Michael Stanley Wife, Age, Cancer, WNCX, Net Worth, Cancer, First Wife, Spouse, Married, Wiki, Height

Michael Stanley Biography – Michael Stanley Wiki

Michael Stanley Gee is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and radio personality. He has been a guitarist and singer for bands such as Silk, Michael Stanley Band, The Ghost Poets, and Michael Stanley and the Resonators. He has been the afternoon drive disc jockey for classic rock radio station WNCX in Cleveland since 1990.

He wrote songs and played dances with a band during his days at Rocky River High School. Once he landed a record deal with the Tree Stumps, who changed their name to Silk and released a 1969 album, Stanley branched out on his own, influenced by Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. During that time, executives changed Stanley’s last name from “Gee” to his middle name, “Stanley,” to avoid confusion with another label artist, Arthur Gee.

He produced two solo albums, 1972’s Michael Stanley, and 1973’s Friends & Legends. While working on those albums, he married his girlfriend, a teacher named Libby, graduated from Hiram and landed a position as a regional manager for the now-defunct Disc Records retail chain. He fought with his boss and lost his job in 1974, four months after his twin daughters Anna and Sarah were born. To pay the bills while he considered his next career move, he turned to the only other thing he knew how to do: play music.

He talked to David Spero, a disc jockey friend at rock station WMMS, about being his manager. The two in turn recruited three other musicians. The quartet, billed as the Michael Stanley Band, because they simply couldn’t agree on a more original name, performed for the first time at the Agora Theatre on Sept. 2, 1974. They then headed to Miami at the end of the year to record You Break It … You Bought It!, a mix of rockers and ballads.

By the late 1970s, MSB had evolved into a six-piece outfit. In 1980, they released Heartland, which yielded the sunnily upbeat Top 40 hit, “He Can’t Love You.” In 1982, the band set an attendance record at Blossom Music Center that still stands, drawing 74,000-plus over four late-August nights. Another Top 40 hit came in 1983 thanks to “My Town,” off the album You Can’t Fight Fashion.

The band’s record label only offered a six-month extension on their expiring record contract instead of another long-term deal. Stanley turned it down, hoping for a better offer. The label responded by promptly dropping the group. Although MSB managed to release two more albums regionally, continuing to record and tour without label support was financially impossible. The band had operated like a company, providing a measure of security for its now-seven members and four roadies by distributing earnings in weekly paychecks. MSB decided to disband on their own terms with a 12-night stand at the now-defunct Front Row Theater in Highland Heights during the 1986-1987 holiday season.

During his last year with MSB, local television station WJW had hired him to do a series of music specials. After the band broke up, WJW offered him a position as a feature reporter on its locally produced edition of the syndicated PM Magazine.

Stanley was elevated to co-host in November 1987, after his predecessor quit the evening before the station’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade telecast. By the time the short-lived follow-up to PM Magazine, Cleveland Tonight, ended in 1991, Stanley had begun his foray into radio with a weekly new-music show and series of commentaries on WMMS. In 1990 he received a call from WNCX’s program director.

Six months after MSB broke up, he had begun playing live with a group of musicians billed as Michael Stanley and Friends. Even when he wasn’t performing regularly, he continued writing songs. In 1993, he released his first post-MSB effort with the group the Ghost Poets. Three years later he released his first solo album in over two decades, Coming Up for Air.

Michael Stanley Health

Michael Stanley is dealing with serious health issues, according to his family. He has not been on the air since February 19. His family issued a statement on his behalf to let fans know why is not appearing in his usual 3-7 p.m. slot.

“Michael Stanley is dealing with serious health issues that prevent him from joining you in his 3-7 pm time slot. It has been important to him to be on air up until recently, because you, his fans, mean that much to him. As of right now he is unable to continue doing that. Please keep Michael in your thoughts and prayers, and if you wish to send positive vibes out to Michael, please do so below.”

Michael Stanley Age

He was born on March 25, 1948, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Michael Stanley Wife

Is Michael Stanley married? He has been married four times. He married his first wife, a teacher named Libby in the 1970s. The couple had twin daughters Anna and Sarah. He and Libby divorced in 1990. In 1991, he was dating fiancee Mary McCrone, then a WJW producer. Stanley and McCrone divorced after eight years of marriage. Shortly thereafter, in 2000, he began seeing Denise Skinner, a former marketing staffer living in LA whom he got to know while MSB was signed to the label EMI. They reconnected after he happened to see her on, To Tell the Truth, a resurrected TV game show on which she was a contestant, during an evening of channel-surfing.

Stanley found the last phone number he had for her, called it, and left a voicemail message. Skinner returned the call, flew in for a visit, and a long-distance romance eventually began. They married during a 2002 trip to Las Vegas in an impromptu ceremony at the Graceland Wedding Chapel. Stanley and Skinner remained together until 2011 when she died after a six-month battle with lung cancer.

In June 2017, Stanley married Denise Skinner’s best friend, Ilsa Glanzberg, an instructional aide at a Venice, California, elementary school, before approximately 75 guests in a sunset ceremony on the roof of a friend’s house on Venice Beach. The two had gotten to know each other during Stanley and Skinner’s courtship and marriage.

Michael Stanley Cancer

In 1991 he suffered a major heart attack that damaged a third of his heart muscle. The cardiac event inspired the chillingly haunting title track on Coming Up for Air. He suffered a second heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in late 2017.