Ostensibly a back to basics outing following the full-blooded grace of THE GOOD SONS career, "Live…In Dinky Town" finds MICHAEL WESTON KING stripping some of his finest compositions back to the marrow and taking them back to their acoustic source.
The "Dinky Town" in the title refers to the bohemian area of Hibbing, Minnesota, where the young BOB DYLAN'S eyes were first opened to the seamier side of life and is eminently relevant here, as the 14 tracks here catch MWK acoustically naked and bleeding in boondocks clubs the wrong side of the tracks in places as diverse as Amsterdam, Cologne, Bilbao and, erm, Dudley. GOOD SONS guitarist PHIL ABRAM contributes to a couple of things, and JACKIE LEVEN and ANDY WHITE join in for a rousing version of RONNIE LANE'S "Annie", but there's precious little else in terms of embellishments.
But that's no major drawback, as KING'S emotionally-laden songs are more than potent enough to stand on their own two feet and - as the "hear a pin drop" audience suggest throughout - he knows a thing or two about keeping an audience captivated.
"Live…In Dinky Town" features a handful of the songs that kept your reviewer enthralled at a recent Cork soiree. "Tim Hardin '65" beautifully juxtaposes hero worship with our day to day regrets and is stunning as ever, while KING'S TOWNES VAN ZANDT tribute "Lay Me Down" segues into TOWNES' own "Waitin' Round To Die" with the same 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' precision he's currently bringing to his medley of "Tim Hardin '65" and HARDIN'S "Black Sheep Boy."
There's also a couple of examples of KING'S witty 'tween song banter. He's a born storyteller, as the wonderful intro to the 'Italian Heartbreak Story' "Cosmic Fireworks" shows (I won't spoil it for you). Then there's "Riding The Range", Michael's "weekend cowboy" commentary, which has a knowing, tragicomic quality.
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"…Dinky Town" is particularly strong as it heads into its' final third. With sterling support from LEVEN and WHITE, KING plunges into "Annie" with gusto, though Michael's almost unbearably tender "I Can't Reach Him" follows in its' wake and admirably demonstrates this great singer/ songwriter's capabilities.
The album's wrapped up by KING'S take on one of TOWNES VAN ZANDT'S obscure beauties "Lover's Lullaby" (from TOWNES final official studio LP "No Deeper Blue") and finally the original composition "Easy", fleshed out for once with keyboards, extra guitar and congas. Tinged with inevitable sadness, it's a dignified ride into the sunset for an album that never shies away from taking passion's punches squarely on the chin.
Stark and unadorned, "Live…In Dinky Town" occasionally makes you yearn for THE GOOD SONS' exquisite musical interventions, but mostly cuts to the emotional chase in no uncertain terms.
The acoustic troubadour route is a road worn and scarred down the long years, but when infused with as much feeling, unabashed honesty (and occasional humour) as this, its' strength remains undiminished.
"Live…In Dinky Town" is a living testament to that fact.
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