If All They Said Was True & Anthology (1994)
CD by Gary Marks, American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and author of The Dance and the Diamond Sky
This record is really two records in one. The first eight songs are new, written in the first few months after I met my wife. I wrote about her, and for her. But I also wrote some songs to say goodbye to a few relationships that needed to end, plus a handful of songs that were about wilder, stranger topics.
The last nine tracks are a greatest-hits anthology pulled from past albums. They're "hits" by the only measure that ever really mattered to me: friends and fans kept saying those were their favorites.
One interesting note, at least from my perspective: it's such a long CD — 17 songs — that my children used to go to sleep listening to it on loop. It played all night long in the room my two daughters shared. When Shawn was old enough to understand what was going on, he wanted a CD player in his room too, so he could also hear it on loop through the night.
The end result is that all three are now musicians (I'm not saying that's why!), and all three know the lyrics to those songs better than I do.... I also have three very old CD players to sell.
The players on the newer songs formed "my band." This was one of the rare times I had a real band. We rehearsed, but played no gigs. We formed to make this album together. The band had no name, but if I had to name it, I would have called it "Us."
I also had some cool band names in case we ever did decide to gig. I imagined us playing in venues that had coming attractions on a marquee in front of the club. Here were my two best ideas for names: Free Drinks. And.... Coming Attractions.
Bill Hampton was the electric guitarist. Rob Fordyce played bass (often like a guitar player, at my request). And Bill O'Callaghan played drums.