Америкалық гитарист Майк МакКреди

American guitarist

Michael David McCready (born April 5, 1966) is an American musician known for being a founding member and lead guitarist of Pearl Jam. McCready was also a member of the side project bands Flight to Mars, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, and The Rockfords. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a part of Pearl Jam in 2017 alongside the three other founding members (Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Eddie Vedder), and former member Dave Krusen.

Mike McCready was born in Pensacola, Florida, but his family moved to Seattle shortly after his birth. When he was a child, his parents played Jimi Hendrix and Santana; while his friends listened to Kiss and Aerosmith, McCready would frequently play bongo drums. At the age of eleven, McCready purchased his first guitar and began taking lessons. In eighth grade, McCready formed his first band, Warrior, whose name soon changed to Shadow. Originally a cover band playing during free periods at Roosevelt High School, the band eventually began writing original material and recording demo tapes. After high school, McCready worked at a pizza restaurant where he befriended musician Pete Droge. In 1986, Shadow relocated to Los Angeles and attempted to cut a record deal. He cut his hair, enrolled in a local community college, and spent his nights working at a video store. Gossard had known McCready before high school when the two would trade rock band pictures with each other. This was McCready's first recording studio experience, and he took a central role in the project. McCready performed an epic four minute plus solo for "Reach Down". According to Cornell, McCready's headphone monitors flew off halfway through the recording of the solo, and he played the rest of the solo without being able to hear the backing track. McCready considers this track to be one of his proudest moments. The Temple of the Dog project eventually featured vocalist Eddie Vedder. (Vedder had come to Seattle to audition to be the singer for Ament and Gossard's next band, which later became Pearl Jam.) Vedder sang a duet with Cornell on the song "Hunger Strike" and provided background vocals on several other songs. The band decided that it had enough material for an entire album, and in April 1991 Temple of the Dog was released through A&M Records.

Pearl Jam was formed in 1990 by Ament, Gossard, and McCready, who then recruited Vedder and drummer Dave Krusen. The band originally took the name Mookie Blaylock, but was forced to change it when the band signed to Epic Records in 1991. After the recording sessions for Ten were completed, Krusen left Pearl Jam in May 1991. As his replacement, Chamberlain suggested Dave Abbruzzese, who joined the group and played the rest of Pearl Jam's live shows supporting the Ten album. Ten broke the band into the mainstream, and became one of the best selling alternative albums of the 1990s. The band found itself amidst the sudden popularity and attention given to the Seattle music scene and the genre known as grunge. McCready frequently soloed, and added a blues touch to the music (influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan). The single "Jeremy" received Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance in 1993. Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its music video for "Jeremy", including Video of the Year and Best Group Video. Ten was ranked number 207 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and "Jeremy" was ranked number 11 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest songs of the '90s. Following an intense touring schedule, the band went into the studio to record what would become its second studio album, Vs., released in 1993. Upon its release, Vs. set at the time the record for most copies of an album sold in a week, and spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. Vs. was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 1995. From Vs., the song "Daughter" received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and the song "Go" received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. Feeling the pressures of success, the band decided to decrease the level of promotion for its albums, including refusing to release music videos. In 1994, the band began a much publicized boycott of Ticketmaster, which lasted for three years and limited the band's ability to tour in the United States. Later that same year the band released its third studio album, Vitalogy, which became the band's third straight album to reach multi platinum status. The album received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Rock Album in 1996. Vitalogy was ranked number 492 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Pearl Jam enlisted former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron as Irons' replacement, initially on a temporary basis, In 1998, Pearl Jam recorded "Last Kiss", a cover of a 1960s ballad made famous by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. It was released on the band's 1998 fan club Christmas single; however, by popular demand, the cover was released to the public as a single in 1999. "Last Kiss" peaked at number two on the Billboard charts and became the band's highest charting single. In 2000, the band released its sixth studio album, Binaural, and initiated a successful and ongoing series of official bootlegs. The band released seventy two such live albums in 2000 and 2001, and set a record for most albums to debut in the Billboard 200 at the same time. "Grievance" (from Binaural) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released its seventh studio album, Riot Act, in 2002. Pearl Jam's contribution to the 2003 film, Big Fish, "Man of the Hour", was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2004. The band's eighth studio album, the eponymous Pearl Jam, was released in 2006. The band followed it with Backspacer (2009), Lightning Bolt (2013), and Gigaton (2020).

McCready played with another side band called The Rockfords, named after one of McCready's favorite TV shows The Rockford Files. The band features McCready's former high school friends from Shadow, plus vocalist Carrie Akre of Goodness. The band's self titled debut was released on Epic Records in 2000. In 2021 the band secured the rights to their debut album, and released it on digital platforms in 2022.

In a 2009 interview with San Diego radio station KBZT, McCready revealed that he was working on a solo album.

McCready played guitar in the band Walking Papers, which included then former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Screaming Trees/Mad Season drummer Barrett Martin, and singer Jeff Angell. The band released an album in August 2013.

In 2016 a new McCready project involving Duff McKagan, Barrett Martin and Jaz Coleman called The Levee Walkers released two songs on McCready's label HockeyTalkter Records. In 2017 the group released the song "All Things Fade Away" featuring singer Ayron Jones.

McCready prefers to play "by ear" rather than from a technical standpoint. He stated, “I’m so ignorant of this technical stuff.” When asked to explain the intricacies of Pearl Jam's hit making writing process, McCready says that “I’ve always done it by ear. Honestly, I’d rather do regular interviews. It’s more interesting to talk about whatever anything other than guitars. I’m not into being a tech head”. McCready's guitar style is usually of an aggressive bluesy nature, and was described by Greg Prato of Allmusic as "feel oriented" and "rootsy". McCready has cited Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend and Eddie Van Halen as his biggest musical influences. McCready is also a die hard Rolling Stones fan, and has described the band as his favorite of all time. McCready is known to use a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson Les Paul, and a Gibson Les Paul Junior. When the band started, Gossard and McCready were clearly designated as rhythm and lead guitarists, respectively. The dynamic began to change when Vedder started to play more rhythm guitar during the Vitalogy era. McCready said in 2006, "Even though there are three guitars, I think there's maybe more room now. Stone will pull back and play a two note line and Ed will do a power chord thing, and I fit into all that." Of his live performances, McCready has said, "I can kind of get into a meditative state when I'm playing, something I don't get any other way You might see me staring up in the sky with my eyes closed. I'm not faking it. That just kind of happens." As time has gone on McCready has contributed more to Pearl Jam's songwriting process. McCready's first writing contribution for Pearl Jam was co writing the music for the B side "Yellow Ledbetter" (from the "Jeremy" single), which has since become a regular set closing song during Pearl Jam's live concerts. After co writing material for Vs. and writing the music for the song "Present Tense" from the album No Code, he wrote the music for three of the tracks on the band's 1998 album, Yield, including one of the band's biggest hits, "Given to Fly". All but one ("Force of Nature", from Backspacer) of McCready's sole compositions for Pearl Jam use alternate tunings, such as open G on "Faithfull" (from Yield), a variation of open D on "Given to Fly", and a variation of open G on "Marker in the Sand" (from Pearl Jam). McCready made his first lyrical contribution for the band with the track "Inside Job", which closes the band's 2006 self titled album.