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 micah p. hinson session
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.No pain, no gain. Some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the pain. While most of us just pick our way through the kind of varied fortunes that might stop you dead in your tracks if you gave them any thought. After years of wayward behaviour - drugs, jail and general carousing - Texan singer/songwriter Micah P. Hinson struck lucky with The Gospel Of Progress, a wise-beyond-its-years collection of campfire ballads and homely acoustic tales. Great critical notices followed for this rakish young man with a fondness for prescription drugs.  Ironically, having kicked his early addiction to Xanax, Codeine and Soma, a severe back injury sustained while play-fighting with friends saw Hinson doped up on the same meds he’d previously been taking, just to be able to tour. Says the singer, “I had to get back on the horse and ride it again. It was like having to share a bed again with an ancient, ugly lover”. Aggravating his back injury whilst on the road, Hinson was hospitalised immediately on his return to Texas. In crippling pain he endured all the ignominious apparatus of the infirm: shower stool, corset, walker. A young man in an old man’s situation. Unable to do anything but stare at the ceiling, he began writing songs.  Expectedly, the resultant second album, Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit, is largely a rumination on loss and the vicissitudes of fortune. It’s the kind of album one might write whilst recuperating and talking familiar nonsense with friends. The Opera Circuit players travelled from around the world to record their parts sitting round a frequently bedbound Hinson, who calls the record “a victory over hardship and compromise”. Tracks like the bittersweet She Don’t Own Me, or the red-eyed closer Don’t Leave Me Now prompt the kind of homespun wisdom about silver linings and darkest hours before dawn. Or, as they say in Texas, “Nothin’ dries as quick as a tear."
James Cowdery
Micah P. Hinson - Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit, released 04 September 06 on Sketchbook Records.
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comment by m1sterbigstuff
Feb 25, 2007
I've only seem him twice, but he's very good. Not afraid to do a few acoustic numbers, and then turn up the volume and make your ears ring. Did a good cover of Suzanne at the Union Chapel. First album the better of the two.
comment by hollywoodster
Sep 6, 2006
Its a great record, more of a fuller sound than the Gospel of Progress... By the way BBC, the link youve got to the album above is actually a link to The Late Cord EP, Micahs 4AD side project with JM from the Earlies.
comment by londoner
Sep 4, 2006
micah's a genius, musically, and for thinking he was in england ("why does it always f'ing rain in england?" he asked) when he played at the green man festival in wales. can't wait for the new album.
comment by rowan
Sep 1, 2006
I was a bit disappointed with the album when I first heard it as I'd had quite high hopes, but it's really grown on me after a few listens.
comment by chrsmrrtt
Sep 1, 2006
i've scoured the web searchin' for more audio and video samples of micah's music and there is some fantastic stuff. i found a few on his home page and his label's (sketchbook records) artist page. i recommend that you check them out. they have persuaded me to put an order in for the album (as soon as it becomes back in stock).
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see also
 micah p. hinsongreen man  the late cordalbum review
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 micah p. hinsonby londoner
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