***1/2 Phil Lee

THE MIGHTY KING OF LOVE

(Shanachie)

Phil Lee comes by his alterna-country roots authentically: he was born in Durham, North Carolina, and he drives a big rig between gigs with his band the Sly Dogs, a rock outfit that has more Rolling Stones grit and Dylanesque snarl than Buck Owens twang. After a brief stint as a Flying Burrito Brother and an in-house writer for a Nashville songwriting factory where the folks weren't amused by Lee's anti-commercial deadpan humor, the singer spent several years working on the tunes that would become Mighty King, and it shows. The album doesn't have one weak track, and several are potential standards, including the wise-ass macho cheatin' song "I'm the Why She's Gone," the working-class boogie number "A Night in the Box," and the shuffling, Eddie Cochran-style shuffle nugget "Blueprint for Disaster," an ode to a pad so small you have to stick your head out the window to change your mind. Lee even pulls off some respectable faux zydeco with the humorous "Les Debris, Ils Sont Blancs" (i.e., "The Trash Is White").

Mighty King was being picked as one of the year's best albums by folks in Nashville months before its January 25 release, and it lives up to the hyperbole. Lee has distilled 50 years of great rock and honky-tonk into a 200-proof cocktail that's all his own.

-- J. Poet