ALBUM: Mystery Road (1989)
MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$$
Kevin Kinney is the soul of this band, his aching voice sounds a little like Rod Stewart. And his band definitely rocks. Maybe he sounds like the Bodeans lead singer.
Paste Magazine named this album the 39th best ‘Southern Rock album of all time. Guitarist Buren Fowler, whose name is not known to me, is as good as any playing in what we are loosely calling the Southern rock genre. You can tell he’s listened to a little Dickey Betts in his day and Skynyrd.
‘I’m going straight to hell’ is fun song.
I have a six degrees of separation with Kinney, which I will tell below.
But first if you want a really interesting take on how Paste defines Southern Rock, go here.
OK, so for my story. I was alone in WUXTRY in Athens, Ga. , except for the guy behind the register. Peter Buck (REM) walks in, apparently not too unusual, he worked at WUXTRY for a while before REM took off. I used to buy from him. So anyway, Buck goes flipping through the music. We chat a little I think it was 1991 or 92 so probably much of the music was in the already established CD format.
He said he recommended Kevin Kinney’s ‘McDougal Blues’ a solo album from the Drivin’ and Cryin’ frontman –which Mr. Buck had produced.
But the thing was I already had it. On cassette tape. I think I copied it from someone else who bought it. RIpping off the artists, though I didn’t really have that level of awareness at the time, even tho I was a grown-up.
So I had it on cassette and opted to go with this Los Lobos CD that I’d had my eye on: Kiko, one of my early CD purchases.
I started to kick myself later thinking I should have bought the Kinney disc, scooped up the REM discs and ask Peter to sign them for me.
But I never was much for that kind of thing. In the end I bought Kiko and was on my way. Great band, saw them at the Marin County Fair north of SF years later.