Adding the final brushstrokes to Miché Fambro’s canvas 

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Miché Fambro was a lot of things. Husband, dad. Singer, guitarist, songwriter. Internet talk show host, creator of comedy skits. 'Ready for his close-up,' as they say in the biz, ready to launch a two-month tour of Russia, of all places.

“I think he always felt he was a heartbeat away from the right things just aligning,” said his wife, Wendy Fambro. “He used to say, ‘I’m just a blank check waiting to be cashed.’”

He never quite made it to the bank. Miché Fambro died in December 2020 of liver cancer. He was 64.

“After I got through the initial shock of the thing, I started going through his archive,” Wendy said. “And it’s enormous. I’m still, two years later, going through his archive. It’s just endless.”

Audio. Video.

“He recorded everything he ever did.”

The time spent sifting through her husband’s legacy began calling for a show, which will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Jewish Community Center's Hart Theater.

The show is called “His Canvas,” drawn from the title of Miché Fambro’s first album, "My Canvas." A picture of his many relationships, professional and creative. The vast list of performers includes members of his old band, Miché & the Anglos, Fred Kentner, and James Conner. His brother, drummer Greg James, is coming from Philadelphia with other family members.

Also expected: David Brick, Greg Wyatt, Chris Link, Annie Wells, Bill Lambert, Bruce McLellan, Chip Milligan, Lee Chabowski, Meg Gehman, Steve Pizzuto, Rob Reed, Dan Snyder, Gary Holt, Dan Lawitts, Steve West, Al “Buzzo” Bruno, Abel Bradshaw, Connie Fredericks-Malone, and Dan Hoh.

One of their two daughters, Michael (yes, most of the Michaels you know are men), is the stage manager, helping to tell her father’s story. Not that he needed any help.

“Mick, he always thought of his own life as a story,” Wendy said by phone from her home on Conesus Lake. “What I wanted to do was create a documentary to help him finish his story."

But a documentary that would then be useful, not just for people who knew and loved Mick, but for people who had never heard of him before, she added.

"Th at had never heard his music, maybe didn’t like his music, even,” Wendy said with a laugh. “But would find something inspiring in the life of a human who just keeps at it, keeps living from their authentic self, keeps re-inventing themselves, around this core purpose. I find it personally inspiring to live with that kind of a person, and thought that there was a lot to share there.”

Wendy calls him Mick. Just about everyone who knew him does. 'Miché' was his stage name.

Miché Fambro was 18 when he left his family’s home in Philadelphia, traveling with a hotel band for a couple of years, playing shows. There was a gig in Geneseo in 1979.

“May, which is a beautiful time in Geneseo," said Wendy. "He was there, seeing this pretty place, seeing all these college girls, thinking, ‘Hmmm, seems like a good place to stop.’ So he just quit the band in Geneseo.”

He joined another band with the local record-store character, Buzzo, then deserted Buzzo’s band for a group they appropriately named The Deserters. Then Conner and Kentner "stole Mick away" to launch Miché & the Anglos.

In 1981, “I heard him at show, I actually fell for his music first,” Wendy said. “And then saw him, and then I basically chased him for four years. I was a groupie.”

Miché Fambro had few artistic borders. He hosted a talk show at the Multi-Use Community Cultural Center. A variety show of music, long-form interviews and sketch comedy. He did online interviews and collaborations with musicians in England.

“He was just willing to try different things that he himself found entertaining and was will to try them out, and put them out there, and continue to evolve," said Wendy. “People would ask me, what was it like to have this musician at home, when I was essentially the breadwinner. Let’s face it, I was. And I’d say ‘Well, if he was sitting at home playing the same three chords that he played when I met him, and watching soap operas, I would not be into this at all.’ But he always worked non-stop, pushing his own limits, and it was fascinating.

“Like, what’s next? Where is this going?”

Russia. Germany. Miché Fambro was building a name for himself in Europe.

“It’s not like there was an end goal,” Wendy said. “In his connections in Europe, he reached a level where he was being introduced to the big festivals, bigger stages.”

That is the puzzle Wendy is trying to peel out for this documentary.

"He was always sort of on a mission. He always had hope, but he was always, also, extremely realistic," she said. "In terms of the odds of becoming a huge success.”

Shortly after they married, Miché was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, an infection that settles in virtually any part of the body. And yet, “anybody who had ever heard him sing would never know that he had lost 30 percent of his lungs,” Wendy said.

He had to come home from Europe, canceling tours of Germany and Russia because of the spread of COVID. And he was not feeling well, undergoing treatment for symptoms that included a chronic cough.

The sarcoidosis moved into his liver.

“He had been diagnosed with cancer,” Wendy said, “but the prognosis was pretty good, he was getting on a list for a transplant.”

Fambro’s doctors said he was a good candidate for that transplant. Always troubled by … well, something … they said he would feel better than he had his entire adult life.

“I think he believed that,” Wendy said. “That is what the doctors were telling us. And then everything happened very quickly at the end. There was no, kind of time, to prepare.”

Ten months after his cancer diagnosis, Miché Fambro was hospitalized in Dansville, closer to their home at Conesus Lake than Strong Memorial Hospital.

Six days before he died came a secondary cancer diagnosis.

Three days before died, “we had 48 hours to absorb that before he lapsed into unconsciousness,” said Wendy.

The hospital was observing COVID visitation protocols, but told Wendy she could move in “so he didn’t have to die alone.’”

It’s been more than two-and-a-half years since then.

“When he died, we were really in the throes of COVID, and nobody was going anywhere,” said Wendy. “So we didn’t do anything public at that time.”

Now, it’s time.

“I asked a small group of musicians if they’d be interested in being involved,” she said. “And then other musicians asked me. It’s been a beautiful thing to watch.”

Jeff Spevak is the senior arts writer WXXI/CITY Magazine. He can be reached at  [email protected].