American singer-songwriter Gary Marks returns with Crossroads, a Record Store Day exclusive via Lantern Heights Records that pulls five decades of writing into one sharp frame.
Spanning songs from 1976 through the 2020s, the album brings together fourteen tracks shaped by politics, power, compassion, democracy, spirituality, and personal conscience. Nine have never been heard by the public before, while five reach back to Marks’ first three albums.
Early records featured future jazz stars including John Scofield, Paul McCandless, and Mark Isham, later earning cult status through European and Japanese reissues.
After stepping away from touring in the 1980s, Marks kept writing outside the usual industry cycle. Crossroads captures that nerve: freedom, conscience, and power, without the nostalgia trap.
But freedom was at risk fifty years ago too — in the late 60s — with the Vietnam war undeclared by Congress, the drafting of teenagers without understanding what exactly they were fighting for, civil rights, the environment, human rights, women’s rights. All those things are at risk again now.
Q1. Crossroads spans 1976 to the 2020s. Why bring that full arc together now?
When I met with Lantern Heights Records last summer we decided to create on thematic album that would resonate lyrically with the socio-political issues of today, even though the music spans five decades. The country is fractured today, just as it was during the Vietnam war era. So the lyrics reflect upon politics and power, freedom and democracy, as well as the internal struggles we all face today as individuals, psychologically — such as how to work with the mind, how to act upon the higher levels of love, what is spirituality? Crossroads has fourteen songs that deal with those themes. Nine of them have never been heard by the general public. Five are from my first three albums.
Q2. You stepped away from touring but kept writing. How did that shape these songs?
When you’re touring and working with a major label you are committing to be “in the music business” and making money for yourself and the company. There’s no room for experimentation, like using world famous jazz players to play and take solos over rock songs. Sting might be an exception, and Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan. But until you reach that level of fame, and have the unit sales that justify you controlling what you write, who you choose to play with and who you’re producer is going to be, if it isn’t you, then the business has its hand in your art. I chose to create what I wanted when I wanted and not be controlled by business and money…. Now I always need to preface this by saying there are a lot of amazing musicians and songwriters who have overcome those obstacles and are true to their art. I’m just saying there are a lot that also get caught in the web of it, and I didn’t want to take that chance.
Q3. Power, compassion, freedom. Do those themes hit differently in 2026?
Sadly not. That’s why Crossroads came together. The power of the presidency has been amplified a hundred-fold by an unhinged Supreme Court. But freedom was at risk fifty years ago too — in the late 60s — with the Vietnam war undeclared by Congress, the drafting of teenagers without understanding what exactly they were fighting for, civil rights, the environment, human rights, women’s rights. All those things are at risk again now.
Compassion is also unchanged from that time in history. In fact, the last line of one of my songs written in 1976 — Castles — says, “Lack of compassion has in the past sunken castles like yours beneath the sea.”
Q4. What sets the previously unheard tracks apart from your earlier releases?
The unheard tracks are stylistically far more rock oriented. My first three albums from the 70s had players like jazz virtuoso John Scofield on guitar, Paul McCandless (from the jazz group Oregon) playing various horns, the great vibes player, David Samuels, pianist Michael Cochrane, and on my second record, Art Lande and his band Rubisa Patrol (ECM). After my third record which had almost all of them on it, I decided to get back to my musical roots and my songwriting naturally took on a more rock feel.
Q5. FM PRO TECH Q: How did you handle remastering and cohesion across decades without losing the original feel?
That’s a super cool question. A recording engineer I work with in New York, Ian Fait, took the time to remaster my entire ASCAP catalogue of 98 songs a few years back. In part, because Lantern Heights wanted me to create Crossroads. So many of the older songs needed a bit of bass boost, and some needed the vocals turned up. And that is where the latest technology came into play. Because these days you can literally strip out the vocal from a mastered track and reinsert it, changing levels, or even the type of reverb sometimes. So many new tricks exist in the mastering process that were used to make the songs on Crossroads cohesive, even though the songs spanned fifty years.
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