Sarasota’s Piano Man, Joe Micals

The first time I spoke to Joe Micals, I confessed to him I’d been driving around town pondering my interview with the lifelong entertainer, voice actor, and composer—fretting over what might count as “good questions” and, for extra inspiration, listening to some Billy Joel.

“Oh, isn’t that great?” he laughed. “I knew Billy Joel back in the day.” Before the eyes adjust to the ambient bar lighting at Michael’s on East, one might think they’re having their own Billy Joel encounter— but that would just be one of Micals’s hair-raisingly uncanny vocal impressions. For more than two decades (“21 years and four months,” Micals tells me. “But who’s counting?”), he’s been at the piano in Michael’s Lounge, elevating guests’ experience as they warm up or wind down an evening out on the town.

Although he can do a mean Billy Joel, croon like Neil Diamond, or belt it like Joe Cocker, you won’t hear Micals covering “Piano Man,” “Sweet Caroline,” or “You Can Leave Your Hat On.”

“Those three songs I can’t do because it gets the crowd going and disturbs the diners,” he admits. “What I think makes Michael’s stand out is the fact that it can be a dining experience. It’s not a place where you just walk in, have a steak, and walk out. You can listen to live music, maybe sit at the piano bar while I crack jokes on people. Everybody has a great heart about it, you know, they don’t mind being included in that way.”

Micals says he’s not entirely sure where his musicianship comes from, but there has to be something genetic going on. His mother, a New York beauty queen, sang with the Metropolitan Opera, and I’m willing to bet Micals gets both his creativity and inclination for working with his hands from his machinist father. Micals started out on the same career path, but once he worked his way up and out of the machine shop, he discovered if he wasn’t creating something, he hated the job. Micals jumped off the corporate ladder at Ford Motor Company, moved out of snooty Scarsdale to Long Island, and changed music from an off-hours passion into a livelihood.

In his storied career (speaking of stories, be sure to get Micals to tell you about his favorite offstage memory of B.B. King—”I have never met a kinder man in my entire life,” he told me), Micals played keyboard for the Drifters and lent his Wolfman Jack impression to the movie soundtrack of An American Werewolf in London. He carved out a niche in New York’s comedy scene, warming up crowds for the likes of Eddie Murphy, Rosie O’Donnell, Kevin James, and plenty of other names that make a noise when they drop.

Notice how I called Micals an “entertainer” back up at the top, not a “musician.” He shrugs off the term, leaving it for those “who can do with one hand what I couldn’t do with three.”

“People need to be entertained—especially these days, my gosh,” Micals says. “My angle playing at Michael’s is this: Entertain ‘em, entertain ‘em, entertain ‘em.”

>Michael’s on East: 1212 S East Ave, Sarasota, 941-366-0007; bestfood.com