Mark Gorman Wind and Ages Independent by David Pilot
	Old West troubadour and new age balladeer wrapped in the spiritual embers of memory's burning campfires, Mark Gorman is an artist exactly like and completely different from any others you've heard. If the test was to describe his music in a word, the word would undoubtedly be "smooth." The test, however, would be unequivocally flawed because, as with the real live cowboy, one word cannot equate the sum. Gorman is a high school teacher, spending days molding the future and nights lovingly recreating the past in song. His musical influences and experiences are widely varied, from Christian contemporary to opera to acoustic guitar and a country song. Similarities abound in his music, from comparisons to John Denver and Chuck Pyle to local and lesser-known talents like Bodie Powell and Brett Watts. But to saddle Gorman with those similarities would be akin to calling Kinky Friedman the next Lenny Bruce. Similarities, yes, but a style all his own is the hallmark of Gorman's Wind and Ages. As befits a simple record with a simple cowboy style, this disc kicks off with the upbeat and lighthearted "I Wish That I Could Be A Real Life Cowboy" and shuffles its way through an easy-listening mix of tunes that cover the well-traveled trail of western sunsets. The first cut is surely what Toby Keith had in mind with his like-titled "Shoulda Been A Cowboy" but misses the high cheese factor the Keith tune played for the charts. This is a song every man who's ever left his 9 to 5 for a walk down Exchange Avenue on a summer afternoon has hummed in his head countless times. From this starting point, Wind and Ages makes its way through stories familiar and new. There's the title cut's tale of a long-forgotten cowboy, once full of himself, who gambled it all and answered the bell in the depths of a dusky saloon brawl, and there are other characters familiar though new and with equally stirring and reverent tales to tell. There's Charlotte, the spinster in Santa Fe well past her hundredth birthday, noting that she never had made it on to Frisco. There's the aforementioned John Denver, alive again in memory and song, reincarnated in a voice almost as smooth as his own. In this cut, "Song for J.D.," there's also Gorman himself, an awkward kid looking for an identity and a comfort and finding in the Rockies his own coat from the cold. This particular song probably is the most telling and introspective of Gorman's tunes on display here, showcasing simultaneously the influence Denver still has on folk and western music and the personal life of the man behind the mic just trying to get the music out of his soul and onto the racks somewhere. Those listeners looking for the hard-hitting edge of Texas music may not find this CD to be to their taste initially. However, those in that group who complain of the pervasive frat boys and "beer, beer, Luckenbach" mindset that accompanies some artists may need to rethink their position on this count. Gorman and his band, Chris Parker (bass), Mickey Hartzog (drums) and Steve Blevins (rhythm guitar), carve out a collection of music on Wind and Ages that drifts between the Marty Robbins gunfighter ballads and the smoother folk stylings of Denver and James Taylor. The disc does not lend itself to a particular feel in either genre, but the careful ear will hear all three of these alongside the early Eagles and the birth of the Bakersfield sound. And in the heart of the Bible belt metroplex, where Baptists grow like fire ants and churches dot the corners like locusts in the spring, well, plenty of people will also recognize the touches of the time Gorman spent on his mid-80's Christian project called Trust In the Lord, produced with Randy Adams (Dallas Holm & Praise, among others). In short, Wind and Ages is a songwriter's storytelling disc, a place to go when the listener needs some comfort, when a quiet place with memories and lessons is the only thing that counts. It also works in a beatup truck on the way to another Monday staff meeting, and on a Friday drive to Glen Rose for the purest prairie sunsets. Mark Gorman, in a fashion not unlike Brian Burns, is an artist more concerned with the story than the style, but whose experiences and influences come pouring out in a vocal and musical format that draws from some of the greats. Wind and Ages is an excellent sampling of that style and a good introduction to an artist who's worth an evening of your time. You decide from there. More on Mark Gorman at www.flash.net/~mcgorman/content.htm You can contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

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