There’s something solipsistic in his efforts at first, and when the crowd first join in, it’s more embarassing than anything But the intimacy builds. And, without precedent in the AOR ballad it almost sounds like, he provides religious elevation.”Son, are you a ‘Christian?” he’s asked.The fervent reply: “Ma’am, I am tonight.”Cohn really doesn’t have any other songs that are as good. Carefully rhymed, often non-specific in their efforts at transcendence, sung in the gravelly power-ballad style where Ray Charles’ inspiration came to die, I should hate it all. He mentions a ghostly Elvis slipping through Gracelands for sex with a teenage girl, he pictures himself touching down in the blues’ mystic home. But in the banana republic of the one-hit wonder, he still has a place. As he moves through the sensitive ballads on his latest album, these fans, none younger than their thirties, cheer him on.”Walking in Memphis” shares elements with Cohn’s other songs: a gospel piano and obsession with Americana common in sub-Springsteen songwriters On this occasion, Cohn turned those elements to gold.

When Cohn forgets the words to an unreleased song, a fan politely finishes the line The venue is jammed with people hungry for his presence. The man they’re seeing is bearded, affable, Californian in manner, a star with no likely re-entry to any British chart. “But what will I do when you’re not with me?”
I half-expected this night to be cancelled, the victim of disinterest in a man whose time was spent Instead, that hit has sparked obsessives. He overheard executives nervously discussing his cover of a Cher song The crowd boo this fresh outrage “Yes, I know,” Cohn says gently. “Walking in Memphis” has been a hit three times now, in Cohn’s own, aching version, as an illicit remix, and in a version by Cher which still brings the song’s lovers to tears Marc Cohn is telling his audience a story about his hit Last week, he was on German TV.

Marc Cohn, Camden Dingwalls, London

Marc Cohn wrote a great song, once. Her presence is symbolic of the musical path the restless Davis would now be forging.The Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings is released on 23 March.. When the album was released, the cover bore a photograph of Betty Mabry, whom Davis had married in September 1968. She was a musician herself, and would introduce Davis to Jimi Hendrix.