WHY I JOINED A CULT LISTENING TO MARK JOHNSON
by Vincent Collazo
IN 1978 LYNN SAMUELS had a free-form radio show on WBAI called “Part of
the Act”—between discursive monologues and lively discourse with her
audience she played music, and the most-featured artist was an
extraordinary talent named Mark Johnson.
It doesn’t take much to
fall in love with his music—ethereal and familiar, Mark Johnson sings
from and of the human heart: his lyrics describe love’s extensive
permutations, with music to match these rich emotions. The music I heard
on Lynn Samuels’ show was not available in record stores—at the time
Mark Johnson had one album, Years, released in 1972 on Vanguard, that
was out of print. I kinda freaked out, but recorded on cassette from the
radio, eventually compiling about thirty minutes of his music.
When I went to see him in concert I found a wild man, a performer who
sang each song as if his life depended on it. The experience of hearing
Mark Johnson at Folk City, standing less than ten feet from me, in black
pants, white shirt, tight cowboy boots, crying/screaming/spitting out
the words to his song “Noreen,” gives me chills a quarter century later.
After the show I asked him if he had any plans to make another record
and he mumbled something about working on some tapes, but he didn’t
sound particularly serious, and I was furious with him for depriving the
world (and me, mostly me) of his music. He clearly had lots of songs,
and while I used a little Panasonic walkman to tape his live shows on
the sly, the clinking of drinks and bar chatter ruined the listening
experience.
Lynn Samuels left WBAI, Folk City closed, and
ultimately Mark Johnson stopped performing at The Other End, Kenny’s
Castaways, and the Speakeasy. I lost track of him and was left with my
half hour cassette, which began to deteriorate from overuse. I dubbed
copies to play and kept the original as my “master tape.” Grateful to
have these few gems, I despaired of ever getting more.
Mark
Johnson resurfaced in 1992 with a CD, 12 in a Room, on his own label,
Tabula Rasa Records. This is Mark at his best—in the “studio” (a small
apartment above the Cornelia Street Café) with himself at virtually all
the instruments and vocals—mixing and matching, using the musical genius
RCA Records recognized when they offered him a contract as an artist
and producer at age 20, when he walked in off the street with a homemade
demo. (Years, the album from this time period, is a classic which holds
up amazingly well some thirty-five years later—it is mind-boggling that
this sophisticated music came from someone barely out of his teens).
12 in a Room is brilliant, containing songs I already loved and others I
soon would. “Cold Weather” is the down-and-out-in-the-Village
masterpiece after which Mark’s music publishing company is named;
“Desperate” is a musical exegesis of the heart-wrenching experience of
trying to regain a relationship lost to petty misunderstanding. The
album also includes “Larry Stein,” a reworking from the RCA demo. Yes,
Dave Edmunds recorded “King of Love,” and the Roches covered “Love
Radiates Around,” but no one sings these songs like Mark. Naturally, one
must hear this music to appreciate it, but I’d describe it as the work
of a folk-rock singer-songwriter pop music troubadour, with melodies as
gorgeous as his words.
After the spurt of activity that came with
12 in a Room, I once again lost touch with Mark and his music. Another
decade passed before I came upon him in cyberspace through his website
http://www.mark-johnson.com,
where I discovered he had a new album, Last Night on the Roller
Coaster. Is it better than 12 in a Room? Maybe, but mostly I’d say it’s
different. 12 in a Room is a bunch of hits nicely strung together
whereas Last Night feels more like a themed album, one song flowing into
the next with musical logic. On this CD one can hear the many musical
styles Johnson effortlessly embraces: to my ears “Suddenly Sunshine”
evokes George Harrison, portions of “So Wonderful” are reminiscent of
50’s doo-wop, in “Coney Island Night” I hear shades of Billy Joel at his
best, but all of the songs, whatever tradition/influence/homage they
may suggest, have the distinct stamp of Mark Johnson. Throughout this
musical journey Johnson’s voice changes with each song—he’s as
comfortable with a sweet ballad as with a hard-rocking tune, and
everything in between.
Johnson has since released Mark Johnson
and the Wild Alligators, which documents the collaboration with his rock
band in the early eighties, when I was hearing him live on a
semi-regular basis. The immediacy of the performances on this CD gives
it the feel of a live recording, with the sound quality of a studio
album. I was surprised to find that a few of the songs such as “Precious
Love,” “Bad Love” and “Six Nine One,” were actually by Mark Johnson—I
was sure they were covers of top-forty radio hits until I checked the
credits. These songs weren’t on my “bootlegged” cassette, but were so
engrained in my memory that I could easily sing along with them some
twenty years later.
Johnson is currently working on a new CD,
which must be a daunting task since he’s set the bar so high with his
previous releases—there are no “throwaways” in any of his four major
albums; even songs which might sound “lite” at first, gain depth upon
repeated listens.
Recently Johnson has supplemented his oeuvre
with songs for companion CD’s for the Disney movies Finding Nemo and
Cars. His songs continue to be recorded by other artists—if he’s the
best-kept secret in pop, he’s well known within the industry. Mark
Johnson’s success, while substantial, has never matched his talent; he
awaits “discovery” by a larger audience—meanwhile he has attained cult
status, and I, for one, happily, giddily, ineluctably joined the cult.
This is one of the rare articles i found about Marc Johnson. This is also the only album i know by M.J.
Give it a try, this album souinds real interesting. Here are a lot of musical influences and this guy sounds real.
Cheers
Frank
mp3@320
