"Crooked Road Songs leaves us wanting more from Dinallo. He's at home in any kind of music, and his stellar guitar playing puts him in that class of guitarists that includes Vince Gill, Robert Cray, Dale Watson, Duane Allman and Danny Flowers who never waste a note and possess the just-right phrasing for any song they touch. This small masterpiece of an EP delivers the promise of the kind of musical portraits Dinallo can paint on a larger canvas.”
-Henry Carrigan, Country Standard Time

Nashville Scene – Best of 2008
“If you’ve caught one of Michael Dinallo’s bimonthly soul-blues revues at Betty’s Grill this year, you’ve seen the Ohio-born guitarist and producer pick in tandem with some of Nashville’s best singers and players. Dinallo made his reputation leading ’90s Americana band The Radio Kings, and his Betty’s shows have featured turns by Music City greats like Steve Poulton, Luella and Kevin Gordon. He’s a stone-cold bluesman, but his production of wife Juliet Simmons Dinallo’s forthcoming full-length Dream Girl honors both soul and Americana.”
-Edd Hurt

"The only question is why has it taken multi-talented Michael Dinallo 30 years to finally come out with a debut? And couldn’t he have added a few more tunes? Crooked Road Songs is, in a word, spectacular. It’s soulful, bluesy to the hilt, filled with folksy reverence for his forebears and contains some spectacular vocals courtesy of soul shouter Barrence Whitfield and Boston bar-band hero Tim Gearan. Dinallo has arranged, produced, written and added some pretty damn nifty electric guitar and mandolin on six sterling tracks, three with full band, three acoustically intimate. Muddy Waters did Big Bill Broonzy’s “Lonesome Road Blues” in 1959. Is it sacrilegious to say I like Dinallo’s version better? Ditto for Lead Belly’s “In The Pines.” Dinallo’s originals reek of late-night honky-tonk floozies and bare-bones front-porch Appalachia. The man knows how to put a record together. He’s done so producing Eddie Floyd on Stax and the Charlie Rich tribute album last year, both projects brimming with ideas, alacrity and total joyousness. Rock on, dude. I’m a fan."
-Mike Greenblatt, Goldmine

“If you look up the word underrated, then Michael Dinallo's name should be right beside it. He has an imposing array of credits from producing soul great Eddie Floyd to helming the esteemed Feel Like Going Home: The Songs of Charlie Rich, yet he has never received the credit he deserves. This new EP is the first record under his own name -- and it's an absolute gem. It's a rootsy excursion incorporating his deft, twang-heaven skills on electric and acoustic guitars as well as mandolin. He brings in Boston mainstay Tim Gearan to sing modernized treatments of "Lonesome Road Blues" (originally a Muddy Waters tune) and "In the Pines," associated with Lead Belly, on which Dinallo sounds almost Duane Eddy-ish. Then he adds exquisite soul singer Barrence Whitfield for originals such as the bluesy-psychedelic "Mr. Johnson" and the poignant but hopeful "Waiting for a Better Day." Let's hope that Dinallo's better day has arrived. He has earned it.”
-Steve Morse, former staff music critic at the Boston Globe for 28 years now teaching Rock History at Berklee College of Music

“Dinallo is a Boston-area music veteran, perhaps best known as one of The Radio Kings blues-rock quartet which earned a record deal with Icehouse Records of Memphis and toured the world in the 1990s. Dinallo has been working on production, and has been out of the spotlight in recent years, except as guitarist for the rockabilly group Juliet and the Lonesome Romeos – Juliet also being Mrs. Dinallo. This six-song EP is a chance for him to stretch out and unveil his six-string mastery again. Dinallo surrounds himself with some first class help, as on the gently rocking “Lonesome Road Blues,” where Tim Gearan sings lead and plays guitar, with Kevin Barry giving the quintet a three-guitar attack. The darker atmospherics of “In the Pines” offers a more fuzz-toned type of sound. Three of the songs feature Dinallo in a stripped down trio with Barrence Whitfield on vocals and Ducky Carlisle on bass drum, and “Mr. Johnson” boasts dazzling acoustic and electric guitar work and a 1960′s psychedelic blues feel. “Waiting for a Better Day” is a shimmering, soulful ballad that proves Dinallo’s songwriting abilities are still among the best in roots rock.”
-Jay N. Miller, Patriot Ledger

“An eclectic cat from Boston – now in Nashville - that makes you think he loves the south one minute, Dick Dale the next, off beat psychobilly the minute after that and more as the minutes go on. Loaded with the kind of off beat charm that makes you a believer right away, this award winning 30 year vet has had lots of time and tide to perfect this set of moves. Go down the road with him and you won't be feeling bad, for sure. Check it out.”
-Chris Spector, Midwest Record