With a title cocking a snook to Elvis Costello, the self-explanatory 'Crawling Through the USA' is the third and final part of MICHAEL WESTON KING'S trilogy of live recordings which began with 2001's 'Live in Dinky Town' and continued with 2004's 'Absent Friends'.
As with those two previous volumes, the songs are sourced from a variety of shows. This time round, it's mostly acoustic sessions from radio stations, interspersed with cuts taken from gigs at Hugh's Room in Toronto and an ominously intense 'It Will End In Tears' from Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt's old stamping ground, The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. The one exception to the rule is the full-band recording of the dignified 'The Dancing Around' which dates from some down time in a Connecticut studio and finds MWK in commanding vocal form.
Still one of the most under-appreciated roots-rock performers around, MWK now has a seriously impressive back catalogue to plunder in the live arena. His last studio album, 'A New Kind of Loneliness' (2007) was widely recognised as his career best to date and several of its' songs are reprised here in stripped-down, but equally effective settings. 'From Out Of The Blue' is typically stately even allowing for the absence of Ron Sexsmith's second vocal, while Alan Cook's spirited mandolin adds a new dimension to a tough and lyrical version of 'Let The Waves Break' from a session at LA'S KCSN.
MWK has seen comparisons with the likes of Phil Ochs and Townes Van Zandt rolling in over the past few years, but they're well-deserved. Songs like 'I Fall Behind' resonate with regret and sadness, while a beautifully-poised version of 'Cosmic Fireworks' (the one dip into The Good Sons' catalogue here) is sung with depth and feeling by King's long-term partner and vocal foil Lou Dalgleish.
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Ironically, MWK dips into both the Ochs and Van Zandt songbooks here, providing two of 'Crawling Through The USA”s most heart-stopping moments into the bargain. Aided and abetted by spectral mandolin and pedal steel, Ochs' mordant 'No More Songs' looms and builds to a chilling climax, while a lesser known slice of Van Zandt, 'Maria' is on arm-wrestling terms with oblivion. Featuring a damning narrative lyric featuring financial ruin, unwanted pregnancy (“in my heart I know it's a little boy/ I hope he don't end up like me”), stillbirth and death, it's truly devastating stuff and its' conclusion moves a New York DJ to – rightly – pronounce it as “awesome.” Yup, no arguments there.
With a career spanning the best part of two decades, Michael Weston King is more than familiar with his unsung roots-rock hero role by now. As usual, though, he puts the quality first and thus 'Crawling Through The USA' is much more than merely a trawl through intimate rooms in a vast continent. It's a troubadour's master class once again.
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