{"id":16735,"date":"2014-10-01T12:28:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T17:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=16735"},"modified":"2014-10-01T12:30:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T17:30:03","slug":"marc-ford-holy-ghost-tour-with-elijah-ford-thursday-oct-2-at-proud-larrys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/marc-ford-holy-ghost-tour-with-elijah-ford-thursday-oct-2-at-proud-larrys\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Ford Holy Ghost Tour with Elijah Ford Thursday, Oct. 2 at Proud Larry\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you know Marc Ford<\/strong>\u2019s back story in full, you know it\u2019s about a multi-faceted reputation forged on the frontline as the fabled lead guitarist with The<\/strong>\u00a0Black Crowes<\/strong>; at the helm of his own bands, and as a vital component of key records and\/or tours by acts from Govt. Mule<\/strong> to Izzy Stradlin<\/strong>, from Booker T<\/strong> to Ben Harper<\/strong> (for which he won a Grammy and a NAACP award); and as the producer of roots-rocker Ryan Bingham<\/strong> and many more. Now, Ford is releasing a new solo album\u00a0Holy Ghost<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 in the US on\u00a0Naim Edge Records<\/strong>. The album has plenty of space for Ford to demonstrate that his guitar sorcery is as powerful as ever, but it\u2019s also the best songwriting of his career.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Marc<\/a>Released in the UK in April,\u00a0Holy Ghost<\/em>\u00a0overflows with subtle and surprising pleasures, liberal use of pedal steel, Fender Rhodes, mellotron, banjo, and more. It shows off an artist refreshed and refueled, taking life at a slower pace at home in California these days \u2013 and it\u2019s the next chapter in a unique Anglo-American collaboration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ford produced the Bristol (UK)-based Phantom Limb<\/strong>\u2019s second album\u00a0The Pines, <\/em>released in 2012, and when it was time to give life to the songs he\u2019d collected for Holy Ghost<\/em>, he called on the Limb\u2019s Stew Jackson<\/strong>, aka Robot Club<\/strong>, in sessions at Rockfield in Wales and the Shed in Bath. Jackson plays on the album along with his fellow Limbs, while Marc\u2019s son Elijah adds guitars, and his wife Kirsten contributes vocals. Elijah, himself a fine new talent, has also been working with Jackson on his own album project.<\/span><\/p>\n

The results are inspiring, often upbeat, and always reflective. As Ford himself says, \u201cit\u2019s hopeful, in a dark way sometimes.\u201d But it\u2019s the work of an artist who\u2019s found the inner strength to recharge, personally and professionally. \u201cIt\u2019s a reflection of my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI pulled out of gigging and traveling and literally kind of stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Holy Grail\u00a0now is to find how you keep a family and a musical career together. We moved to San Clemente, which is a little surf town, and the pace here is slower. It really is a small town feeling, a lot of acoustic guitar playing. I think all that reflects in the record.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"marc<\/a>After high school band, he formed his own outfit, in a rock education that would lead ultimately to Burning Tree<\/strong>, the acclaimed LA trio whose powerful local reputation led to a deal with Epic and a 1990 album. Noticed by a bunch of Atlanta scene makers of the day called The Black Crowes, Ford would join them in 1993 for The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion<\/em><\/strong>, which hit No. 1 and sold two million copies in the US alone as they climbed to the top of the world. His guitars were also front and center of 1994\u2032s\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Amorica<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and\u00a0Three Snakes and One Charm.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

His time with The Black Crowes, including a second stint in the mid-2000s, is so well documented as to need little repetition here. Except for Ford to say that he can look back on his musical passage with them, and on all of his other stops along the way, with real satisfaction. \u201cI\u2019m proud of all the music that\u2019s been made,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that stands and the Crowes was a fantastic band. Ben Harper\u2019s music is great;\u00a0There Will Be A Light<\/em>\u00a0(on which he plays,) as he does the later\u00a0Both Sides Of The Gun<\/em>\u00a0is a fantastic record.\u00a0Ryan Bingham, I heard at a club at one in the morning and it was like \u2018Please let me record you.\u2019\u201d He did so, for Bingham\u2019s lauded Lost Highway albums\u00a0Mescalito<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Roadhouse Sun<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of factors involved when you\u2019re in your early 20s and everything you\u2019ve ever dreamed of happens. I got swept up in it, like many people do. There was just a point where I went \u2018Wait a minute, you\u2019ve reached the top of the mountain and the answers aren\u2019t here, this isn\u2019t really any kind of enlightenment I was looking for.\u2019 Drugs and alcohol were a giant cover-up for a lack of self, and worth. So the only regrets I would have would be personal, wishing that I could have handled certain things better. But then again, I had to learn it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Holy Ghost<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is absolutely ingrained with all the things Marc Ford has learned. \u201cMaybe people still want me to be a guitar hero and that\u2019s it,\u201d he says firmly. \u201cI\u2019m determined to change that mindset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you know Marc Ford\u2019s back story in full, you know it\u2019s about a multi-faceted reputation forged on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":16736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-shows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MarcFordFEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}