dad was working under a family practice physician. Later, the family ended up back in Macon, Georgia, where Mike Connell and his twin brother, John, graduated high school from First Presbyterian Day School in 1977. David, two years younger, graduated later from a different school in North Carolina.

In 1978, while attending Mercer University in Macon, GA, Mike Connell met fellow students Clark Eason and Wade Stooksberry (also a 1977 First Presbyterian Day School graduate). According to Stooksberry in an interview on March 6, 2008, in 1979 Eason, Connell, Stooksberry and Sammy Deet (drums) started playing publicly in a band called "Clark Eason and the Greaseguns" at nightclubs and parties in Macon. Connell and Eason were on guitar, and Eason and Stooksberry shared vocals. They wore suits and skinny ties tucked into their dress shirts, as was the style at the time. They performed mostly 1950s music and Beatles songs. After a year, Mike Connell transferred to a college in North Carolina. Tripp Crumbley took over Connell's guitar role in the band. Connell then occasionally made guest appearances with "Clark Eason and the Greaseguns" while visiting his father in Macon, until that band broke up in 1980. The Connells and Stooksberry continue to keep in touch.

Mike Connell graduated from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in 1981, and received his Juris Doctor (Law) degree also from UNC Chapel Hill in 1985. He was admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1986. Mike now practices law (as does his twin brother, John) at a firm in North Carolina, specializing in workers' compensation law.

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