Born in Derbyshire in 1961, Michael Weston King played in a number of bands on the edge of the post punk scene in Liverpool during the late 70s and early 80s. He then became aware of bands such as R.E.M., Green on Red, The Dream Syndicate and The Triffids, whose influences mirrored his own newly found interest in Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, and The Byrds. So he joined country rock band Gary Hall and The Stormkeepers. In 1992, after their demise, he formed The Good Sons to further explore this emerging musical direction. When they broke up in 1999 he began to work on his solo career but rejoined the band for a fourth album HAPPINESS in 2001. In 2004 they released COSMIC FIREWORKS - The Best of The Good Sons (1994–2001). From 1999 to 2011, King released 10 critically acclaimed solo albums including in 2005 the compilation album THE TENDER PLACE: A Collection 1999–2005. Now, after concentrating on the more country orientated project My Darling Clementine with his wife Lou Dalgleish, he has released THE STRUGGLE, his first solo album in a number of years. Lonesome Highway took the opportunity to catch up with him recently for this interview.
Congratulations on the new album. It continues the fine body of work you have delivered so far, both as a solo artist and with My Darling Clementine. Had you been writing material all along that you considered more appropriate for you under your own name, rather than for MDC?
Well, I just write whenever I get inspired, and I don’t really think about where the song will end up or who will be singing it until it takes shape. I then tailor a song accordingly if necessary. But I did feel, with this, I had a bunch of songs, an album’s worth of material, that really hung together well, that was really just suited to one voice. They are pretty personal songs, many about my own feelings, no one else, so it was logical to me that one singular voice suits them better. The whole album is pretty intimate.
Is it easier writing for yourself or do you find the MDC songs are now a part of your writing psyche?
You do have to be more disciplined when writing for two voices. I wouldn’t say one is more difficult than the other, just that you need to consider other factors when writing for a duet. Instinctively I tend to write, like most writers I guess, with just one voice in mind, usually mine but sometimes in the guise of a character I am channelling (such as the world weary beat cop in Weight Of The World). But, it will soon be time again to start delving back into that writing psyche you mentioned and get some new songs together, some “My Darling Clementine songs”, if we are indeed to make another album
You noted on the cover about the origin of THE STRUGGLE title, both as a particular place but also as a state of existence. Did it seem the best title to encompass this body of work?
Yes, it did. Not only this body of work but a larger reflection on most peoples’ lives in general over the past two to three years. But to be honest, I really liked the title anyway. I have a note book with lots of possible album titles, song titles, ideas etc. Even if the song doesn’t get written or the album made, I have always got a list of potential names on the go. This one came to me when when I was in the Lake District a couple of years back, and I saw a sign for the mountain pass ‘The Struggle’. It seemed such a potentially great album title to me. And after all that we have been though recently it seemed extremely fitting.
You produced this album, as you have other work in the past. Is that a process that you particularly enjoy?
I like to produce my solo stuff myself, as I have quite a singular vision and found it easier that way, to draw people into my way of thinking. It is different with MDC. We have used producers (or co-producers) on all those albums simply because, well, Lou and I need a referee! On my stuff I can be more indulgent in my influences and references and not feel need to explain or justify myself.
Making this album was a special treat. I cut it in a beautiful location in Wales, it got me out the house, from what was becoming a very claustrophobic situation at home (as I am sure it had become for everyone), and it kept me sane. I could just disappear into these songs and into this process. That is not an option when making an album with a partner, especially your wife.
You take care with your cover artwork as you do with the music production. Was it a case here of finding the image and then the title or vice versa?
The image I chose in the end came quite late. As I mentioned I had the album title for a long time. There is a lot of ‘Welshness’ about the album, not only the fact it was made there but also was recorded and engineered by ‘Welsh wunderkind’ Clovis Phillps, who also played brilliantly all over it (guitars, bass, keys, mandolin, drums, backing box). He made an outstanding contribution. It then seemed natural to use some Welsh art and of a Welsh location. I met the painter Dan Llewelyn Hall though my son, the poet, Oliver James Lomax. He had illustrated one of Oliver’s collections. Dan was also painting his way along the Offas Dyke (the footpath that borders England and Wales) to celebrate it’s 50th anniversary. I like what he does with landscape. His paintings are kind of rough and rugged. I love the colours in this painting, the dirt brown of the earth. Again, it just seems very prescient to this collection of songs. In the painting there is what looks like a small figure almost at the top of the mountain, which to me, signifies someone who, after a long struggle, has almost made it to the top, almost made it through the obstacles he faced, but who still has a little way to go. Will he ever get to his final destination? That too felt very apt! The painting is called The Coalface and represents Aberfan.
Though you have added guests on the album, it is essentially you and Clovis Phillips. Were they added remotely, something pretty prevalent prior to the pandemic, though more focussed on now as a recording possibility?
Yes, it was just Clovis and I in the studio. Jeb Loy Nichols, who lives nearby, called in for a day to do some backing vocals and my daughter Mabel too came for her parts, but all the other things (trombone, strings, slide guitar etc) these were recorded remotely by the players that we chose. So we had parts coming in from Paris, London, Liverpool, Sheffield and darkest Devon.
Recording in Newtown in Wales, was that a place where you had a certain remoteness, that in the winter/spring when you recorded helped you to concentrate on the material and work without distraction?
Absolutely. After such a period of lock-down I was desperate for a change of scenery, for some solitude, for some remoteness in a rural setting. It is no coincidence that so many people have been fleeing the city recently. It was just what I needed.
There are a number of fellow song writers mentioned in memoriam on the cover. Whom have you felt the loss of most profoundly, in terms of peers and influences?
Undoubtedly Jackie Leven. Even though it has been over 10 years now, I still miss him terribly. I miss his counsel, I miss his wit, his view on life, and especially his music. I miss playing shows with him, I miss drinking with him. He was a real kindred spirit. The songwriters mentioned in memoriam on the album (Eric Taylor, David Olney) passed more recently, in 2021, and were artists that I had worked with and was proud to call friends but I was not as close to them as I was to Jackie.
I also wish I had had more time to get to know Townes, who I met 1993 but he was gone by 1996. I often wonder where that friendship would have gone had he got clean, and if we had got to work together more.
You also, in that memoriam section, mention Valerie Dalgleish. I assume that Valerie’s Coming Home was inspired by her passing?
Yes, it was. We lost Lou’s mum in November 2019, a few months before the pandemic struck. She was in and out of care homes by then, so arguably it was a blessing.
Is that type of song more difficult to write than any other?
Well, writing about a family member is a delicate thing. Naturally you feel under more pressure to portray them with a fondness that is shared by others. Thankfully, all the Dalgleish family members have really liked the song, but yes, the last thing you want to do is write a bad one when trying to remember someone that was so well loved by those close to you. This song though, it did flow. I didn’t have to labour over it. All the events recounted in the song all happened, so it was just my recollections of her, my relationship with her, images of her when she a younger mum, and the aftermath of her passing, so I had plenty to draw on.
Weight Of The World, which opens and closes the album, has a political as well as personal dimension. How deeply do world events affect you as a writer?
I think any songwriter is, or should be, affected by world events.You cannot ignore what is going on around you. Phil Ochs is one of my favourite songwriters and, in my humble opinion, the finest ever writer of protest songs. I have lost count of the amount of times I have thought “I wonder what Phil would have made of this” while I watched yet another appalling news story. Of all the atrocious things we saw Trump do during his tenure as President, it was his photo op outside St John’s Church in Washington, where he had the streets cleared of peaceful protests so that he could hold a bible (upside down), that I found the most repugnant. I found it so utterly disgusting, and depressing. Weight Of The World uses the back drop of the killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement and events of that day in Washington to express how it is really politicians who are the ones holding us all down.
It appears you are now a lifer in the music business. Can you reflect on that?
To quote your fellow country man Van, “it’s too late to stop now”. I turned 60 last November and can’t see myself doing anything else now. I don’t have any security or pension plan, retirement is not an option. Musicians, we just keep going until we fall over. And why not? We have been blessed, whatever the level of material success we have had, to live a creative life, a travelling life (a great reward), and one that has avoided us getting proper jobs! Apart from a brief spell in my late teens when I genuinely thought I was going to become a vicar, and a briefer spell before that when I thought I’d play for Man United, I have never wanted to work in any other area. Write, record, tour, repeat. Has always been enough for me. Yes I have got some other projects in mind, one is a film script about the late, great Mickey Newbury, and I also have a couple of books I want to finish at some point but I am a restless soul and the urge to travel makes it hard for me to sit and focus on things that take a long time to come to fruition. I need that instant gratification of writing a song or playing a show.
Has taking that path become clearer or is it as full of chance and circumstances as ever?
Well, over the years you build up a network of people you work with (musicians, promoters, agents, labels etc) so I guess that can make the path clearer but this is the music industry so nothing is ever really certain. People quit, venues close, labels go bust. Also, the internet has taken over to such an extent now too. We all spend too much time on line and musicians have to do the same to continuously self promote, which I must admit I find extremely tiresome. The mystery has gone, the veil between artists and audience, and I dont like that. So yes, I’d say it is as full of chance and circumstance as ever.
What do you look back on as achievements, and indeed look to the future as things left to achieve?
I think my greatest achievement is still doing it. Still being out there. Touring, making records, writing (and hopefully still getting better). David Olney once said his greatest achievement was the fact it said ‘musician’ on his passport. I tend to agree. This is such a competitive business and one that has seen millions of people ‘have a go’ and then drop out, or been chewed up and spat out along the way. You are open to great uncertainties and huge vagaries in opinion. It can be frustrating when you feel you are not as recognised as maybe you think you should be. But then again I have so many great memories, so many people I have met, places I wouldn’t have been were it not for the music. When I am asked what I do and I tell people I am a musician, you can see them come to life. The same would not be said if told them I worked in accountancy!
”What is left to achieve” is a tricky one. I have made a lot of records, written a lot of songs but an actual hit would be nice! ha ha. I would also like to see a well put together box set come out, of all the studio albums. Either three separate ones to cover The Good Sons, my solo work and My Darling Clementine, or a ‘one stop shop’ of everything I have done since the 90’s. I recently did a deal with Cherry Red Records, so all the back catalogue is now available across the streaming platforms (a lot of it wasn’t up there) but a physical version would be a nice thing too.
There are some collaborations I’d like to do that are on my wish list. Some achievable, others maybe hard to make happen. I am a huge fan of Robbie Fulks and would love to work with him at some point. So too Joe Henry. Joe nearly produced the third MDC album but logistics and finances prevented it. Still, maybe in the future.
There is a song on the album co-written with Jackie Leven and you have helped to put together a tribute to him and his work. Was that something that had its own rewards as project?
It did. Like all tribute albums, it is an eclectic mix but it sounds fabulous and there are some stunning versions of Jackie’s songs on it. The album looks wonderful too. Sarah Brisdion, who did the art for it, I used for THE STRUGGLE design too.
Pulling the album together brought it’s own frustrations. I was angry nothing had been done sooner and it looked like nothing was going to happen, so I decided I had better do it. Frustrating too, as some artists (no names) I genuinely thought would get involved declined or didn’t even respond but, that aside, it was wonderful to get such a positive feedback from many fellow musicians, fans and admirers of Jackie who were keen to contribute. And then, once the process began, to have songs drop into my mail box was like Christmas Day every day. I am proud of it and would urge everyone to check it out. A gorgeous double vinyl version recently came out for Record Store Day too.
What’s next for you and My Darling Clementine?
The road. Two years of not playing live means I/we have a lot to catch up on. Since Feb 2022, My Darling Clementine have toured Europe, UK and the east coast /mid west of America. More UK and Euro touring is coming before summer. Back to US later in the year too
I will continue to promote THE STRUGGLE and there will be more solo shows too. At the ones played so far, Clovis and I have performed the whole album, which has been really enjoyable. More of those for sure. Lou and I are also looking to do some shows with Steve Nieve in July, as we never got to tour the COUNTRY DARKNESS album when it came out. As for new recordings, the next album will be an MDC album, though I am not sure what direction we are going with that. Or maybe it is Lou’s turn for a solo album? And if so then, maybe, I will get one of those books completed!!
I am also currently working on and contributing vocals to an album project with Mark Brend (aka Ghostwriter). Very much an experimental sound-scape project based around hymns and even some “youth praise choruses” from our 1970’s church days. It is a curious project but what I have heard so far is fabulous. Mark is a really inventive guy and I love what he has done in remixing some of my songs, most recently his remix of Weight Of The World on the new album.
So, will keep on keeping on, seeing what life throws at me, and what new musical avenues I can wander down. Right now though, a pint of Guinness and lunch with my grown-up kids is my immediate concern.
Interview by Stephen Rapid