First of all, Kevn Kinney is not leaving his band Drivin' N' Cryin'. His solo outing, Down and Out Law is the result of a collection of songs he decided to record himself as he felt they would not fit with his band. Entering the studio with his guitar and nothing else, Kinney emerged with a batch of stories about the hardships, disillusionment, love, and underlying hope stemming from his years growing up in rural Wisconsin.

The first of Kinney's tales is the title track about an out-of-work musician who has been beaten by the system so many times, he is satisfied to get a gig just for beer. With a delicate vocal performance and a catchy, grooving hook, the song sets the tone of Down and Out Law, which seems to parallel Springsteen's Nebraska in many ways. On "Midwestern Blues," Kinney yearns to break out of the small town he grew up in in order to avoid falling into the lifestyle of his parents. He sings, "If I get another chance I'm gonna take it," over the song's gangly guitar line.

For Kinney, less is certainly more. He exhibits his country roots with the slow, country folk of "Save For Me," as well as a blusier side with the down and dirty "Chattahoochie Coochie Man," which sounds a lot like John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom." The mandolin melody of "So Take a Look at Me Now" also helps to keep things musically fresh. In "Eye of the Hurricane," Kinney's vocals come closest to his Drvin' N' Cryin' sound along with its heavy, honky tonk riff.

By easing off his resonant Southern growl on most of the album, Kinney forces listeners to focus more on what he is saying, which accounts for two of the album's finest moments. On side one, a country-fied version of the Last Supper, "Shingding with the Lord," Kinney warns, "Beware of prophets dressed like gas station attendents," before inviting everyone to the shingding, "We're having a party in the barn / Won't you all come along." Disillusionment is the theme on side two's brilliant, "Mountain Top," where Kinney finds that success is not everything it is cracked up to be. ("It isn't like the books I've read"). Ultimately, it is Kenny's strong songwriting skills exhibited in songs like those that allow the album to transcend the demo tape for which it could have been mistaken.

Hats off to Kinney (and Mammoth Records for taking the financial gamble to distribute the album) for releasing Down and Out Law. It should help exhume a lost craft so often overlooked today; the art of songwriting.

Reviewer:  Don Kroeller Jr., courtesy of Flash Magazine.