|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great to hear this musical voice from my past,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Must Be A Pony (Audio CD)
Back in 1981, a girlfriend took me to see the Mark Newman Band playing in some club in NYC, where I lived and worked at the time. She was a personal friend of Mark, and introduced me. The band was awesome, and the original songs were terrific. The band's style rocked pretty hard and Mark's distinctive guitar playing and vocal styling shined through it all. I went to see him again at another gig, and brought this humongous boom box recorder with me to record the show. The loud PA overwhelmed the little mics in the box, but I still got the songs, although they were pretty distorted. For years I would put the tape on and really enjoy the music, in spite of the audio grit. Mark and I conversed a few times while I tried to use my limited connections to get the band into a studio to make a demo tape, but I never could. I left NYC and lost touch, and always wondered what happened to Mark. I also regretted not being able to help his band. I am convinced that they could have taken off; they were that good, and so was he. Years later and Tim Berners-Lee invents the Web, which I use one night to search for Mark Newman. Lo and behold, I find info on him -- and this CD. I notice that one of the songs is Mambo Dancing, one of my favorites from his band days. This CD is a much more roots-styled work, including Mambo Dancing. The same guitar virtuosity and down-to-earth vocals are there. The songwriting is just as down to earth and just as effective. I understand Mark has been a fixture of the NYC music and session scene for years. It's great to see him still doing music (I believe he had another day job when I first met him, back in the beginning). I have to admit that I still crave the harder-rocking style he had with the band, and I still prefer Mambo Dancing as a more powerful, faster-tempo song. But that's because I was spoiled by years of listening to that version. Truth is, my memories do not take away from Must Be a Pony, which stands on its own just fine. It's good to see you're still out there making music, Mark!
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Genuine Talent,
By
This review is from: Must Be A Pony (Audio CD)
Growing up on Long Island, I always felt that there was something missing in our indigenous music culture. There were virtually no points of reference in the early days of rock and roll, and since then...well, let's just say that Mariah Carey and Billy Joel did not exactly provide us with a local `scene'. Out of necessity, musicians from these parts usually had to look elsewhere for their inspiration, and most of us looked south. From a northerner's perspective, the wealth of Americana that flowed south of the Mason-Dixon line seemed incredible, and more than a few great players from the North-East U.S. developed their playing chops by emulating these sources. The best of that batch make it almost impossible to discern their roots. I don't know Mark Newman, and I can't say where he's from, but I do recognize a few of the recording studios he used (a shout-out to Fred at Tiki in Glen Cove - Hi Fred!), and this implies that he's a local boy. On a more comical note, my wife was born and raised in Louisiana, and she suspected the same thing, judging solely by his diction; a lyric from the title track has Mark enunciating the phrase `forget it," and she said to me, "Ain't no Southern boy who'd say that any other way than "fergit it"!
Accents aside, "Must Be a Pony" is one of the better Americana-based disks I've heard in quite a while. Over the course of fourteen tracks, Newman proves himself to be a rich, versatile songwriter with a highly nuanced sense of texture. The performances are top-notch too, with crackerjack musicianship supporting the well-honed tunes, and a production quality that keeps the song front and center. "Dead Man's Shoes" has a spooky swamp feel, with musical interplay that suggests Lowell George-era Little Feat. "What She Does for Me" has the rhythmic structure and flavor of a Les Dudek composition - think vintage Allman Brothers and you'll come close to what I'm talking about. Newman is one heck of a guitar player, switching between slide, lap steel, and dobro as required, and he plays them with such veracity and finesse that you can almost smell the bougainvillea. His writing can be both humorous and/or powerful, depending on the circumstances. "So, So Cynical" takes a wry look at a relationship gone south ("I admit that I'm no rocket scientist, but now she wants me to see her psychiatrist"), while "God for Sale" pulls no punches and takes direct aim; "They warn about false prophets while the profits grow and grow" indicates a writer who knows how to turn a phrase while shooting from the hip. A guest vocal from Sam "the Sham" Samudio (of "Wooly Bully" fame) adds some nice texture, and his re-arrangement of the Bee Gees' "New York Mining Disaster" is both surprising and impressive. Mark Newman may not be a southern boy, but judging by "Must Be a Pony," he's the genuine article. A- Tom Ryan
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
