The MARC COHN TRIO Plays the Boulder Theatre, January 17

By: Sep. 25, 2012
Get Access To Every Broadway Story

Unlock access to every one of the hundreds of articles published daily on BroadwayWorld by logging in with one click.




Existing user? Just click login.

Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Marc Cohn has been obsessed with pop music for as long as he can remember: "I was hooked from day one. My older brother had a band that rehearsed in our basement, so I heard Bacharach, The Beatles, Ray Charles, and Motown coming up through the floorboards from the time I was six years old. By the time I was eleven though, the Beatles were breaking up and singer-songwriters were breaking through, and a lot of that music really resonated for me"

As a songwriter and singer, Cohn combines the precision of a brilliant tunesmith with the passion of a great soul man. He's a natural storyteller, balancing the exuberant with the poignant, and able to distill universal truth out of his often romantic, drawn-from-life tales. He similarly finds the emotional essence in the vintage songs he's just recorded, even as he brilliantly reshapes his source material. Cohn's own career took off at the turn of another decade, in 1990, with the recording of his critically acclaimed, self-titled debut disc, which yielded such classics in their own right as "Walking In Memphis," "Silver Thunderbird," and the lovely "True Companion." For Cohn, 1970 - -which saw the release of Moondance, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band to name but a few -- "was still the golden age of the single, but was also the beginning of the golden age of the Album. Even while all these deeply personal and poetic records were being released, there was this eclectic mix of pop music on the radio; it was great to be able to explore that range on this record. Just as a consumer and a total music fan, if I saw a sequence on a record that had songs by Paul Simon, Badfinger, John Lennon, Cat Stevens, The Grateful Dead and Bread, I would immediately be intrigued, and I'd probably buy it just to find out how badly the artist had lost the plot! But somehow all those disparate styles and approaches to songwriting seem like they belong together."
 
Listening Booth:1970 represents a continuation of a creative resurgence for Cohn, ultimately brought on by one of the strangest and scariest events of his life. In 2005, while driving back to his hotel with his band and tour manager after a show in Denver, Cohn was shot in the head by a would - be carjacker. Although the bullet had to be removed from his left temple, it miraculously missed penetrating his skull by a centimeter, causing no physical damage and allowing him to be released from the hospital the next day. After working through a bout with post-traumatic stress syndrome, Cohn has been busier than ever. Ending a nearly ten-year absence from the studio, he released one of his most critically acclaimed records, Join The Parade, in 2007 and followed it with well over 150 shows across the country. "I had always had my priorities straight when it came to my family. For me, it never felt right bringing children into the world and then spending all your time in a studio or a tour bus. But that night in Denver somehow brought me a new appreciation for my work and my audience."
 
Now, Listening Booth:1970 ultimately brings Cohn back to where he began-- writing songs like 'Walking In Memphis' which spoke so eloquently about the transformative, healing power of music. Like that hit single, Listening Booth: 1970 is really the soundtrack to his life. As Cohn reflects, "It seemed like such a natural progression for me to do a record like this because, if you've been following my records from my first single, I have been paying tribute to musicians through my writing all along, from Al Green to Elvis to Levon Helm to Charlie Christian, It's really been a touchstone for me. Now I'm just repaying a debt of gratitude to the artists who've changed my life and taught me how to do what I do."


Videos