101 Favorite Songs<\/a> list of a few years back; \u201cWalking In Memphis\u201d absolutely belongs there.<\/p>\n\u201cGhost Train\u201d follows with a fresh and different feel, a subdued number featured rhythmic electric piano and Cohn\u2019s soulful vocals, clearing a path for the album\u2019s second single. Built around Cohn\u2019s rippling, evocative piano work, \u201cSilver Thunderbird\u201d is a fervent, gospel-tinged ode to his father and the car he loved, given rich dimension by the tidal surge between gentle verses and urgent choruses.<\/p>\n
The mid-section of the album is where things get a bit patchy. \u201cDig Down Deep\u201d goes for that Van Morrison mystical-soul vibe, and \u201cMiles Away\u201d again has a nice surge at the chorus, but the slower \u201cWalk On Water\u201d and \u201cSaving The Best For Last\u201d verge on ponderous. \u201cStrangers In A Car\u201d works better, its evocative melody and arrangement helping to sketch a late-night encounter. <\/p>\n
Fresh interest arrives with \u201c29 Ways,\u201d where Cohn and producer Ben Wisch (Patty Griffin, Kathy Mattea, David Wilcox) multitrack his vocals into a quartet for an r&b\/gospel number that will set your toes tapping. Next up, the sweet celebration of romance \u201cPerfect Love\u201d made me chuckle; after deploying three different past James Taylor session guys on previous tracks (David Spinozza, Jerry Marotta, Steve Gadd), this time they corral the boss himself, as JT provides typically resonant counterpoint vocals on the chorus. Album-closer \u201cTrue Companion\u201d is another highlight and still a staple of Cohn\u2019s live shows, a stately yet exuberant celebration of love and devotion that surges and falls back beautifully. <\/p>\n
The spring after Marc Cohn<\/i> was released, \u201cWalking In Memphis\u201d was nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys and Cohn won the Grammy for Best New Artist. He\u2019s issued four more studio albums since then, none of which have charted\u2014a trajectory that might look from the outside like both \u201cinstant success\u201d and \u201cone-hit wonder.\u201d The thing is, neither of those facile labels actually applies. By 1991, Cohn had already been slugging it out in the trenches for more than a decade, playing nightclubs and weddings (memorably, Caroline Kennedy\u2019s). And while \u201cWalking\u201d proved to be his commercial apex, he\u2019s had precisely the kind of career, as a critically acclaimed songwriter and performer, that he aspired to both before and after that one song came along and changed his life. <\/p>\n
In the end, Marc Cohn<\/i> is a challenge to rate, because it has a couple of songs that don\u2019t grab me, several that I like, a couple that I like a lot, and one that has knocked me out every single time I\u2019ve heard it for 34 years and counting. That all works out to a very respectable rating for this singular debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[11089],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-47194","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-marc-cohn","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51650,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47194\/revisions\/51650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47194"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47194"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}