Such an amazing voice! soak Norah Jones in whiskey and sawdust for twenty years and you’ll get some idea of what it sounds like to hear Mia Dyson sing.
Whoever encouraged that voice to boot-scoot should be shot. Yes, she is from country Victoria, and her early influences comprise the likes of Dylan and Steely Dan, but these are things that can be overcome! Imagine that voice unmarred by the affected Texan twang, unsullied by the woe-woe-ness of the country music genre.
Mia, 1987 called, they want it all back; where do you buy a shirt like that nowadays? Using that voice to write great truckin’ songs for the hoedown is like using a priceless antique as a doorstop.
Mia Dyson could sing the whole world to sleep or dance in the space of a few songs, yet she has chosen a genre with limited appeal. That is not to say her audience didn’t love her, they did, and she carried them from one heartbreak to the next on the back of her lap guitar.
Dyson is touring with talented support act from Melbourne, Whitley who, although he claims to have had an epiphany whilst listening to alt-country singers Kieran Cane and Kevin Walsh, manages to embrace blues and roots without becoming a cliché. It was a night of breathtaking voices and bar-raising songwriting skill both lyrically and musically. A clown on stage, he is unassuming and self-deprecating, but Whitley has a superb vocal range and control coupled with the honest Australianness of Josh Pyke, his true poet’s soul is revealed in his lyrics.
The audience clung to the walls and the tables for the first three songs of the set, but they broke off their conversations to listen, rapt as Whitley reached unexpected vocal heights, plucking their attention as he did his guitar all the while seemingly unaware of his effect on them. After that, audience members unashamedly crossed the empty floor and planted themselves firmly on the ground in front of the stage and drank up every second of the rest of the set.
Second support act Rocco Deluca increased the intensity tenfold with swamp/stomp blues and an angelic voice not afraid to harmonise with the devil, and proving equally skilled at both. And no; a brass section didn’t join him on stage whilst you were spellbound by his psycho steel guitar, he makes that sound with his voice.
Far from derivative, the temptation to compare Deluca with a particular aging metal legend or a dead blues-rock singer is great, though to do so would be to trivialise the personal style he has created for himself which can only be fully appreciated live. See him, he will inspire even the least musical person to pick up a guitar and have a go.
