Cleveland’s own soul man Marc Cohn will forever be known for a single song—not because the many other songs he’s released across his four-decade career aren’t worthy of your attention—but because that one song is just so genuinely remarkable in the way it captures an indelible moment, mood, and place.
We’re talking, of course, about “Walking In Memphis,” the sunburst-of-joy number he composed about the sensation of walking on air as he retraced the footsteps of musical idols like Elvis, and played a delirious gospel set in a bar with a new-found friend. To this listener, it is literally a perfect song, in which every word and every line feels both preordained and expertly designed to magnify in the listener the overwhelming feelings of joy and purpose and belonging that the narrator is experiencing.
It's honestly tempting to quit right there—the song is that freaking good—but you came for an album review, and you’re gonna get one.
Number 13 hit “Walking In Memphis” kicks off this 11-track debut, as it pretty much had to. The only thing I can add to my words above is that it is the single most glaring omission I’ve discovered yet from my 101 Favorite Songs list of a few years back; “Walking In Memphis” absolutely belongs there.
“Ghost Train” follows with a fresh and different feel, a subdued number featured rhythmic electric piano and Cohn’s soulful vocals, clearing a path for the album’s second single. Built around Cohn’s rippling, evocative piano work, “Silver Thunderbird” 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.
The mid-section of the album is where things get a bit patchy. “Dig Down Deep” goes for that Van Morrison mystical-soul vibe, and “Miles Away” again has a nice surge at the chorus, but the slower “Walk On Water” and “Saving The Best For Last” verge on ponderous. “Strangers In A Car” works better, its evocative melody and arrangement helping to sketch a late-night encounter.
Fresh interest arrives with “29 Ways,” 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 “Perfect Love” 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 “True Companion” is another highlight and still a staple of Cohn’s live shows, a stately yet exuberant celebration of love and devotion that surges and falls back beautifully.
The spring after Marc Cohn was released, “Walking In Memphis” was nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys and Cohn won the Grammy for Best New Artist. He’s issued four more studio albums since then, none of which have charted—a trajectory that might look from the outside like both “instant success” and “one-hit wonder.” 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’s). And while “Walking” proved to be his commercial apex, he’s 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.
In the end, Marc Cohn is a challenge to rate, because it has a couple of songs that don’t grab me, several that I like, a couple that I like a lot, and one that has knocked me out every single time I’ve heard it for 34 years and counting. That all works out to a very respectable rating for this singular debut.