Coming fast on the heels of my album Infinity (which received 4 stars in a French Rolling Stone review last winter) I’m quickly releasing a new single “The Miracle Zone” from my upcoming EP The Tree of Life set for mid-November release. “The Miracle Zone” will be released on all major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Amazon … the usual suspects) on October 10 and the CD/EP The Tree of Life will be available for streaming and a very limited edition of numbered and signed CDs in November – just in time for Christmas. I’m still trying to decide what to include on the CD/EP in addition to “The Miracle Zone” as I was fortunate to have had a prolific bout of songwriting while in Normandy following the filming of the video “Night Surfing” directed by Matthieu Heibel (more on that later) but additional tracks will probably include “As Blue As Saturday Night,” “Youth” and “Jumbo” and maybe one or two others. It’s not quite an album and yet something more than an EP – so what is it then? In literature we have short stories, novellas and novels so I’d call The Tree of Life something like an Albumella…
But to tell the truth, does anybody really care about albums long, short or otherwise anymore? I have my doubts but I sure remember a time when a new album release by Beatles or Stones or Dylan or my pal Bruce were regarded as cultural milestones; as important as novels and as memorable as movies. I remember where I first listened to Cream’s Wheels of Fire live album (in my friend and future guitarist George Gates’ bedroom with the curtains drawn, the lights out, the joints lit, and the music blaring) and I can also recall with accuracy the first time I saw Easy Rider in a movie theater in NYC in 1969. I was twenty years old and so blown away by the film that I stayed glued to my chair and watched it twice. The same happened a few years later with the classic film Harold and Maude starring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon. It was 1971 and I had just gotten back from Europe and there was an arthouse cinema in Roslyn, Long Island and that film changed my life in ways I still don’t understand. But I came out of that theatre unafraid of death and ready to make my mark in the killer music business. Don’t ask me why or how but there was a big dose of courage coming off that screen.
Maybe nothing moves the cultural dial anymore – not films, books or music – but be that as it may I always thought my job hasn’t changed these past 50+ years: it was to write songs as often and as best as I could, record them as quickly and as best my budget would allow and somehow put it all together with an intriguing cover to create this endangered yet thoroughly modern work of art christened an “album” back in the Sixties. So why should I stop now? I don’t know how many albums I’ve released but maybe Picasso didn’t know how many paintings he painted either (I’m not comparing myself to him!) so I just keep doing what I’ve always done. I mean, should a writer stop writing novels because nobody is reading anymore? Again, I don’t think so. This is the road I was born to follow no matter how many blocks were thrown in my path. Albums are sacred objects to me; digital or analogue, CD or Vinyl, Cassette or 8-Track. Maybe their importance will come back on a global scale someday but for now the shelf-life seems brief indeed. So I just keep on keeping on…
You can pre-order The Tree of Life EP CD for 15€ + shipping at the store and all CDs will be numbered and signed.