Crooked Road Songs

Award-winning producer, guitarist, and songwriter Michael Dinallo presents his second solo outing and his first all instrumental album. 

The Night’s Last Dance celebrates the passage of time.  Written and recorded over a period twelve months, nature plays heavily to the music created here.  The ocean waves lapping up along Eggemoggin Reach in Sargentville, Maine; crickets, birds, rills, clanging bells, and bubbling brooks; the wind blowing in off the North Sea in Stavanger, Norway.  Of course, Michael’s undying passion for blues ripples throughout these tracks.  The year in time is represented in the music and by the poems that accompany the songs invoking the four seasons.

The opening title track, “The Night’s Last Dance,” is a lilting waltz setting the tone for the album, which is capped by “Autumn Nocturne” – a dreamy, jazz-inflected call and answer of guitar melody and with the mandolin’s response.  In between we get two arco bass melodies from Dave Jacques on “Winter Twilight” and “Eggemoggin Interlude (A Slight Return).” The latter features the Vindeharp, which is a creation of Norwegian artist and musician John Jofesen.  The acoustic track, “Spring and Summer Suite,” is woven with water, birds, and crickets. Finally, but certain not least, the blues is alive and well in Michael’s playing and writing with “Walking with Robert (Memphis Blues No.2)” featuring Kim Field’s great harmonica, “Rollin’ with Walter (Donnie’s Swing),” and “Walking with Crows.”

1. The Night’s Last Dance

2. Eggemoggin Interlude (A Slight Return)

3. Walking with Robert (Memphis Blues No. 2)

4. Spring and Summer Suite

5. Rollin’ with Walter (Donnie’s Blues)

6. Winter Twilight

7. Walking with Crows

8. Autumn Nocturne

All songs written by Michael Dinallo / Crooked Road Songs, BMI except:

“The Night’s Last Dance” written by Michael Dinallo & Tim Carter / Crooked Road Songs, BMI & Tree O Records, SESAC

“Winter Twilight” written by Michael Dinallo & Dave Jacques / Crooked Road Songs, BMI & Fuzzle Music, BMI

Michael Dinallo – all guitars

Tim Carter – mandolin & banjo

Kim Field – harmonica

John Josefsen - vindeharp

Produced by Michael Dinallo & Tim Carter

Mixed and mastered by Tim Carter

Recorded at The Red House on the hill Studio in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

Recorded at the Treehouse Studio in Ridgetop, Tennessee

Recorded at BTK Sound Studio in Nashville, Tennessee

Many thanks to my compadres in this adventure:

Tim Carter, Dave Jacques, Kim Field, John Josefsen, Johnny Phillips, Jeff Phillips, and Memphis International Records

 Special thanks to Nate Dow for his great photography and the album cover artwork.

For Annabel