Take a right turn at the crossroads of life and stop by a coffee shop on the road to somewhere and you might meet someone like Fred McKinney. Someone who has been through the mill of life and come out of the other side wiser and singing his songs.
And why not? While he does sound more like your uncle than a proper performer on the early tracks – those that date from 2007 – he recovers a fair amount of dignity and purpose on the newer songs contained in this album. Lyric wise, Mr McKinney aims himself pretty neatly at the economic and political targets that you expect him to aim at and uses the same weapons that a sixties protest singer might have used although that, at times, does tend to make him sound more of a pastiche than the genuine article.
“High Water” is nonetheless an album that is easy on the acoustically inclined ear even if it doesn’t score any points for originality (though I doubt that was ever the aim anyway).
Available from CD Baby.