Just like the start of all good relationships, they met in a bar. It was 1997, and Amy needed a guitar player to back her up at an art festival in Dubuque, IA. After agreeing to some rehearsals, Mike & Amy found their voices matching, their styles gelling, and their fates intertwining. It took about six months before the romantic defenses fell, but before that, it was instantly what it has always been: musical synergy. Their voices and sensibilities were in immediate alignment.

Within two years, the couple had put out two independent CD's of original acoustic folk music, had two daughters, and collected a fanbase stretching up and down the upper Mississippi River and its valley. In 2001 the couple moved to Iowa City, IA, and got serious. Simmering in the stew of bluegrass veterans Bob Black and Al Murphy and songwriters such as Greg Brown and Dave Moore, the couple defined their own brand of "frontier prairie blues."

Their 2004 release, "Where You Are" was heralded as "a gem" by Bluegrass Unlimited, and "an Americana tour de force" by No Depression. A cut from this album, "Adeline," won first place in the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Mike won again in 2005 with a newly penned gospel song, "That First Stone." 

Upon the backbone of Mike's songs, Ms. Amy provides the adornment:  “blessed with a spunky, charming personality and a powerful, soulful voice that can go from the effervescent, clearwater high-country sound of, say, Dolly Parton, to the sultry, sassy, swinging blues of a young Maria Muldaur, Amy Finders grabs a lot of attention.”  --Iowa City Press-Citizen October, 2007.

Playing with a band or without, Mike and Amy's shows are compared to being at a couple's retreat headed by Dr. Bill Monroe himself, where George & Tammy, Gram & Emmylou, and Sonny & Cher work out their relationships in song...and without the booze! There is usually a lot of laughing, solemn head-nodding, and raucous whooping for the hot pickin' and locked-in harmonizing.

The Finders are community and environmentally focused in their art, donating songs and shows to river and prairie restoration projects, as well as Habitat for Humanity, and countless shows for children and the elderly. They recently (Fall 2007) released a live album, "My Friends Told Me it Would Never Last," and have a new studio album of original material slated for release in Spring of '08.