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Mike Hinton

American guitarist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2025
Entity authorityQ15993087 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michael David Hinton (May 4, 1956 – August 1, 2013) was an American guitarist residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his career, he played with numerous bands, including Norton Buffalo and the Knockouts, High Noon, and Merl Saunders & the Rainforest Band. He appeared on several albums with the Rainforest Band and other Merl Saunders projects, including It's In The Air, Fiesta Amazonica, Still Having Fun, Merl Saunders With His Funky Friends - Live, and Still Groovin.

Career

Hinton played with Country Joe McDonald and Friends, and recorded with Rick Danko on A Tribute To Jerry Garcia: Deadhead Festival in Tokyo, Japan, 1997. He was also on the Roky Erickson albums Don't Slander Me and You're Gonna Miss Me: The Best Of Roky Erickson. Among his other credits are his involvement in the Mickey Hart and Merl Saunders band, High Noon, and Freddie Roulette and Friends. He co-wrote the music for the films Stacy's Knights (1982) and Eddie Macon's Run (1983), and played on the score for the 1980s remake of the television program, The Twilight Zone with Jerry Garcia, John Cipollina, David Grisman, and others. Hinton also co-wrote several songs with the world-renowned harmonica player Norton Buffalo, as well as playing lead guitar in Norton's band for approximately seven years, beginning in late 1980.

Hinton played several Merl Saunders tributes since the keyboardist's death in October 2008. A re-launch of the Rainforest Band as a tribute to Saunders took place at the 29th Starwood Festival on July 25, 2009, the site of their last performance.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Mike Hinton” as american guitarist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mike, Hinton and American.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 2013, 1997, 1982—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-05-04. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Mike, Hinton and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mike Hinton”, the useful work is to connect “american guitarist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15993087. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2013, 1997 and 1982.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mike Hinton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.