The Gallery Of Sound Ft. Joe Mardin!

With the blues influenced, garage pop of Inside Outsider, journeyman producer, arranger, mixer, composer and musician, Joe Mardin steps in front of the mic for his debut as a singer/songwriter and guitarist. “I am humbled to have worked with some of the greatest artists and musicians of all time but I felt the time was right to make a statement of my own.” Singing is not new to Joe, “I’ve studied voice and sung a lot of guide and background vocals through the years. There is no vocal tuning or AI generated vocals on the album!” As a producer/coproducer and/or arranger, Joe’s credits include Chaka Khan, Jewel, George Benson, Whitney Houston, a-ha, Bailen, Raul Midón, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Paul Carrack, Elliott Sharp’s Terraplane, Queen Latifah, Corey Glover, Daryl Hall and Aretha Franklin. Joe's arrangements and/or productions have featured Paul Rogers, Jason Mraz, Paquito D’Rivera, Carlos Santana, Vince Gill, Toots Thielmans and Hubert Sumlin while as a musician, Joe has played on recordings for Michael McDonald, Boy Meets Girl, Patti LaBelle, Willie Nelson and RUN DMC featuring Everlast. Joe states, “that my melodies and chords are more rock and pop probably belies that much of my musical inspiration for this album comes from my love and respect for some of the great North Mississippi blues artists like R.L. Burnside, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Junior Kimbrough and more.” On Inside Outsider, Joe wrote all the songs and played nearly all the instruments including drums, guitar, keyboards, bass and the kazoos in three part harmony on Living The Life. “My song, I Don’t Need To Need To Be Happy quotes the Zen proverb, ‘the obstacle is the path.’” He continues, “this is especially exemplified in that this is a guitar-driven album but guitar is not my first instrument.” Joe also played dobro, slide guitar and a single-stringed cigar box guitar “but all of that” Joe asserts, “was out of my ‘professional’ comfort zone. My hope was for that struggle to help drive the music.” With the lyrics, Joe took inspiration, ideas or the occasional quote from Keats, Freud and Oscar Wilde among others. The song, House On Stilts was inspired by the stone sculptures of Adrian Gray and Andy Goldsworthy. The album is further comprised of songs about seduction, Break Into Your Heart to politics, Democracy In Burlesque to the Pandora’s Box of smartphones in Look Up! Joe’s arranging/orchestration skills don’t go unexplored on Inside Outsider. In addition to the above arrangement credits, Joe has had arrangements recorded by the Metropole Orkest and played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (a-ha). “I love the bass clarinet and the bassoon so four songs on the album feature different chamber ensemble configurations also including string trio and clarinet.” Having co-directed and co-produced the Grammy nominated documentary, The Greatest Ears In Town: The Arif Mardin Story, Joe wanted his first music video to have a cinematic but also documentary influence. The video for Face Is A Mask takes inspiration from Soviet silent film, especially Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera. Joe concludes, “Writing these songs and making this album gave me a canvas to share my thoughts and feelings about society, relationships, politics, etc. I had been wanting to make this album where I’m ‘the singer’ for a long time. I was eager to explore different ‘voices’ and liked the way my voice meshed with the grooves which led me to playing most of the instruments. The more songs I wrote and recorded, the simpler and closer to my original vision they became so this is a journey which will continue!” More Info below.