Idiot At The Wheel is the 25^th official album from Long Island’s MOTU®. He refers to it as his “Silver Anniversary” release. Once again, Dr Richard Michelson (MOTU) jumps across the genres of blues, rock, Americana and jazz fusion to deliver a seamless production touching on a variety of political and societal issues, while performing a range of instruments including keyboards, harmonica, acoustic & electric guitars, bass, pedal steel guitar, and dobro.

However, this time he is also joined by newcomers Susan Karejwa (bass), and Phil Reinstein (accordion) along with regulars Dee Michelson (vocals), Ed Modzel (drums) and Rich Fry (vocals and guitar). This group of talented musicians give this new album a different feel from MOTU’s past albums, but it is still definitely a MOTU album with all of the guitar shredding and harmonies that his fans have learned to expect from him. These 10 new MOTU original songs continue to demonstrate Dr Rich’s evolution in songwriting and his masterful skills as a performer, band leader and engineer.

With its official release date of March 10^th, 2026, the 10-track, 44-minute album begins with “Just Another Day In America”, which is a hard-rock biting commentary on our current dysfunctional government. The repeated, “What the..?”, has a David Byrne feel to it. This cynical view, however, is followed by “The Fading Melody Of A Song”, which highlights classic MOTU/Dee vocal harmonies as well as Phil Reinstein on accordion and Susan Karejwa on bass. It casts a contrary view of our brief time here:

“Truth is life goes on

And memories of us will be gone

Like shapes of clouds in the sky

And the fading melody of a song

So give love and be loved

Truth will always rhyme

When memories of us are gone

The love will linger on”

Song three, “Deuces”, is a jazz-fusion instrumental with some spectacular dueling back-and-forth guitar leads by Dr Rich and Rich Fry. This is followed by the title track of the album, “Idiot At The Wheel”, which has an obvious message and a Rolling Stones feel created by the three-part harmonies of Dee, Fry, and Dr Rich along with Keith Richards-Ron Wood style guitar parts and Ed Modzel’s Charlie Watts-style drums. This sets up song five, “Excuses Are Thin”, which has a catchy John Hiatt feel to it.

Song six, “Pushing Darkness To The West”, is probably the most beautiful song on the album. The message is one of hope and light dominating darkness. The soft feel of acoustic guitar with electric guitar, along with chorus type keyboards and three-part vocal harmonies, sends the listener to an ethereal place. The song also continues with a jam long after the vocals end. This long song, at almost six minutes, passes quickly and seems short as it sucks you in.

The next two songs, “Keep Your Good Man” and “What The Hell Is Going On”, is a return to the blues-roots genre that MOTU fans are used to. The first, showing off Dee’s skills as a blues singer, and the latter fits the general album theme of our modern-day political dysfunction presented with MOTU’s slick slide guitar and gruff voice backed with Susan’s blues bass and Phil’s accordion.

The album ends with two catchy songs. First is a garage-band rock tune, “Original Sin (garage band version)”, which has a rock style reminiscent of Faces. Second is another guitar jazz-fusion instrumental, “Last Man Standing”, which once again shows off some excellent guitar licks.

MOTU’s 25th album, Idiot At The Wheel, is a mature American Roots Blues Rock & Americana album dominated by meaningful lyrics and masterful musicianship and, as such is highly recommended for long-time Motu fans and newcomers alike.