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Marc Cohn
Marc Cohn performing in Saratoga, New York
Background information
Birth name	Marc Craig Cohn
Born	(1959-07-05) July 5, 1959 (age 52)
Origin	Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Genres	Rock, folk rock, alternative country
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano
Years active	1991–present
Website	MarcCohn.com

Marc Craig Cohn (born July 5, 1959) is an American folk rock singer-songwriter and musician.

Personal life[link]

Cohn was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Beachwood High School in Beachwood, a Cleveland suburb. He then attended Oberlin College.

Cohn is married to ABC News journalist Elizabeth Vargas, whom he met at the 1999 U.S. Open after being introduced by Andre Agassi.^[1] They have two sons: Zachary Raphael, who was born on January 31, 2003, and Samuel Wyatt, who was born on August 16, 2006. Cohn has two other children from a previous marriage, a son, Max and a daughter, Emily.

On August 7, 2005, Cohn was shot in the head during an attempted carjacking in Denver, Colorado, following a concert with Suzanne Vega. The bullet struck him in the temple but did not penetrate his skull. Cohn was hospitalized and released the next day. His remaining concerts on the tour were canceled.^[2]

Awards[link]

• 1991 American Music Awards - Nominated for Favorite New Artist - Adult Contemporary
• 1991 Grammy Awards - Winner for Best New Artist
• 1992 Grammy Awards - Nominated for Pop Male Vocalist on "Walking in Memphis"
• 1994 - Inducted into Beachwood High School Gallery of Success

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

EPs[link]

• "Marc Cohn Live: Limited Edition EP" (2005)
• "Rhino Hi-Five: Marc Cohn" (2005)
• "Join the Parade Live EP" (2008)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Marc Cohn's official website
• Marc Cohn Central (fan site)

Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne performing in concert (March 23, 2008)
Background information
Birth name	Clyde Jackson Browne
Born	(1948-10-09) October 9, 1948 (age 63) Heidelberg, Germany
Genres	Rock, folk, country
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, political activist
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Elektra, Adrenaline Music Group, Inside, Asylum
Associated acts	Warren Zevon, Eagles, David Lindley, Waddy Wachtel, Bonnie Raitt, Clarence Clemons, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Neil Young , Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Bruce Springsteen, Little Steven
Website	www.jacksonbrowne.com

Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone.

Coming to prominence in the 1970s, Browne has written and recorded several notable songs throughout his career including "These Days", "The Pretender", "Running On Empty", "Lawyers in Love", "Doctor My Eyes", "Take It Easy", "For a Rocker", and "Somebody's Baby". In 2004, he was both inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Music by Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Browne was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father, an American serviceman, was stationed. Browne's mother, Beatrice Amanda (née Dahl), was a Minnesota native of Norwegian ancestry.^[2] Browne has three siblings: Roberta "Berbie" Browne who was born in 1946 in Nuernberg, Germany (Nuremberg) and Edward Severin Browne who was born in 1949 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His younger sister, Gracie Browne, was born a number of years later.^[2] Browne moved to the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, California, at the age of 3 and in his teens began singing folk music in local venues like the Ash Grove and The Troubador Club. He attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California, graduating in 1966.

Songwriter for others[link]

After moving to Greenwich Village, New York, in early 1966, Browne joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, performing at the Golden Bear (Huntington Beach, California) where they opened for The Lovin' Spoonful. The band later recorded a number of Browne's songs, including "These Days", "Holding", and "Shadow Dream Song".^[3] Browne also spent a short amount of time in his friend Pamela Polland's band, Gentle Soul. Before Browne's 18th birthday, he became a staff writer for Elektra Records' publishing company, Nina Music, reporting on musical events in New York City with his friends Greg Copeland and Adam Saylor. He spent the remainder of 1967 and 1968 in Greenwich Village, New York, where he backed Tim Buckley and German singer Nico of the Velvet Underground. In 1967 Browne and Nico were romantically linked and he became a significant contributor to her debut album, Chelsea Girl, writing and playing guitar on several of the songs (including "These Days"). After leaving New York City, Browne formed a folk band with Ned Doheny and Jack Wilce, and settled in Southern California.

Browne's first songs, such as "Shadow Dream Song" and "These Days", were recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, Nico, Steve Noonan, Gregg Allman, Joan Baez, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, and others. Browne did not release his own version of many of these early songs himself until years later.

Classic period[link]

Browne in a 1976 concert in Hamburg, Germany at the microphone with David Lindley, seen partially upstage left playing lap steel guitar in shadow

In 1971, Browne signed with Asylum Records and released Jackson Browne (1972), which included the piano-driven "Doctor My Eyes", which entered the Top Ten in the US singles chart. "Rock Me on the Water", from the same album, also gained considerable radio airplay, while "Jamaica Say You Will" and "Song for Adam" helped establish Browne's reputation. Touring to promote the album, he shared the bill with Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell.

His next album, For Everyman (1973) — while considered of high quality — was less successful than his debut album, although it still sold a million copies.^{[citation needed]} The upbeat "Take It Easy", co-written with The Eagles' Glenn Frey, had already been a major success for that group, while his own recording of "These Days" reflected a sound representing Browne's angst.

Late for the Sky (1974) consolidated Browne's fan base. Browne's work began to demonstrate a reputation for memorable melody, insightful (and often very personal) lyrics, and a talent for his arrangements in composition. It featured a Magritte-inspired cover. Highlights included the title song, the elegiac "For a Dancer," "Before the Deluge" and the often-covered "Fountain of Sorrow." The arrangements featured the violin and guitar of David Lindley, Jai Winding's piano, and the harmonies of Doug Haywood. The title track was also featured in Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver. During this period, Browne began his fractious but lifelong professional relationship with singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, mentoring Zevon's first two Asylum albums through the studio as a producer (working closely with Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderón).

Browne's character was even more apparent in his next album, The Pretender. It was released during 1976, after the suicide of his first wife, Phyllis Major. The album features production by Jon Landau and a mixture of styles, ranging from the Mariachi-inspired "Linda Paloma" to the country-driven "Your Bright Baby Blues" to the downbeat "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate". "Here Come Those Tears Again" was cowritten with Nancy Farnsworth, the mother of Browne's wife, after the untimely death of her daughter.

Browne began recording his next LP while on tour, and Running on Empty (1977) became his biggest commercial success. Breaking the usual conventions for a live album, Browne used new material and combined live concert performances with recordings made on buses, in hotel rooms, and back stage.^{[citation needed]} Running on Empty contains many of his most popular songs, such as the title track, "The Road" (written and recorded in 1972 by Danny O'Keefe), "Rosie", and "The Load-Out/Stay" (Browne's send-off to his concert audiences and roadies) although none had been recorded previously.

Activism and music[link]

In spring of 1978 Browne appeared at the site of the Barnwell, South Carolina nuclear reprocessing plant to perform a free concert the night before a civil disobedience action. He did not participate in the action. He likewise performed on the grounds of the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant construction site in New Hampshire, where 1,414 people were arrested in the course of a multi-day occupation in April 1978;^[4] one of the two reactors at Seabrook were eventually constructed and has operated for over 20 years.

Soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, during March 1979, Browne joined with several musician friends to found the anti-nuclear organization Musicians United for Safe Energy.^[5] He was arrested protesting the Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo. His next album, Hold Out (1980), was commercially successful — his only Number 1 record on the U.S. pop albums chart. The next year he released the single "Somebody's Baby" from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack, which became his biggest hit, peaking at Number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. The 1983 Lawyers in Love followed, signaling a discernible change from the personal to the political in his lyrics. In 1985 he sang a duet with Clarence Clemons in a song called "You're a Friend of Mine".

Political protest came to the fore in Browne's music in the 1986 album, Lives in the Balance, an explicit condemnation of Reaganism and U.S. policy in Central America. Flavored with new instrumental textures, it was a huge success with many Browne fans, though not with mainstream audiences. The title track, "Lives in the Balance", with its Andean pan pipes — and lines like, "There's a shadow on the faces / Of the men who fan the flames / Of the wars that are fought in places / Where we can't even say the names" — was an outcry against U.S.-backed wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The song was used at several points in the award-winning 1987 PBS documentary, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by journalist Bill Moyers, and was part of the soundtrack of Stone's War, a 1986 Miami Vice episode focusing on American involvement in Central America.

During the 1980s, Browne performed frequently at benefit concerts for leftist causes he believed in, including Farm Aid; Amnesty International (making several appearances on the 1986 A Conspiracy of Hope Tour); post-Somoza, revolutionary Nicaragua; and the Christic Institute. The album World in Motion, released during 1989, contains a cover of Steve Van Zandt's "I am a Patriot," a song which he has performed at numerous concerts.

Browne also performed alongside Roy Orbison in A Black and White Night in 1988 along with Bruce Springsteen, k.d. lang and many others. Originally airing on Cinemax, a live album and video recordings were also released.

1990s[link]

In 1993, four years after his previous album, Browne returned with I'm Alive, a critically acclaimed album with a more personal style that did not have any successful singles but still sold respectably — indeed, the ninth track from the album, "Sky Blue and Black", was used during the pilot episode of the situation comedy Friends. In 1994, Browne collaborated with Kathy Mattea to contribute "Rock Me on the Water" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.^[3]

During 1995, he performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), and issued on CD and video in 1996. He sang a duet with Jann Arden, "Unloved", on her 1995 album Living Under June. Browne's own album, Looking East (1996), was released soon after, but was not as successful commercially.^[3]

2000 to the present[link]

Browne released his album The Naked Ride Home in 2002, with a performance on Austin City Limits, featuring the recording with older familiar songs.

During 2003, Browne guest-starred as himself in The Simpsons episode "Brake My Wife, Please", performing a parody of his song "Rosie" with lyrics altered to reference the plot involving Homer and Marge.

In 2004, Browne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bruce Springsteen gave the induction speech,^[6] commenting to Browne that although the Eagles were inducted first, he said, "You wrote the songs they wished they had written".^{[citation needed]} Browne had written an uncounted number of hit songs that many artists, including the Eagles and Springsteen himself, had recorded over the span of his career. The previous year, three of Browne's albums — For Everyman, Late for the Sky, and The Pretender — had been selected by Rolling Stone magazine as among its choices for the 500 best albums of all time.

Jackson Browne campaigning for Presidential candidate John Edwards at a fundraising event in 2008

A liberal Democrat, Browne appeared in several rallies for presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000, singing "I Am a Patriot" and other songs. He participated in the Vote for Change tour during October 2004, playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org to mobilize people to vote for John Kerry in the presidential election. Browne appeared with Bonnie Raitt and Keb' Mo', and once with Bruce Springsteen. During late 2006, Browne performed with Michael Stanley and J. D. Souther at a fundraiser for Democratic candidates in Ohio. For the 2008 Presidential Election, he endorsed John Edwards for the Democratic Presidential Nomination and performed at some of Edwards' appearances. After Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, Browne endorsed him.^[3] Browne also performed briefly at the Occupy Wall Street presence at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan on December 1, 2011, to show his support for their cause.^{[citation needed]}

Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1, was released in 2005 on Inside Recordings. The album consists of live recordings of 11 previously released tracks and "The Birds of St. Marks", a song that does not appear on any of Browne's studio albums. This album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007 in the category of Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album. A live followup album, Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2, was released on March 4, 2008.^[3]

Browne is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power. During 2007, the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".^[7][8]

Browne cameoed in the 2007 film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.^[9]

Browne's studio album, Time the Conqueror, was released September 23, 2008 via Inside Recordings. The album reached the Billboard 200 album chart at #20, which was his first top 20 record since releasing Lawyers in Love in 1983. In addition, the album peaked at #2 on the Billboard Independent Album chart.^[10]

During August 2008, Browne sued John McCain, the Ohio Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee for using his 1977 hit, "Running on Empty", in an attack advertisement against Barack Obama without his permission.^[11] In July 2009, the matter was settled under an undisclosed financial agreement with an apology from the McCain campaign and other parties.^[12]

During August 2008, he appeared on the ALMA Awards in a taped interview honoring Trailblazer Award recipient and long-time friend, Linda Ronstadt.