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Marvin Etzioni
producer
l songwriter l musician
New
Release: Marvin Country on Nine Mile Records 4.17.12
History:
There's
country, there's alt. country and there's Marvin Country! It's a
magical place, some way off the map, populated by back-porch philosophers,
hobos, broken hearted lovers and spacemen, and presided over by
the man the L.A. Times called "one heck of a songwriter"
and Billboard compared to Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
Says Marvin
Etzioni, "For me the real country writers are Leonard Cohen
and Dylan, or Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder, or Charles Aznavour and
Jacques Brel. To quote Merle Haggard, I wear my own kinda hat."
Marvin Country!
is the ambitious fourth solo album by a man already revered in Americana
circles - among many things, he co-founded the pioneering L.A roots
rock band Lone Justice, writing some of its finest songs. The 19
songs on this double CD are variously original, traditional, tender,
quirky, emotional and wise. There's backporch country, barroom weepers,
clapboard-church gospel, haunting folk, dusty blues and songs for
which a genre's not yet been named.
On some of them
Marvin goes it alone; a multi-instrumentalist, he plays mandolin,
mandocello, guitar, bass, piano, Mellotron, porchboard and keyboards.
Others feature a distinguished cast of guests - including duets
with Lucinda Williams (a heart-wrenching Lay It On The Table), Steve
Earle (Ain't No Work In Mississippi), Richard Thompson (It Don't
Cost Much), Buddy Miller (Living Like A Hobo), John Doe (The Grapes
Of Wrath), Maria McKee (You Possess Me) and The Dixie Hummingbirds,
who add their uplifting harmonies to You Are The Light, a reprise
of the Americana classic Etzioni wrote for Lone Justice's acclaimed
1985 debut.
Some are born
to country. Some, like Marvin, have country thrust upon them - in
the form of the mandolin his grandfather, a country music-loving
Polish Jew, gave him when he was eight years old. More than four
decades later, the Mandolin Man, as he was now known, had Keith
Richards autograph it when they played together in the Sin City
All Stars band at a tribute to Gram Parsons.
Born in Brooklyn
and raised in L.A., Marvin formed his first band The Model in 1976;
Bruce Springsteen's producer Chuck Plotkin was among its fans. But
Marvin took another direction, becoming a solo acoustic singer-songwriter
- this in the early '80s when everyone played synth pop or heavy
metal - before, mid-decade, co-founding Lone Justice with Maria
McKee. Musical differences had him setting off on his own path again.
As a record
producer, musician, co-writer and/or live performer Marvin has worked
with
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Counting Crows, Dixie Chicks, T Bone Burnett,
U2, Tom Petty,
Lili Haydn, Cheap Trick, Roy Orbison and Bo Diddley, to name a few.
In the '90s
Marvin released three solo albums, The Mandolin Man (1991), Bone
(1992) and Weapons Of The Spirit (1994), which were lavished with
praise by the press. And now at last he's back, with Marvin Country!,
an album full of ghosts and full of life, and with songs inspired
by faith, love, hope, The Great Depression, Dylan, Kurt Vonnegut
and Harry Teitelbaum, Marvin's grandfather, to whom the album's
dedicated.
l-r: During recording
of "My Summer Song" at Sunset Sound Factory: Lonni Sill,
Adam
Crossley, Asher Lenz (standing), engineer Steven Rhodes and
producer Marvin Etzioni (sitting).
Photo:
By The C
contact:
E-mail: claris@studoexpresso.com
fn:
818-990-3031
copyright
2001 studioexpresso
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