Michelle Malone brings the vocals, the lyrics and the guitar swagger to new song ‘Dust Bowl Man‘, which is taken from the new album ‘1977.’ It’s a stripped-down album that finds Malone looking to the past to help make sense of the present, using Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, and Fleetwood Mac as touchstones. As Michelle Malone has explained “I’m a big fan of 1970s music, especially singer/songwriters from the Laurel Canyon scene. 1977 is the year I started playing guitar — the year I started becoming ME — so music from that era has always felt special. It takes me back to a place that was safe, sound, and comforting. That’s the sound I was drawn to when I was beginning to write this record.”
Michelle Malone told Americana UK about how this new song came to be: “I wrote Dust Bowl Man with one of my in my songwriting students, Carol Price, who had never written a song before – in fact, she didn’t play an instrument or sing! I paired myself with her, so I could help her see “how the sausage was made”, in her words. The exercise was for everyone to choose an old photo from an antique photo album I purchased at a second store. We chose an old black and white photo of two young men standing in what looked like the Midwest in the 1930’s… and Dust Bowl Man was born!”
