The Bowling Green Holiday Parade will be without one of its signature acts when it steps off Saturday
morning, and the local music scene will lose one of its friendliest voices.
Mike Mitchell, lead singer of the country band Dowling Road, said this week that he will end his
performing career at the end of the year because he has developed polyps on his vocal cords. This is the
same condition that curtailed the singing career of Julie Andrews. Treatment involves complete rest for
the voice and possible removal and voice therapy.
Mitchell said Wednesday that he decided he couldn’t put the band, which also features Bob Ezzone, drums,
David Scoby, guitar and vocals, Steve Napier, bass, Jeff McClung and sometimes Dave Brahier, guitar and
vocals, on hold awaiting his possible recovery.
Mitchell said that after talking to many people, they felt the band would not be the same without him out
front, so the name of the band will change with his departure.
Dowling Road with Mitchell will fulfill its remaining bookings this year. The band is scheduled to
perform: Dec. 12 at the Roadhouse (the former Sportsman Club) in Grand Rapids; Dec. 18 and 19 at the
Main Street Bar and Grill, Sylvania; and New Year’s Eve at the Northwood VFW, Andrus Road, North-wood.

Mitchell, who was raised in east Toledo, sang throughout his school years and played in the band at
Cardinal Stritch High School. After high school he gigged with the rock band Tempest. But then he
enlisted in the Air Force, and put music on hold.
With the advent of karaoke that Mitchell, now working as a delivery driver for UPS, started flexing his
vocal talents again.
In 2000, he told the Sentinel-Tribune, that he and a friend Don Rollins, who owned karaoke equipment,
would work events. They’d set up the equipment and then sing a few numbers to warm up the crowd.He’d end
up singing 20 songs a night. That led to appearances at local events, and then creation of the band
Dowling Road. For the past seven years the band has performed in the holiday parade.