Peering into 2026
WITH A LOOK BACK
Here we go, into a New Year – a time of hope and new ideas, or at least the promise of change and growth. As much as we can hope for 2026 to be less chaotic, disjointed, and down-right infuriating as 2025, I fear that not to be the case. Unfortunately, I think it will be all the aforementioned qualifiers and descriptors to the Nth power. Unflinching creativity, perseverance, honesty, truth, imagination, and righteousness will power us through the chaos, disinformation, hate, and mean-spiritedness that has permeated every molecule of the current abdication of actual governance in Washington, D.C.
“However he has chosen to express himself over the years, Michael Dinallo has made it memorable.”
To the unflinching creative end, I’d like to announce some of the projects I have in the queue in 2026. Street Opera and Waiting for a Better Day – the second and third parts of what has turned into a trilogy – will bookend my 2026. Street Opera, which will be released by Memphis International Records in February, is my latest offering of instrumental music. Much like The Night’s Last Dance – the first part of the trilogy – Street Opera grew organically. All of a sudden, I realized I had another instrumental album. “A Christmas Waltz” will be found on Street Opera.
Waiting for a Better Day will be published by [product] towards the end of 2026. Waiting for a Better Day is the accompanying collection of poems that were written while The Night’s Last Dance and Street Opera were being composed. It also contains selected lyrics from the past twenty-five years. My dear friend, blues guitar wizard, and music writer Ted Drozdowski wrote the foreword. Waiting for a Better Day features the incredible photography of Nate Dow and the wonderfully inspiring art of my daughter Annabel. Steve Roberts has been photographing me in Memphis for over thirty years. His images adorn the covers of Street Opera and Waiting for a Better Day.
The Mercy Brothers – Barrence Whitfield and myself – made our reappearance at the Country Music Hall of Fame in June 2024 during the concert for From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. Barrence is featured on the box set singing “Irma Jackson,” Merle Haggard’s song about interracial love. In 2025, we worked on new music. 2026 will see a late-spring reissue of our album Strange Adventure on Cupcakes & Muffins Records. Strange Adventure was originally released by Gibraltar Records in 2003. Our dear friend, the late, great music critic Steve Morse wrote this in the Boston Globe back in 2003: “One of the best records of the year is The Mercy Brothers’ Strange Adventure. It marks a fruitful teaming of Boston’s Barrence Whitfield and Michael Dinallo.”
And so, as we peer into 2026, here is a review of Crooked Road Songs’ 2025 on Substack. The following video is a montage of the cover images from 2025. The musical accompaniment is “Autumn Nocturne” from The Night’s Last Dance. Enjoy.
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Find me on the radio dial every Saturday afternoon 4-5pm EST with Crooked Road Songs on WICN 90.5fm locally in Worcester, Massachusetts, and globally at wicn.org. My playlist from Saturday, December 27, 2025:
Frank Stokes “Downtown Blues”
Roberta Flack “Compared to What”
Sam & Dave “Soothe Me” (Sam Moore & Steve Cropper)
The Beach Boys “Sail On, Sailor”. (Brian)
The Box Tops “She Shot a Hole in My Soul”
Ann Sexton “Have a Little Mercy”
Nellie Lutcher “I Thought About You”
Kenny Burrell and Coleman Hawkins “I Thought About You”
Lonnie Johnson “You Have No Love in Your Heart”
Curtis Jones “Fool Blues”
Earl “Fatha” Hines & Johnny Hodges “Caution Blues (Blues in 3rds)”
Otis Spann & Robert Lockwood “The Hard Way”
Ray Charles “Blues Before Sunrise”
James Booker “Please Send Me Someone to Love”
The Gene Harris Quartet “This Little Light of Mine”