How about an album of protest songs? That’s got to be a good idea for an earnest singer songwriter like Michael Weston King. In fact, I’m surprised that no one had thought of it before as such a concept would be perfect for these politically correct times. Perhaps I’m just being too cynical…
Mr King sounds like a seasoned performer throughout and, like a master craftsman, neatly sands off any rough edges from the songs. For example, he takes Roosevelt Sykes’ “High Price Blues”, and glosses over it in almost perfunctory manner. Likewise, “Is There Anybody There?” – and you can’t argue with including a Phil Ochs song given the album concept – gets sweetened with way too much saccharine presumably to ease its passage through sensitive ears. Even Mr King’s own songs sound like parodies which I’m sure wasn’t his intention and, by the time the album ended with “Simple Song of Freedom”, those earnest yet soulless performances had actually induced apathy.
Don’t get me wrong as “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier” is a nice sounding and well performed album but it was just so polished and inoffensive that it seemed more of an academic exercise than a musical statement. Since protest songs are definitely a thing of - and for - the past, I can’t see this one appealing to more than those politically correct beard strokers that congregate in the better part of town.