Crooked Road Songs

As the saying goes, things come in threes.  And, in 2026, Michael Dinallo completes a trilogy of years, words, and music.  This trilogy, without a distinct name, started without any idea that it would be such in early 2023, and will see its completion by the end of 2026.  Street Opera is the middle installment.  2024 saw the first with the release of The Night’s Last Dance on Memphis International Records.  Waiting for a Better Day – the third piece and Michael Dinallo’s first book – will be published later this year by David Greenberg’s [product] publishing.

 Written in a land stripped of whatever beauty or charm it once had, and much like its preceding sister The Night’s Last Dance, Street Opera only presented itself as a finished piece upon looking at the songs as a whole.  In that stark and barren landscape of time and emotion, these songs were hatched, and eventually took flight in the recording you have at hand.  The characters that populate Waiting for a Better Day would be found in the songs of Street Opera if it were an actual soundtrack like the track “Theme for a Street Opera” infers.  Nature, groove, flight, melancholy, and light and dark perpetuate the feelings that these songs evoke. 

 Once again Michael Dinallo collaborates with his friends of many years – Dave Jacques, Dave Westner, Anita Suhanin, Michael Majett, and James “Killer” Kane – plus working with his daughter, Annabel  who appears on two tracks for this group effort.  In Michael’s words, “I found these melodies on the winds of change but we made them the music they are as a collective.” 

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It all started with the trumpet and Elvis.  Michael’s first musical inspirations at age three were trumpeters Al Hirt and Herb Alpert.  Soon after that, at age five, Michael discovered The King of Rock and Roll.  His obsession with Elvis reached a new peak when he saw Elvis at the Cleveland Public Music Hall in 1974 at age eight.  When Michael was nine, he took up the trumpet, and then the guitar at twelve.   By the time he was fourteen, Michael was playing jazz standards on guitar out of the Real Book and falling in love with blues, spending hours learning B.B. King solos, note for note, off the records, wearing out quite a few of those records along the way.  He also picked up the euphonium and sousaphone in high school while playing guitar in various bar bands in Ohio.  Moving to Boston, Massachusetts in 1985, Michael studied big band arranging at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.  After leaving Berklee, Michael hung out and played with blues guitar hero Ronnie Earl, who introduced Michael to the storied Boston blues scene.

In 1991, Michael formed The Radio Kings, who then went on to win the Boston Battle of the Blues Bands after just four months together.  1992 saw The Radio Kings being introduced to a national audience as the back-up band for former Muddy Waters harp player Jerry Portnoy.  The Radio Kings went out on their own, after Jerry Portnoy joined Eric Clapton’s band in 1993, and quickly drew national attention based on Michael’s guitar playing and songwriting.  They made their first album It Ain’t Easy for Memphis-based Icehouse Records (owned by Johnny Phillips, Sam Phillip’s nephew) in 1994, which featured a guest appearance by blues legend Little Milton.  The band achieved international acclaim in 1995 after their appearance at the renowned Belgium Rhythm and Blues Festival in Peer, Belgium. The Radio Kings continued touring 250 days a year, releasing two more albums, 1995’s Live At B.B. King’s (Icehouse Records) and Money Road (Rounder/Bullseye Records) in 1998, before taking a ten-year break in 1999.  As the band’s postscript, they returned with an eponymous album in 2009 for Gibraltar Records.

Being off the road in 2000, Michael was able to fully immerse himself in the fertile Boston music scene playing in such bands as Barrence Whitfield and the Savages and developing relationships with folk artists, Alastair Moock for example, and the folk scene via the storied Club Passim.  Michael and Barrence formed The Mercy Brothers in 2002, adding Norwegian blues hero, guitarist Vidar Busk.  With Michael as songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, and producer, The Mercy Brothers forged a unique sound that resonated in Europe and in the U.S.  Their album Strange Adventure was released in 2003 on Gibraltar Records, which was released by CoraZong Records in 2006 with live tracks recorded in Oslo, Norway.  The record made huge waves in the Americana scene both in Europe and America. With the success of Strange Adventure, Michael has become an in-demand producer in Europe and the United States, making records with a diverse list of artists, becoming known as the man behind the artist.

His work with Grammy-winning engineer Ducky Carlisle has produced a Number One single, Gold and Platinum records for Norwegian pop singer William Hut in 2006.  The team of Michael and Ducky, also known as the Tremolo Twins, recorded Soul Legend Eddie Floyd’s Eddie Loves You So return to Stax Records in 2008, they have produced two critically acclaimed albums for his wife singer-songwriter Juliet Simmons Dinallo – 2013’s No Regrets (Tree-O-Records) and 2018’s Dream Girl (Audium/Sony RED) – among others.

In 2016, Michael produced Feel Like Going Home: The Songs of Charlie Rich for Johnny Phillips, Jeff Phillips, and Memphis International Records.  2017 was a big year of change: moving to Nashville, Tennessee and releasing his first solo recording with his name on the cover rather than in the credits on the back cover, Crooked Road Songs for Black Rose Records.  2017 also saw the start of the collaboration with Billy Prine onstage and in the studio.  Michael was awarded Best Soul-Blues in the Nashville Scene’s Best of 2018 issue.

In the pandemic year of 2020, Michael and Billy Prine (the younger brother of the late, great John Prine) started Prine Time Podcast.  Michael also produced Billy Prine’s first record in seven years, A Place I Used to Know, for Memphis International Records.  Early in 2021 Michael and his wife Juliet Simmons Dinallo collaborated on their first joint recording by releasing The Dinallos on Memphis International Records, which featured their daughter Annabel taking a turn on a lead vocal.  Both A Place I Used to Know and The Dinallos were co-produced by Michael and Tim Carter at The Treehouse Studio in Ridgetop, Tennessee.  Michael and Tim have since worked on various projects as co-producers.  In the fall of 2021, Michael was hired as musical director, bandleader and guitarist for The Songs of John Prine Tour.  The show was dedicated to a night of songs written by John Prine and reinterpreted through Michael’s arrangements.

In early October of 2022, The Dinallos released their version of one John Prine’s most beloved songs, “The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” on Memphis International Records produced by Michael and Tim Carter.