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"When I tell a story, it's believable, and usually true."
Coming from just anyone, that wouldn't mean much.
Coming from the mouth of Dino Kruse, a man who has held nearly every job in
the entertainment industry (roadie, MC, DJ, VJ, bandleader, studio session musician,
standup comic, writer, producer, actor, drag queen, and top-rated New Orleans
nighttime radio personality) it means quite a lot. Which is why his latest release,
Portraits, has the weight and depth of someone who's seen it all and isn't afraid
to share it with the world. As Dino says, "There's nothing wrong with not being
22." A New Orleans native, Dino grew up under the protective care of his mother,
Nelly Kruse, who worked as a waitress for a "prominent Italian family" that
funded his private schooling via tips at the racetrack. At age seven, a week
before his father died, he bought Dino a Gibson acoustic guitar. He got his
first gig filling in at the last minute for a canceled band at a friend's club.
The show was so successful that Dino quit his job, made his first album (Gritty
Rock and Soul In New Orleans recorded at New Orleans Sea-Saint Recording Studio)
and started a stint of playing 250 dates a year. Along the way, he VJ'ed for
MTV, did session work in LA, performed in movies and opened for everybody from
the Allman Brothers, Roy Buchanan (whose band backed up Dino after Roy's death),
the Beach Boys, Chicago and Neil Diamond, to the Kinks, the Stray Cats and Dwight
Yokum. "You name 'em, I've opened for 'em," Dino says. It didn't hurt that Dino
is also one of the South's top dealers of vintage guitars. He's sold guitars
to Neil Young, Joe Walsh, Steven Stills, and among others. All that touring
came to a stop with the death of his mother and his own subsequent brush with
life-threatening illness. "One thing I learned from extreme illness is that
it makes you appreciate things that you didn't appreciate before," Dino says.
"I used to be the ultimate workaholic." That being the case, Dino took a few
years off and retreated to the hilly country of the Ozarks. Living and writing
at his own pace, he came up with the songs on Portraits. Back in New Orleans,
he collaborated with a handpicked group of New Orleans' best musicians at the
esteemed Egyptian Room studio. Led by Randy Ellis on guitar, slide guitar by
Camile Baudoin of the Radiators, drums by Willie Green of the Neville Brothers,
Egyptian Room studio engineer Tim LeBlanc on pedal steel, David Hyde, Scott
Womack and Danny Reid on bass, Sarah Kramer on trumpet, Spencer Bohren on slide
and lap steel, backup singing by Theresa Andersson and Amy Helm (daughter of
the Band's Levon Helm). The results are a seductive blend of blues and rock
with songwriting that compares favorably with the likes of Bruce Springsteen
and Mark Knopfler. Anyone who's ever spent a night in the French Quarter should
instantly recognize the "the jokers, strokers, hustlers, and geeks" in Dino's
songs Although evidence of Dino's reputation as a hotshot guitarist can still
be heard, it's the songwriting and the confessional lyrics that make this album
standout. Sometimes raucous, sometimes slow, it's like sitting down for a drink
with Dino Kruse. As he put it, "I've led quite a colorful life and I'm just
lucky to be able to tell the stories."
M.C. PressFlesh (mcpressflesh@hotmail.com) is the music editor for Where Y'at magazine.
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