Mike Settle was born in Tulsa, OK on March 20, 1941. His first step into the musical waters came when he was in seventh or eighth grade and bought that magical four-stringed instrument popularized in Hawaii, an eight dollar and some odd change ukulele. The songwriter/singer told AMG "that was a lot of money to a kid at the time", funds that Settle had earned caddying for his dad and the senior Mr. Settle's golfing buddies. Michael learned how to play the instrument out of a book, but had been singing in front of relatives and people at school when he was in first and second grade. He honed his craft in the late '50s during three or four years with the Tulsa Boys Singers choir of Tulsa, OK, an organization which still exists today. It's also where he learned to sight read watching the notes as he sang with the choir. With positive feedback from his teachers in the eighth grade, he continued his musical efforts, the pivotal moment coming when his high school choral director, Tom Hayden of Muskogee High School in Muskogee, OK, encouraged the aspiring musician. His next big influence happened when he met a fellow musical student at Oklahoma City University, Mason Williams, a future comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers and composer/performer of the big 1968 hit "Classical Gas." Williams formed a folk trio in college and this introduced Mike Settle to the coffeehouse scene. He dropped out of college to tour with John Stewart's group, the Cumberland Three, and though Settle is not on any of their albums, he did one or two singles with the group. When John Stewart joined the Kingston Trio, Settle formed a duo with Mason Williams until Williams was drafted into the Navy. Bob Gibson got him a job as an opening act at The Bitter End in New York City, and Settle drove to the Big Apple to perfect his craft there. As a folk singer he stayed in New York five to six years and played the clubs on and off, managed for a time by The Bitter End's owner Fred Weintraub. He tried to put a band together in New York, which didn't gel, but was told by his publisher, The Richmond Organization, about an opening in California with the New Christy Minstrels. After meeting people from the Richmond Organization with John Stewart, Settle remembered how nice those folks were to a 19-year-old kid in New York City. They treated him like they were from Oklahoma, so when he wrote a few songs with Mason Williams, and some on his own, he mailed them to the Richmond Organization and got a publishing deal. As that company got "But You Know I Love You," they still have a relationship with the composer to this day.