Danny Marks tunes into the Man On The Radio with his new single and video — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
“Radio has come up big to reach people at home and heart in trying times, an intimate connection that reaches around the globe,” says Marks. “‘Man On The Radio comes from this place.”
Soulful, smooth, country-tinged blues with a heartfelt, nostalgic tone, Man On The Radio — from his upcoming album Lifeline — is Marks’ story about his love and reverence for a music medium that has been a cherished part of his life from childhood to today. For the lifelong Torontonian, radio is an inter-generational phenomenon. “Radio reached my dad in the 1920s from the Cotton Club, Grand Ole Opry, and beyond,” recalls Marks. “He passed along that love to us, with a shortwave radio and the art of radio.”
As a kid, Marks would fantasize about hosting his own radio show when he wasn’t obsessing over his love of the guitar. “When I was 12 years old, I was part of a radio play at the national broadcaster,” he remembers. “They had crinkled-up stuff to make it sound like a fire, coconut shells for the horses’ hooves, a little funny door on a platform to open and close. We gathered around the mic and the performers had their arms around each other’s shoulders. I’d been to drama school, but radio — it seemed so intimate. Being on that side of the mic — I always wanted to.”
The guitar Marks got when he was 11 and the lessons he took afterward were his first steps toward musical success as a founding member of late ’60s / early ’70s pop-rock band Edward Bear. However, his love for broadcasting also led to success on the airwaves in a different way. He became the man on the radio. For Marks, hosting a radio show is like performing. “The idea that you can tell a story through a succession of songs on the radio, is not unlike how I would work a set at my performances,” he says. “It’s so beautiful to hear one song dovetail into another and the mood shift. What you look for in joining music to tell a story.”
Watch Man On The Radio above, hear the song below, and find Danny Marks at his website and Facebook.
