Micah P. Hinson: Don’t mess with this Texan

A crowded early life made Hinson a prime candidate as the cover guy for Pierre’s book of Texan angst. After Hinson’s show at Brisbane’s Troubadour I suggested he might find a spot on Pierre’s novel but he said he hadn’t heard of it. I learnt later he found a copy and laughed his way through it on the flight home.

Hinson has just released his fifth CD, All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers, a brilliant collection of covers from the catalogues of such giants as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Pasty Cline, Roy Orbison, Leadbelly, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Buddy Holly and the Beatles. Cover songs have become more and fashionable in recent years – people enjoy the way songs are reinterpreted or the homage an artist might pay to the original.

Some of the most unlikely pairings of performers and tunes turn up – last year Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlins, the Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle and the Felice Brothers teamed up on the delightfully titled Big Surprise Tour and sang the AC/DC hit Long Way To The Top as their final encore. It was a nice reminder that a pretty ordinary tune can become a barn-storming stomp in the hands of great musicians.

Hinson’s covers CD highlights his strength as a performer and his intuitive eye. It is not easy to sustain a series of 24 songs well known by fans and still retain your own authenticity as a musician. Hinson manages this. The album is actually two discs, broken into an acoustic set and one with layers of electric rock music. And what a start you find! A gentle, loving rendition of the relatively new Pedro the Lion’s Slow and Steady which exposes the brave honesty of the original followed by a surprising version of John Denver’s This Old Guitar which sounds so Texan you’d swear it was written by Guy Clark. But the real gems are songs like the Leadbelly tune In The Pines, with the inspiration obviously taken from the grunge crowd favourite, Curt Kobain and Nirvana who introduced the song to a new generation. It’s an emotion-soaked shout from the gut that uses feedback to make your eyes pop and your ears bleed. Turn it up and sit tight.

There’s also Orbison’s Runnin’ Scared, carried along with a runaway train of drums and piano, pushing the sad and sorry violin that cushions the vocal. It makes the Big O’s original sound positively up-beat. The other neat twists are two songs which have been covered so often they are almost beyond another remake. But Hinson does manage to breathe fresh insights and feeling into Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changin’ as well as the Paul Anka song Frank Sinatra made famous, My Way. Not only does Hinson make Dylan’s lyrics sound as fresh and alive as they were almost 50 years ago, his one-take recording also captures the spontaneity we expected in the 60s. My Way, meanwhile, is delivered with a spares and solitary purpose that outlives the initial groan at hearing this overworked tune.

If you haven’t heard Hinson, this is a stunning introduction to his work. If you have you’ll want to see what he’s up to. He toured Australia after his first CD was released locally – with luck someone will reprise that idea and bring him back. He’s an artist that deserves to reach a wider audience – and you’re not about to hear him on the radio any time soon.

Another brilliant recent album of covers is the posthumous Johnny Cash album, Ain’t No Grave, the final, sixth volume release from the Rick Rubin-produced “American series”. Issued on the day Cash would have turned 78 – February 26 – it is a tear-jerking memory of a true genius of the 20th century. Cash recorded these songs when he knew he was dying and you can hear the frailty in the vocal – something that neither the artist nor producer sought to mask. Opening with the title track, an old Pentecostal gospel dirge which is as dead man walking as it gets – a spectral organ, a gallows drum-beat and that ghostly vocal defy the promise of eternal rest.

The other simply stunning songs are Sheryl Crow’s Redemption Day and Tom Paxton’s Where I’m Bound. The former retreats into a surrender as Cash dribbles the final words, “Freedom … freedom … freedom” while the later is classic Man in Black stuff. Some people were disturbed by the American series, especially renditions of counter intuitive Cash offerings like Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails tune Hurt. If you didn’t like that sort of thing this might not be for you – it is American music stripped raw. But if you liked the earlier material this CD will stand proudly on your shelves. It’s just lovely.

All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers, Micah P Hinson, Pod/Inertia

American VI: Ain’t No Grave, Johnny Cash, American Recordings/Lost Highway