Singer/Songwriter Linda Marks' New Album ”Home” — A Second Collection of Songs Inspired by Pandemic Times

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 06 January 2022 17:08

Written by Brad Balfour

Since life is about second chances, sometimes a “re-do” kicks off without one even realizing it at first. Once Linda Marks' family responsibilities were resolved and lightened, she seized the opportunity to re-launch her artistic career. After years of raising her son and caring for her mom, the 60-something re-emerged in 2013 with a lot to say through her songwriting. She released 10 studio albums with award-winning sound engineer, pianist and composer Doug Hammer of DreamWorld Productions.

Marks’ style integrates elements of jazz with contemporary folk and pop, affecting the ear while soothing the soul. Her poignant originals and fresh arrangements of favorite covers are delivered in an intimate, heart-to-heart style. Over the past eight years, she’s played in most of Boston’s major venues including Scullers Jazz Club, Club Passim, The Burren, City Winery and Club Café. 

Then came the pandemic which transformed the world, making the term “home” more central for most of us. Sheltering at home. Working at home. Studying at home. Finding peace, but also moments of isolation. Curating recipes for cooking. Appreciating our pets.

Explained Marks, “Home has become an anchor for many of us during this COVID-19 time. For me, working at home gave more time for songwriting as I was moved or impacted by what was happening in our country (the Capitol Riots, the killing of George Floyd, and political polarization while facing a public health issue).

“All of these factors and experiences informed my new album and the songs that comprise it. The title track was inspired by sheltering at home in a pandemic world, and reflecting on what home is, has been, and can be. I reflected on how pandemic life was impacting our relationships, our children’s experience of childhood and our older citizens. I experienced the seasons more intimately through walks outside every day, which are safer than going to the gym daily, as I had done for all of my adult life pre-pandemic. These daily walks through all seasons during this pandemic made me profoundly aware of the way light, life and growth cycle around. My experience of the daily changes of the natural world inspired ‘Shadows On The Ground,’ set in late fall in New England.

“In August 2020, I was lucky enough to meet my partner Rob. To keep safe during a pandemic, we talked every night for three months before meeting. We wanted to make sure a substantive enough connection was there before risking meeting in person during a pandemic. An advantage of this kind of getting to know someone is you can really talk about anything and everything. The song “In The Distance” came from words Rob had written about himself leading us to connect. One could say he gets a co-write on the lyrics!

“When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, we lost not only an extraordinary woman, but also a partner from an extraordinary marriage. This song, 'Marty And Ruth,' includes some actual words written or spoken by the two of them, celebrating their true partnership. Inspirational and rare.

During the COVID-19 turn down, her weekly “Songs From the Heart, Meditations For the Heart” livestream attracted a global following. She was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” in Boston magazine and in the Boston Globe. She’s also co-founded of the artist-alliance group Women In Music Gathering (#WIMG), and has written songs to benefit community causes. Her song, “Light Up the Love” — an anthem for the global Light Up the Love movement — was voted the #1 song of Summer 2020 on Independent Share, Cygnus Radio.

Marks had produced 10 albums with Hammer and an 11th, “Home” which was released on Thanksgiving Day, 2021. That specific date, when most of us were spending time with loved ones at home, was a fitting time for the album to drop digitally. It was specially chosen for Marks’ 11th studio album, dropped in the 11th month of the year. What’s more, Thanksgiving Day was the 25th of the month, which was also Linda’s birthday.

As part of her new start, “Home” was mastered by Grammy-winning sound engineer Glenn Barratt. Marks’ arrangements came to life on ”Home” through a fine team of musicians: EJ Oullette on violin, guitar, bass and mandolin; Steve Latanision on pedal steel and banjo, Mark Bishop Evans on guitar and vocal harmony, Valerie Thompson on cello, Alice Hasen on violin, Jackie Damsky on violin, Andy Daigle on banjo, Judy Daigle on mandolin, Dave Birkin on saxophone, Bo Winiker on flugelhorn, Craig Akin on bass and Joe Sabourin on guitar.

Two songs really took advantage of such an ensemble. “During a rare dinner conversation with a friend who loves dancing, my own love of dancing, something I have not done in far too long, surfaced. As I reflected on how much fun it would be to actually partner with someone who shared my love of dance, the seeds of this song, ‘Dance Me Home,’ were born. Sadly, pandemic living has not allowed me to find ways to tap back into my love of dancing.

“Jazzin” is a fun uptempo Latin jazzy tune that came to me one morning. It uses vocalese from the Jazz tradition instead of lyrics and is designed to uplift the spirit. I loved arranging it with saxophone, flugelhorn, guitar and bass to complement my vocals and piano.”

The album closes with Be The Light, which has been called “an anthem for humanity,” inspired by Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem. As Marks noted, "Gorman invited us to not only see the light, but to be the light. I have always envisioned a large group of people of all ages and backgrounds singing this song together as a way of building bridges across what divides us and bringing our unique gifts to the world. This inspirational song has been called a "hymn for humanity.”

On January 1, a special CD version of the “Home” album was released for the global Folk DJ community. You can listen to “Home” on all platforms. Her 2022 album (“Every Day Legends”) is now in production.

This release and many others reflect the impact the Covid 19 pandemic has had on many musicians and creative people in general. So Marks' efforts prompted this Q&A as a way to understand how she coped.

Q: When did you first decide to go public with your music? 

LM: I wrote my 8th grade graduation song and led my class in singing it at graduation. I performed in college both as a singer-songwriter and co-founded Yale's third women's a cappella singing group. I performed as a singer-songwriter in the ’80s and released my first album, a tape! Between the late ‘80s and 2010, I performed here and there but mostly operated in the undertow of life, not as an artist. I formally committed to re-engage in professional music in early 2010. Since then, and after my mother’s passing in early 2014, I’ve focused lots of energy on my music and released 10 albums.

Q: What are your favorite bands?

LM: I love soooo many kinds of music, that in some ways, I love my music song by song. When I choose covers, I choose them song by song, whether it be "Something That We Do" by Clint Black, which presents a very real and healthy vision of love and relationship. OR "Give Me Wings," made popular by Michael Johnson, which gives a beautiful vision of a man supporting his wife. Among the other selections I’ve included are "Heart Of The Matter" by Don Henley, "I Need You To Survive" by Hezekiah Walker and "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Brad Cooper.  The song by Mike Greenly and Grant Maloy Smith, "I See You", is among them.

As a child growing up, I admired Carole King. (People always mention that I’m like her as a woman singer-songwriter and piano player with wavy/curly blonde hair.) Also catching my attention were Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert and Harry Belafonte.

Add Broadway musicals to this list of influences. From "Pippin” I’ve covered "Corner Of the Sky").  From "A Chorus Line” I chose "What I Did For Love”. And from “Godspell” I’ve been covering "Day By Day" since my teen years. I also love East Bay Soul, Walter Beasley, The Rippingtons, Brandi Carlisle and more. The list could go on and on.

Q: And your choice of musical styles in general?

LM: Descriptions of my musical styles have taken into account the fact that beyond music I’m also a body psychotherapist. People have observed that I have a healer’s heart and am a body psychotherapist.

I do my utmost — it’s my mission — to weave together carefully crafted arrangements that transform pain into gold, ideally soothing the ears while touching the soul. I do my best to deliver spiritually uplifting messages that integrate elements of jazz, gospel, Americana, contemporary folk and a taste of Broadway as a full genre buffet.

My most fundamental style is "from the heart to the heart” so almost any genre can find its way into my songwriting. 

Q: Do you have a pitch for yourself as a therapist?

LM: I invite people to listen to their bodies and follow their hearts. The body is so full of wisdom if only we learn how to translate what get called "symptoms" into communication and information we need to understand. Most all somatic feelings have emotional material just under the surface: a heavy heart may be connected to sadness, a lump in the throat might have something we are afraid to say, a headache might be what is weighing on our thoughts and feelings.  And most all emotions can be felt in the body: sadness with a heaviness in the heart, or tears forming in the eyes, anger with a tight jaw or clenched fists, fear as a knot in the stomach of shallow breathing. Learning to work through emotional issues at a body level helps us gain insight and heal. Emotional safety is a key building block for this work.

Sadly, emotional unsafety is the norm in our culture. When we feel emotionally unsafe, most any symptom that can send us to a medical doctor or psychotherapist can appear, from headaches, to stomachaches and digestive issues, to elevated heart rate to anxiety and depression. As we learn to experience emotional safety in an emotionally embodied way, we tend to feel more of a sense of well-being and peace.

My work is very helpful for people who have a trauma history. It’s also very helpful for couple therapy (learning to truly speak and listen from the heart), exploring meaning and purpose in work and life, living with a sense of vision, and improving the quality of all our relationships -- with ourselves and others.

Q: Many of the songs were written by you except for one. How did you discover “I See You”?

LM: I was fortunate enough to take a master class with Grant Maloy Smith. At the end of the class, he did a concert and played “I See You.” I fell in love with the song immediately. I loved its message and the fact that it will be part of an anti-ageism campaign sponsored by Masterpiece Living, focused on healthy longevity. I decided I wanted to arrange and record it. It touched my heart. [Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsV-9BHd1bE to experience her version.]

During the pandemic, I have thought a lot about children and older people. Having fallen in love with Grant Maloy Smith and Mike Greenly’s song about our older citizens, I found myself imagining an older person sitting down with a younger person and sharing the wisdom of their life’s experience. And so came this song — “Wisdom Words.”

Q: What keeps you plugging away?

LM: Music was my first language as a child. I didn’t talk until I was three but gravitated towards pianos even as a toddler. Even then, I intuitively knew how to sound out songs and play them. Sadly, my father didn’t value my innate passion and discouraged me from getting the piano I yearned for. No surprise: my first word was “piano!”

My mother put me in an experimental recorder program for three-year-olds at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Although the staff told my parents that I was gifted and talented, my father proceeded to create a mantra that haunted me most of my life: “music is a waste of a good mind.” He shamed my passion for music, but the pull towards it remained inside me. I saved my own money till I was 11 to buy a guitar. When I was 13, I was finally able to buy my own piano. From the moment the piano arrived, I began passionately playing when nobody was home. It was on our unheated, three season porch so, in the winter, my fingers froze.

I chose to major in Music at Yale where I focused on songwriting and co-founded Yale’s third women’s a cappella singing group as a 17-year-old freshman. I moved into my first round of being a professional musician after college and through grad school but my father’s voice still haunted me.

One could say I fell into the undertow of life -- having to work, raise my now 25-year-old son as a single mom and care for a mother with Alzheimer’s. Music remained farther away than I wanted it to be. In the last years of my mother’s life, I started creeping back towards music. But being in the middle of an intergenerational sandwich, kept taking me away.

When Mother died in 2014, I made a commitment to let myself fully pursue my deepest lifelong passion. That’s now my Round Two of being a professional musician. Released 1/1/22,  “Home” is my 11th studio album and my 10th since 2014. The music flows abundantly.

Q: Times have changed since your first career phase. Do you do much with social media?

LM: As a musician I do whatever I can with social media. It’s how we stay relevant, especially during a pandemic when live music is riskier and more scarce. I’ve been doing a weekly livestream series on Facebook since March 2020. I’m now past 90 episodes and climbing.

My photos, YouTube videos, live streams, news about upcoming projects, including others’ opinions and liking others’ posts are all key activities on social media platforms. I’m also a LadyLake Music artist. The label’s founder. Cindy D’Adamo, promotes my music on all media platforms too.

www.healingheartpower.com

www.lindamarksmusic.com

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